Gabriel

His Family I was born into a family of freaks.Of them all I was most freak, one of those millions who, save for accidents of sex, body build, height, weight, and physiognomy, are just alike: no horns, no tails, no forked tongues, no two of us joined together, neither flexible as rubber nor petrified.His First Memories Down under the circus bleachers where, during the first years after I learned to walk, I spent the hours of my parents' rehearsals and perform ances, I studied backs: shoulders, torsos, buttocks, calves bulging below the seat's edge, ankles, the heels of cowboy boots and farmers' boots, high-heeled slippers and run-over sandals.I never touched anyone; and no one saw me, even if for some reason they bent over and peered between their feet for a moment.Maybe once in a while a boy of two, from a bleacher above me, after he'd pissed through the gap between levels, peered down to see where the stream had gone, then poked out his tongue or crossed his eyes at me.No one else.And there I had a perfect view of my parents' work.