33 Snowfish

by Adam Rapp

  He went, “Nu-uh.”

  “You don’t got no quarters?”

  “No.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “I got a Junior.”

  I was like, “You got a who?”

  “It’s in my pocket, but you gotta get it.”

  I was like, “Why do I gotta get it?”

  “Cuz my hands are tied.”

  He tried to show me his hands, but he was sitting on them.

  I went into one of the pockets of his puffy red coat and pulled out this little clear plastic case that had a baseball card in it. There was this nigger’s face on the card and he had these big white smiley teeth that looked like they was painted that way. It said “Ken Griffey Jr.” at the bottom of the card.

  Then he went, “I’ll let you touch it if you untie me.”

  I was like, “I’m touchin’ it right now.”

  Then he said, “I mean the card, not the plastic. The shiny part. You gotta open the case with a penny.”

  Then he tried lifting his knees, and I could see how his kicks didn’t have no laces in them and how his ankles was tied to the bottom of the bed frame with the laces.

  He was like, “I got a gun, too.”

  I went, “You got a gat, and I piss nickels.”

  “It’s in my other pocket,” he said. “Look.”

  Then I went into the other pocket of his puffy red coat and pulled out this wack little plastic gun that had a light bulb on the end of it. When I pulled the trigger it lit up like a Christmas tree and in this stupid-ass robot voice it went, “You are completely surrounded. Come out with your hands up!”

  He was like, “You want it?”

  I went, “That shit is wack, kid,” and put it back in his pocket. “You wanna see a real gat, I’ll show you a real gat.”

  Then I unsnapped the big pocket on the side of my pants and pulled it out.

  “See there?” I said, putting it on his cheek. “This is some real shit.”

  I popped it open and showed him the bullets and then I spun it in my hand Wild-West style and put it back in my pocket.

  Bruce’s legs was sort of shaking. I started pacing a little cuz his knees was wiggling and it was making me feel funny.

  For some reason Bruce went, “Bet I could hypmotize you. Make you do the macaroni dance.”

  I was like, “What the fuck is the macaroni dance?”

  He went, “Untie me and I’ll show you. I hypmotize Bluster all the time and he does the macaroni dance.”

  “Who’s Bluster?”

  “My German shepherd. He eats potato salad and burps in the bed.”

  For some reason, picturing his dog eating some potato salad was making me hungry, so I was like, “You got any food?”

  “That man already took it. I had two boxes of Hot Tamales and a purple gobstopper. I could get more if you let me go.”

  I went, “Get more from where?”

  “The Winnebago.”

  I was like, “That fun home is yours?”

  “Yep.”

  Then I looked out the window again and there it was in the back of the lot, looking all white and perfect.

  I was like, “That ain’t yours.”

  “It is so. We got a Yamaha snowmobile, too.”

  “Where your parents?”

  “They’re eating salad bars at the Wagon Wheel.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Oconomowoc.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Down by Milwaukee.”

  There was some snots running down his chin. I almost went over and wiped them but it was too skanky-looking.

  I was like, “That coat’s too big for you.”

  He said, “I’ll grow into it.”

  “It’s warm, ain’t it.”

  He was like, “It’s got antifreeze inside.”

  I went, “Antifreeze?”

  “So you don’t freeze.”

  I went, “You give it to me, maybe I’ll start thinkin’ about lettin’ you go.”

  I went over and untied his hands. They was all trapped under his legs but I busted them knots loose pretty easy.

  Up close he smelled like popcorn and grape gum.

  Then he took off his puffy red coat and gave it to me. Underneath his coat he was wearing a red sweater with snowflakes on it.

  I was like, “You like that color, ain’t it?”

  He went, “Red’s my favorite. I like blue, too.”

  Then Bruce sort of hugged himself for a minute and went, “I seen some policemen before, so you guys better be careful.”

  I was like, “Where?”

  “In the game room. They were buying cigarettes from the machine.”

  I put his coat on and looked in the mirror. It fit me nice and tight. I could feel that antifreeze stuff heating up pretty crisp, too.

