school for homeworkâa group project on native rights in the aftermath of World War II. She laughed in his face and asked him to change the dressing on her burn. Big yellow bubbles popped every time pressure was applied.
Jamie didnât say anything to his father, sitting on the balcony of their motel room, smoking and dropping the ashes down onto the patio furniture below. The insurance company was still waiting for the arson judgment. Initial reports suggested an electrical fire. It was too cold for anyone to use the motel pool. The remains of a crow circled its clogged filter, the chlorine slowly dissolving its feathers down to the quick. One of the hotel staff kept trying to fish it out with a pole, cursing at the dead bird in Polish. The motel smelled like cheap champagne and old cigars. They called it the Dynasty. They were only there for two weeks before a city councilorâs girlfriend popped the waterbed in the room above theirs with her stiletto and the water shorted out the television.
Jamie spent those two weeks walking around town, carving his initials into fence posts and doorframes. He walked past the pawnshops on the downtown strip lined up like childrenâs blocks. Sharkeeâs Pawn Palace. Jameson Pawn and Loan. The Loan Arranger. Each one packed with festering potential. Someone who thought theyâd get married. Someone who thought theyâd play guitar. Each dream propped up in the window. Jamie started spending each morning watching crumpled people trickle into the pawnshops, handing over the old dreams theyâd decided to surrender, the ones gathering dust like diplomas dangling from bathroom walls. Sometimes he thought to buy them a cup of coffee, but he had no moneyâonly the change he found in the candy machines at the arenas.
The pawnshops were often empty in the afternoons, the owners watching soap operas or cutting dope in the back rooms with men in leather jackets and ponytails. All of those discounted lives gathering dust until someone else came to pick them up for triple the initial price.
Jamie never bought anything.
Sometimes he spent the afternoons at Melissa Hurleyâs, until her father walked in on them with Melissa bent over her old Easy-Bake Oven and Jamie pumping away from behind. It didnât help that the oven was plugged in and would not stop dinging throughout the entire shouting match. Her father threw Jamie naked down a flight of stairs and tried to whip him with his belt.
It only took four days back at school for Jamie to fuck up again, a knee to the crotch of Harry Knowles that some kids said popped one of his balls. Melissa Hurley had moved on quickly, a whirling dervish of red hair, pancake makeup, and angry yellow pimples in search of the right boy, any boy. Mr. Hurleyâs heart attack during a sermon on premarital sex only increased her speed.
Knowles was apparently the newest in a long line of conquests, something that didnât faze Jamie until Knowles told him about Melissa mocking the size of his dick. Tiny, man, like a pinky. Like a pencil. Like one of those pins they put under a microscope to show you how small a cell is in biology class, you know?
No testicle was actually popped in the ensuing melee.
Jamie did not bother showing up for his official expulsion. He did not want to sit while Mr. Georgopolous rained dandruff down on his face. He didnât tell his parents either. He didnât even bother going home that night. Instead he hung out under the eaves of the Coffee Time downtown and watched people in wet trench coats and broken umbrellas hand over pieces of themselves to the bearded men behind greasy bulletproof glass for loose crumpled bills and slivers of change. He wanted to reach out and touch them. Women in torn leggings and jagged leather boots paced through the puddles outside, some ducking into cars that smelled like cheap cigarettes and formaldehyde before they reappeared again like doppelgangers with busted
Jamie didnât say anything to his father, sitting on the balcony of their motel room, smoking and dropping the ashes down onto the patio furniture below. The insurance company was still waiting for the arson judgment. Initial reports suggested an electrical fire. It was too cold for anyone to use the motel pool. The remains of a crow circled its clogged filter, the chlorine slowly dissolving its feathers down to the quick. One of the hotel staff kept trying to fish it out with a pole, cursing at the dead bird in Polish. The motel smelled like cheap champagne and old cigars. They called it the Dynasty. They were only there for two weeks before a city councilorâs girlfriend popped the waterbed in the room above theirs with her stiletto and the water shorted out the television.
Jamie spent those two weeks walking around town, carving his initials into fence posts and doorframes. He walked past the pawnshops on the downtown strip lined up like childrenâs blocks. Sharkeeâs Pawn Palace. Jameson Pawn and Loan. The Loan Arranger. Each one packed with festering potential. Someone who thought theyâd get married. Someone who thought theyâd play guitar. Each dream propped up in the window. Jamie started spending each morning watching crumpled people trickle into the pawnshops, handing over the old dreams theyâd decided to surrender, the ones gathering dust like diplomas dangling from bathroom walls. Sometimes he thought to buy them a cup of coffee, but he had no moneyâonly the change he found in the candy machines at the arenas.
The pawnshops were often empty in the afternoons, the owners watching soap operas or cutting dope in the back rooms with men in leather jackets and ponytails. All of those discounted lives gathering dust until someone else came to pick them up for triple the initial price.
Jamie never bought anything.
Sometimes he spent the afternoons at Melissa Hurleyâs, until her father walked in on them with Melissa bent over her old Easy-Bake Oven and Jamie pumping away from behind. It didnât help that the oven was plugged in and would not stop dinging throughout the entire shouting match. Her father threw Jamie naked down a flight of stairs and tried to whip him with his belt.
It only took four days back at school for Jamie to fuck up again, a knee to the crotch of Harry Knowles that some kids said popped one of his balls. Melissa Hurley had moved on quickly, a whirling dervish of red hair, pancake makeup, and angry yellow pimples in search of the right boy, any boy. Mr. Hurleyâs heart attack during a sermon on premarital sex only increased her speed.
Knowles was apparently the newest in a long line of conquests, something that didnât faze Jamie until Knowles told him about Melissa mocking the size of his dick. Tiny, man, like a pinky. Like a pencil. Like one of those pins they put under a microscope to show you how small a cell is in biology class, you know?
No testicle was actually popped in the ensuing melee.
Jamie did not bother showing up for his official expulsion. He did not want to sit while Mr. Georgopolous rained dandruff down on his face. He didnât tell his parents either. He didnât even bother going home that night. Instead he hung out under the eaves of the Coffee Time downtown and watched people in wet trench coats and broken umbrellas hand over pieces of themselves to the bearded men behind greasy bulletproof glass for loose crumpled bills and slivers of change. He wanted to reach out and touch them. Women in torn leggings and jagged leather boots paced through the puddles outside, some ducking into cars that smelled like cheap cigarettes and formaldehyde before they reappeared again like doppelgangers with busted
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