don't play in the Antone's yard, my mother commanded me when I was a kid. and don't let any of them come over here she further instructed. they were our next door neighbors, but mom had had a falling out with Mrs. Antone and so nobody in the family was allowed to set foot on their property. if she had a beef with them, we all had to have a beef with them. even as a child I knew that vendettas were a dumb idea. this one meant I couldn't go over to play with Jimmy Antone and mess around in his big garage where his father kept a bunch of rusty tools and bric-a-brac from his job on the railroad.
mom got dad to hire someone to dig a trench and plant claw bushes along the boundary line between our two yards. the bushes grew fast and soon towered over the elm trees that had been planted on the street back in the 1920's. evil things lived in the claw bushes. things with red eyes and foul stench, that slithered and crept about at night, devouring infants right in their cradles. vampires moved into the claw bushes and it took the Minneapolis Fire Department two weeks to burn them out with napalm. our house caught fire during the vampire campaign, and we moved to a trailer park. which had a fine set of seesaws.
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