by Daniel Kraus
I hope you don’t think I like-like Jody. I don’t. When he smiles, his lip curls up and you can see a tooth that’s turned orange. Whenever I think about kissing him, I imagine that tooth tastes like Cheez Curls.
I don’t like-like Robbie either. Robbie’s a guy who lets me, Jody, and Jody’s foster sister Midge congregate at his house. I might as well tell you he’s a full-grown man. The sweet, innocent brains of our parents would shoot out their ears if they knew, ha ha ha. Trust me, Robbie has no dishonorable intentions. Unlike Mr. Homewood the gymnastics coach. Or Mr. Cartwright who I had for Home Room.
Robbie gets it. When he was in high school, he was some sort of big shot. Now he’s just a guy with no job. What’s great is Robbie’s the polar opposite of Mama and Papa and lets me and Jody do anything we want. I might as well tell you everything at this point, sister! Robbie gives us tips on stealing things from stores and gives us beer, cigarettes, sometimes even stronger things when we’re feeling low.
None of this is any worse than the things you did on Yellow Street. And Brown Street. And White Street. Yes, Lotte, I know all about it. Just because Mama and Papa treat the topic like the Bubonic Plague doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people on Yellow Street eager to talk about it. Maybe you should be grateful they do. If they didn’t, would you still exist? I’m not convinced you would. You keep repeating the same things in your letters, and not just your fish. Your brain’s the opposite of my cup size. It’s not developing. It’s atrophying.
My point is, I always let you live your life, no matter how bad you bungled it. Now you return the favor by keeping your mouth shut. Robbie’s place on Yellow Street is a new planet in a new solar system where I don’t have to be Perfect Miss Dagmar. I can just be Dag. Let me enjoy it while I can. Before too long, the bulldozers will destroy Planet Robbie. They keep leveling whole blocks to make room for The Glenn, which keeps spreading like a huge, shiny stain. Kind of like your vomit when the paramedics made you upchuck the pills.
Sincerely,
Dagmar
Love
Todays getting real. Realer than any day previous. Robbies made plans in the past but nothing this heavy. All a us are feeling it. So it doesnt make any a us happy when Dag leaves cuz shes the smartest of all a us. She zippers her shiny red jacket and sucks at her knuckles bloody from drubbing the light switch and says how after piano shes gonna finish up her secret costume and be back for trick or treats.
* * *
But Im not sure. Her eyes are all bloodshot from crying, you know? It makes me wonder. Dag weaves through the garbage piles and I yell out
* * *
Robbies smoking the saddest little butt. He sighs him a big old sigh and says if we cant use the apples then we got to go back to plan A. I aint even in the mood. I explain to him how Dag faked sick three times this month to work on her costume. Robbie ignores me and says how he has to call his new hookup, he just has to do it. Why wont fat boy shut up and listen to me? I explain how the third time Dag faked sick she used her finger, whipped herself up a big mouth a puke and dropped it, splat, right in the middle of social studies. Thats dedication right there! No way Dags going to let anyone screw up her Halloween! But Robbies still talking soft about how he has to get tough, dial the number, and make the mightyducking call.
* * *
Fat boys real nervous though cuz what he does instead is light a second sad little butt off the first and try to discuss how theres too many concussions in the NFL and when I dont answer he starts in about how brass knuckles are the best kind of weapon if you really think about it and I throw shade on that crap too. He smokes like hes starving for it and I keep looking down Yellow Street and then he says something like, dang, Jody, you got it bad for Dag, dont you?
* * *
Im like robocop please. But I guess I said it too quick cuz Robbie starts dogging me. He has this tard laugh that goes like
* * *
He apologizes and says I dont have any reason for shame. I tell him Im not ashamed a nothing and he tells me to chill cuz hes there to tutor my ignorant ass. That sounds like surefire humiliation if you ask me so I go check on Midget whos on her belly in front a that wilted ass jackolantern. The ground at Robbies crib is a bad place to be cuz a all the mice turds and bacteria so Im ready to chew out Midget before I get close and see what she sees.
* * *
The pumpkin is stewing with bugs. Dang, how long I been allowing little sister to poke around that nastiness? Beetles and centipedes and little see through insects all squirming around the soggy orange ass guts and spilling out the smiley face I carved. Midgets real into it and has her hand stuck through one a the eye holes so the bugs can crawl up her arm. Her lips are whispering fast like one of them bugs might be good old DAndre. Dang. Wheres Miss Poole when I need her? I aint qualified for this. Im just a dang kid and Im hungry and Im tired and I cant think good.
* * *
Robbies still pestering me if I think Dags fly or not and so I say yeah, yeah, shes all right. Robbie crosses his flab arms and asks me if I know that Dags only a child and Im like step off, fat boy, Im a dang youngster myself, theres nothing illegal about it! I start blushing again so I go like who even said I want Dag stamping my V card? Case you didnt notice, girlfriend doesnt have hardly any titties or nothing.
