Momma and Willy Macyntire made Iggy in a barn. It was an act of passion, I heard my momma tell her cousin one day, and it makes me feel like barfing just to think about it. Momma and buck-toothed Willy humping away in the hay with their bare, pasty skin all covered in hairy goose pimples and sweat. I can’t stop thinking about it though, even when the sick taste is in my mouth, and my throat is as tight as a fist full of quarters. I think about it before I go to bed, as the floorboards are creaking, and Daddy is grunting, and Momma is making no noise at all. I think about it in science class when Mr. Farley talks in his deep, garbled voice about the reproduction of flowers, about stamens and pistils, and shouldn’t we all know not to giggle at these lessons by now, shouldn’t we think of the reproduction of lovely flowers as a beauteous gift from the good Lord and not fodder for the dirty, hell-spawned thoughts we’re giggling over? I think of it when Iggy cries and wonders why Daddy hates him, think of how he was made in a smelly barn and not a sacred marriage bed, think of Willy Macyntire grunting and Momma spilling her virgin blood on the hay. But I never tell Iggy what I know.

     Sometimes knowing is like a shovel digging in your stomach, twisting and tearing your guts, and you wish to God you could rip that shovel out through your belly button, hide it away in a dark, cobwebby shed, shut the door and break the key off in the lock so no one can ever get in again. You wish that you could go to sleep and have your last thought be anything but the buttery light of the Kentucky moon sneaking in through cracks of an old barn’s walls, splintering like yellow blood over your Momma’s wobbling virgin breasts. But you can’t erase the knowing, and you can never tell your secret.

     I think all this as I stare at Iggy. We are lying under the porch. It’s so hot that sweat is trickling from the sandy tips of Iggy’s hair and zigzagging over his freckles, mixing with the tears that keep sneaking out of his rust colored eyes.

     "Don’t cry," I whisper. "He’ll never find us here." When I touch Iggy’s arm with the tips of my fingers, I notice how small and white my hands look. I notice that there is dirt under my nails. I notice how my fingers tremble when I tell a bold faced lie. Still, I say it again. "He’ ll never find us here, Iggy."

     But Iggy only cries harder. Even though I’ve risked hell and damnation, told a lie just to make him feel better, he bawls until his belly quakes like a pickup truck driving in a rocky, dried out riverbed. He sobs and shakes, mops his face with his muddy fists and cries some more. He squeezes his eyes shut tight and tries to make the tears stay in his head. Still, the hot tears keep coming. They link arms with the cold sweat, jiggle like drunk polka dancers down his freckled cheeks, plop-plop, like muddy raindrops, onto the ground under him. We can hear Daddy in the house, calling for Iggy in his thunder voice. We know that if we were close enough, his breath would smell like whisky.

     But we are not close enough. We are under the porch. We are waiting for Daddy to find us so he can take the belt to Iggy. We are whispering secrets and crying while we wait. Bars of golden sunlight are falling like slices of heaven between the slats of the porch above us. Flurries of dust swirl in the bars of light, and we touch them while we talk, because to us, they look like clouds of gold dust.