33 Snowfish Read online

That’s how come I’d never get into Sidekick’s El Camino with him — cuz it was like if you got in it and the door closed you would start to disappear. That’s how you wind up on the back of one of them milk cartons you see at the Econofoods in Coal City.

  I ain’t no fucking milk carton kid, I’ll tell you that right now.

  When we got to Sidekick’s crib with the baby the windows was all boarded up and the El Camino was gone and there was this big black X painted on the door.

  Sidekick lived in Bolingbrook over by Old Man Turpentine’s Fun Shop. That sucker always had the pigs or some bill collector looking for him. He’s probably been in thirty different states by now. Or maybe he’s down in Mexico eating a taco or some shit?

  I skated from Bob Motley’s duplex after I found out he was gonna put me in this snuff film. One day when him and his crew thought I was sleeping I heard them talking about shooting the film and how much money they could make and how many hookers they could get and how much hurricane they could buy.

  I was in the kitchen sneaking some Folger’s instant coffee.

  “We could use your boy,” one of them was saying to Bob Motley. “One minute he’s doin’ his thing, and the next thing Mr. Snuffleupagus pays him a visit and it’s all over. He won’t know the difference.”

  Bob Motley was like, “I guess we could, I guess we could.”

  After his crew left I had to hide in the basement till Bob Motley drank his two bottles of Mad Dog and fell asleep in his big corduroy chair.

  When I came up from the basement I peeled away the newspaper, pushed the Louisville Slugger aside, crawled through the Dumdum Hole, and ran all the way through Rockdale.

  That night I slept under a bread truck in the parking lot of the Dominick’s on Jefferson Street in Joliet. When I woke up I had a burn on my arm that still bleeds when I lean on it wrong. Curl thinks it’s a evil spirit that got freed when I left Bob Motley, but I just think it’s from the bread truck.

  At the Fun Shop Bob Motley was always telling Old Man Turpentine how he’s gonna cut off my hands when he finds me. Old Man Turpentine don’t never say nothing, though, cuz I used to clean his floor for him.

  I knew Boobie wasn’t going to let Bob Motley touch me, though, cuz whenever some sucker started messing with me Boobie would just walk up to him and use his fist or a stick or something he’d find on the street. Sometimes he’d even just stand there and stare at them with his black eyes. He did it to a nigger in Lockport once and the nigger started running away all frantic like his house was burning down and shit. Boobie’s protective like that with Curl, too.

  But the thing about Boobie is that most of the time you don’t never know what’s on his mind. No one does. That’s cuz he don’t never hardly talk. He mostly just does shit. And when he ain’t doing shit he’s thinking real quiet or he’s drawing pictures in this special book he carries around with him.

  At first I thought he was writing scary stories, but Curl looked in the book and she said it was just a bunch of drawings.

  One page’s got a picture of a old man with no mouth.

  Another one’s got a picture of a horse getting attacked by a hawk.

  Curl said he names them pictures, too, but even though she’s smarter than most people, she can’t read too good.

  I learned how to read a little in the basement of this Catholic church in Streator. This nun called Sister Pat teached me the alphabet song and had me putting letters together and building them syllable parts. Sister Pat had all of these sores on her mouth, and she was always blessing me and making them crisscross signs with her hands.

  Sometimes if I would get letters fixed together right to build them words, she would try to kiss me on my face, so I started calling her Sister Blister.

  I’d go, “Cool out, Sister Blister,” or some shit like that, and then she’d get pissed and make me sit in the holy chair and sing this wack church song about God and the love he’s got for children and blind people in Maryland or Jerusalem or Jahozifatz or some place.

  And sometimes Sister Blister would make me hold the Jesus picture and sit in the holy chair and do thirty-threes. A thirty-three is when you count to thirty-three. It’s supposed to make shit slow down. Sometimes it worked, but I’d usually fake it and be like, “Oh, I feel much better,” just so she’d stop sweating me.

  It’s funny, cuz that picture of Jesus makes him look like one of them old homeless suckers you see shitting in the bushes at Renfro Park. He don’t look like no miracle maker or no Son of God, I’ll tell you that.

