From my work in progress: U.S. and Them--"An Earth Still Flat"

Soldiers in Vietnam died on TV every night around dinner time--it was normal. I expected to see Vietnam the same way, every day for all my life: an adult show I had to sit through until my father left the room.  The American way was in dire straights as far back as I could remember--and what I remembered was born, or at least bred in our pumpkin-colored cape in Bridgeport, CT. History was speeding toward its end by the time I snatched my first breath.  It was just bad timing.  Kennedys and Kings and Xs were getting shot for no reason at all.  I was four years old in 1963.  My deepest memories come from the screen of our Zenith:  President Kennedy's head snapping back and then slumping forward, the First Lady crawling across the moving convertible--to save herself, or to get help--I always wondered which.  The world was almost over.  I had always known this.  I knew it the way I was drawn to the smell of my mother's neck, the way I'd grown to turn toward the sound of my name--Patricia.