For years, other people's grandparents will talk about Lichtenstein's. It is the downtown department store - the only place to buy something nice enough for a wedding or a funeral - years before the strip malls bloom with their affordable chain stores. Lichtenstein's is classy, but insulting. It sells furs to South Texans, which is not unlike selling cut-off shorts to a mountaineering team in the Alps.

My grandfather strolls so cooly with his brother and father. You'd never know that he doesn't shop at Lichtenstein's. He'd rather spend money on his car, the Chevy in which my mom will be conceived. He will be twenty-one, shy, and scared.

You'd never know that his dad is a drunk destined to keep walking down the sidewalk, past the Gulf, leaving more than a family of mannequins staring sadly out the window.