Alt Atuawt Part One

A note on the alternate version of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
The genesis of the pages that follow was the conflict that Kellen experiences at the end of Part Two,
Chapter Five. As the writer, I was so uncertain about the choice he makes that the story split in two
during that chapter. I wrote both versions, not knowing how they would turn out. When they were
done, I set one aside and revised, polished, and ultimately published the one you've read. The other one
has been sitting in a file folder on my computer since 2009. Nobody else has read it.

The decision Kellen makes on the night of his 24th birthday is one that sets the course for his life and
Wavy's life. It's a complicated choice. Does he spend the night with Lisa DeGrassi‐‐someone we would
consider an appropriate and even desirable romantic interest for him? Or does he go out to the
farmhouse and spend his birthday with Wavy‐‐cementing a relationship that he knows is problematic,
that looks even worse to people on the outside? He loves Wavy very much, but he is also a young man
who wants what most young men want‐‐love, companionship, sex. At age eleven, Wavy can offer him
the first two, but not the third.

In the version of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things that was ultimately published, Kellen's love and
commitment to Wavy wins out. He leaves Lisa's house, goes to Wavy, and is happy to discover that she
remembers his birthday, that his love is returned. In the alternate version, the one contained here, his
discomfort over what he feels for Wavy, and his desire for a normal life and a normal relationship, win
out. What happens from there is starkly different, but contains many echoes of the published version.

By way of warning, I will say that if you love All the Ugly and Wonderful Things as is, and would be upset
to see a different and more troubling outcome for Wavy and Kellen, you shouldn't read this. If you're
open to alternate realities, and are comfortable with the idea that we hold multiple versions of the
person we are inside of us, read on.

Best,
Bryn
All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

1
Part Two
Chapter Six
Kellen
December 1980
"What about you? Why don't you leave Powell?" Lisa said.
"I got responsibilities." It was the easiest thing to say, when the truth was a whole lot
more complicated.
"Responsibilities? Like Wavy Quinn?"
"Well, yeah."
"What's the story behind that?" Lisa said.
"What do you mean?" I knew what she meant. I didn't wanna talk about it.
"It's weird for a grown man to be friends with a little girl. I'm not saying you're doing
anything inappropriate, it's just weird."
The way she looked at me, I could see anything I said was gonna be worse than what it
seemed like to her. Whatever she'd been thinking when she kissed me, she wasn't thinking that
now.
"I mean, you know, I'm friends with her father. So I look out for her." Just like that I'd
told a lie. I wasn't friends with Liam.
"It's nothing creepy, though, right?" she said.
"Oh, hell, no. Her mama's sick--"

2
"Her mother is crazy!"
"So yeah, Wavy needs somebody, an adult, to look out for her. That's all."
That wasn't all, and saying it, I felt like Peter denying Christ. I felt like an asshole, but
also for that minute or so, I felt like a regular person.
"You sure you don't want to stay the night?" Lisa said, so I knew I'd said the right thing.
For her. I'd said the thing that made her think I was a good guy doing something responsible,
instead of a guy who had got way too attached to somebody else's little girl.
"You sure you want me to?"
She kissed me again, so I guessed she did, and when I picked her up to carry her into the
bedroom, she giggled. It was one of the few things I could do that girls really liked. When I
tossed her down on the bed, she looked at me like she wanted me. And maybe right then she did,
but by the time it was all done, I could tell she was already regretting it. After, she rolled over on
her side away from me and went to sleep.
Never mind me feeling like a regular person, in the morning, I was this bad decision Lisa
made when she was drunk. She wouldn't even look me in the eye. I wrote my phone number
down for her, even though I knew she was never gonna call me. She didn't even say she would.
She wasn't even willing to lie to be polite.
Pissed me off enough that I went out and fired up my bike as loud as I could, cranked the
throttle to be sure the whole damn neighborhood heard it. Later after I'd showered and slept a
little more, I went up to the farmhouse, but Wavy wasn't there. I could see from the dishes in the
sink that she'd cooked something. There was a mixing bowl and a cake pan. After I washed them
up, I checked the fridge, but there wasn't nothing in there. Finally, I looked in the garbage can. A

