The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady (6 page)

“So are you excited, honey?” Mom asked.

“I guess . . .”

“New place, new friends . . . new girls . .
.” she teased me.

“I don’t think that’s what this Institution
of Elements place is about, Mom.”

“It’s a school, honey; schools always have
girls and friends. Provided you don’t beat them up and get kicked
out.” Hmm. This was a serious realization for little shit me. No
fighting.
No fighting
. And if I did get in a fight we’d both
probably be mancers. I got so excited at the thought I think I
popped a boner—and one of those
just-woke-up-from-sleeping-can-cut-metal boners too. Either that or
it was me watching the lemonade girl with a tight shirt pushing up
and down on her wooden masher stick.

Hard call.

“I’ll try to be good, Mom.”

“I know you will, honey.”

We ate in silence for a bit before Mom
opened up. “I know it hasn’t been easy on you. Your sisters leaving
. . . your father working more hours and me getting . . . well . .
. it’s been hard on you. Lots of kids would have turned out much
worse from less, and . . . I’m proud of you, King Henry.”

I tried so damn hard to be tough and not
start crying. I couldn’t keep it all in. My eyes leaked like broken
facets . . . drip, drip, drip. These tiny tears that just collected
up on my cheeks and wouldn’t fall. Part of it was being happy that
maybe deep down Mom actually knew what it’s like to live with her,
part of it was pure burning anger that she fucking
dared
to
give me a speech after all those years of crap.

The emotion shifted some anima around in a
purely stone-hard, rock-solid, geomancer kind of way and a fat guy
sitting down on the other side of the food court with a pair of
cheeseburgers got a nasty surprise when his metal
stuck-to-the-table chair broke clean away from the table half of
the equation.

Mom mistook the look of shock on my face for
something having to do with her and stepped over to give me a hug.
“I’m going to miss my little man, honey.”

The fat guy got up with soda all over him,
throwing a pudgy kick at the broken chair like it was at fault.
Amazing
. “Yeah, Mom, I’ll miss you too.”

Fifty-fifty on if that was a lie or not. I
guess I don’t know how I felt, or how I feel even today. Hard
things emotions. We keep them so bottled up, they mix and combine
like alchemic elixirs and become feelings we don’t even have words
for. Yearning for something else. But I didn’t have a name for
it.

“You promise to write me?”

I nodded my head. Now
that
was a
lie.

[CLICK]

I’d had about as much Mom Time as I could
handle, so when we got home I locked myself in my room, packing.
Packing was pretty much taking all the new stuff I had and throwing
it in the equally new suitcase. I added some extra comics just in
case the car ride to the Institution of Elements place was really
long, change of clothes too . . . just to be sure I didn’t arrive
naked.

Hell if I knew how to pack.

I’d only been on one overnight trip in my
life—to my grandma’s when I was five, and only to Fresno. Hour
ride, whoop-tee-do. We didn’t even know anything was wrong with Mom
then . . . Dad had just called her ‘
fiery
’.

Mom sat at the couch, being
fiery
with a rum and coke when I finally left my room. 3PM. Late start
for Mom. “You all packed, honey?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled while pouring myself a
coke sans rum.

“Miss Dale called.” Mom was watching a soap
opera. I wonder how many women have been turned into alcoholics by
soap operas over the years? Maybe they should have a warning sign
like cigarettes.

“What she say?” There’s something inherently
scary behind the thought that Ceinwyn Dale had my phone number.

“Just wanted to make sure you were being
good and not running away. Nice woman.”

“Still here . . .”

“I see that, honey.”

“Actually, Mom, I think you were right, I’m
going to go ride and say goodbye to my friends.”

“Just
friends
?”

“Mom!”

“A mother can hope, can’t she?”

I pulled my bike out of the garage and
headed for the girlfriend’s. My bike had come via hand-me-down from
my middle sister—Jordan Josephine Price, Mom sure could name
them—and it was a girly bike. Pink. At first I’d planned to repaint
it with spiders and snakes and guy stuff, but after awhile I saw
the upside. Pink bike? More reason for fights! Besides, with all
the mud caked on it you could hardly tell.

