Trailerpark by Russell Banks Page B

guinea pigs, hundreds of them by now. And they just keep on making new guinea pigs, doubling their numbers every couple of months. It’s incredible, man.”
    Noni rolled over on her belly and stretched out her legs and wiggled her toes. “Do you have that record of Dylan’s, the one where he sings all those country and western songs, way before anyone even heard of country and western? What’s it called?”
    â€œ Nashville Skyline? ”
    â€œYeah, that’s it. Isn’t it incredible, how he was singing country and western way before anyone even heard of it?”
    â€œYeah, he’s really incredible, Dylan. Anyhow…”
    â€œDo you have it, the record?” she interrupted.
    â€œNo, man. Listen, I was telling you something.”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œThat’s okay, man. Anyhow, Flora’s guinea pigs, it’s like they’re a metaphor . You know? I mean, it’s like Flora is some kind of god and the first two guinea pigs, the ones she bought from the five-and-dime in town, were Adam and Eve, and that trailer of hers is the world. Be fruitful and multiply, Flora told them, and fine, they go out and do what they’re programmed to do, and pretty soon they’re taking over the world, the trailer, so that Flora can’t take care of them anymore. No matter how hard she works, they eat too much, they shit too much, they take up too much room. So what happens?”
    Silence.
    â€œWhat happens?” Bruce repeated.
    â€œOh. I don’t know. A flood, maybe?”
    â€œNo, man, it’s not that literal, it’s a metaphor. What happens is Flora moves out, leaves the trailer to the guinea pigs. Twilight of the gods, man. God is dead. You know.”
    â€œYeah. That’s really incredible.”
    â€œYeah,” Bruce said, drifting into still deeper pools of thought.
    After a few moments, Noni got up from the bed and drew on her clothes. “I better get home, my mother’ll kill me. She thinks I’m at the movies with you.”
    â€œNaw, man, she knows where you are. All she’s got to do is walk three doors down and see my van’s still here. C’mon, she knows . She knows we’re making it together. She’s not that out of it.”
    Noni shrugged. “I don’t know. She believes what she wants to believe. Sometimes I think she still doesn’t believe Daddy’s dead, and it’s been over four years now. There’s no point in forcing things on people. You know what I mean?”
    Bruce understood, but he didn’t agree. People needed to face reality, it was good for them and good for humanity as a whole, he felt. He was about to tell her why it was good for them, but Noni was already dressed and heading for the door, so he said good night instead and waved from the bed as she slipped out the door.
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    When later that same evening she told her mother that Flora Pease was raising hundreds of guinea pigs in her trailer, it was not so much because Noni herself was interested in Flora or the guinea pigs as it was because her mother Nancy was quizzing her about the movie she was supposed to have seen with Bruce.
    â€œThat’s not true,” the woman said.
    â€œWhat’s not?” Noni switched on the TV set and sat down cross-legged on the floor.
    â€œAbout the guinea pigs. Where’d you hear such a thing?”
    â€œBruce. Do you think I could study yoga somewhere around here?”
    â€œOf course not. Don’t be silly.” Nancy lit a cigarette and sat down on the sofa, where she’d been reading this month’s Book-of-the-Month Club selection, a novel that gently satirized the morals and mores of Westchester County’s smart set. “Bruce. I don’t know about that boy. How can he be a college student when the nearest college is the state university in Durham, which is over forty miles from here?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Noni was sliding into