“I missed wrestling in the junior olympics because I overslept,” is what I told most friends later that summer. It was true, in a way. I never told Coach what happened, because he didn’t ask; he never asked about anything that happened in the past, only what I was doing today for tomorrow. But when Mrs. Abrams asked if I were okay – she didn’t ask what had happened to my face – I told her all of what had happened that day. I was transparent, like she had taught me to be.

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I woke up and felt the back of my head. The ringworm was still there, so I got up and walked to the mop closet and rubbed fungicide on the raised bump without taking time to look at it. I was feeling impatient and was too hungry to think clearly, so I dodged traffic and crossed Government Boulevard and entered a conveneince store that sold cigarettes, lottery tickets, cheap booze, and sugary snacks.

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I’ve always found it difficult to write a memoir of my Partin family. Most of what I’ve written is publicly available, but few people outside of the FBI have put together pieces of the puzzle about my grandfather, Edward Grady Partin. You may already know about him, even if you don’t recall his name.

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