“Know why they grow those big arms?” “No.” He lit a Marlboro. “When a cactus starts leaning to one side,” he said, “it grows an arm on the other side, to right itself. Then, when it starts tipping that way, it grows an arm on the opposite side. And so on. That’s why you see them with eighteen arms. A cactus is always trying to stand up straight. You’ve got to admire anything that tries that hard to keep its balance.”
