for a while there, all we had in the house was nectarines. my dad got a hold of them somehow, i think he knew a guy who had a nectarine orchard. is that even a thing? i don’t know. but he came home one day with four big burlap sacks full of nectarines. the meal we had before that was pea soup thanks to mom picking wild peas growing on a street near our house. i didn’t even know that was possible. come to think of it … she probably stole those peas. damn. she had to steal those peas! where do peas grow randomly, you know? and i bet dad stole those nectarines. jesus, were we that broke? i mean the pea soup had some kind of cream sauce or something. cream of mushroom, where did that come from? damn … i’m having an epiphany here, lewis. my mind is exploding. my parents were thieves! how the hell else would my dad come up with nectarines? huh. well, anyway, we ate them for every meal for like two weeks, and when they started to go bad my mom baked them into pies and bread and anything else that she could make. now how she got flour and eggs and butter and milk and, fuck, she was such a thief! i’m sorry lewis this is just suddenly coming to my attention after twenty-five years. my dad said he knew a guy who had a nectarine orchard, but my dad never worked a day in his life. he spent his welfare checks on booze, and it’s not like any of the other drunks at the bar had an orchard, much less a nectarine tree.
do they grow on trees? i don’t even fucking know. i’ve never heard of a nectarine tree. wait let me look this up … oh what, a nectarine is just a peach without the peach fuzz. you gotta be kidding me. not only was my dad a thief but he couldn’t even steal just a peach, he had to steal nectarines. which just means “little nectars”. if you think about it. my family is a fucking mess.
