33 Snowfish (4 page)

“No bazooka,” I could feel his eyes saying to me. “None of that, Curl.”

Besides that hundred and fifty dollars that old trumpet player didn’t have crap in his pockets but some chump change and a box of Chiclets. Old Man Turpentine’s the one who set me up with him.

“He’ll be good to you, Curl,” he kept telling me. “You do right by him and he’ll be real good to you.”

I didn’t even have to do nothing but bend down and blow zeros on his stomach while he masturbated himself. Old men are funny like that.

Before we left Belleville me and Boobie ate Arby’s roast beef sandwiches, and then it was back on the bus and all the way home to Rockdale. Those sad little towns were still there with their silos and grain elevators and fields with nothing in them but black dirt and pop cans. We drove by this one grassy field that had so many cows it was like they had plans to do stuff.

After we get up into the middle of Wisconsin we’re going to use my Belleville money to get a motel. I could think of twenty other things to do with that money right now. At least twenty.

Sometimes it gets so hot in the back seat you have to roll the window down. But the baby doesn’t like the wind coming through the crack. And when the baby cries it’ll just about drive you crazy, because that little voice of his starts squeaking and it’s like the TV came back to life and got stuck on a bad channel.

To tell you the truth, the baby isn’t too smart. Sometimes when you say something to him he doesn’t act like he hears you too good, but I think that’s because of that little cleft down the middle of his forehead. It looks like he fell off the highchair before his brain bones were finished joining.

He has some cute little eyes, though. So blue it’s like they aren’t even blue. It’s more like they’re violet. My Aunty Frisco said this old actress named Elizabeth Taylor has violet eyes and she’s one of the richest people in the world.

Rich people will pay good money for some violet eyes.

Sometimes Boobie will take his lighter and flick it next to the baby’s face so he can see the flame dancing in his eye. It’s not like Boobie’s trying to burn the baby or nothing like that; it’s more like there’s something in the flame that only Boobie knows and when it’s dancing in the baby’s eye the secret from the flame comes out purer.

Boobie’s always got fire on his mind. My Aunty Frisco used to say that a man who has a strong relationship with fire is capable of historical love, because the flames keep the passion flowing in the smaller parts of the soul.

That’s how I met Boobie — because of fire.

I was at the Knights of Columbus Speedway talking to some of them Rockdale paper-mill hooligans and I saw this tall, strong-looking boy standing all alone in front of a trash can. He didn’t look like none of the locals because his shoes weren’t junky. There was a fire burning in the trash can and he was staring at it so hard it was like he was talking to it with his mind. The fire didn’t make sense because it was the middle of August. It was so hot even the mosquitoes looked tired.

I had no idea where he came from. It was like the dark of the night had imagined him there.

I got curious so I walked over and stood on the other side of the fire. I tried getting his attention by leaning real nice, because if you lean right just about any boy will look at you. And that’s when I was pretty because things were good and my arms were clean. That’s when my eyes were big and shiny. But no matter how many different leans I tried Boobie wouldn’t look back, so I threw a rock at him. And that’s when he did one of the most cold-blooded things I’ve ever seen: He just caught that rock and stuck it in his pocket like it was a quarter. And he was staring at that fire the whole time.

Just when I was about to go back over to those paper-mill hooligans Boobie pointed at me. And he had this look on his face like he knew what I wanted the whole time.

We sat down next to that fire and listened to the tires squealing on the Speedway, and the fire was dancing off his face and moths were tumbling in the Speedway lights and you could see how something was howling inside him, and the next thing I know he’s holding my hand and I’m touching his T-shirt and telling him all this stuff about myself.

Normally I wouldn’t talk to no stranger like that, I don’t care how fine he is or how much money he’s got. But it was like those words inside me were being pulled out by the fire, and Boobie’s hand on mine made the pulling part feel okay.

