For a while my mouth didn’t closeand I had to eat pizza with a fork.This is where people interrupt and saywhat do you mean, your mouth didn’t close?and I take my two hands, wrists together,fingers apart, and show how my jawclosed in the back and not the fronttil they opened me up and rearrangedit like a jigsaw puzzle. But I was sayingabout the pizza. The fork and knife is fineat an Italian restaurant, a nice white plate,red-checked tablecloth, metal fork.But you try grabbing a slice at Ray’s,Tuesday, fifth period, with the peopleyou call friends because there’s no one else.I’d press my slice hard on the Formica,press that plastic fork til it buckled,then saw away with those little nubsthat pretend at serrations, knife curvinglike a bow. I did this with a smile,oh, I just like eating my pizza this way.while sizing up the geometry—how many bites for the fewest cuts?Eating the crust felt as impossibleas losing my virginity, so I professednot to like it. I gave it away,watching others bite in—crunch—like it was nothing. Looking back,it’s strange I never explainedthe fork and knife thing, how I didn’twant to, I just had to. The way I pretendedto like it.