Pegs hauls me to the Circle, Happeningville after the sun takes a dip, the bull’s eye of this citrus-packed megalopolis. Follow the orangey aroma wafting from a twiggy stairwell, my sister, up to the reddish-pinkish cocoon, my brother, sowed with a scattering of tables filched from Val Vista High’s cafeteria eons ago. See, there! cry I. Such lovely reposes of Hi-Dee-Ho, Merrymellow, Tom-in-o’-willows, Frank, and Father Frank, the Senior. Rotary phones (filched from the Radio Shack on the corner) jangle their urgent bells, so leisure time takes a break. The citrusy cocoon fills with huzzahs of I love you like my sister, sister & You got to love you like I love you, brother & Lay it heavy on me, sister & Dig it, I know those old stomping grounds, brother, those wrecked hovels & Giving up is giving in but taking tightly hold is rising up and streaking free.

Far! Out! Off comes my patchwork jeans, day-glo tee. I’m a comet’s tail–I streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak! Taking the twiggy stairs one- hop-two-hop-three-hop-four–Pegs and the others hot on my heels. I duck into a moon-dappled orchard, lo yonder branches dangling their pulpy orbs in the shadows. But instead of their ambrosial sweetness, a gnarly funk chokes me. Alas, I’m corralled by Pegs and the others, a pig to slaughter.

Hey, Pegs! What’s with the housewifery get up, apron, rolling pin, and all? And Heidi–what’s with sporting the blue-haired, swinging-cane look? What’s with the shorty hairdo, Mary, the balding dome, Tom, the red round countenances? You look like my Nixon-lovin’ parents on a tear! Little Franklin, what’s with the squarish stache? And Father Francis from Fresno in a fedora?! How y’all get so balefully...old?

They sneer. I guffaw. They stone me with spoiled fruit.