“
You know, you’re probably mad at something…
Because everybody remembers: you’d be alone in the kitchen and twilight would be dwindling, and you could hear the far-off cries of the other children playing nearby, and you know you’d be alone in a kitchen ‘cause it was your special treat time, when the jelly would come out just for you. And your mother would appear at your side, just this vision of Laura Ashley print dress, smelling of magnolias and biscuits and, and, and, and you would pull your chair in and then the old-fashioned bar of ice-cream would come down, the one that had to be cut with a bread knife before the two sides were flanked with wafers… and you would lift your little spoon up excitedly to press it in, and winkle out that first divot of black jelly, and then the cage would come down! The cage with the Japanese fighting spiders inside. She would strike a match off her forearm, and go and tell you to dance in the front room for money.
And you never forget that shit. You know, it never goes away.
”