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to put me in my place, gave me all the courage I needed to ride that bike. An actual haircut would cause irreparable damage, cutting the girl right out of me. With the sound of clippers buzzing in my head, I took a deep breath, rested my feet in the pedal loops, and began riding downhill.
    “You can do it!” Chad said.
    This isn’t so bad , I thought as I descended. I didn’t know what I’d been so afraid of. It was a nice day in Oakland, in the seventies, the same warmth of Hawaii without the humidity. I had been with Dad for a few months, and my memories of Mom were fading and enlarging and being replaced all at the same time. She was like a dream. I had fantasies of her picking me up from school and taking me back to Hawaii or even just to a movie, something like Look Who’s Talking or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids . It all seemed unlikely, since she barely called after the first few months. I blamed her new baby, her boyfriend, and the Pacific Ocean that separated us.
    My maternal thoughts couldn’t keep up with the pace of my ride. The acceleration made me flustered and fearful, and Dad’s instructions about the brakes left me. In a panic, I began to cry and kicked my feet out of the pedal loops and spread my legs wide, hoping they’d keep me balanced and reduce my speed. I was sure Chad and Dad had lost sight of me from their mount. Soon I was approaching a busy intersection outside the perimeter of the park. I whipped into a sharp turn on the sidewalk and crashed into a mailbox. I was shaking with fear that I would get whipped, fear that I had ruined my new bike, and fear that my father would cut my hair.
    “Boy, you damn near gave me a heart attack,” Dad panted, picking me up from the cement. “You could’ve run straight into traffic. You all right?”
    I nodded, burrowing my wet face into his neck. Chad reached his arms around me from behind, which sandwiched me between the guys who were now home.
    •  •  •
    We lived on the top floor of a yellow two-story house on a hill. The house was shielded by trees that shut out the sight and sound of patrons from the strip mall across the street. Our backyard was trimmed with some kind of wild berry bushes along the far gate. Chad and I would eat the warm red berries, which tasted like sugar and bitters and a hint of dirt. We’d pop them in our mouths until our lips and tongues and lazily brushed gum lines were stained pink and our stomachs ached from the acidic sweetness.
    It was at this same gate that Chad and I lit a bunch of ants on fire. I put a lollipop in a cereal bowl to attract an army of ants, and as they worked their way around the stick, I lit matches, one by one, striking and throwing them into the bowl. We watched the ants scurry around the melting red lollipop. Chad held a cup of water nervously while standing watch to make sure no one caught us. I initially wanted to fill the bowl with alcohol but couldn’t reach the bottle in the medicine cabinet, and figured the ants would drown before I could burn them. Unfortunately, our downstairs neighbor caught me with the matchbook and told our father what we were up to, prompting Dad to give us our first whipping, which involved Chad and me stripping down to our underwear.
    Dad punctuated each of his words with a lashing of his belt: “What’d (SMACK) I (SMACK) tell (SMACK) y’all (SMACK) ’bout (SMACK) playing (SMACK) with (SMACK) fire (SMACK)?”
    I refused to cry during my whipping because I felt it gave Dad satisfaction to see me whimpering from his lashing. It was the same satisfaction I felt when I saw the ants scurrying away from mymatchstick, an exhibition of my own power. My refusal to acknowledge the pain only made my whipping longer. My brother anticipated the pain, crying before the belt even struck his light-skinned behind. Afterward, I told Chad that I hated Dad, clutching my tear-soaked pillow. “You shouldn’t say that,” he said in between his own sniffles.
    When I wasn’t