3
whole chocolate cake dumped in there, candles and all. She made me a birthday cake and I didn't
show up for it.
I dragged myself home, feeling like shit about the whole deal, but on Monday, when I
went to pick Wavy up for school, she didn't mention it. Didn't call me an asshole for missing out
on cake, but then she didn't wish me a happy birthday, either. So I guessed we wasn't gonna talk
about it.
That next Friday night, Val was being a little weird, so Wavy cooked dinner at my house,
and while she was watching me eat, the phone rang. I answered and it was Lisa. She asked did I
want to meet her out to the Southern Cross, where we drank on my birthday. Part of me did. Part
of me didn't. Wavy was watching me.
"Yeah, sure. Here after a bit," I said to Lisa. When I hung up, I said to Wavy, "I'm gonna
run you home. I gotta go take care of something."
I didn't tell her nothing else, and she knew I had to go do shit for Liam sometimes, so she
loaded up without saying nothing. After I dropped her off at the farmhouse, I rode out to the bar,
and there was Lisa. Dressed up, looking like she didn't belong, except she was already drunk. I
didn't know if she'd been there long enough to get drunk or she drove there drunk, but after two
more hours of drinking, there was no way she could drive herself home. We ended up back at her
house, all them Beatles albums still scattered around her record player. In the morning, she
actually made me breakfast, which was something, but I didn't hear from her for the rest of the
week. Not til Friday night rolled around and she called me again.
That's how it went for months. She'd ignore me--if I called, she was too busy, or she
wasn't feeling good--and then on Friday night, she'd call me, already half drunk and wanting to
end up drunk enough to fuck me. So we'd spend Saturday nursing a hangover and then wind it

4
back up Saturday night. Sunday afternoon, I'd go crawling home, feeling like shit. We never--not
once--had sex when she was sober, and we never went nowhere together except one bar or
another. More than a few times, I tried to talk her into going to a movie or bowling or out to
dinner, but she never would.
It put me in a dark place. I'd crawl in there as soon as I got sober on Sunday, and spend
the rest of the day going around my house pissed off. At myself. At Lisa. At Wavy, who'd started
giving me the cold shoulder. She knew something was up, and now that I'd started lying to her
about where I was on the weekends, I couldn't relax with her.
By Friday, I'd start to see my way outta that dark place. I'd think, I ain't even gonna
answer the phone. I'd think, I'm gonna go up to the farmhouse and apologize to Wavy.
Except every time, when the phone rang, I answered it. Every time, I remembered the
way Lisa looked at me while she was waiting for me to explain what was going on with me and
Wavy. I remembered that night I climbed up to Wavy's room, and wondered what the hell was
wrong with me? What if I'd told Lisa the truth? What if I'd said, "I love Wavy like I ain't ever
loved nobody in my whole life"? Nothing good, I didn't figure. Lisa woulda looked at me the
way Wavy's aunt looked at me. The way I deserved to be looked at.
Then come the Monday that I woke up still wrecked from spending all weekend drunk
with Lisa. When I shoulda been headed up to the farm to get Wavy for school, I was sitting at the
kitchen table, drinking coffee and thinking I'd rather be dead than have to face that look she give
me on Mondays after I'd dodged her all weekend. Not even mad, just confused and hurt, like she
didn't know what had happened. I didn't even know how to it explain to her. She said she loved
me, but there was no way she really understood how I felt about her. How could she? She was
only eleven. How was I supposed to say, "Look, I can't be spending so much time with you, cuz

5
it's not normal. They got a word for guys who fall in love with little girls, and it ain't nothing
nice."
So that Monday, I didn't go pick her up for school. I knew it was the shittiest solution, but
it was the only one I had the energy for. I finished my coffee and went into the garage and did a
day's work. At 2:50, when I usually left the shop to pick her up from school, I kept on working,
even though Cutcheon was giving me looks. He minded his own business, though. Didn't say
nothing.
I knew I musta made Wavy miss school that day, but she was smart and she liked school.
I figured on Tuesday, she'd get up and catch the bus the way she used to. Before I'd got her all
tangled up with my life.
I felt like shit about it, but after the first week of not seeing her, it got easier.
Not that I got outta the dark place, but that I didn't have to keep trying to crawl out of it
and falling back in. I just stayed down there. Only thing was, I thought that dark place was the
bottom, but it wasn't. Not by a long shot.

6
Chapter Seven
Wavy
April 1981
On the bus, I had to ride in the seat behind the driver, because it was the only way to make Shane
Fletcher leave me alone. If I sat anywhere else, he sat beside me, and pulled my hair, or pinched
my legs, or yanked on my dress.
"Boys will be boys. She better get used to it," the principal said.
"He's not hurting her," Mr. Fletcher said.
"It means he likes you," Mrs. Fletcher said. She smiled like it was something special
having Shane like me.
"I rather doubt that Wavy is entirely innocent here," Mrs. Norton said.
"You'll have to sit behind me from now on," the bus driver said. She was the only one
who cared if he stopped. She was the one who reported him, but only after I punched him.
After that, I sat in the first seat, and if Shane tried to sit near me, the bus driver yelled at
him. Eventually he stopped trying, and then the worst thing anyone did to me on the bus was call
me names. Retard and stuck-up and albino. They couldn't decide why they hated me.
The one person who didn't hate me was Caroline Peters. She wanted to be best friends
with me. She sat next to me at lunch every day, and not because I always gave away my dessert.
If I swung at recess, she would swing, too. The other names they called me at school were

