33 Snowfish (8 page)

I was laying on a old torn-up mattress that was left next to the Dumpster. I was wearing my Pro Flyers and Bruce’s puffy red coat, but other than that I was naked.

The last thing I remembered was how Curl pulled the baby out of the TV cuz he wouldn’t stop crying and how crowded we all was in the bed and how them feathers in the pillows was smelling all clean and powdery.

As soon as I stood up I knew I had a migration headache. It was like I got stabbed in the brain. I walked around to the front. I had to use my hand to push off the side of the Dumpster for balance. When I saw the pink otel Motel sign blinking it hurt my eyes so bad I almost fell against the Coke machine.

There wasn’t nobody back in the room and all of the sudden everything started to feel like it was going too fast. I found my pants under the chair and pulled them over my Pro Flyers. My gat was still in the leg pocket so that was a good sign.

At first I thought Boobie and Curl skated cuz the room felt all big and empty and them wallpaper fish looked all evil like they was laughing at me, so I started crying like a little bitch, like Winnebago Bruce from Oconomowoc. But after a minute I saw the keys to the Skylark on top of the baby’s TV and I cooled out.

I sat on the end of the bed for a minute. My migration headache was pounding. All you could hear was some cars hissing down the highway. It was like they was hissing right through my brain meat.

I went into the bathroom and grabbed a toothpaste cup and skated. I had to be careful cuz at the other end of the otel Motel there was all this broken glass on the sidewalk.

I walked up to each door and put my toothpaste cup against it like they do in the movies. All you could hear was people snoring and shifting around in their beds.

In room 6B there was some light coming through a crack in the curtain and you could hear voices. I put my toothpaste cup right up against the window.

Even though I had that migration headache I could hear pretty good.

First you could hear Curl, and then you could hear this man whose voice sounded like some furniture getting dragged across the floor. I couldn’t tell if Curl was laughing or crying.

I started to feel like if I kept listening I would get stuck there, so I left.

Back in our room I locked myself in the bathroom. The bathroom’s the only place you can go if you ever want to feel okay, cuz toilets make you feel safe cuz of how cool the water feels when you float your hand in them.

I used to do that at the Rockdale post office when I’d get scared. I’d just creep into a stall and float my hand and it always made me feel better.

But back in Little Chicago, even though I was floating my hand in the toilet, my face kept getting hotter and everything kept going all sweaty and spinning, and then my stomach started screaming, but I couldn’t eat them screams cuz that migration headache was messing with my insides. The next thing I knew I was spitting up yellow. It looked like this Mr. Clean stuff I used to use to mop Old Man Turpentine’s Fun Shop floor and it tasted like paint and it burped out of me for about five minutes.

After that yellow junk stopped coming out of me I just sat down on the floor and did some thirty-threes.

Curl’s voice was in the room now, going, “Quit! Quit, you!”

You could hear the baby squeaking, too. Them voices mixing with my thirty-threes started to make everything slow down.

Then the door closed and Curl got all quiet.

You could hear Boobie now, too. He asked Curl where she was. His voice was all deep and quiet so you could barely hear it. Curl just said how she wasn’t
nowhere
and then everything went dead for a minute and my mind got stuck trying to figure out how the baby got back in the room. Boobie must have been trying to sell him in the parking lot while Curl was working that man in room 6B.

Then Curl told Boobie how she got some money and you could hear him smack her.

Curl started going, “No, Boobie, no!” and “I got twenty thick, Boobie. Twenty thick!” and then there was them sounds that fists make when they bust a face and some furniture moving and something up against the door and then something falling off the dresser and crashing and Curl eating her crying and then everything went dead again.

When I came out, Curl was standing next to the Trinitron and she was leaning funny and she was chewing gum all slow and ugly. She was wearing my Pro Flyer that fell off and holding her face and she was only like six inches away from the wall. She was chewing that gum so hard it was like it was the only thing keeping her from leaving. Her sunflower dress was all crooked and you could see the twenty dollars from her trick scattered on the floor.

For some reason Curl kept reaching up and touching the wallpaper. It was like the only thing that she knew was them fish. And she was all quiet and lopsided like she gets after she does some bazooka. Curl’s eyes was so big it was like she got turned into a
doll
.

I walked over to her and put my hand on her arm.

She went, “Hey, Custis,” and kept chewing her gum.

I was like, “Hey,” and just stood there.

The curtains was twisted and the mattress was half off the bed and the Bible was spread in the middle of the floor like a smashed bird. Curl just kept staring at the wallpaper.

