Free Original Sins by Lisa Alther

of some people in the area of Kentucky his father came from. One picture, taken from the files of the newspaper office, was of an elephant hanging by its neck from a crane. In 1922 an elephant came to town with the circus. During the parade she trampled to death a boy who was pelting her with watermelon rind. The town tried the elephant, found her guilty, and lynched her. Raymond lay on his bed studying this picture. A crowd of townspeople howled in the foreground. Their faces were distorted with—what? Cruelty? Righteousness? Whatever it was, it made him uneasy. A contact at one of the New York City magazines had offered him a job in a print shop upon graduation from high school. Every time he thought about moving to New York, he got homesick. How could he possibly leave everything and everyone familiar to him? He couldn’t. It was out of the question. But at odd moments, he found himself gazing at that dangling elephant.

Chapter Two
The Sadie Hawkins Day Dance
    The gym was decorated with posters of Li’l Abner and Daisy Mae, of hound dogs and stills and outhouses with half-moon holes in the doors. The boys were wearing bib overalls with no shirts, straw hats. Their feet were bare, and some carried jugs and chewed on pieces of straw. The girls wore tight short shorts with straw sticking out of the pockets, halter tops, no shoes. They’d rouged their cheeks and drawn freckles with eyebrow pencil. It was hard to tell one person from another. Except that Emily had no difficulty picking out Sally. She sat, smiling, on Jed’s back as he did pushups. A crowd of admirers counted: “… thirty-four, thirty-five …”
    â€œDo you see what your gorgeous brother is up to?” she asked Raymond, who sat beside her on the bleachers gazing down at the gym floor.
    â€œYeah. Isn’t he wonderful? I just can’t figure out how he’s become such an exhibitionist. He used to be a shy little punk. Remember? He could hardly open his mouth without blushing and ducking his head.” Raymond demonstrated. Emily laughed.
    They sat in silence. The athletes and the girls in the social clubs were monopolizing the area in front of the bandstand. They barn-danced to the country music being played by men in white Western suits, string ties, and rhinestone-studded shirts, cowboy hats and boots.
    Sally looked into the bleachers and saw Emily and Raymond. She sighed. Poor Emily. She just didn’t know how to have fun. And Raymond … well, Raymond was hopeless, was all. He didn’t even try. There he sat in his long-sleeved rayon shirt. You’d never know one of the best dressers in the whole school was his brother.
    She looked around the gym. She loved organizing parties and watching her friends enjoy them. Maybe that was why Emily and Raymond bothered her. They reminded her of the little match girl in the fairy tale who stood in the snow, dressed in rags, and watched the people in the restaurant laughing and eating. But they didn’t have to stay out in the cold. They chose to. Stubborn.
    â€œDon’t look now, but we’re being watched,” Sally murmured in Jed’s ear as he crushed her to his chest and swung her around.
    Jed looked up and moaned, “Lord, they look like chaperones.” He whirled her again and yelped like a beaten dog. He felt good! He loved the way his body moved—dancing, doing pushups, playing ball. He knew that Raymond had contempt for these things, but to hell with Raymond.
    â€œShoot boys, this is living, ain’t it?” he yelled in an exaggerated hillbilly accent to Bobby.
    â€œLord, you’d better know it!” Bobby called back. “Hell, I ain’t had this much fun since my hound dog treed a skunk!” “God, I’m freezing,” Emily muttered. “You ought to be, in that handkerchief,” Raymond replied, gesturing to her bandanna halter. He put his arm around her—under the pretense of warming her,