Read Online Ferocity Summer by Alissa Grosso - Free Book Online

courage to blow my brains out.
    â€œWhat brand?” I asked.
    The guy glanced nervously over his shoulder. I didn’t like this one bit. I glanced through the nearly plastered-over front windows. There was an old beater of a car parked out there, a black teenage girl behind the wheel. This is not a part of New Jersey exactly brimming with diversity, so her dark skin alone was enough to make me think that whoever this pair was, they weren’t from around here. But whether they were Bonnie and Clyde or just two day-tripping young lovers from Passaic or East Hanover or some other place where the KKK would never even think of holding a rally, I couldn’t say.
    â€œOh, Marlboros,” the guy said, still doing his little dance. Maybe he just had to pee. “Menthols.”
    I turned around to retrieve the requested cigarettes. My hand was shaking and it was hard to slide the box free. I didn’t like having my back to this guy. I didn’t like being so far from our panic button.
    â€œPrissy Scilla!”
    The shout sliced through the uneasy silence. I let out a yelp and dropped the pack of cigarettes. I spun around to see the would-be cigarette buyer running out the door, his crumpled wad of money still sitting on the counter, and Saint Joe Bullock jock-walking into the store with a harem of three cheerleader-slut hangers-on. I didn’t bother to acknowledge his greeting. In the parking lot there was a squeal of tires as the old beater pulled out onto the highway.
    â€œIs poor, poor Scilla earning her bail money?” Joe asked.
    No reason existed why anyone in their right mind should like Joe Bullock, and yet for some inexplicable reason, people did. In second grade, he dared Sandra Lane to kiss his little-boy dick on the school playground. She was branded a cocksucker almost instantly, the nickname and its connotations staying with her through eighth grade, when she disappeared from school either to enter an insane asylum or an all-girls school in the Midwest; the rumors were never clear. In sixth grade, Joe defaced a fellow student’s art project with a box-cutter, which led to the permanent dismissal of our art teacher on the grounds that she had no control over her students. The eventual result was that the school board decided to permanently cut art from our curriculum, claiming that it was a waste of money. By the time we’d reached high school, Joe had acquired divine status, revered by fellow students and teachers alike. He remained an obnoxious prick.
    His little posse roamed through the aisles of the store, whispering and snickering amongst themselves. I ignored them to the best of my ability.
    â€œHey dyke-breath!” Joe yelled from the snack-food aisle. “How about giving a school chum a five-finger-you discount. I’ll make it worth your while.”
    A few seconds later, Joe and the girls emerged, the girls giggling moronically. “Oh, Priscilla,” Joe moaned as he clutched his crotch. “I’m just burning with desire for you. I don’t think I can take it any more. Oh, Scilla.” He reached down his pants and pulled out a still-wrapped Twinkie. He stroked it suggestively. The girls giggled some more. I looked down at the cash register keys. “I’m gonna come! I’m gonna come right here in the store!” With that, he squeezed the Twinkie package and creamy innards burst forth, spraying, among other things, the side of my face.
    I wiped it off with my sleeve. Then I walked away. I walked into the back room, where Gill Ecks sat on a milk crate smoking a cigarette. I handed him my register keys.
    â€œI’m not getting paid enough for this shit,” I said. “I quit.”
    I didn’t give him a chance to respond. I walked out the back door and nearly right into a Lincoln Town Car, driven by a certain Hawaiian-shirt-clad man.
    When life sucks, it really sucks.

Back in April
    T he letter from the public defender’s