* * *
Robbie looks at me like hes disappointed. Jody, he says, dont you know better than to be saying
* * *
When I first knew Robbie he was sexing Little Lamb who he said was his girlfriend though I don’t know. You ask me, Little Lamb was punking his ass or stealing off his ass or something nefarious cuz she sure didnt seem to have any liking for fat boy. She vanished from the crib pretty quick and that was too bad cuz I had a load a questions for her about how foxy bitches think. After Little Lamb stopped coming round, Robbie wouldnt talk about her. He wouldnt even admit her ass even existed. You even said the word lamb, you got popped.
* * *
So fat boys the last person I want romantic help from but now Im curious what else hes got. I mean, I aint ever even kissed a bitch. Robbie struts his yard proud as hell, rubbing his gut like he thinks its sensual. First thing, he says, if you want to be hitting it with honeys then you have to compliment them constant. Yo, I do that! I explain to Robbie how for example I told Dag shes real expert at thieving. Robbie rubs his forehead and says, no, you got to be complimenting her physicality. Like
* * *
Robbie explains how after you say compliments you have to impress her with skills. Like if youre skilled at busting heads you finds yourself a chump ass sucker and give him a beat down. Or if youre skilled at hunting then you trap a rabbit and skin it and eat it, and dont forget to give shorty a piece.
* * *
Even if youre skilled at some boring ass crap like reading you get your ass to the library and rent a stack of thick ass books and when s
hortys like
* * *
I dont have any skills except my throwing stars which I can throw with pinpoint accuracy. Problem is, the last time I threw one was at Gwendolyn and you recall how mad Dag got. So I ask Robbie if I should develop new skills and fat boy surprises me. He shakes his big head so hard his greasy hair flops all around. He says throwing star skills are dope, I just need to focus on fending off dangerous villains instead of trying to impale dogs Dag loves with all her heart.
* * *
Listen, I didnt ever think Id be saying this, but Robbies advice is tight. I go up top and fat boy slaps me some skin. His chins are jiggling real pleased too. He says before long all the shorties on the block will be wetting their drawers for me. I dont know why theyd want to do that but I keep that to myself. I guess shorties do pee their pants when they get excited. Seems nasty if you ask me but maybe its sexy when it happens for real.
My Wiener Part 2: The Two Towers
Thats right! Lord of the Rings humor free a charge! Take a sec to appreciate that while I figure out if I even want to discuss this topic. It isnt fun, man. It isnt fun at all walking around super concerned about your wiener. I told you how I measured it to make sure it was bigger than a peanut but that doesnt help much when robocops left and right talk about their meat like its the size a their arms. Even if I throw my four point black ronin and take down a raccoon with rabies and Dag thanks me by dropping her drawers? Dont tell Robbie but Im not even sure I could go through with it. Id be too nervous. How am I supposed to know what girls think about wieners? Moms broke all our mirrors with a hammer so Ive been inspecting my junk at Robbies crib and I dont know, it looks proportional and whatnot but not like what they have in porn. For real, I think I might be deformed like Deformo. Sometimes at night I get thinking about it and my stomach starts hurting and then I get diarrhea and I cant sleep and then I have to skip school and then I get detention. And all cuz a my wiener.
Moms
Every time Dag goes home to Pinebluff Glenn Estates I get jealousy. No sense lying about it. Dags folks might go overboard with her activities but they no doubt give her plenty of food and clothes and special gifts. But Moms? You probably figured out Moms had some mental problems a while back. I wasnt hardly old enough to dress myself when she quit cooking and cleaning and going to work and instead started watching TV.
* * *
Changes that big dont happen overnight. It happens gradual. One day I was like, Moms, how about you do up some mac and cheese and orange pop like we always do? A hour later, theres no mac, theres no cheese, theres no orange pop, and theres no Moms either. I found her ass flat on her bed and I was like
* * *
Believe, yo, I told her a hundred times how we could get disability funds if we bused our asses to the doc just once and explained how she couldnt get herself out of bed. But Moms was afraid to miss her shows. She seemed for real too.
* * *
Meantime our cash was zeroing out so fast I was nightmaring about cooking alley rats for supper and eating our own toes, all sorts a horror movie fates.
* * *
I dont know if she saw a commercial or what but thats when she got the idea of fostering. And I got to admit it worked. Moms asked for the worst off child they had cuz they pay the best, so I expected us to get a special ed kid with a helmet. Instead they gave us Midget. Now we pull one large a month for that quiet little bitch! Plus special bonuses like two fifty a year for clothing type junk, one fifty for school junk, forty for birthday junk, and thirty for Christmas junk. Moms even negotiated fifty a month for what she calls diaper allowance and thats a straight up lie. Midget dont need any diapers. Shes peed her drawers three, four times tops.