  I only went to them spelling classes for a couple weeks, cuz that Streator church basement was cold and this other nun called Sister Blop or some shit started yelling at me after I got caught pissing on the floor in the boys’ bathroom. I only did that cuz one of them retarded kids stuck a fan in the toilet and I didn’t want to piss on it and get electrified.

  They wasn’t going to let me come back, but Sister Blister bowed her head and practically frenched them other nuns’ fat asses so they let me stay. Sister Blop and this other nun with a kangaroo face called Sister Cordelia wouldn’t go for it at first cuz they said I had too much devil in me, but Sister Blister kept telling them how I was special and they finally gave in.

  But I left after a few days anyway, cuz when people start calling you special you know they’re just trying to change you into something you ain’t.

  I think Sister Blister was trying to turn me into a retard, cuz she used to always make me sit with them. I’d be at the lunch table and I’d look around at all these retards and they would be staring at me like I was the devil. Just cuz maybe I was taking their fruit cups or stuffing French fries in my pockets or some harmless shit like that.

  Every one of them retard kids got them mouths that don’t never close and them little bald eyes that look like they was pressed too close together.

  I know I would’ve started turning into a retard if I didn’t skate from that Streator church basement. Cuz when you hang around certain types of people for a long time you start to look like them and shit. That’s how come dogs start looking like their masters.

  I knew this man who lived on a park bench and after a while he started looking like the park bench. He even started turning green, too.

  But even though I skated from that Streator church basement, Sister Blister teached me enough to read street signs and cereal boxes if them letters is big enough. I can even read them sex books in Old Man Turpentine’s Fun Shop if I go slow and use my finger.

  If I had enough time, I’d look in Boobie’s book.

  But I’d do it in private, cuz he’d jack you up if he caught you.

  Boobie don’t let nobody touch that book.

  It’s been almost a day since we skated. Boobie won’t take none of them big toll roads like Interstate 80 or Highway 55. Curl says he’s smart cuz that’s the first place the five-oh starts looking.

  So I just keep scouting pigs, and Curl’s got her birds to count.

  She’s like, “Custis, you see any?” and I’m like, “There ain’t none to see,” and she’s like, “Yes there is, you just have to look better!”

  When someone’s got a bazooka habit it’s like the most boringest shit you’ll ever see, I swear.

  This morning Boobie stuck this Abraham Lincoln–looking sucker in the face for calling us white trash. All we wanted was some water from his hose. It wasn’t like we was gonna wash the Skylark. That man came out all waving his arms and calling the Joliet pigs on his cell phone. And the Joliet pigs will come a lot quicker than the pigs in Rockdale. They’ll bust you a lot quicker, too, cuz they get paid more money.

  Before he could get them numbers dialed, Boobie snatched his cell phone and stuck that man square in the eye. He stuck him good, too.

  That man’s eye swolled up so fast he had to sit in his bushes for a minute. After he stopped bleeding Boobie made him give us some money and this fancy metal pen from his pocket. But he smashed up that cell phone. He didn’t want them cell phone pigs
tracking us.

  So now Boobie uses that pen to draw his pictures.

  Even though he ain’t but seventeen, Boobie’s bigger than most men. He’s definitely bigger than Bob Motley. He ain’t fatter but he’s taller. He’s bigger than all of Bob Motley’s boys, too. And he’s already got whiskers.

  Me and Boobie was making our crib in the woods till we skated. We had this tent with a dome and sleeping bags and pots and pans and everything.

  The woods wasn’t in Rockdale or Joliet. They wasn’t nowhere really. No one goes out there no more, cuz they found some woman under a tree with her head torn off.

  Boobie’s parents kicked him out after he tried to set their house on fire. They had one of them fancy Joliet cribs by the Inwood Golf Course.

  In the tent we had us about twenty-five extension cords hooked up to a paper company on the other side of the woods. We had a radio and a camping lamp and a double-burner stovetop that Boobie stole from the Costco in Crest Hill.

  At night we would build fires and eat barbecued beans and watch the lightning bugs do somersaults.

  Curl started living with us a few weeks later. You could hear her coming through the woods. She was calling out Boobie’s name the way kids call for their moms when they get lost at the mall.

