Poster Boy by Dede Crane Page A

before.
    â€œI sliced her belly and look at this.” He lifted up two herring — one looked fresh, the other half digested. “Girl’s full of fish,” he laughed. “Feed them to the cat.” He dangled the herring over his shoulder for Laurie.
    â€œDo you think raw fish is good for — ”
    â€œIt’s a cat, isn’t it?”
    Laurie took the slimy fish.
    â€œAnd would you look at this.” He dug with his knife and sniggered. “She’s not a she after all. Know how you tell a girl fish from a boy fish?” He looked right at me.
    â€œNo. How?”
    He lifted out some weird stringy thing with a little pouch in its center.
    â€œKnow what this is?” He leaned toward me. His breath was a tangy mix of beer and nicotine.
    â€œNo,” said Davis, sounding bored.
    â€œIt’s a sperm bag. A delicacy in Japan.”
    â€œCool,” said Davis unconvincingly.
    â€œCool,” I echoed with more enthusiasm.
    â€œYou bet it’s cool,” said Davis’s dad as he shoved Davis hard with his elbow. Davis fell against me and I hit my back on the counter. “It’s cool because you didn’t know it before and now you do. So your little brain learned something today. Now get out of here.”
    â€œSorry my dad’s both a creep and an asshole,” said Davis once we were outside.
    â€œWhat? Come on. Spermbag’s a seriously dice word,” I said, happy to get him to laugh. “Mine’s an asshole lately, too.” Though I had to admit that Davis’s dad made mine look like Jesus.
    * * *
    Davis and I got high and took pictures. Maybe it was because the sky was an overcast, metallic gray but, unlike at that farm, everything here in the burbs looked sad. I took pictures of rusted tacks pinning yellowed paper to the dead telephone pole. Another of the cracked, crumbling sidewalk. Of mud-splattered candy wrappers in the gutters. Of the paint store sign with the neon letter T burned out so it read “Hammond’s Pain.”
    Davis accidentally stepped on the back end of an ant and I took a close-up of its front legs clawing the air. When I swore I heard it crying, I put it out of its misery.
    We walked through the playground where the red paint was chipping off the poles of the swing set. That’s when I had one of those stoner realizations that seem really profound at the time.
    Everything, from the moment it was made, began dying. Something was brand new for only a second of time and then it started to break down. From the tallest buildings to the smallest ant, everything was falling to pieces attempting to get back to its origins: nothing.
    I thought about my body and how one day it, too, would be nothing but bone which would turn to ash which would be blown apart by the wind. Poof.
    And then I started to feel faint and had to sit down on one of the swings.
    â€œHey,” said Davis, taking the swing next to me. “Here’s one. Every night before the bogeyman goes to sleep, he checks under his bed for Chuck Norris.” He laughed his donkey guffaw and I started laughing, too. Then, as if some switch was broken inside, I couldn’t stop. I laughed till my head felt like it was spinning and then I started having trouble breathing so had to calm myself down.
    â€œYou know those little signs in the school stairwell?” I said when I could breathe again. I was feeling all serious now. “The ones that say don’t disturb or remove?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œThose walls are full of asbestos.”
    â€œYeah?” Davis started to pump his swing.
    â€œThat shit is like one of the most carcinogenic substances in existence.”
    â€œBut don’t you like have to inhale it?” Davis said as he swung by, his voice loud then soft.
    â€œI don’t know. Still.”
    Davis was swinging seriously high now and singing some song I couldn’t make out.
    â€œI