The fol­low­ing is an excerpt from Abigail’s unpub­lished novel, Tunisian Cowboy. 

We lived on the corner of Santa Monica and Second Avenue in a house with an avocado tree in the front yard that dropped its over­ripe fruit at our doorstep. The tree’s boughs grew side­ways and up like a person holding up their arms, showing off their muscles. Its roots upended the con­crete walkway into a maze of hills and crevices covered in splat­tered fruit. Smoosh­ing the avo­ca­dos with my bare feet and letting the brown mush ooze between my toes was one of my favorite pas­times and a fun way to get my big sister, Jessica, scream­ing in disgust. At age four, I wan­dered the neigh­bor­hood on my own, along the palm tree-lined streets, for­ag­ing off the bushes, eating a smor­gas­bord of pink berries and sour grasses. Our house encir­cled a shared yard with several other dilap­i­dat­ed crafts­man homes. These were the last old houses in the neighborhood–condominiums sprawled around us. We were a few blocks from the beach, the Santa Monica Pier, and the Pacific Pal­isades. In a couple of years, this cluster of houses would be knocked down and replaced with a high-rise. But in 1973, we were the last hippies in the neighborhood. 

Pa, Jessica, and I were in the yard playing our favorite game: Baboons. Pa was the papa baboon, and Jessica and I were the mis­chie­vous babies. The game started with Pa telling a story, setting the scene, and build­ing up the dra­mat­ic tension. “Deep in the forest, the baby baboons are napping while the papa goes down to the river to take a swim.” Fully in char­ac­ter, he moved on his haunch­es close to the ground, arms hanging long, splash­ing pretend water on himself, making hooting ape noises as he beat his chest. Jessica and I crouched under a bougainvil­lea bush, waiting to pounce. We wore long thrift store prairie dresses that covered our entire bodies as we squat­ted so that we looked like calico sacks with heads stick­ing out. “And then the papa baboon decides to take a nap in the sun.” He curled onto the ground and broke into a loud snore. We burst out, dresses bal­loon­ing around our slight bodies, and hurled our­selves onto Pa’s back. He shrugged us off, sending us plum­met­ing to the ground, calling out, “No backs! No backs!” And we jumped up and dove at his back again and again, only to be tossed to the ground.

As Pa flung me over his shoul­der, our land­la­dy, Mrs. Kirby, appeared on her back porch yelling, “Get the hell out of my yard!” Falling and getting the wind knocked out of me felt linked to her pres­ence. I sat up in a state of shock, too stunned to cry. Mrs. Kirby wore cat-eyed glasses, and when she closed her mouth, her jaw shifted forward and back. Her men­ac­ing face and tone con­fused me because the other day, she’d given Jessica and me but­ter­scotch candies, smiled, and told Mom how cute we were. But now she yelled at Pa, “Go back to Mexico where you belong!” 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Pa shouted back in his French accent. “I’m from Tunisia! And I live here!” He picked us up, one on each hip and we wrapped our arms over his chest. My sister and I resem­bled our white Amer­i­can mother. Pa’s brown skin turned darker from working as a gar­den­er in the Los Angeles sunshine. 

“I don’t care where you come from–I won’t tol­er­ate child abuse on my prop­er­ty. Now, get out of my yard before I call the police!” 

    “But we were playing a game. You don’t hassle my wife or the other tenants when they come out here! Why are you getting on my case?” Pa’s volume was a booming roar. “You fucking bitch! How dare you talk to me like that in front of my daugh­ters! I have a degree in film studies from UCLA, and you’re nothing but an igno­rant…”   And then Pa wasn’t yelling in English anymore–he was swear­ing in several lan­guages: Arabic, Ladino, French, and Hebrew. 

Jessica and I knew Pa’s temper well. There was nothing to do but brace your­self when he flew into a rage. We held on, with hands clutched around his neck as he screamed. It ter­ri­fied me when people thought Pa was a bad guy. I was worried they’d put him in jail. They didn’t know the real Pa, the one who played wild games with us, spoiled us with love, and cooked deli­cious food. I felt it my duty to protect him from the outside world and from those who didn’t under­stand him. But I was little and help­less, so what could I do? I glanced at Jessica, tears rolling down her cheeks, and since my five-year-old sister always knew the right thing to do in every sit­u­a­tion, I cried, too. And then, as if in emo­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion, we both sobbed.