33 Snowfish Read online

  Sometimes when things go quiet in the car and all you can hear is the four of us breathing, I get to thinking about my Aunty Frisco.

  Before I moved in with Boobie and Custis she started throwing her china at me because I wouldn’t come home at night. And after she broke her whole collection and didn’t have anything else to throw she started locking her lungs until she would faint and fall out of her power chair. And the day before I left she took the broom and rolled over to me and tried to sweep under my feet, and if that happens you’ll catch a curse so bad that no one will ever want to marry you. So I had to leave after that.

  I can still see her all stuffed in her power chair, angry about the Cubs losing, shaking and speed-fiending and locking her lungs and cursing at those social workers who used to come and check up on us.

  Sometimes I don’t know how I got mixed up with Boobie. I mean, I love him and I love Custis, too, even though he’s dirty and foolish and a nasty little hooligan most of the time. I guess I’m just afraid of what’s going to happen. Because you can’t run forever. There’s only so much pavement that the road makers lay down. After a while, the highway quits going north and it just turns into the sky. And you can’t go anywhere in the sky unless you have a plane or some kind of rocket.

  My Aunty Frisco used to say that if you walk through a wheat field on the first day of May you will meet your fate.

  In Bolingbrook there’s nothing but parking lots and little short buildings, but on the first day of May, I went to the Jewel and bought some Chex cereal because it has wheat in it and I went behind the Fun Shop and spread it on the ground and sat on top of it all day. That’s when things were clean and my arms were pretty. That’s when my eyes were so big you could draw them.

  Some birds came and tried to eat that Chex cereal, and I heard a fire truck go by, but other than that nothing special happened. I just sat there, waiting.

  And when the sun went down and things started getting too private inside I got Old Man Turpentine to drive me to the Speedway, and that’s where I saw Boobie staring at that fire.

  So maybe that wheat field stuff’s legit?

  And now I’m going eighty in Boobie’s dad’s Skylark, looking for blackbirds and trying to name the baby. There were forty-seven of them this morning. Forty-seven blackbirds flying like a big smile in the sky.

  I think Charles is a good name.

  Charles is good, and so is Marcus.

  Later I’ll change his diaper and feed him bananas and milk and hold him till he falls asleep. As long as he keeps those spider hands off of me I’ll be okay. As long as the sun doesn’t start burning in me too bad.

  I don’t know if I could sell my little brother. But then again I’ve never had one so I couldn’t tell you for sure.

  I guess Boobie has to do what he has to do.

  Boobie busted me watching him in Aladdin’s Castle at the Joliet Mall. I’d just skated from Bob Motley’s cuz of that film they wanted to put me in and I knew him and his crew would be hunting me.

  You can always hide good in the Aladdin’s Castle cuz of the Grand Prix game. If you’re small like me you can squeeze under the steering wheel.

  I was begging tokens from this rich nigger kid called Cato, and Boobie comes walking in all long and dark and restless with the money jangling in his pockets and them black eyes and that flowing hair and his one fingernail that he colors. I ain’t never seen no colored fingernail on no man like that before. I couldn’t help but look. Once I watched this panther at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. This man called Jimmyjack took about ten of us there from the halfway house in Lockport. That panther was from a jungle in Africa and he was pacing in his cage, back and forth, back and forth. I almost had to stop looking cuz I started getting this feeling that he was gonna freeze me with the mirrors in his eyes. When the zoo lady fed it, it opened its mouth and you could see how pointy his teeth was. For some reason, Boobie’s black fingernail was like that, too.

  I turned back to Cato, who was jacking up Glass Joe in Punchout II, and I was like, “C’mon, Cato, lemme get a token,” just to get my mind off of Boobie, and Cato was all, “Come on, yo, wait till my game’s up!” but something inside me made me look at Boobie again.

  Then all them video game sounds just sort of went quiet and my brain got all cold and for a second I thought I was gonna get one of them migration headaches.