  When we found her she was sitting under a tree with a bag of groceries. She was crying and her makeup was all smeared and she was wearing this rabbit-skin coat and a pair of bowling shoes stuffed with newspapers cuz they was like four sizes too big.

  No one knows how old Curl really is. For some reason it’s this big mystery. All I know is she was born on Christmas, but she likes to tell people she’s a Pisces and that she was born at the end of February so she’ll get more presents.

  I know she was born on Christmas cuz she carries this old wrinkled birthday card in her pocket from when she was like three. It says:

  Happy Birthday to my baby girl.

  Mary Christmas.

  Love,

  Mom.

  Curl don’t know I know about that. Sometimes when she thinks she’s alone she takes the card out and rubs her thumb on it. She hides that birthday card the same way you hide birthmarks.

  She smokes Boobie’s Basics like she’s about thirty-two. Old Man Turpentine says she’s really only fifteen, and he knows most things.

  When we found her in the woods she was so desperate for bazooka she asked me if I was packing any and she didn’t even know my name.

  I wouldn’t do that shit if you paid me. Old Man Turpentine says that bazooka makes your stomach disappear. I think it’s true cuz earlier when we stopped in this Wisconsin town called Footville, just off of Highway 213, we opened the hood of the Skylark and fried a box of fish sticks on the engine and Curl wouldn’t touch them. She just kept pushing them away like they was poison. Usually she’d eat half the box.

  That day she came out to the woods we was glad she had them groceries. They was mostly Ding Dongs and Nutty Bars and packets of Lipton Cup-a-Soup and shit, but it was cool cuz we had something besides them barbecued beans.

  Curl used to live with her Aunty Frisco. They stayed in Bolingbrook above Old Man Turpentine’s Fun Shop.

  Curl’s Aunty Frisco’s a cripple and has to use a wheelchair. She’s a speed freak, too, and she’s got Parkinglot Syndrome — that shit that makes your hands shake like they’re electric.

  Curl told me that Muhammad Ali’s got that disease, too, and he was the greatest boxer who ever lived. She said you can get that shit anytime in your life, that it don’t matter who you are. I probably already got it. Sometimes I just start shaking for no reason. And sometimes I get these big-ass migration headaches that make me go blind and fall asleep and wake up in other places. It ain’t no fun waking up somewhere else, I’ll tell you that.

  Aunty Frisco’s the one who got Curl to trick. She stopped getting that hospital money when they found out she was speeding all the time. After that these old low-water suckers in brown suits started hanging around in the Fun Shop, and one by one they would disappear through the back door and head up the stairs.

  At first they made so much money Aunty Frisco bought herself a new wheelchair with a motor in it. You could hear that thing revving all the way from the street.

  Aunty Frisco didn’t let Curl have no money, though — that’s how come Curl started tricking on her own. Down in the Fun Shop them lines started getting smaller and smaller. Sometimes Curl would meet her tricks in Old Man Turpentine’s back room. Curl says he was always looking out for her.

  After Curl moved in with me and Boobie things started getting kind of nice, like we was in a real crib, with walls and food and bodies moving through it and light shining off of them bodies. Even though it was only a tent in the woods and there wasn’t no real walls, it was still like that.

  Sometimes I’d wake up and watch Curl’s and Boobie’s shadows moving. Then I’d close my eyes and listen to their voices groaning all hot and slow.

  Sometimes the three of us would lay together just to stay warm. They’d let me in the middle cuz I’m the smallest. Sometimes Curl would even comb my hair and try braiding it. Even though I ain’t no girl I’d let her do it cuz it’s long, and she’d tell me stories about her tricks and that voice would get behind your mind the way a song can.

  We had to quit cooking in the tent cuz Boobie almost burnt it down. He’s got this freaky thing with fire. Sometimes he’ll light a match and watch the flame drop all the way to his fingers. It don’t even faze him.

  Then one day the radio stopped working. And two weeks later all of that other homicidal shit happened with Boobie and his parents. And now we’re just in Boobie’s pops’s spray-painted Skylark, scouting pigs and raiding Dumpsters.

