own filth, growing pink and fat, but the smell of them and their nest was like this animalâs stomach: raw, full with shit. Skeetah is right.
He tries to pull the innards out, but they hold, so he tries to cut at the strings holding them, and he cuts the intestines by accident.
âOh, shit,â Skeetah says, and he drops the animal and the innards and the knife on the bloody plastic bag and he steps away, his hands on his knees, his head hanging down. There is sand in my throat, and I cannot breathe.
âJesus, Skeet.â I run off behind a small gathering of trees, as far as I can make it away from that smell and that slime, and I fall and throw up the eggs, the rice, the water, everything I have inside of me until there is no food left, until my throat feels empty and I cannot stop heaving up air and spit, but still I am not able to throw it all up. Inside, at the bottom, something remains.
By the time the meat is done cooking, has turned brown and small with as many hard edges as a jewel, the boys have come. Marquise is slicing at the meat with his own pocket knife, slapping small chunks onto pieces of bread that are turning soggy with hot sauce. Skeetah makes a sandwich, passes it to me, before making his own. The meat is stringy and hard, tastes of half red spice from the hot sauce, which has turned the bread pink, and half wild animal. I bite and I am eating acorns and leaping with fear to the small dark holes in the heart of old oak trees. The sun had set while Skeetah and I were looking for wood for the grill; the sky burst to color above us, and then the sun sank through the trees so that the color ran out of the sky like water out of a drain and left the sky bleached white to navy to dark. I overloaded on wood for the fire; Skeet had to keep grabbing the squirrel out by its foot, his hand wrapped in his shirt, because he was afraid it would burn. But the fire is large enough that I can see all their faces in the dark.
âItâs good,â Marquise says.
âIt tastes burnt,â says Skeetah. Big Henry, beside him, laughs.
âIt tastes like shit. I canât believe yâall eating that.â Big Henry gulps more of his beer, which is so warm the bottle doesnât even sweat water in the hot night. âMight as well give that little bit of nothing to the puppy.â
I hardly chew the sandwich, just bite it small enough to get on my tongue, wet with spit, and swallow. Skeetah hands me the half-jug of juice, and I swallow a mouthful of warm colored sugar. I am not hungry, but it is better when I eat because I donât feel so sick. If I throw up again, somebody would ask me what my problem is. And I donât want to have to speak the lie, to be convincing. To have them looking at me and asking. I pass the jug along to Marquise. This is the closest drink to real fruit juice weâve ever had in the house. Mama used to put it in the cart while I rode in the basket through the grocery store, wedge the red punch alongside me in the seat so the jug turned my leg cold. But I liked it, because later in the truck that didnât have any air-conditioning, my leg would stay cold, like a piece of ice melting in my hand.
The puppy in the bucket scratches and Skeetah sits over him, his head hanging low, staring. Every once in a while, heâll touch the rim of the bucket like he wants to reach in and rub the puppy, comfort it, but he doesnât.
âYou ainât never gave him a name, huh, Skeet?â I ask.
âNo.â He doesnât look up. âYou can give it a name if you want, Esch.â He sits with his chin in his hands. âItâs a girl.â
A name. I knew a girl once in school that was named after the candles you burn to drive the mosquitoes away: Citronella. She always had at least two boyfriends, lip gloss, and all her folders were color-coded to match her books. I used to kneel in the water up to my neck and watch her when we ran into her
He tries to pull the innards out, but they hold, so he tries to cut at the strings holding them, and he cuts the intestines by accident.
âOh, shit,â Skeetah says, and he drops the animal and the innards and the knife on the bloody plastic bag and he steps away, his hands on his knees, his head hanging down. There is sand in my throat, and I cannot breathe.
âJesus, Skeet.â I run off behind a small gathering of trees, as far as I can make it away from that smell and that slime, and I fall and throw up the eggs, the rice, the water, everything I have inside of me until there is no food left, until my throat feels empty and I cannot stop heaving up air and spit, but still I am not able to throw it all up. Inside, at the bottom, something remains.
By the time the meat is done cooking, has turned brown and small with as many hard edges as a jewel, the boys have come. Marquise is slicing at the meat with his own pocket knife, slapping small chunks onto pieces of bread that are turning soggy with hot sauce. Skeetah makes a sandwich, passes it to me, before making his own. The meat is stringy and hard, tastes of half red spice from the hot sauce, which has turned the bread pink, and half wild animal. I bite and I am eating acorns and leaping with fear to the small dark holes in the heart of old oak trees. The sun had set while Skeetah and I were looking for wood for the grill; the sky burst to color above us, and then the sun sank through the trees so that the color ran out of the sky like water out of a drain and left the sky bleached white to navy to dark. I overloaded on wood for the fire; Skeet had to keep grabbing the squirrel out by its foot, his hand wrapped in his shirt, because he was afraid it would burn. But the fire is large enough that I can see all their faces in the dark.
âItâs good,â Marquise says.
âIt tastes burnt,â says Skeetah. Big Henry, beside him, laughs.
âIt tastes like shit. I canât believe yâall eating that.â Big Henry gulps more of his beer, which is so warm the bottle doesnât even sweat water in the hot night. âMight as well give that little bit of nothing to the puppy.â
I hardly chew the sandwich, just bite it small enough to get on my tongue, wet with spit, and swallow. Skeetah hands me the half-jug of juice, and I swallow a mouthful of warm colored sugar. I am not hungry, but it is better when I eat because I donât feel so sick. If I throw up again, somebody would ask me what my problem is. And I donât want to have to speak the lie, to be convincing. To have them looking at me and asking. I pass the jug along to Marquise. This is the closest drink to real fruit juice weâve ever had in the house. Mama used to put it in the cart while I rode in the basket through the grocery store, wedge the red punch alongside me in the seat so the jug turned my leg cold. But I liked it, because later in the truck that didnât have any air-conditioning, my leg would stay cold, like a piece of ice melting in my hand.
The puppy in the bucket scratches and Skeetah sits over him, his head hanging low, staring. Every once in a while, heâll touch the rim of the bucket like he wants to reach in and rub the puppy, comfort it, but he doesnât.
âYou ainât never gave him a name, huh, Skeet?â I ask.
âNo.â He doesnât look up. âYou can give it a name if you want, Esch.â He sits with his chin in his hands. âItâs a girl.â
A name. I knew a girl once in school that was named after the candles you burn to drive the mosquitoes away: Citronella. She always had at least two boyfriends, lip gloss, and all her folders were color-coded to match her books. I used to kneel in the water up to my neck and watch her when we ran into her
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