fire, too, and they was flying all over the room like electric snow.
When the fire started crawling off the bed and onto the floor, the alarm went off. Boobie grabbed the baby’s TV and pulled Curl toward the door.
Everything was all wack for a second, but I had the baby and I had my red puffy coat and I had both of my Pro Flyers.
It only took us like twenty seconds to get back in the Skylark.
I was glad I had that puffy red coat, cuz it was getting seriously cold out.
When we pulled away from the parking lot I looked back at our room. You could see how that electric snow was falling across the window. You could see the little otel Motel sign blinking pink and you could see how them flames in room 4 was already licking up the curtains.
My Aunty Frisco used to say
that a man who hits a dog
is likely to kick it in a month.
The snow’s coming down sideways. Curl says
horizontal
but I just say sideways cuz it’s easier to say. I think horizontal is the biggest word she knows. And she says it all slow, too, just to make it sound fancy.
We’ve been living in the van for a week. It ain’t nothing like the tent. It ain’t even like the Skylark. It’s just a old, torn-up school van that don’t got no tires. It’s so old it ain’t even yellow no more. It’s just this wack non-color.
Most of the windows is smashed and all of the back seats is missing. The inside smells like one of them dead refrigerators from Renfro Park. The whole van leans to the left kind of lopsided like it’s trying to listen to them other cars hissing on the highway.
We sleep at the back end, where the van don’t lean too bad. We found some couch cushions behind this furniture store off of Highway 227. When you line them cushions up right it ain’t so bad. But when they spread apart that crooked metal floor feels like a brick in the middle of your back.
For a table we flipped a paint can and stuck a stop sign on top. It gets bumped every time Boobie skates for his Basics, but it makes you feel like it’s a official crib. It’s like there ain’t no real life inside a place if you don’t got no table.
Curl had to stop changing the baby’s diaper cuz her hands ain’t been working right. Somewhere back in Wisconsin she caught a lung frost. And it’s gotten worse in the last few days. Right after we skated from the otel Motel that coughing started.
According to the map we’re in this place called Nimrod, Minnesota, by the Detroit Lakes. Curl tried telling me that Detroit is in Michigan but she can’t read the map cuz her eyes is so bad. I’m the one who does all the reading now.
Before we got to Nimrod we drove by the Frames Landing Campground. I tried to get Boobie to let us stay there cuz there was other people with families and we’d be able to make friends and steal shit, but he just kept shaking his head and talking about how where we needed to be was as close to nowhere as possible.
And Nimrod’s about as close to nowhere as I’ve ever seen. There ain’t nothing here but snow and trees and these birds that is so tough they don’t even gotta fly south and shit.
Once in a while you hear a car going by way off on Highway 71 but that’s about it. I seen some jets one day, too. They was silver and there was three of them and when they flew by it was so loud it almost busted the drums in my ears.
The cold ain’t helping Curl’s lung frost none. When she sleeps you can see that froggy heartbeat going slower and slower in her eye. And sometimes you just sit there and count it cuz you think counting it’ll keep it from going too slow. Sometimes it goes so slow you think you can
hear
it and shit.
Everything she tries to eat just gets spit back up all over her sunflower dress. There ain’t no doubt that that bazooka’s got her stomach now. Her ribs is so big they look like claws trying to bust through her sides. I try talking about food, like Ding Dongs and Nutty Bars and Little Tonio microwave burritos, just to see
When the fire started crawling off the bed and onto the floor, the alarm went off. Boobie grabbed the baby’s TV and pulled Curl toward the door.
Everything was all wack for a second, but I had the baby and I had my red puffy coat and I had both of my Pro Flyers.
It only took us like twenty seconds to get back in the Skylark.
I was glad I had that puffy red coat, cuz it was getting seriously cold out.
When we pulled away from the parking lot I looked back at our room. You could see how that electric snow was falling across the window. You could see the little otel Motel sign blinking pink and you could see how them flames in room 4 was already licking up the curtains.
My Aunty Frisco used to say
that a man who hits a dog
is likely to kick it in a month.
The snow’s coming down sideways. Curl says
horizontal
but I just say sideways cuz it’s easier to say. I think horizontal is the biggest word she knows. And she says it all slow, too, just to make it sound fancy.
We’ve been living in the van for a week. It ain’t nothing like the tent. It ain’t even like the Skylark. It’s just a old, torn-up school van that don’t got no tires. It’s so old it ain’t even yellow no more. It’s just this wack non-color.
Most of the windows is smashed and all of the back seats is missing. The inside smells like one of them dead refrigerators from Renfro Park. The whole van leans to the left kind of lopsided like it’s trying to listen to them other cars hissing on the highway.
We sleep at the back end, where the van don’t lean too bad. We found some couch cushions behind this furniture store off of Highway 227. When you line them cushions up right it ain’t so bad. But when they spread apart that crooked metal floor feels like a brick in the middle of your back.
For a table we flipped a paint can and stuck a stop sign on top. It gets bumped every time Boobie skates for his Basics, but it makes you feel like it’s a official crib. It’s like there ain’t no real life inside a place if you don’t got no table.
Curl had to stop changing the baby’s diaper cuz her hands ain’t been working right. Somewhere back in Wisconsin she caught a lung frost. And it’s gotten worse in the last few days. Right after we skated from the otel Motel that coughing started.
According to the map we’re in this place called Nimrod, Minnesota, by the Detroit Lakes. Curl tried telling me that Detroit is in Michigan but she can’t read the map cuz her eyes is so bad. I’m the one who does all the reading now.
Before we got to Nimrod we drove by the Frames Landing Campground. I tried to get Boobie to let us stay there cuz there was other people with families and we’d be able to make friends and steal shit, but he just kept shaking his head and talking about how where we needed to be was as close to nowhere as possible.
And Nimrod’s about as close to nowhere as I’ve ever seen. There ain’t nothing here but snow and trees and these birds that is so tough they don’t even gotta fly south and shit.
Once in a while you hear a car going by way off on Highway 71 but that’s about it. I seen some jets one day, too. They was silver and there was three of them and when they flew by it was so loud it almost busted the drums in my ears.
The cold ain’t helping Curl’s lung frost none. When she sleeps you can see that froggy heartbeat going slower and slower in her eye. And sometimes you just sit there and count it cuz you think counting it’ll keep it from going too slow. Sometimes it goes so slow you think you can
hear
it and shit.
Everything she tries to eat just gets spit back up all over her sunflower dress. There ain’t no doubt that that bazooka’s got her stomach now. Her ribs is so big they look like claws trying to bust through her sides. I try talking about food, like Ding Dongs and Nutty Bars and Little Tonio microwave burritos, just to see
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