The Children and the Wolves Read Free

dumber than anything I’ve seen and I’ve seen some superdumb shit.
    Like my dad is pretty dumb. He pisses in two-liter Cherry Coke bottles cause he’s too lazy to slide out of his wheelchair. He’s put on about eighty pounds in the last year. He even started wearing diapers.
    You think I’m changing you? I’ll say.
I can do it, he’ll answer.
I’m like, Big-ass baby.
    I have to Febreze the whole house cause he stinks so bad. This social worker nurse used to come by but she got caught using someone else’s Social Security Number and the government sent her back to Mexico. Her name was Lupe. She had a big flat ass and a mouth like a circus clown.
    Get another nurse, I told my dad. Your disability pays for it.
I don’t want another one, he whined. I want Lupe.
He won’t call for another one.
    I miss Lupe, he’ll sometimes say.
I’ll say, Stop crying, sissy. Just stop.
    And then he’ll take some Oxycotton or this stuff called Lortab and park his wheelchair in front of the TV and watch one of his reality shows and eat Breyers double chocolate ice cream right out of the carton.
    Another superdumb thing:
    There was this seventh grader who used to faint all the time. His name was Jason Salerno and in shop he was afraid of the electric saw.
    It’s just a saw, Mr. Gass told him. We won’t even use that till next year.
    But he would faint in every class. His body would collapse like a kiddie pool after you knife it. You could practically hear the air hissing out of his body.
    Sometimes I would go up to Salerno in the hall and just say the word.
    Saw, I would say. Saw.
    He would start running to his next class.
    Dumb.
    About getting sucked off by a guy, I don’t give a rat’s ass. I just closed my eyes and pictured Bounce doing me.
    Oh, Orange, she cried in my mind. Oh, Orange, you’re so big and hard.
    Lyde calls me Huck Finn and whimpers when he’s doing me.
    Huck, he’ll wheeze. Motherfucking Huck.
    For a big security guard he sure is a pussy. He works at Best Buy so he can get Blu-ray DVD players and Canon products. He put the copy machine in a bag with a receipt and everything. So now we got posters of the Frog. Posters and flyers. Bounce brings good paper from her parents’ home office. Her mom and dad are sales reps for Plaxco, this company that makes prescription pills. Apparently there’s this new pill that lets you see the future. Bounce says she’s going to get some so we can have psychic knowledge.
    We started the Frog Collection about five weeks ago. Our system is tight. Wiggins is the watchdog and Bounce and me are the brains and muscle.
    When we collect, Bounce does most of the talking cause she’s got communication skills. She told me how in speech drama and journalism she always got the top grade and how she gave a speech about the human jaw, all the bones and hinges. How it can be broken and how you got to suck your food through a straw while it’s healing. Bounce can talk about the difference between the human jaw and the horse jaw. She can talk about the alligator jaw and how it snaps.
    Bounce’s real name is Carla Reuschel, but if you call her Carla you better be ready to fight.
    When we knock on doors I just stand there with the collection can. Bounce does a speech about the Frog and how we’re taking donations to help find her.
    What do the donations go to? they’ll ask.
    We make posters, Bounce’ll say. Posters and flyers. We post her picture on bulletin boards all throughout the Dumas community. The YMCA, St. Jude’s, the Library. We need to do something to find this poor girl. We use the Internet too.
    The truth is we don’t do shit on the Internet — we don’t got a website or nothing — but in plop the quarters anyway.
    Plop plop.
    In slide the dollar bills.
    Swish swish.
    Even a twenty now and then.
    Bounce’ll say, Andrew Jackson, you pretty bitch.
    Little do they know, little do they know.
    We’ve been averaging about twelve bucks a day. One day we made eighty-five.