Reality Boy by A. S. King Page A

a way out of this shitty little town!”
    I watch the three of them walking, and once they get across the railroad tracks, one of them pulls out a smartphone and they get their bearings and start to walk in the direction of the bus station that’s ten blocks away.
    Joe, the tall, bald guy, stands outside for a minute, and I hear his last words echo in my head.
Good luck finding a way out of this shitty little town.
    I turn around and run right into Register #1 Girl and another cashier.
    “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know you were here.”
    “We heard the yelling,” she says.
    “It’s over now,” I say.
    It’s over now, Gerald. Good luck finding a way out of this shitty little town.

22
    REGISTER #1 GIRL and her cashier friend turn around and go back toward the side door. (Have I mentioned that she has the cutest ass in the universe? I probably haven’t. The boys’ combat pants work. That’s all I’ll say.) I walk back to the edge of the parking lot and sit down on a step and watch people. It’s pretty quiet. The security guards are wandering around doing security-guard things.
Maybe I can be a security guard. I’m big enough. Beats counting hot dogs.
    I feel like I just fucked up by telling Dad that I’m not coming home. At the same time, I really don’t want to go home. At the same time, I pretty much have to go home.
    A kid appears at the bottom of the steps—he’s about myage. He’s tall and his hair is just long enough to fit into a ponytail. As he climbs the steps toward me, he looks over his shoulder to the loading bay, and when he gets out of sight he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a box of cigarettes, and lights one. Then he screams, “FUCK THIS SHIT!”
    I admit this makes me jump. He sees me and moves his head to acknowledge that I’m sitting here. I scream back, not nearly as loud but loud enough, “FUCK THIS SHIT!”
    We look at each other for a second. I have my usual Gerald-thoughts.
He recognizes me. He can see the behavior chart and all the black marks. Any second now, he’s going to say, “Hey! You’re the Crapper!”
    He walks up a few more steps and sits where he can talk to me—about three steps down.
    “Fuck this shit, you know?” he says.
    “Dude. I know. Seriously. Fuck. This. Shit.”
    Then we laugh. Really laugh. He has to wipe his nose because he snots from laughing so hard. I can’t tell if my laughter is real. I think it is.
    After he stops laughing he asks, “You work here?”
    I nod.
    “Good money?” he asks, taking a long, hard drag on the cigarette.
    “Better than none at all, I guess.”
    “I don’t make shit. Not until I’m older.”
    “Oh,” I say. We sit in silence for a minute and I try to place his accent. He’s not from here. He’s got a Southern accent, I think. But not all the way. “How old do you have to be?” I ask.
    He drags on his cigarette and says, “We work as hard as anyone else on the show, you know?”
    Now he has a New Jersey accent. Or New York.
    I ask, “You’re with the circus?”
    He laughs again and smoke comes out his nose. “I
am
the fuckin’ circus, man. Every fuckin’ day of my fuckin’ life.”
    Down by the loading bay I can hear big, bald Joe yelling.
“Where the hell is that kid? I told him to get that bus cleared out before matinee! Useless son of a bitch!”
    “Huh,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. Then I add, “What’s with the clown-dentist thing? How come that’s funny?”
    “I don’t know,” he says. “I never understood clowns.”
    “You’re the circus and you don’t understand clowns?”
    “Nope. I think they’re totally stupid,” he says, taking a pull from his cigarette. “But the kids like them.”
    “Huh. A clown pulling his own tooth doesn’t seem like kids would like it,” I say. “I guess that proves I’m not a kid.”
    “What do they pay you? Seven, eight bucks an hour?” he asks.
    “Seven fifty.”
    “You cook?”
    “Nah. I work the register.