33 Snowfish (11 page)

Curl was in the back under the curtains. She was shaking all fast and electric and clawing at her fingers and her eyes was froggier than ever and it looked like she wasn’t getting no air.

Her breath was leaking out of her mouth the way smoke leaks out of a ashtray and it was leaking so slow you could see it bending to the left. The light in her eyes looked like it was fading, too. She just kept shaking and trying to not-shake and you could hear that lung frost killing her.

Boobie pulled back the newspapers cuz the paint smell was so strong. That’s how them flakes was drifting into the van. But with Curl’s lung frost going double and the baby’s TV getting colder, the snow floating in the van didn’t seem right.

The can of black spray paint we used on the Skylark was rolling around on the floor and the top was off.

At first I thought Curl was breathing them paint fumes to get lifted. But then I looked on the walls and there was all these little spray paint drawings. I couldn’t tell what them drawings was cuz they was mostly squiggles.

I went to the back of the van and sat down next to Curl and gave her that brown paper bag with the old nigger’s pie in it. That fish was still on her face looking spookier than ever. She just stared at the piece of apple pie with them big froggy eyes and shook her head. You could tell she wanted to eat it just by the way her eyes got big. But it was like something inside wouldn’t let her. Something that didn’t have nothing to do with bazooka or lung frosts or getting lifted. It was like
God
wouldn’t let her eat that pie — like he took her stomach away and stuck a dead snake in it instead.

After a minute her big froggy eyes just closed and she swallowed this little swallow and you could see the muscles jumping in her throat.

She kept falling asleep and trying to not-sleep and that froggy heartbeat in her eye kept going slower and slower.

I just sat real close to her and watched how the van was snowing.

Once Curl opened her eyes and we both smiled cuz it was like we got psychic for a second, and even though that thought we shared was kinda sad and kinda scary and had something to do with how that froggy heartbeat in her eye kept going slower and slower and how that lung frost poison was sinking deeper in her, it was still cool cuz we shared it.

The next time Curl opened her eyes I offered her the pie again, but she just waved it off like before.

Then I told her about the old nigger’s little rickety farm and how I tried to steal the chicken and how I had to clean his yard and how I kept slipping and how I got snow all up in my crack and shit and she laughed at me and her laughs sounded kind of like crying and then she was eating her laugh-cries and then she was coughing out them laugh-cries that she ate but her coughs was so weak they was more like whispers than coughs. I felt like crying, too, but I ain’t no little bitch so I didn’t.

I told Curl how that chicken had that doll’s eye and I showed her the red mark that the old nigger’s rope left on my leg, and she put her hand on it and she even rubbed her thumb over the redness for a second and it seemed like she wanted to talk but she couldn’t. I bent my head real close to her mouth so I could hear what she was trying to say, but all she said was, “Little brother, little brother” real quiet and small.

Then her eyes closed for a while and when they opened again I asked her what all them squiggles on the walls was and she made these little falling movements with her fingers the way snow falls so I went, “Snow?” and she nodded and then she made these other movements with her hands and them movements was like birds maybe so I was like, “Birds?” but she shook her head and did them hand movements again and it was like fish swimming so I went, “Fish?” and she nodded again and smiled, and even though her teeth was kind of dim and skanky it was the prettiest smile Curl ever made.

Then Curl grabbed my hand with the frostbite and started humming and Boobie held the baby and started even rocking it a little and the van was snowing worst and the Moon was all lopsided and strange in the window like a big skanky shark heart.

After Curl died, me and Boobie sat in the van and ate our crying. His didn’t make no sound, but mine was all wack like a dog getting kicked.

When her heart stopped you could hear it the way you can hear the rides shut down when the Joliet Knights of Columbus Summer Carnival ends. The sunflower on her dress looked like it grew; like it used the little bit of life she had left as food to get bigger.

Her arms was reached over her head and her legs was all stretched and spread out like she was trying to make a snow angel.

We taped the newspapers back to the window but the van was still snowing. It was coming through the cracks now, and where there weren’t no cracks it was just coming anyways.

My frostbite hand was aching like crazy. Sometimes it burnt and sometimes it ached. I could see how the side of it was turning kinda black.

Boobie put the TV between us on the floor and I let the baby chew on my thumb. He didn’t cry the whole time. It’s funny how babies only cry when they’re hungry or they gotta shit. A plane could crash or someone could die and it don’t mean nothing to them. They just stare off with them little blue eyes, wondering when them bananas and milk is coming.

I stared at them squiggles Curl spray-painted for a long time and it made me sleepy. You could see the frost moving over them like a shadow creeping.

Boobie ate his crying all night. You could barely hear it. He ate his crying till there wasn’t no more to eat.

I fell asleep doing a thirty-three.

When we woke up the wind was sneaking through the cracks and the van was snowing worst. It got so cold that that frost climbing over the walls started turning white.

We put the baby in the TV and headed for the Skylark. That walk felt like one of the longest walks of my life. The snow was slippery and I fell down on my frostbite hand about skeighty-eight times.

My ears was full of snow and my eyes was full of snow and my Pro Flyers was so wet it was like I was walking in a river.

Once we reached the Skylark everything was cool cuz Boobie started the engine and the windshield wipers were going and after a few minutes the heat kicked in and we was warm.

Through the windshield that snow just kept coming. You couldn’t see
shit
. Not no trees. Not no Crow Wing River. Just all that snow blowing sideways. It was like that shit was
sliding.
Like it was avalanching from off the top of a
mountain
.

