Boy on Canal

The boy slips out of the trailer and runs up the levee with his dog. "Take my picture," he says. The light is perfect, and he is beautiful. "My daddy got me this dog," he says. "I know a lot about dogs." He says he named the dog Cayenne. I ask him why, and he tells me that
it's his grandma's favorite spice. His grandma told him that the dog was the color of cayenne. "She used too much, though. Enough to catch your mouth on fire." I ask if his grandma lives with him. It happens a lot out here. Three generations sometimes four cramped into single-wide trailers. "The cancer got her," he says. "She went up to heaven, and now she plays a harp all day long."