The baby was crying but I couldn’t see him.

Curl reached over and grabbed my hand.

She went, “You sleep okay?”

I just nodded and kept looking for the baby’s TV.

Then she went, “You hungry?” and her voice sounded like it was trapped in a French fry bag.

I was like, “I’m okay.”

Then Curl went, “You goin’ back to bed?” but I didn’t answer and you could tell she didn’t really care cuz she was too busy staring at the wallpaper.

Some car lights shined in the room and lit up them wallpaper fish. Somehow them wallpaper fish looked scared, too.

Then I saw the baby’s TV. It was turned over on the other side of the bed and it was cracked and the baby wasn’t in it but you could still hear it crying.

Then Curl talked again. She went, “Tomorrow we’re gonna go swimming in the pool, ain’t we, Boobie?” but Boobie wasn’t even there.

Curl went, “They got a swimming pool out back. And the water’s bluer than blue.”

She said the water was so blue she seen a
quarter
in it, and then she gave me my Pro Flyer. Her foot just sort of kicked it toward me like it had its own brain and shit.

Some more car lights shined into the room and that’s when I saw the baby. He was underneath the bed in his shitted diaper, and his arms and legs was all swimming out like one of them Des Plaines River turtles that gets flipped on its back.

Then Boobie came back in the room with a big book of matches. I looked at him and then down at the baby. Boobie’s face was so still it looked painted.

I went, “Hey, Boobie.”

He didn’t say nothing back so I was like, “Hey, Boobie, you okay?” but he just kept staring.

Then for some reason I went, “You got any gum?”

I don’t know why I said that shit. I think it’s cuz I could smell how sweet Curl’s breath was.

Then Boobie came over to us and opened Curl’s mouth and took her gum and he put it in
my
mouth and held his hand over my face and made me chew. It tasted like spit and it tasted purple and it tasted kind of like a pencil, too.

Then Boobie went into the bathroom and started lighting matches.

That’s when I reached under the bed and got the baby. He grabbed onto my thumb and wouldn’t let go. The seam in his forehead was dirty so I cleaned it with some spit, and then I bounced him in my arms and sang that “Hushabye Mountain” song till he stopped crying.

You could smell the matches burning in the bathroom pretty thick.

I was like, “Curl, you smell that?” but she didn’t answer. She was too busy staring at the wallpaper.

When Boobie came out of the bathroom that book of matches was burning right in his hand. He walked a few steps and then he dropped it in the middle of the bed and it caught fire and he just stood there and watched it for a minute. Curl kept watching the wallpaper fish and I was frozen with the baby. After a minute the feathers in the pillows was on fire, too, and they was flying all over the room like electric snow.

When the fire started crawling off the bed and onto the floor, the alarm went off. Boobie grabbed the baby’s TV and pulled Curl toward the door.

Everything was all wack for a second, but I had the baby and I had my red puffy coat and I had both of my Pro Flyers.

It only took us like twenty seconds to get back in the Skylark.

I was glad I had that puffy red coat, cuz it was getting seriously cold out.

When we pulled away from the parking lot I looked back at our room. You could see how that electric snow was falling across the window. You could see the little otel Motel sign blinking pink and you could see how them flames in room 4 was already licking up the curtains.

My Aunty Frisco used to say

that a man who hits a dog

is likely to kick it in a month.

The snow’s coming down sideways. Curl says
horizontal
but I just say sideways cuz it’s easier to say. I think horizontal is the biggest word she knows. And she says it all slow, too, just to make it sound fancy.

We’ve been living in the van for a week. It ain’t nothing like the tent. It ain’t even like the Skylark. It’s just a old, torn-up school van that don’t got no tires. It’s so old it ain’t even yellow no more. It’s just this wack non-color.

Most of the windows is smashed and all of the back seats is missing. The inside smells like one of them dead refrigerators from Renfro Park. The whole van leans to the left kind of lopsided like it’s trying to listen to them other cars hissing on the highway.

We sleep at the back end, where the van don’t lean too bad. We found some couch cushions behind this furniture store off of Highway 227. When you line them cushions up right it ain’t so bad. But when they spread apart that crooked metal floor feels like a brick in the middle of your back.

For a table we flipped a paint can and stuck a stop sign on top. It gets bumped every time Boobie skates for his Basics, but it makes you feel like it’s a official crib. It’s like there ain’t no real life inside a place if you don’t got no table.