Ferocity Summer by Alissa Grosso

paltry $322.83. If I was lucky, he’d be a really bad shot, or have a tremor in his hand and the bullet would just graze my ear or take a chunk out of my shoulder.
    I licked my lips and tried not to look nervous. Criminals could sense fear, couldn’t they? Or was that dogs?
    He placed his bottle of sweetened, no-lemon iced tea on the counter.
    I picked it up, punched a few buttons on the register, and said, “A dollar twenty-nine.”
    â€œTell me, Priscilla, why is it that things are always something-nine cents?” he asked.
    The bottle of sweetened, no-lemon iced tea plummeted from my hand to the linoleum floor where it shattered into a million and nine pieces, splashing iced tea just about everywhere, including on my shoes and bare legs. I couldn’t move. I had never introduced myself. I wasn’t wearing a name tag.
    He didn’t seem to mind about the spilled beverage nor about the fact that I seemed in some state of paralysis. He slapped $1.30 on the counter and walked out without getting his change, without getting his bottle of iced tea, shattered or otherwise.

    People called Sherman “Cump” for short. Tecumseh was his real first name. When he was a kid, his dad died and his mom couldn’t afford to take care of all the kids. So this rich family, the Ewings, adopted Sherman and then christened him William. A traveling preacher picked the name because the day of his christening was St. William’s Day, and the Ewings said it sounded good to them. How fucked up is that? I don’t think anyone ever called him William, at least no one who knew him.
    â€œLook, maybe he’s just some perv who walks into convenience stores and says weird shit to people,” Willow said as she smoked her cigarette. “People get off on the weirdest things. It’s a sick world.”
    â€œIt wasn’t what he said that was weird, it was that he knew my name,” I repeated, still a bit dazed and jumpy.
    â€œSo, like, maybe he’s somebody’s brother or uncle or something. I bet someone put him up to it. Shit, it was probably Randy. In fact, I’m sure it was. This is just his sort of sick humor.”
    â€œRandy doesn’t know anyone who owns a Hawaiian shirt.”
    â€œYou’ve been screwing my brother for how long, and you haven’t caught on to the fact that he’s got some really loopy friends? It’s like he immerses himself in weirdos just so he can feel normal.”
    â€œThank you,” I said, chewing nervously on the inside of my lip.
    â€œThere’s reasons you’ll never be elected homecoming queen, but shit, it ain’t like I’m in the running either,” Willow added.
    â€œIf it wasn’t Randy, then who?” I asked anxiously.
    â€œI’m telling you, it was Randy. It’s got his name written all over it.”
    As it turned out, Willow was right about Mr. Something-Nine Cents being saturated in Randy, but interestingly enough, Randy didn’t know anyone who owned a Hawaiian shirt, let alone a pair of white pants.

    â€œSince when don’t you like chicken nuggets?” my mom asked.
    â€œI said I’m just not hungry, all right?”
    I rolled around the small balls of breaded processed chicken on my plate. I would not look up to meet my mother’s gaze. If only she would just shut up and leave me alone, then I wouldn’t have to feel more nauseated than I already did, but I knew that there was more chance of an eleven-foot iguana falling out of the sky and landing on my dinner plate than there was of my mother keeping her peace.
    â€œMaybe you’ve been eating so many meals over at the Jenkinses’ that you’ve lost your taste for low-brow cooking,” she said.
    â€œThey eat pizza and potato chips,” I said without looking up.
    â€œWhat kind of potato chips?”
    â€œDoes it matter?”
    â€œLook, you think because you’re seventeen you can get