The house, a simple box nailed to a concrete slab on the flat surface of West Texas, had fallen into disrepair in the years since he was a boy. A window on the side was punched out and the jagged center was patched with cardboard; the masking tape had released its hold long ago. The window had once been the window to his bedroom. He got out of his rented red Ford and went to look. The houses on the left and right were close; the rock fights had been in earnest. The cheap siding, a dirty white vinyl, was cracked in places, probably from the hailstorms that came every summer. There were broken children’s toys in the yard. No one was home.
The Giant of Abilene, Texas
