OCR Text |
Show Blue Run/66 up inside. And Joey? Who knows about him-he's always lived in his own world, though sometimes I got close enough to get a glimpse. He'd passed fifth grade, but started these stunts that alarmed his teachers. Once he took a deck of cards into class, handed it Miss Blue, and told her to pick one. For some reason, she did, while he was out at recess, and locked it in her top drawer. "He said king of hearts." she whispered into the phone. "How'd he know that?" like he was king of the underground or some such. Stuff like that. But Joey was my man, even then-try talking to somebody about your firstborn, try to explain. Juanita was Dee's sister's son's sister's daughter, which made her who knows what to me, Joey and Jimmy, but she was good people, honest to the bone. The happiest person I've ever known-bar none, not one bit disfigured inside, Juanita was my soul mate, my heart's kith and kin. "Leave the son of a bitch," she said over a mound of fried rice in her apartment, not far from the ocean. "Wake up some morning and pour rat poison in his oatmeal. Just shoot him with a gun in the head. They have laws about this-his ass's in a sling. Don't you know?' Want a pistol, cuz?" "O.W takes care of me," I heard myself say, amazed deep down that we'd made it this far, to California, where my boys were just now munching egg rolls and Admiral's Chicken. This was before Traceleen, my daughter; I still felt young then, but I feel young now-chew on that one "Why'd you come here?" Juanita clicked chopsticks with what was left of a hand. "To get away." "From what?" "Can we see the ocean. Can I swim in the ocean??" "Oh you." Juanita said, "Sure, cuz." |