7
weirdo or freak, but Caroline said, "You're very interesting," like that was a good thing.
Sometimes I felt like she was smiling at me like Mrs. Fletcher, like I was supposed to be grateful
that Caroline thought I was interesting.
She wore pretty dresses and they were always clean, and her mother dropped her off at
school and picked her up in their Cadillac. Almost every week the spring of our sixth grade year,
Caroline invited me to her house after school, but I always said no.
"Why not?" Caroline said.
At first, I said, "Bus."
"I wish I could ride the bus. I bet it's fun." Then she started saying, "My mom could take
you home."
"Not allowed," was my new answer, because in Caroline's world, there was no doing
anything unless your parents gave you permission.
Caroline was okay, but I didn't trust her. She could be nice one day and then mean the
next. She went from wanting to be my best friend to hating me, all in one day.
She never called me freak or albino or retard, but she was the one who started calling me
Hand-Me-Down, because none of my clothes ever fit right. That's not why she started calling me
that. She picked that, because it was obvious, but she started calling me that because of what
happened on her birthday.
For weeks, she'd been telling me that she was going to have a special birthday party. She
showed me the invitations and the pictures of the cake her mother was going to make and the
dress she was going to wear. When she gave me my invitation, I gave her the answer I always
did: "Not allowed."

8
Her party was on a Saturday, and it was a sleepover party. I didn't think anyone would
take me, and I didn't have any pajamas or a sleeping bag, and I didn't know what present I would
get her, or how I would eat, so it was safer not to do it.
The next day, Caroline brought me a letter.
"It's from my mom for your mom, so she'll let you come to my party," she said.
I burned it in the trash barrel behind the barn, and when Caroline asked, I said, "She said
no."
Her party was on Saturday, but her real birthday was the Wednesday before, and Mrs.
Norton gave Mrs. Peters permission to bring cupcakes so Caroline could have another party for
the last half hour of the school day.
Everybody got a cupcake and a party favor. While everyone else lined up at the back of
the classroom, Caroline brought mine to my desk. A cupcake and the kind of plastic puzzle
where you have to move the tiles around to make a picture.
I put the puzzle in my pocket, but I didn't know what to do with the cupcake. It was very
pretty, piled up high with frosting. There was no way I would be able to take it home on the bus.
I wondered if Mrs. Norton would let me go to the bathroom, but even if she did, she wouldn't let
me take the cupcake with me. I was trying to figure out what to do when Caroline came back to
my desk.
"Aren't you going to eat your cupcake?" she said.
I didn't know whether to nod or shake my head, so I didn't do either.
"Go ahead. They're really good."
She smiled, waiting for me to take a bite.
"My mom made them special."

9
Even though Caroline had watched Mrs. Norton write me up every day for not eating
lunch, she thought I was going to eat her birthday cupcake. I would have. I wanted one. I wanted
to take it home so I could eat it, but I wasn't going to eat it there. I just wasn't.
"But why won't you eat it?" Caroline said, and by then she was crying. "Why?"
She wanted a simple answer, but there wasn't one. That was what Kellen said. Not
everything has a simple answer. It wasn't that I didn't like rainbow sprinkles. It wasn't that I
didn't like chocolate cake. Those would be simple answers.
Maybe this is dirty.
Maybe I'm dirty.
Maybe something bad will happen if I put this in my mouth while you're watching.
Maybe there's something wrong with me.
Those weren't simple answers, but they were the only answers I had, because I didn't
even have Kellen anymore. He went away and didn't come back, and if he didn't love me
anymore, there was definitely something wrong with me.
After Caroline cried, she got mad.
"You're ruining my birthday," she said.
Mrs. Norton put another mark on the board next to my name. It was the fourth mark of
the day. She said, "For being so very rude."
"She's nobody, Caroline. She's not your friend," Mrs. Peters said.
It was true, too. After that day, Caroline called me Hand-Me-Down. She hated me.
The only one who hated me more than Caroline was Mrs. Norton. She wanted me to
repeat sixth grade, but the principal knew it would be another year of headaches for him. He

10
made Mrs. Norton pass me, even with all those marks on my grade reports for not eating lunch
and refusing to talk. He couldn't do anything about Caroline, though.

