She opens the steno pad, finds what appears to be the last poem, and pages through four or five scribbled drafts. She knows how he works, and she goes on until she comes to a version not in mostly illegible cursive but in small neat printing. She shows it to him. Phil nods, then turns to look at the turnpike. All of this is very nice, but they will have to go soon. They don’t want to be late.
He sees a bright-red van coming. It’s going fast.
She begins.
V. BRENDA SEES A HORN OF PLENTY SPILLING ROTTEN FRUIT.
Yes, she thinks, that’s just about right. Thanksgiving for fools.
Freddy will go for a soldier and fight in foreign lands, the way Jasmine’s brother Tommy did. Jasmine’s boys, Eddie and Truth, will do the same. They’ll own muscle cars when and if they come home, and if gas is still available twenty years from now. And the girls? They’ll go with boys. They’ll give up their virginity while game shows play on TV. They’ll have babies and fry meat in skillets and put on weight, same as she and Jasmine did. They’ll smoke a little dope and eat a lot of ice cream—the cheap stuff from Walmart. Maybe not Rosellen, though. Something is wrong with Rosellen. She’ll need to go to the special-ed classes. She’ll still have drool on her sharp little chin when she’s in the eighth grade, same as now. The seven kids will beget seventeen, and the seventeen will beget seventy, and the seventy will beget two hundred. She can see a ragged fool’s parade marching into the future, some wearing jeans that show the ass of their underwear, some wearing heavy-metal T-shirts, some wearing gravy-spotted waitress uniforms, some wearing stretch pants from Kmart that have little MADE IN PARAGUAY tags sewn into the seams of the roomy seats. She can see the mountain of Fisher-Price toys they will own and that will later be sold at yard sales (which was where most were bought in the first place).