The girlfriend greeted me at her door after
I’d checked to see if her mom was working. The girlfriend is named
Sally. She was taller than me by about five inches, had black hair
she always kept in a ponytail, and had big tits. Which is what
fourteen-year-old-me really liked about her. I was deep back then.
To be fair, I also liked that her house was in a better part of
town and was clean.

She and her mom lived without a man around,
prison followed by abandonment, but the United States government
stepped in to help out and it was a very nice little house.
Complete with air conditioning. Glorious, glorious AC. We had vents
at school but being in a stuffy class ain’t the same as sitting in
front of a pouring stream of cold air during the summer time.

Tell you the truth, fourteen-year-old-me
could never figure out what Sally saw in him. She got decent
grades, had friends she didn’t beat up every other time she saw
them and I wasn’t much of a catch looks wise. I’m not an ugly guy
outside of a broken nose, but I’m not handsome either, and fuck,
man, I was just around the upside of five feet tall.

Besides her big tits I liked that she liked
me. That was the crux of what I liked about Sally. Big tits, nice
house with AC, and liked me for some unknown reason. Fucking
deep.

Twenty-one-year-old me could fill
fourteen-year-old-me in on some info, like how Sally became a
stripper working for some bad people, and that she had some serious
daddy insecurity issues that left her seeking out the baddest,
toughest guy she could find to shack up with, and at the time . . .
hello, King Henry Price, you pugnacious little shit. But since
twenty-one-year-old me doesn’t have a time machine,
fourteen-year-old-me was screwed and left in a cave of wonder
regarding Sally.

She hugged me at the door but then turned
colder than her AC. She’d heard from a friend that worked in the
principal’s office about me leaving the school. And, of course, was
mad I hadn’t told her.

“I didn’t know until yesterday. It was all
last minute, baby.” Baby. If a guy ever calls you
baby
then
kick him in the balls. He’s an asshole.

“And you’re just
leaving
?” Sally
crossed her arms under her tits when she was mad. It’s distracting.
Way worse than hot dog girl.

“My parents are making me,” I focused.

“This is because you get into fights, I know
it!”

“You
like
that I get in fights.”

“Well . . . not anymore. Not if you have to
leave. Can’t you promise not to fight and stay?”

Not fighting, not learning the Mancy, all to
stay with the girlfriend. Why didn’t she just ask me to sacrifice
my left nut like Lance Armstrong? “They already signed the
paperwork, baby.”

She huffed. She had
a lot
to
huff.

“Well . . . how long do you have to go to
this place?”

“Like four years.”
At least
. . . I
left out.

“Four years!”

“I know . . . it totally sucks.” We should
be clear if you haven’t figured it out: at this point
fourteen-year-old-me knew he was going to forget Sally existed the
next day and was just looking for a way to end the relationship
without kicking and screaming . . . okay, maybe a little
screaming.

“Kingy!” I know, fucking ‘
Kingy
’. And
Ceinwyn wonders why I didn’t have stamina at that point in my life.
You try going at it with a girl that’s screaming “Yes, Kingy, yes!”
Of course I didn’t last. I was trying too hard not to laugh.

“I know, baby. I just . . . came over to
tell you goodbye, and that I love you, and that I’m going to miss
you a lot.” One out of three ain’t bad.

“Oh, Kingy!” And another hug.

Followed by kissing.

Followed by undressing.

Followed by a super-duper, amazing, never
before accomplished in my life,
ten
minute grunting and
humping session. Take
that
Ceinwyn Dale! Hell, I think the
girlfriend might have even felt something that time. She sure was
yelling ‘
Kingy
’ enough.

While Sally was cleaning up our amazing
contraception practices, I used the break from her to get some
clothes back on and borrow her laptop. Mr. Brett’s flash drive
wasn’t even protected. I rummaged through it. Memos. Short stories
from college when he thought he could become a sci-fi writer like
all the other loser geeks out there. Divorce documents. Couple of
movie files of some pornstar tied to a bed.

Promising.

Second set of divorce documents. Pictures of
his house. Pictures at the school. Pictures of his poodle—Mr.
Tibbs. Pictures of Mr. Brett in glow-in-the-dark latex with his ass
cheeks hanging out getting spanked by my algebra teacher Mrs.
Allison.