  I was like, “Looks good, right?”

  Bruce went, “It looks better on me.”

  When I peeked through the curtains there was a brown Impala in the parking lot. It had a Wisconsin State Police sign on the door. It was way off to the left where you would miss it if you didn’t look hard enough. The color brown is like that. Maybe it’s cuz that’s the color of mud and dog shit.

  When I turned back around little Bruce was picking his nose.

  I was like, “Where’s your pants, anyway?”

  “Reggie took ’em off and then he put my shoes back on. He said we were gonna play a game.”

  I went, “What game?”

  Bruce said, “The no-pants game. He took my shoes but he traded them back to me for the gobstopper. He was about to give me my pants for the Hot Tamales, too, but this girl came in the room and then they left with the puppy. She was real dirty-looking.”

  I looked down at his kicks. They was black Adidas soccer shoes.

  I was like, “What size you wear?”

  “Four in a half.”

  “You play soccer?”

  “No, but I’m gonna.”

  I was like, “You’re lucky they’re too small; I’d take them joints, too.”

  Bruce kinda put one shoe one top of the other after I said that.

  Then I went, “Them underwears is the wackest shit I ever seen.”

  “They were my Uncle Skyler’s. He lives in Canada and he can hold his breath underwater longer than anyone.”

  I went, “They look like somethin’ a nigger would wear.”

  Then he was like, “You’re gonna go to hell.”

  I was like, “You don’t know shit.”

  I looked out the window at that brown Impala. There was a pig in it this time. He was hanging his arm out the window and smoking a cigarette. I turned back to Bruce and he was wiggling his knees again.

  I went, “You gotta diarrhea or somethin’?”

  He was like, “No.”

  “Then why you so scared?”

  “I’m not skeert.”

  “Yes you is. Faggit.”

  “I’m not a faggit.”

  “Faggit faggit faggit.”

  Then he told me I was going to hell again.

  He was like, “You’re going straight to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.”

  I went, “If you so rich how come you wearin’ someone else’s underwears?”

  Bruce was like, “I dunno,” and wiped his chin again.

  “Your parents is cheap.”

  “They give me quarters for Ninja Destroyer. I can get to the fourth level.”

  “I should go over to the Wagon Wheel and shoot ’em. Cheap bitches.”

  Then Bruce started crying. His knees was wiggling even faster now, like he was pissing in his little checkered underwears. I just stood by the mirror and watched him for a minute. He made these little honking noises like a duck or some shit.

  I went, “Don’t be such a pussy, Bruce.”

  He was like, “I’m not a pussy,” and just kept crying.

  Then I saw his pants all bunched in the corner by the real TV. They was these
clean blue corduroys, and when you touched them it was like you was touching one of those chairs you sit in at the movies. I went over and grabbed them and untied his wrists and ankles and helped him put them on. To tell you the truth, for a second I thought about taking them corduroys, but I kept looking at how sad and small his legs was and how his underwears was bunched funny and how he kept covering his face with his hands. Then, for some reason, he put his arms around my legs and I could feel them shaking through my pants.

  That shit was kind of wack, but it was making me sad so I kind of put my hand on his Milwaukee Brewers hat and pushed it down further over his ears. Then I told him to stop being a pussy again and to go and he kept wanting to give me that baseball card with the nigger on it, but I kept thinking how you can’t really do nothing with no baseball card, so I was like, “No,” and shit.

  “Please,” he said. “Please take it.”

  I was like, “Okay,” and let him make me keep it. He didn’t even ask for his phony-ass space gun.

  I kept his puffy red coat, too, cuz it was getting cold out and that antifreeze was working even better than it was when I first put it on.

  “Here, take this,” I said, handing him that picture of the deer I took from the truck.

  Bruce looked at it for a second and went, “You still want me to hypmotize you?”

  I was like, “No.”

  “You still want me to get you some food. I got more gobstoppers. I got Slim Jims, too.”

  Even though that shit would have tasted pretty good I was like, “Just go.”

  Then he did this little shuffle step with his feet and squatted kind of low and popped back up.

