Who we is, Part 1.

I got to Arkansas in 1966. I was nine years old. Dad had found carpenter work through Mama's folks in Malvern, a little brick and sawmill town across the river from the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, so we left the long winters and construction slump of Ohio without a look back.

I don't recall how long the seven of us stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Erwin, but it made for a houseful. The Erwins lived way out the 'Military Road'- a bumpy, dusty rut of a thing that had been used by Confederate troops retreating and reforming battle lines between Little Rock and Arkadelphia – in a tin-roofed box of a house with a fireplace for winter and screened porches on either end for summer. Betwixt Grandma, Grandpa, five uncles in growing stages and ages lounging around on couches, six or seven inbred Chihuahua-mix yappers, two retarded cats, then me and my brothers and sister and parents it seemed like there were approximately 35 critters crammed into the place.

It wasn't a huge culture shock for a Yankee-born boy of nine. I had lived the first few years of my life in a raggedy trailer, suffering malnutrition to the point of rickets from ignorance of young parents and small to no paychecks, Mama popping out a new sibling every year. I was used to crowding. It was the Ohio accent that seemed to make a difference.

"Piyee?" Cousin Denny was my age but outweighed me by 20 pounds or so. We were standing around being bored kids after an extended family dinner spread in the backyard, flies pestering cut watermelons and tomatoes in the muggy August air, grownups clearing plates and pots from the makeshift sawhorse- and- warped- plywood tables.

"Yep. Grandma called dessert. I love piyee."

"Welp, boy," Denny pushed up in my face. Now that I think on it I had to look up at him. The boy was Erwin tall. "Say that agin."

"What? Grandma called dess…uck..." Denny flat-handed me in the chest. I backed up a step and gulped.

"It ain't 'piyee', boy. It's 'paah'. Say it." I looked in Denny's eyes. He seemed right serious about this pronunciation business. I remembered a kid from first grade who had a problem with me drawing on the back of a drawing. Same tactics. Guess they grow assholes everywhere.

"Pa."

The other cousins and a couple of my brothers snickered; more kids were gathering around. Backyard fun. Somebody's gonna scuffle.

Denny lunged into my chest with both hands and knocked me flat on my skinny ass. The crowd of kids made a sound like 'Ohhhoooo.'

Denny put his hands on his hips and grinned down at me. He looked like a tree with eyes up there. "It ain't 'Pa'. It's 'Paah'. Now say it."

"Pa."

The kids were pulling tighter into a circle around us. Somebody giggled. Somebody else laughed out loud. Denny's face turned red. "You better git up and say it right, boy."

"OK."

I got up, dusted my britches off, stooped over like I was going to tie my shoe, and charged. My shoulder hit Denny hard in the belly - "Ummph"- and I drove my legs forward while I grabbed him around the upper legs, lifting his feet off the ground, then pulled down hard while I jammed my head into his chin. He hit the ground on his back with all my weight on his chest – "UUUUMMMMPH!" – I pinned his arms with my knees and looked around….nope, nobody else wanted to play. The circle of kids was quiet.

Denny took a couple of short breaths and looked up at me as if he really didn't understand how he had come to be here. I leaned over, close to his face.

"Paah."

"DEE-ssert!" Grandma always had two tones of voice…quiet threatening and loud threatening. I figure it was from constantly having a yard and house full of kids and critters in varying degrees of rebellion and mischief.

" I done tole ya'll kids to wash up fer paah. STEVE-BO!! Git off yer cousin, ya'll rasslin' 'round gittin' yer Sundy duds dirty! Don't make me cut a china-berry switch, now! Git!"