Win.

Massive win.

Sent to the entire Redwood High directory.
Oh yes. Bridges be burning down.

Picking up her cell-phone, I did another bad
thing and snuck a picture of Sally, still naked and cleaning up in
the bathroom, totally unaware of my actions.

I sent it to her mother’s phone with a
suggestion to buy her daughter birth control. Maybe
bad
is
too harsh on fourteen-year-old-me. Sally never got pregnant in high
school at least. That’s got to be a good deed . . . even though she
didn’t get pregnant during all of freshman year because she got
grounded . . .

My relationship decidedly over and my
humanitarian work done, I dressed the rest of the way and gave
Sally one last kiss before leaving. She wanted me to stay for a
while longer, but I didn’t want to be around when she picked up the
return phone call from her mother.

I wouldn’t talk to Sally again until after I
graduated as an Artificer. I was a much different person by
then.

I used a condom.

. . . What?

[CLICK]

I got home just after Dad did again. He was
out smoking in the backyard, watering with a spray hose. Cooler
than the day before, maybe ninety something, but that’s still hot.
Dad didn’t seem to mind. Joint in one hand, hose in the other, he
twisted himself around in a circle with his shirt off, chest
covered with graying hair.

The water made the backyard shimmer. Made it
cooler too. Almost bearable. Central Valley summers. Fuck, I hated
them. Fuck, I wasn’t going to miss them. Fuck, why did I move back
when I graduated?

“Where you been, boy?” Dad asked, taking a
draw afterward.

I figured, what the hell, eh? “Gave the
girlfriend a goodbye present.”

Dad’s hose sprayed erratically for a second
before he got it under control. “Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“You safe, boy?”

“Yeah.” I thought I was.

“Huh.” Dad focused on our only tree. A big
willow that made great shade. “Since you’re opening up for once,
what girl?”

“Sally Hendrickson.” I smiled at her
name.

“Not bad, boy.”

“Thanks.”

“Too good for you.”

“Yeah . . . true, true.”

“Your mother was too good for me.”

“Dad . . .”

“She was . . . she
is
, I mean. Don’t
hate your mom for being sick, she can’t help it. Remember what she
was like before all this.”

Not knowing what to say to that, I filled in
with, “We shopped and had lunch today.”

Dad looked me in the eye. He always looked
you in the eye. “You sure you want to go with this Kind-Wind Dale
woman?”
Kind-Wind
, that’s exactly how he said it. Maybe he
thought she was part Indian or something. “Got me, got your mom,
got your girlfriend . . . we can still say no. You could do good in
school here just as easy if you put your mind to it instead of your
fists.”

It wasn’t a lot, but it was
something
. I was tempted to call it off but for one thing.
I made a chair crack in two
. “I gotta go, Dad.”

Dad nodded, matter decided. “Just know, boy,
that you can’t run away from your head. Thoughts, feelings, that’s
all going to go with you. All that stuff is tied around you too
tight to get away from it by running. People think they can . . .
can’t do it.”

“Ain’t about that no more, Dad. Ceinwyn Dale
. . . she told me some things about me that made sense. I got to
find out the rest, ya know?”

“Kind-Wind Dale . . . that woman sure is . .
.
different
. . . but your mother trusts her.”

“Really?”

“Yup. How about that, eh?” Dad finished the
joint and turned the hose off. “Your mother don’t trust any woman,
boy, not even your grandmother, but she trusts Dale to keep you
safe. How about that?”

“Guess I’ll try to trust her too.” As far as
I could spit on her.

Dad gave me a hug of his own, much more like
a wrestling hold than a hug. “Why don’t you get in the kitchen and
start chopping up onions and peppers while I take my shower? I’m
thinking for my King’s going away he’s going to have his favorite
mole enchiladas for dinner.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure thing, boy, sure thing.”

The Fog was thick as sewer water by the time
my shop neared closing. T-Bone had left after busting my balls over
my display of particularly delicate glasswork, some in shapes of
animals, others like mythological creatures. Good thing he didn’t
know I made them myself. Back off me, I learned it for a girl . .
.