Chapter One: Porcine Tot.
Ham Randy was born to a husbandless mother on the muddy field of a nameless Indian Reservation somewhere in the wastelands of central Washington State. She'd been there her whole life and was known only as Lucy. Ham was only a quarter Indian, but that formidable fraction soon provided god-awful acne and a strong penchant for booze.
On occasion, a man leaving Lucy's room could be heard to grumble, "no amount of practicing improves a no-talent". Unfortunately she practiced the ancient art of prostitution.
These damp and bulky whores were called 'quivvers' by the drunk white men who came at night. The Indians had their own name for these women - 'strawberries'. It had a nice sound to it, but later Ham discovered that this name had negative connotations - wild strawberries grew like dirty fat brown weeds all around the rez. They were plentiful and cheap, but always muddy with horse shit and never, ever sweet.
The whores all worked for the rez's lone pimp, a skinny & skull-faced old Injun called Pank Juithah. He wore a dirty Mexican-style cowboy hat with the dome uncreased and the rim flat & uncurled, except for the very front which was curled down so that his yellow eyes were always deep in its shadow. He had a chaw in his cheek at all times, but in yucky actuality it was a hunk of gristle, the long-savored remains of the last chicken or rabbit he had eaten.
A 7-year-old Ham saw ol' Pank coming out of his ma's room one afternoon. When Pank saw Ham staring up at him, he slowly kneeled down in front of the boy, his joints audibly popping. He put his hands on Ham's shoulders and looked him in the eye; with a tilt of his head towards Lucy's room, he said to the littlest Ham: "If I had that to come home to, I'd never leave the car".
