33 Snowfish Read Free Page A

the parking lot of the Dominick’s on Jefferson Street in Joliet. When I woke up I had a burn on my arm that still bleeds when I lean on it wrong. Curl thinks it’s a evil spirit that got freed when I left Bob Motley, but I just think it’s from the bread truck.
    At the Fun Shop Bob Motley was always telling Old Man Turpentine how he’s gonna cut off my hands when he finds me. Old Man Turpentine don’t never say nothing, though, cuz I used to clean his floor for him.
    I knew Boobie wasn’t going to let Bob Motley touch me, though, cuz whenever some sucker started messing with me Boobie would just walk up to him and use his fist or a stick or something he’d find on the street. Sometimes he’d even just stand there and stare at them with his black eyes. He did it to a nigger in Lockport once and the nigger started running away all frantic like his house was burning down and shit. Boobie’s protective like that with Curl, too.
    But the thing about Boobie is that most of the time you don’t
never
know what’s on his mind. No one does. That’s cuz he don’t never hardly talk. He mostly just
does
shit. And when he ain’t
doing
shit he’s thinking real quiet or he’s drawing pictures in this special book he carries around with him.
    At first I thought he was writing scary stories, but Curl looked in the book and she said it was just a bunch of drawings.
    One page’s got a picture of a old man with no mouth.
    Another one’s got a picture of a horse getting attacked by a hawk.
    Curl said he names them pictures, too, but even though she’s smarter than most people, she can’t read too good.
    I learned how to read a little in the basement of this Catholic church in Streator. This nun called Sister Pat teached me the alphabet song and had me putting letters together and building them syllable parts. Sister Pat had all of these sores on her mouth, and she was always blessing me and making them crisscross signs with her hands.
    Sometimes if I would get letters fixed together right to build them words, she would try to kiss me on my face, so I started calling her Sister Blister.
    I’d go, “Cool out, Sister Blister,” or some shit like that, and then she’d get pissed and make me sit in the holy chair and sing this wack church song about God and the love he’s got for children and blind people in Maryland or Jerusalem or Jahozifatz or some place.
    And sometimes Sister Blister would make me hold the Jesus picture and sit in the holy chair and do thirty-threes. A thirty-three is when you count to thirty-three. It’s supposed to make shit slow down. Sometimes it worked, but I’d usually fake it and be like, “Oh, I feel much better,” just so she’d stop sweating me.
    It’s funny, cuz that picture of Jesus makes him look like one of them old homeless suckers you see shitting in the bushes at Renfro Park. He don’t look like no miracle maker or no Son of God, I’ll tell you that.
    I only went to them spelling classes for a couple weeks, cuz that Streator church basement was cold and this other nun called Sister Blop or some shit started yelling at me after I got caught pissing on the floor in the boys’ bathroom. I only did that cuz one of them retarded kids stuck a fan in the toilet and I didn’t want to piss on it and get electrified.
    They wasn’t going to let me come back, but Sister Blister bowed her head and practically frenched them other nuns’ fat asses so they let me stay. Sister Blop and this other nun with a kangaroo face called Sister Cordelia wouldn’t go for it at first cuz they said I had too much devil in me, but Sister Blister kept telling them how I was
special
and they finally gave in.
    But I left after a few days anyway, cuz when people start calling you
special
you know they’re just trying to change you into something you ain’t.
    I think Sister Blister was trying to turn me into a retard, cuz she used to always make me sit with them. I’d be at the lunch table and I’d look