I'm standing on cracked, sticky concrete. I notice here and there weeds coming through the oldest cracks. My great-grandma dropped me off here at the bus station, the only way home.  She said the smell of the feed lots wasn't so bad one town down, but the rankness is so thick I keep my mouth closed and try to inhale the shortest breaths. How do folks live here? Every minute I continue to breathe without passing out, I wonder how I'm gonna get through the next few seconds, much less a lifetime. I keep my mouth closed even though it's sour and I'm thirsty, longing for an ice-cold raspberry green tea about now. I hear the buzzing of the endless flies basking in their cattle-heaven paradise. I look down at my feet. My freshly-painted lavender toes sit tenuously on my new gold patent sandals--the thinest soles of leather--islands in a sea of concrete covered in a thin paste of dead bugs, cow dung, and Red Man spit. The tall drink of water across from me gives me his best you're-pretty-darlin' toothless grin and tips his torn straw hat, his cheek full of chew.