  I was like, “What was that?”

  “Macaroni dance. It’s better with music.”

  Then he turned and left.

  When I closed the door behind him it was like he disappeared and shit. I stood there for a minute and looked at the wallpaper. Them fish seemed different every time you looked at them, I swear. They was all dressed up in suits and capes and shit. Some of them had dancing canes and some of them had fancy haircuts and some of them was playing sexophones.

  After a minute I went over to the window and pulled back the curtain again, but Bruce was gone. He probably ran all the way to the Wagon Wheel. His parents probably didn’t even notice he was gone cuz they was too busy stuffing their faces at the salad bar.

  All I could see was them trucks and that big white Winnebago fun home.

  The brown Impala was gone, though, and that was a good sign. The sun was getting weak and everything was starting to look like metal.

  Later I ate some Utz cheese and crackers that Curl got from the vending machines and we watched the real TV. It was a Trinitron and it had a pretty crisp remote.

  Boobie wanted to watch the Weather Channel cuz he said we needed to stay ahead of the storm. I didn’t hear nothing about no storm, but Boobie was convinced that there was one coming.

  Then, a few minutes later, this lady with big white teeth kept talking about early snow and how it might be the biggest snowfall in northern Wisconsin history.

  Boobie kept pulling the curtain back cuz I told him about that brown Impala with the Wisconsin State Police sign on the door and how the pig was smoking with his arm all hanging out the window and shit.

  Boobie didn’t look like he was doing too good, cuz his eyes was all big and scared and he kept staring at me. It was one of them stares that makes you feel like you got glass in your stomach. I just kept studying them fish and snapping and unsnapping my gat pocket. You could still hear Curl keeping the baby’s hands away from her titties and you could hear the air conditioner and you could hear trucks parking and not-parking and you could hear that lady with the big white teeth talking on the TV.

  My new puffy red coat was looking pretty crisp, though. I had to lie to Boobie about Bruce. I told him that while I was taking a shit I heard the door close and when I came back out Bruce was gone but his coat was there; that he probably had to wiggle out of it to get them shoelaces untied. Then I showed him that baseball card with the nigger on it and I showed him Bruce’s talking space gun and Boobie just looked at that stuff and shook his head. Then he smoked a Basic and lit another and when he was finished with the second one he started pushing his fist in his eye.

  Part of me wanted to go in the bathroom with Curl cuz the way he kept pushing his fist into his eye was making everything feel all small and fast like in a dream when you’re getting chased but you keep falling.

  I started doing a thirty-three in my head.

  First I counted too quick and I was skipping numbers and shit, but I slowed down after I got to twelve.

  For some reason I kept thinking about how things was good back in the tent and how the woods was like our crib and shit. But then I started hearing the road hissing by but it wasn’t the road outside the otel Motel, it was the road that was going under the Skylark. And it wasn’t just the road that already hissed, it was all the roads that was about to hiss when we’d start driving again. It was like that hiss was just part of everything now.

  Then I started thinking about that newspaper article me and Curl seen when we was buying Boobie’s Basics in North Caledonia and that hiss got bigger.

  For a minute I thought it was gonna change into a migration headache, but it didn’t. It just stayed a hiss and Boobie just kept sitting there pushing his fist into his eye.

  When that antifreeze started getting too hot I took my puffy red coat off and hung it over a chair. I could feel Boobie’s big dark eyes on me.

  For some reason, I pulled the covers back and got in the bed. The sheets was all cool and clean. You could smell the feathers in the pillows.

  I asked Boobie if he was okay, but he just turned back to the window.

  I thought about Bruce for a while; how he was in that Winnebago fun home and how he was probably sitting at the kitchen table, eating Count Chocula cereal or some shit. It was like he was still talking to me.

  “You’re going directly to hell,” he was saying. “Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.”

  I woke up behind the otel Motel. At first I didn’t know where I was. All I could see was them big hairy trees and a Dumpster. There was so many stars they was making the sky look purple. The moon was like one of them Rockdale movie perverts breathing on you.

  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.