After a while you could tell that being warm wasn’t going to change nothing. It was like there was a new kind of coldness inside you. It wasn’t no coldness that had to do with the weather. It was the kind of coldness that lives under the world, in a big black cave, with a bunch of bats and lost bones and shit.

We couldn’t just start driving again with Curl back there in the van. We couldn’t just get lost in that highway hiss again. Driving just didn’t seem right without Curl.

For a minute, the snow stopped falling sideways. You could barely see the Crow Wing River and how it was all frozen over like a little mirror. Boobie stared at it for a long time and his eyes was all big and sad and scared-looking.

I asked him what we was gonna do with Curl, but he didn’t have no answer, so I just let the baby chew on my thumb and waited for him to do something.

But Boobie’s black eyes just kept turning blacker.

After a while the snow started sliding sideways again. It wasn’t like this snow was just coming from the clouds and the sky. It was like the snow was coming from the trees and the ground and the Crow Wing River, too. It was like the snow was coming from
everywhere
and
nowhere
all at the same time.

Then Boobie undid my pocket and pulled out my gat, and he looked at it for a minute all small and wack in his hand and the wipers was moving faster on the windshield and I was all quiet and scared cuz I didn’t know what Boobie was gonna do, and the baby started crying cuz he shitted his diaper again and you could smell it and that seam in his forehead looked like a little muscle muscling between his eyes, and then Boobie took my good hand and put it over his hand and put my gat up to his chest with my hand over his hand which was over my gat and it was happening so fast it was like it wasn’t even happening and I could feel his heart pounding through his chest
thuddump
and through my gat
thuddump
and through his hand
thuddump
and through my hand
thuddump
and it was beating so strong it was like you could taste it beating in your mouth so I closed my eyes and then Boobie squeezed the trigger but nothing happened cuz of the snow and then he tried it again and I felt like I was falling and there wasn’t no sound but the windshield wipers.

When I opened my eyes Boobie wasn’t in the driver’s seat no more. He wasn’t next to me and he wasn’t in the back seat neither, and then I looked up and through the windshield I could see him walking backwards through the dead trees.

I looked in the back seat again cuz I couldn’t hear the baby but the TV was still there and the baby was in it and his arms was swimming out and you could see the windshield wipers slashing through his little blue eyes and I gave him my frostbite hand and he took it and put it in his mouth and I tried singing that “Hushabye Mountain” song to him but I couldn’t get the words right cuz my teeth was chattering.

Then I looked out through the windshield again and Boobie kept walking backwards, smaller and smaller, and the snow was thick and white and sideways but you could still see how his hair was lifting off his shoulders. He raised his hand up like he was trying to say good-bye and even though he was far away now I put my good hand up and tried to touch him through the glass.

And I called out to him, too. I used the voice in my throat and the voice in my heart and the voice in my guts and that psychic voice in my mind, but Boobie couldn’t hear me.

And I called out again and again and again till his hand fell and he started to fade, floating back and back and back, disappearing through the snowing trees.

After the Skylark ran out of gas, I took the TV and walked back to the van.

I kept thinking that if I dropped the TV the baby would fly off and disappear in all of that snow, so I stepped as careful as I could, one, two, three. I knew my Pro Flyers was all wack and worn down and smooth on the bottoms. I had to keep my frostbite hand over the baby’s face so he wouldn’t choke on no snow.

When we got back, the van was still snowing and the newspapers was flipping around and the frost was even whiter on the walls. It was so thick you could draw pictures in it with your finger.

For some reason I kept telling the baby not to be scared. I was like, “Don’t be scared, baby. Don’t be no little bitch. Ain’t nothing gonna happen. Don’t be scared.” But the baby didn’t seem scared at all. He was just staring up at me with them strange blue eyes and chewing on my frostbite hand with them little teeth that was starting to press through his gums.

Every time I looked at Curl I swear I thought I could see that heartbeat still going in her eye. I went over to her like four times and started shaking her, going, “Curl, Curl, wake up you dumb hooker!” But then I’d put my finger on her eye and feel that cold. And it wasn’t cold like when a body gets cold. It was cold like when a
car
gets cold.

For a long time I just sat in the driver’s seat with the baby and watched the snow. Just when you thought it would slow down, a bunch of it would start falling.

Every once in a while I’d see Curl through the windshield mirror. Her skin was so white it looked like glass. It was like she wasn’t never no person. It was more like she was something that got made in a
factory,
like she was all stretched and blown and polished clean.

That little fish was still trapped in her cheek and her one froggy eye was staring out at them squiggles she spray-painted on the wall.

I put the TV down and walked over to Curl. I tried to pull her lid down but it was frozen so I took her one hand from over her head and put it over her eye.

When I flattened her hand you could feel how her fingers was all froze up like some dead sticks, and then that old wrinkled birthday card that she carried around fell out and it was all crumpled and small like Curl was trying to squeeze some life out of it. You could see her mom’s writing and how her pen quit and how she had to get another one, cuz the colors of the ink changed.

I used the last diaper and changed the baby and fed him his last cup of bananas and his last box of milk. And I had to smash that box of milk and press it up against the wall of the van cuz it was frozen.

I took Curl’s socks off and put them over the baby’s hands. Then we got under the curtains and made a huddle. I used the curtain from the window, too. I put the baby under my puffy red coat cuz it was warmer that way. We stayed like that for a long time and just watched the night flying across the windows.