I told him about how I wasn’t in school and how I liked to fish and how when I was a baby I had a ringworm infection in my foot and how I used to have this pair of white ice-skates and when the water froze I could do backwards figure eights on the pond in the Cedarwood Apartments and how I would watch the Chicago Cubs baseball games on WGN Channel Nine with my Aunty Frisco and how I used to want to grow up to be a play-by-play announcer but how that ended after this man called Harry Caray died from drinking too much Budweiser.

Boobie didn’t even have to ask me any questions. It was all just coming out of me like water. I felt nervous and safe at the same time. I even started laughing for a minute, like I was crazy.

After the midget races stopped we fell asleep under the grandstand. Boobie wrapped me in his arms and blew on my eyelashes and everything felt warm, like when you have a laugh caught in your stomach. Because that’s when things were clean and my arms were pretty. That’s when my eyes were rounder than quarters.

As I faded off I could hear those Rockdale paper-mill boys walking across the gravel and calling out my name, going, “Curl . . . Curly Curl . . .” But their voices just sounded like some rain when your eyes are closed and you’re sitting next to the kitchen window.

That night I dreamed of a huge snowstorm. It was a blizzard and the snow was piled up higher than all the houses. Then the sun came out burning like a big yellow planet of fire and all the snow melted and the Des Plaines River started boiling and there was this giant flood and everyone around me was sinking and screaming and swimming after their houses. But for some reason I wasn’t scared. I was cleaner than the water and my eyes were big and shiny. Even though the flood was drowning everyone and the fish were getting cooked, I was safe. I was just floating and floating. I was floating so well it was like I
was
the water.

When I woke up it was the middle of the night and the crickets were humming and the moths were still tumbling and the moon was so big you could practically see the bones in its face.

Boobie’s arms were all wrapped around me.

I’ve never felt safer in my life.

I don’t think Boobie had no place to stay that night. I think that was the first time his parents kicked him out.

Boobie didn’t say nothing that whole time under the grandstand. At first I thought he didn’t have a voice. He just looked and nodded, looked and nodded. And sometimes he would half-smile, and every so often you could see his teeth when that half-smile got stretched a little.

I don’t mind him not talking so much because you can hear his voice in your heart; the same way you can hear a song in your head even if there isn’t a radio playing; the same way you can hear those blackbirds flying when they’re not in the sky.

Getting used to Boobie not talking is like getting used to a cat that won’t let you pet it. Or like when you have an itch but you don’t have anything to scratch it with. After a while you just
picture
petting that cat or scratching that itch so you don’t get too sad. Because if you get too sad that itch just gets bigger and then you don’t feel clean anymore and those red streaks start crawling up your arm.

Sometimes I’ll imagine Boobie and me talking about our future, like about buying some furniture or making a little garden with tomatoes and cauliflowers. Other times I’ll just picture us talking about nothing, like the way wind and trees talk.

That silence can get to you sometimes, though, because it’s not like his mind is bad. He’s always drawing pictures in that book of his, so you know he has certain thoughts. Even when he says those little words like
stop
and
follow
it helps because at least you hear his voice. But he says those words the way you say them to a dog or a chicken. And then, just like that, there’s that silence about him again.

Like clouds and a little bit of rain. Clouds and a little bit of rain.

He talks to me with his eyes mostly because of his powers. He has more black in his eye than a pit bull. My Aunty Frisco used to say that pit bulls aren’t born out of a normal litter. She said that those dogs jump straight up out of the Devil World.

Once I saw Boobie stare one down. We were in the parking lot of the White Hen Pantry in Elwood. The pit bull was black and brown and he was just sitting there by the door waiting for his master, no leash or nothing. They locked eyes and Boobie stood so still it looked like he was carved out of some wood. Then something gave and that pit bull started crying for its master.

Most of the time eyes can say more than words, anyway. Eyes can tell you more about an itch, that’s for sure — how it grows and how it knows. Nasty little itch. Eyes will tell you.

Back in Rockdale if me and Boobie and Custis were walking down the street together Boobie would stay about five feet behind us. Me and Custis would be talking about what we’d done that day, like how we stole some ketchup from the Burger King, or begged quarters from them clean-cut, suit-wearing college boys at the car dealership, and we would laugh and look back at Boobie and he’d be smiling at us.

