That's Why

because… the hardware store owner smirked when he collected my money order to pay the utility bill to get the lights turned back on. because… I slept on a worn out mattress on the floor, in a bedroom shared with my older brother who brutalized me for sport, in a trailer on the edge of a sugar beat field. because… I was so naïve as a teenage boy that I was completely ignorant of a product called deodorant, that I often wondered why people who weren’t being polite, usually gave me a wide berth. because… on the school bus one day, a friend from ninth grade, David Fullington, said: “hey Dan, everyone says you smell… and I say-like crap he does!” because… I would lay on my mattress at night and hear the legions of mice scampering across the aluminum ceiling and between the walls of the trailer on the edge of a sugar beat field. because… of all of the mouse turds I would have to brush off my clothes in my underwear drawer when I was getting dressed for school. that is why, when I was thirteen, I discovered a mouse trapped neck deep in an open can of Crisco sitting beside a sink full of dirty dishes. looking up at me, with black dots for eyes, and his nose twitching, struggling to free himself, but hopelessly mired in the can of lard fat. that I gulped down the last of my Pepsi Cola in the 16 ounce heavy, greenish glass bottle, and used the blunt end to plunge the mouse under for good to die a death of torment and suffocation in it’s Crisco grave. and then I belched loudly.