  All I remember is that when Boobie turned and walked out of Aladdin’s Castle it felt like something inside me was gonna bust; like one of my lung bubbles was gonna pop or some shit.

  I followed Boobie through the food court and out into the parking lot. It was so boiling outside you could feel the heat coming off the cars like they was breathing. Boobie passed all them cars and started walking down the street. I know he knowed I was following him, too, cuz he turned back and seen me.

  He walked all the way past Five Corners and made that soft right onto Gaylord Drive and kept on going past the Crest Hill water tower. When he got to Rosalie’s Roller-skating Rink he turned right on the noname gravel road and went into Crazy Lou’s woods.

  You ain’t even supposed to go near them woods cuz Crazy Lou has all these Doberman pincher dogs; like skeighty-eight of them suckers. Bob Motley said Crazy Lou’s a Marine who owns them woods all to himself and that he spends all his time shooting his rifle at birds and squirrels and all these cats that he farms.

  That’s pretty messed up if you think about it: farming cats like that just so you can hunt them. I ain’t trying to say that I like cats, cuz them animals is greedy and nasty if you ask me; I’m just saying farming something just so you can hunt it don’t seem right.

  When we got into Crazy Lou’s woods there was all these NO TRESPASSING signs nailed to the trees. Boobie was laying on the ground with his arms spread wide. It looked like he was sleeping. We was pretty deep in, so the sun wasn’t coming through too crisp and the little bit of sky you could see looked all dark and bruised.

  I stood over Boobie for a minute and then I started poking him with a stick. When I told Curl about that, she said it was smart cuz it’s supposed to be bad luck to use your hand when you try to wake somebody. She says you’re supposed to use a stick or some water.

  First I poked him in the side and then I poked him in the leg and then I poked him in the hair cuz it looked all shiny and I wanted to see it move. And when it moved it felt like something inside me was moving, too, I ain’t kidding.

  I was like, “Hey . . . hey, kid. . . .”

  Then out of nowhere, Boobie reached up and grabbed my hand and put it right on his hair. He kept his eyes closed when he did that, too, like he could see what I was doing with his ears. Then he guided my hand over his hair so I could feel how shiny it was, and that shit felt shinier than most things, I tell you that.

  Boobie moved my hand up and down on his hair for like a minute. I don’t think I breathed once the whole time.

  Then he got up off the ground and he waved at me to follow him some more and I was like, “Cool,” cuz I wasn’t staying noplace noways.

  On the way out of Crazy Lou’s woods I started telling Boobie how I got busted the night before sleeping in the organ loft at St. Raymond’s Cathedral and how this evil priest with jackknife eyebrows splashed holy water on me and chased me out, going, “He will feast on the depraved!” and shit like that.

  Then when we got back onto Gaylord Drive I told Boobie how you can teach your body to sleep standing up if you practice enough; how all you got to do is find a good corner to lean up against — one that hopefully ain’t been pissed in too many times — and how you just let your weight relax into it, and about how you should put some garbage down in case you fall but how after a while your body gets them muscle senses up and you don’t fall.

  And I told Boobie about how I used to sleepstand over in this corner at the Knights of Columbus Speedway, but how sometimes it was tricky cuz once them races start it gets too noisy cuz of how them tire screams sound like cats getting fucked.
/>   And I told Boobie how I slept under that bread truck after I ran through Bob Motley’s Dumdum Hole, and I showed him the burn on my arm and how it was all scabby and skanked.

  And then once we got past Cedarwood Apartments I went quiet and Boobie just stopped and stood there for a minute and looked up at the sky, which was so black it was like God burnt it and shit, like the whole west side of Joliet was missing in that burn, like everything disappeared but the two of us.

  Then we walked up Gael Drive and past the Day-n-Night, and the mosquitoes was dropping from the street lights all greedy and fat and Boobie waved to me to keep following him and I was like, “Cool,” and then that dark sky started filling with stars and a little skinny piece of the moon and we was about to make a right on Black Road when Boobie spoke for the first time. His voice had some serious deep-freeze in it.

