Read Online Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life by Tom Robbins - Free Book Online Page A

semiofficially as the Northern Neck. It is, indeed, a “neck” of sorts; which is to say a peninsula: bordered on the south by the Rappahannock River, on the north by the Potomac, terminating at the Chesapeake Bay. There are four counties in the Neck, each just far enough downwind from Washington, D.C., to escape moral contamination.
    Kilmarnock is the largest town in the Neck; Warsaw the most vibrant, though “vibrant” may be too fancy a word for any community in this region of farmers and fishermen. Our family alighted on Kilmarnock like flies landing on a horse biscuit, shooed away by the swishing tail of circumstance before we could savor a proper taste. Our home there, for the few months it lasted, was a plain single-story clapboard cottage, bereft of marble, of ornament, of any upper chamber where a sexy Samaritan might assist in the tonsorial hygiene of needy gentlemen.
    The house was situated at the far end of town, piney woods behind and on one side of it; on the other side, a vacant field. The only neighbors were across the road and we rarely saw them, so it was months before I learned that my sixth-grade teacher lived there, the very one who slapped my face for “sassy” behavior. (I suspect that I, a devotee of atlases, had corrected her none too diplomatically in front of the class for some shocking display of geographic ignorance, à la Sarah Palin.) Moreover, our house sat back quite a distance from the road, so overall it’s fair to say we were a trifle isolated, a fact that made Mother uneasy, especially since Daddy was usually only home on weekends. No doubt it was due to Mother’s nervousness that on weeknights she, my twin sisters (then age four), and I all slept in the same smallish bedroom.
    Late one night (it was past my bedtime at any rate), Mother thought she heard a noise outside. When she slipped into the darkened living room to investigate, she saw that a car was parked in our long dirt driveway. Its engine wasn’t running and its headlights were off. She watched the car for five or ten minutes. When she returned to our bedroom, she was carrying a butcher knife.
    It was a mild Indian summer night (since, technically, Indian summers can only occur after there has been a frost, it was probably toward the end of October) and the bedroom window was raised. The window was, however, permanently screened. Pointing to the window, Mother handed me the knife. In a low voice she instructed me to await her signal. When and if it came, I was to slice open the screen, lower Mary and Marian outside, follow them out, lead them quickly away from the house, and hide.
    Zing! Adrenaline shot through me like a crystal meth espresso through a break-dancer. I was scared, to be sure, but equally elated, fairly throbbing with anticipation. I’d been reading The Three Musketeers that same week, and the moment my hand closed around that knife handle I was transformed into d’Artagnan. “All for one and one for all!” I exclaimed, a trifle too loudly to suit Mother’s mood.
    Before she tiptoed back to the living room, she put a finger to her lips, then gestured for me to rouse my sisters. “There’s a bad car in the driveway,” I said as I tugged at their bedclothes. “Who in tha car?” mumbled Marian, barely half awake. “Cardinal Richelieu and his lieutenants,” I replied, still tugging. They gazed at me without an atom of comprehension.
    Herded to a place by the window, the twins, who heretofore had been too sleepy to do more than whimper a little, now commenced to actively whine. “Hush,” I cautioned. “There’s a car out there full of escaped maniacs. Do you want them to come kill us and eat our brains?” Evidently, the girls did not. They became saucer-eyed and silent, though now they were shaking like cherubs on an ice floe. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll protect you.” Cleverly, they responded in Morse code, tapped out with their teeth.
    Since I was seven years older than my sisters