I don’t like getting cuts, but I do like pouring hydrogen peroxide on cuts and watching it foam up. Science in action. As it foams up, horrible infectious bacteria are having the oxygen stripped away from them until they die. At least that’s how I understand it; my dad told me that my mother explained this to him and to me, when I was very young, so it is one of our few bits of shared family lore.
The cut went right across my hand but it wasn’t deep. Like the Proprietor had said, Jimmy had only been trying to cut the strap. But you have to be careful with knives. When I was twelve and distributed flyers from my old wagon, I thought a guy had been following me one night, and I told Dad I figured I should carry a knife. I expected him to applaud this as a manly decision, a rite of passage,