  He asked me who my parents was and who I belonged to and if I had any money on me and shit like that.

  First I emptied my pockets, but all that came out was some fuzz and a piece of candy corn.

  Since Bob Motley didn’t own me no more I told him how I didn’t belong to nobody and how I was just trying to make my way, and then when I tried to tell him how I couldn’t go back to that halfway house in Lockport cuz of how I got caught stealing money out of Jimmyjack’s wallet, I started throwing up brown stuff. I think it was cuz of how my stomach was all messed up from eating Kleenex and ketchup and A.1. Steak Sauce.

  Then after I spit all the brown junk out of my mouth he took my hand and held it and it felt like I was falling out of a tree, but falling without ever landing, and we didn’t say nothing else and we was just walking on Black Road and watching the cars go by. And some of them cars was honking all crazy at us and calling us faggits cuz of how Boobie was holding my hand, but that didn’t matter.

  When we got to the highway there was a baseball game going and them outfield lights was like big flying saucers in the sky. You could hear some sucker announcing the batters and the crowd cheering and that ugly metal sound the bat makes when it hits the ball.

  Just when we got past the baseball game some tall kid with a crew cut and a tattoo on his hand came walking toward us out of nowhere calling us the homo express.

  He was like, “Well, if it isn’t the Homo Express,” and when he tried to trip me Boobie busted him square in the throat.

  That tall kid had to sit down and cough into his fist for like two minutes.

  We got his shirt and his shoes and about twelve bucks from his wallet.

  After that we left him on the side of the highway and just kept walking.

  That’s when I knew Boobie was cool.

  That’s when I knew he would protect me.

  Custis and me were dancing the night Boobie showed up with the baby. I’d been promising Custis that I’d teach him because he’d get so jealous every time he saw me and Old Man Turpentine dancing in back of the Fun Shop. He’d shuffle up to me all low and sideways with those desperate eyes, going, “C’mon, Curl, teach me to dance, you know you promised.”

  So there we were, outside the tent, dancing to Britney Spears, and Boobie’s coming through the woods with a baby in his arms. The night was behind him like a big dark thing you can’t see.

  Custis was like, “Who’s that?”

  And Boobie shifted the baby in his arms and went, “My little brother.”

  “What’s his name?” Custis asked, but Boobie just shook his head.

  The General Electric radio was the only thing that let you know you weren’t dreaming. It was either Britney or Pink or that little skinny bitch who can outsing all of them. There was so much blood on Boobie’s shirt you could smell the metal in it, and it wasn’t coming from the baby, because the baby was cleaner than a Christmas card.

  The baby was making those Styrofoam sounds and Boobie was just standing there with his blackberry eyes looking scared and sad and that made me and Custis scared and sad, too, because we’d never seen Boobie like that before. It wasn’t sad like tears are sad. It was sad like the weather is sad when you think it’s spring but then one of those cold rains comes.

  I got that small feeling that gets inside you when some badness is about to happen.

  Custis started shaking because he hadn’t eaten anything all day except for this stick he kept dipping in some Hellmann’s mustard. And I had to sit down on the ground because my arms were itching so bad it was like ants were running on them.

  I couldn’t tell you what Boobie did to his parents. All I know is that there was blood on his shirt that night and according to the North Caledonia Daily Register Mr. and Mrs. Elliot Flowers are dead.

  Last night we slept at the otel Motel. The otel Motel is in this place called Little Chicago, Wisconsin. There ain’t nothing there but lakes and hills and big hairy-looking trees. In the check-in office there was this man talking about how he killed him a five-point buck. He was wearing a G.I. Joe jumpsuit and this orange hat with flaps. That hat of his was so orange it looked like it would have vitamin C in the flaps or some shit. I ain’t never heard of no five-point buck before. I kept imagining a moose with a bunch of silverware on its head.

  There was like skeighty-eight trucks in the parking lot. Strapped to the top of one of them was a dead deer. It might have been that five-point buck that that man was bragging about in the check-in office. Its eye was open and it was staring at me like it wanted to say something.