  So now I’m in it for the long run.

  All three of us is.

  Boobie made us make a symbolic pledge.

  I didn’t know what that meant but Curl said it was important.

  We stopped the car on this gravel road in this town called Creston. Boobie made each of us close our eyes and fall backwards. First Curl and Boobie caught me, and then me and Boobie caught Curl. It wasn’t easy catching Boobie cuz he’s so big, but we did it. Afterwards we touched tongues and put some ants in a marshmallow and ate it.

  Curl says pledges are good cuz they give you reasons to do shit.

  I guess things ain’t so wack, really.

  As long as Curl finds some birds to count.

  As long as them highway pigs don’t bust us and the baby keeps quiet, there ain’t no sense in complaining.

  The thing about babies is they’re always grabbing at your tits. This one’s all over mine like they have Strawberry Quik inside. Baby hands are tiny but they’re strong, and they know right where to grab. And always when you’re looking out the window or watching the road slinking by; always when you’re not paying no attention to them.

  And when you’re counting birds to keep busy those baby fingers are like little hot spiders crawling on you.

  I was blowing in his face earlier, just to get him to stop crying because Boobie was looking at me in the rearview mirror with all those powers in his eyes. The minute you stop blowing the baby starts squeaking like Styrofoam. And that makes that itch come and you scratch it but that doesn’t help much so you look for some birds to count but there isn’t anything in the sky but that dirty metal color.

  Those birds were there this morning.

  Forty-seven blackbirds flying like a big smile in the sky.

  I’m in the back seat with the TV and Custis is in the front looking for the police. Custis has his little skinny arms tucked in his shirt because he says it’s cold, but I’m so hot it’s like the sun’s burning in me.

  We found the TV in a Dumpster back in Rockdale. Boobie kicked out the glass and gutted it and me and Custis stuffed it with newspapers. It’s perfect for the baby because if someone looks in through the window they just think it’s some old Magnavox we bought from one of those garage sales on Theodore Street.

/>   Even though it’s only been two days it feels like we’ve been in the Skylark for forever. Boobie drives and pumps the gas and leads the Dumpster diving. When he sees something he likes he lifts Custis over the edge and tells him what to pick. You can find some pretty good stuff in a Dumpster. I found an old-fashioned typewriter once. I didn’t ever use it, but I found it and took it home and put it in my closet. Some of the junky Dumpsters have rats, but they only jump at you if you corner them.

  Before we left I made a hundred and fifty dollars tricking the trumpet player at Arlo’s Blues Lounge. Arlo’s is down in Belleville. It took like twelve hours for me and Boobie to get down there. The Greyhound bus was full of all these big sad women with dirty children. Thank God Boobie went with me because I would’ve been bored crazy. All of those little sleepy towns like Chenoa and Buffalo Hart and Farmersville just kept stretching south, and the further south we got the sleepier they were.

  Practically every person on the Greyhound was wearing a St. Louis Cardinals baseball hat. When I got off the bus my legs were so thick and sandy I almost fell down.

  It wasn’t too bad once me and Boobie got settled. We stayed in a Red Roof Inn and had continental breakfast, which was pretty decent, with Krispy Kreme donuts and granola cereal with dates.

  The next night when I left with the trumpet player Boobie was standing next to the jukebox and warning me with his eyes.

  “No bazooka,” I could feel his eyes saying to me. “None of that, Curl.”

  Besides that hundred and fifty dollars that old trumpet player didn’t have crap in his pockets but some chump change and a box of Chiclets. Old Man Turpentine’s the one who set me up with him.

  “He’ll be good to you, Curl,” he kept telling me. “You do right by him and he’ll be real good to you.”

  I didn’t even have to do nothing but bend down and blow zeros on his stomach while he masturbated himself. Old men are funny like that.

  Before we left Belleville me and Boobie ate Arby’s roast beef sandwiches, and then it was back on the bus and all the way home to Rockdale. Those sad little towns were still there with their silos and grain elevators and fields with nothing in them but black dirt and pop cans. We drove by this one grassy field that had so many cows it was like they had plans to do stuff.