* * *
Dollars add up. We arent living large. But the three a us are surviving. Moms pays her TV bill and doesnt give Midge any hassle. Its not like she dislikes Midge or nothing. She just, you know, trusts little sister to hang with me and whisper to her bugs and all that. Before you get upset about it, let me remind you its preferential treatment compared to DAndres foster mom and all the other foster folks that probably treated Midge weird.
* * *
So me and Midge do our thing and Moms views the same shows like shes studying for a test. Give me five bucks and Ill sing you the theme songs start to finish. Dr Phil, The View, Maury. Moms watches so many episodes she hallucinates them. Like when shes viewing Price is Right I hear her answer questions nobody asked, like she goes
* * *
Hearing emotions come out a Moms room all day makes my brain itch so bad I cant deal and thats how my abs got so tight. Dag stole some mags from Walgreen and one had a story called Look Great Shirtless and it turned out to be the magical thing to help my itch. What I learned is you have to Flatten, Shape, and Strengthen if you want a Lean, Hard Waist and Six Pack Abs. That sounded all right so while Moms was doing her TV I started doing the Reverse Wood Chop and Half Seated Leg Circle and Prone Cobra and Rock n Roll Core and Side Jackknife and Oblique Side Bend and at first it wiped me out good. After a time I was repping so hard I only let up during commercials. Thats the best time to rest anyhow cuz Moms doesnt cry or scream or nothing during commercials and if I imagine real hard its like were living in Pinebluff Glenn Estates.
* * *
The only time I go inside Moms room these days is for Ellen. We love that dancing bitch. I lay out on the bed with my abs burning cuz a how I been obliterating my fat and I laugh like Im insane. Moms puts her hand on my back and I can tell shes laughing too. We have us a real nice time but one hour is all I can stand. That room stinks foul. Smells like rotten fruit and bandaids. In January Moms made it all the way to the kitchen to fix back to school toast but she didnt do her robe up good and I peeped a bunch a sores up the insides a her legs. Couldnt eat for crap after that. Put sugar on my toast and gave it to Midge.
* * *
Some nights I wake up from bad dreams that whatever disease Moms got is going to get me too. When its the dang middle of the night Im no good at thinking positive. Positive things like how kick ass my pops must have been to make a killer like me. You know he wasnt stuck lying on no bed. He got up, got in his styling suit and his styling car, and got to saving the world. In the middle of the night all I know for sure is I come from Moms. I come from Moms and around here that aint gonna be enough to cut it.
* * *
But hold up. Hold up. Dont go thinking critical. Moms surprises me sometimes. Like with the pumpkin. Who woulda thunk Moms would get me a Halloween pumpkin? That right theres enough to give me hope. Give me crazy hope. Barack Obama hope. In fact I take back how I said the shriveled up jackolantern reminds me a Moms. I shouldnta said that. Moms isnt a pumpkin. Theres no bugs spoiling inside her. Shes all right. Shes fine. Believe, yo. One a these days shes gonna turn sharkweek around.
Phone Call
Cuz Robbie gave me free sexual advice I start being supportive about calling up the dealer man. Im like, yeah, boy, youre a righteous hustler and you need to set us up proper for trick or treats! It inspirations him pretty good. Robbie flicks his sad little butt and frowns hard like hes a thug. He starts bouncing on his toes and smacking himself on the head and growling
crib.
* * *
When his face is real red and he looks ready to tear a bitch in two he turns around and swaggers inside with his gut flabbing thisaway and that. Im right behind him but I stop cuz I notice a pair a dope ass gloves poking out under the shell of a busted old hot tub. Hell yes! If I scissors the fingers off these bitches theyll be just like Grishnákh gloves! When Dag sees that shes gonna wet her pants or whatever girls do!
* * *
Midget doesnt want to abandon her pumpkin bugs but the weathers getting chilly and sisters gonna get pneumonia if she dont watch it. She knows I mean business so she busts out a roll a duck tape. Where did little sister acquire a roll a duck tape? Anyway she busts out the duck tape and duck tapes the pumpkins eyes and mouth and head hole shut to keep her bug besties safe inside. Well, all right. I guess thats okay if thats her trip.
* * *
We go in and Robbies back on his pullup bar trying to bang out a single up. Like I said, thats some comical behavior but this time I keep my mouth shut. I also keep my mouth shut when he leaps to the ground like a Marvel Avenger and does a couple a the saddest pushups I ever saw. Robbie bounces up and while hes all sweaty and adrenalined he grabs his phone and punches in a number and squashes it up to his sweaty ass cheek.
* * *
The phone call goes rough. The dumb exercises might a boosted fat boys confidence but they also made him out of breath. Dealer man picks up and Robbies wheezing. Its painful to watch. Robbie goes like