  We stayed in room 4 and it was about the best place I’ve stayed in ever. The ceiling was kind of low but there was this pretty crisp wallpaper with fish on it. The bathroom was nice, too. There was these little soaps and shampoos and mouthwash and the towels smelled like them fancy department-store towels at the Joliet Mall. Even the toilet paper had little patterns on it.

  The air conditioner was so powerful that when I held my hand over the blowhole it almost froze my fingers. It was getting cold outside so we didn’t really need it, but me and Curl stuck it on anyway just cuz we could.

  After the room got nice and cool, Curl fed the baby and gave him a bath. You could hear the water sprinkling and the baby splashing and Curl keeping his hands off of her titties, going, “Quit! Quit you!”

  Later Curl and Boobie went to tip the vending machines and I left the room to go hunt change in the parking lot. I made sure the baby was sleeping before I skated. I even put a washcloth under his head and folded it up like a pillow.

  It felt good just to walk around. I was weaving between all the trucks and checking the doors to see if they was open, cuz sometimes suckers will leave their toll money in one of them drink holders next to the panic brake and shit.

  There was about skeighty-eight different license plates in that parking lot: Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, and a bunch of others, too.

  The truck with the dead deer was gone. For some reason I missed it. I couldn’t stop imagining it riding down the highway with its neck all flopping around.

  Way in the back of the parking lot there was this big-ass Winnebago fun home. It was white with a blue stripe, and it looked like if you went inside of it you wouldn’t have to come back out for like ten years.

  The only truck that was open was this old, rusty-ass Ford Ranger. When I looked inside all I could see was a box of Kleenex and some of them yellow and green deodorant trees hanging from the rearview mirror.

  It was getting kind of cold out, but the sun was blasting down and it felt warm on my neck. For some reason I opened the door to the Ford Ranger and slid into the front seat. I found three dimes and a penny in the glove compartment. I also found this picture of a man holding a dead deer. He was lifting the deer up by its neck and smiling like he just won the Illinois Lotto and shit. The deer looked pretty bored.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about that other deer I seen in the parking lot and how its eye was all open even though it was dead. You gotta wonder if animals go anywhere after they get killed. Like their souls and shit.

  Back in that Streator chur
ch basement Sister Blister was always talking about the shape of your soul. She’d be like, “Your soul’s not in very good shape, Custis. Not in good shape at all.”

  I wonder what the shape of that deer’s soul is like. I bet it’s all wack and infested cuz of the woods. There’s probably like skeighty-eight flies buzzing around it.

  I stuffed the picture down my pants and got out of the truck.

  Back in the room there was this little kid sitting on the end of the bed. He was like six or seven or some shit and he had this Milwaukee Brewers baseball cap pulled down over his ears and he was wearing this puffy red coat that was too big and he was sitting on his hands and kind of rocking back and forth like he was about to piss himself.

  He wasn’t wearing no pants and his legs was all cold and wack-looking, like they would break if you bent them too hard. He was so short his feet wasn’t even touching the floor.

  His underwears was green with white checkers.

  I closed the door and was like, “Who the fuck are you?”

  He went, “Bruce.”

  “Bruce who?”

  “Bruce Maloney.”

  I was like, “Whatchu doin’ in here, Bruce Maloney?”

  “Waitin’.”

  “Waitin’ for what?”

  “This man.”

  I was like, “What man?”

  “Reggie.”

  “Oh.”

  I knew it was Boobie, cuz that’s the name he uses when he’s trying to be sneaky.

  “Where’d he go?” I asked.

  Bruce was like, “I dunno.”

  I pulled the curtains back and looked out at the parking lot. I could hear Bruce’s tennis shoes squeaking.

  I went, “Where’d you meet him?”

  “We were playin’ Ninja Destroyer in the game room. He just left with the TV. He said there was a dog in it.”

  “A dog?”

  “A golden retriever puppy. He wouldn’t let me pet it, though, cuz it was sick.”

  I was like, “You got any money?”