It seemed beautiful to me. And even the ugly parts, that line of stacked cars or the piles of busted junk, seemed like something exciting, dangerous, a little mysterious. I hadn’t figured out yet that I was supposed to be ashamed—of the trailer or the heaps behind it, of our cheap furniture, of the way Pop would pluck toys or books out of the boxes of crap people left at the junkyard, clean them up, and present them to me at Christmas or birthdays all wrapped up with a bow on top. I didn’t know they were