Things were pretty cold-blooded back in Rockdale.

That’s when my arms were so pretty I could hold them up to the light and see the veins curling all clean and smooth like little blue branches.

Custis looks up to Boobie like he’s his daddy. Nasty little Custis. I swear, that hooligan would lay down on broken glass if Boobie told him to. I guess Boobie and Custis have one of those special friendships that young boys get sometimes. Something stronger than blood brothers.

I do like Custis, though. Even though he’s a racist and he curses all the time and he doesn’t know how to wash himself. It’s not like he’s mean or stupid. He told me about them spelling nuns trying to make him retarded, mixing him up with all them slow children. I’ve seen Custis do smart stuff. He steals Boobie’s Basics with the quickness. He’ll walk by the cash register and throw a light bulb over his shoulder so it breaks in the aisle. Then when the checkout girl jumps he’ll grab two packs of Basics and a box of Nerds, stuff it all in down his pants, and turn around and help sweep up the mess.

I’m always fixing Custis’s clothes, too. His sneakers aren’t ever tied right and he doesn’t tuck his shirts in for nothing. My Aunty Frisco used to say that if your shirt isn’t tucked you’ll have to shovel coal, and I know Custis isn’t capable of that. He’d probably be smaller than the shovel.

And he gets those migraine headaches a lot. Sometimes they’re so strong he falls asleep and wakes up somewhere else.

I gave him one of my scarves to tie his leg down in case he knows one’s coming. He keeps it wrapped around his leg like he got shot in the knee.

Once Custis passed out in front of the Rockdale train station and woke up on the back of a Greyhound on its way to Orlando, Florida. He says when those migraines come the only thing that helps is if he floats his hand in warm water. He usually pisses his pants but it makes the pain go away. I’ve had to give him one of my thongs to wear about four times. Most normal boys would fall out of a thong like a rock in a sock, but Custis is hardly developed yet. He still has that bald little boy package.

The other thing about Custis is that no one knows where he came from. It’s like he crawled out of a rabbit hole. Or like someone drew him on a piece of paper and,
poof,
there he was, walking around Rockdale like a little lost cartoon. Once in a while he’ll talk about this lady called Big Tiny. He does it when he sleeps. He talks about feeding the birds and staying off the curb and holding Big Tiny’s hand and stuff.

Once I asked him who Big Tiny was and he just shrugged and said she was this old Rockdale lady he used to know who fell out of a window when she was trying to move a piano.

Old Man Turpentine says that Big Tiny was Custis’s mom and that they didn’t own a piano and that she had this little beard on her chin and that she committed suicide by eating her shaving mirror. Who knows what the truth is? I guess everybody’s got some kind of story.

Custis is good with the baby, though. Thank God because I get tired of those little fingers crawling on me. Nasty little spider hands. Sometimes Custis even sings him this song called “Hushabye Mountain.”

It goes:

A gentle breeze from Hushabye Mountain

Softly blows o’er Lullaby Bay

It fills the sails of boats that are waiting

Waiting to sail your worries away

It isn’t far to Hushabye Mountain

And your boat waits down by the key

The winds of night so softly are sighing

Soon they will fly your troubles to sea

So close your eyes on Hushabye Mountain

Wave goodbye to cares of the day

Watch your boat from Hushabye Mountain

Sail far away from Lullaby Bay

The baby makes this face like he’s glad when Custis sings that song.

At certain angles the baby looks like this old bus driver back on Theodore Street called Marshall Rose. Marshall Rose was always staring at you like he wanted to put hot sauce on you and eat you for dinner.

I would’ve done him if he didn’t fart so much. Every time you got on the bus he was letting them fly. You couldn’t get the windows cracked fast enough.

When you got off the bus Marshall Rose was always reaching out for you, too. And he would lock the middle doors so you couldn’t get off without walking by him. I had to cut him with my keys once because he wouldn’t let go of my wrist.

That’s when my arms were still pretty and my eyes were big and deep.