11
Chapter Eight
Kellen
June 1981
Lisa and me had got into such a routine that the first Friday she didn't call me, I thought
something had happened to her. She drank an awful lot, and my first thought was that she'd had a
wreck. I went by her house, but she wasn't there. So I started going by the bars we usually went
to. Southern Cross over in Belton. The VFW the other side of Powell. I was really starting to
worry, until I walked into the Rusted Bucket and saw her. She wasn't at the bar, where we
usually sat. She was at a table with Dale Mason. He'd been a couple years ahead of me in school,
worked up to the bank now.
They had their heads kinda leaned together, talking. Then they laughed and Lisa laid her
hand on his arm. The table next to them was for four and had an empty chair, so I picked it up
and set it down backwards at their table. When I sat down, Lisa took her hand off Dale's arm.
"Hey, Dale. Hey, Lisa," I said.
"Well, if it isn't Junior Barfoot. Large as life and twice as natural," Dale said. I guess that
was some kinda joke, because Lisa laughed.
I folded my arms across the back of the chair, waiting to hear what she would say, but all
she did was pick up her drink and take a swallow. Didn't look at me.
"I was a little worried, I didn't hear from you," I said. "Thought I'd better make sure you
was okay."

12
"I'm fine," she said.
"Yeah, I can see that."
"What do you hear from your brother these days, Junior?" Now there was a chance Dale
meant that as an honest question, but it wasn't like he was ever friends with my brother, so I
figured he meant to be a dick.
"Welp, I hear he's still in prison, that's what I hear."
We was quiet for a minute. They both took a drink. Made me wish I had one, except
about the last thing I wanted was to sit there drinking with them two. Whatever had made them
laugh as I walked up, it sure wasn't funny now.
"Can I do something for you, Junior?" Dale said.
I stood up and Lisa finally looked at me. She acted nervous, I guess because she thought I
was such a piece of shit that I was gonna do something. Alls I did was give Dale a thump on the
shoulder like we was old friends.
"Not a thing, Dale. Not a goddamn thing," I said.
I went back to the VFW, drank til the bartender cut me off. Then I went back to the
Southern Cross, but Glen patted his shotgun and shook his head at me.
"Naw. You're already drunk, Junior. You go on home," he said.
Another time, I mighta.
Or more like, another time, I woulda got back on my bike and rode up to the farmhouse.
Walked down into the meadow and found Wavy out under the stars. Seeing as how I hadn't been
up there in damn near six months, though, it didn't hardly seem like that was something I could
do. And what'd be the point? Nothing had changed. Nothing except now she avoided me anytime
she could. Sometimes I saw her, just out the corner of my eye when I was at Liam's for one thing

13
or another. Once when I had went into the front garage for a screwdriver to swap out the license
plate on the Charger, I found her and Donal in there. Donal come right to me, but Wavy took off
and didn't look back.
Since I couldn't drink anymore and I didn't want to go home, I did the only thing I could:
went out to Liam's, where they was having a party. It wasn't a real big party, maybe a dozen
folks or so in the front room of Sandy's trailer. I was sitting in the kitchen, drinking a beer, when
that girl with the snake tattooed on her arm walked in. She did some small time stuff for Liam, so
we crossed paths every once in a while. Maria-Magdalena, that was her name, so everybody
called her Marilena for short.
She sat down at the table and took a drink of my beer.
"You here on your bike?" she said.
"Yeah."
"If you take me out on it, I'll fuck you."
I didn't hardly know what to make of that, so I laughed. She took another swig off my
bottle.
"Well? Do you wanna go?" she said.
"Sure. Why not?"
Now, I didn't honestly figure that kinda offer was for real, but I took her out on the
Panhead. Up around the reservoir, down that back road to Powell, and then over to my house.
There we was, two o'clock in the morning in my kitchen, and I hadn't so much as touched her.
She pulled a plastic baggie outta between her tits and started setting up lines of meth on my
table. After she did one, she handed the straw to me.
"Naw," I said. "It ain't my thing."

14
"Oh, come on. Have a line and then we can go in the bedroom."
We went back and forth, me saying no and her making me more and more dirty offers,
and finally I figured why not? To hell with Lisa. To hell with whatever fucked up thing I felt
about Wavy. All I wanted to do was forget all that. So I snorted the goddamn line of meth, and
for maybe the first two minutes I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. Only after that, it was
like, everything that had been dogging me, it all went away. Or I didn't give a shit. I didn't give a
shit about nothing. I was scary high, like I never got off booze or weed.
We didn't even make it to the bedroom, just to the couch in the front room. When she got
my pants open, she said, "Damn. I forgot how big you are."
"You change your mind?" I said.
I guess not, because she stepped outta her pants, and straddled me. Hell, never even took
her shirt off. I was so fucked up, I felt like I was trying to run a goddamn Impala on jet fuel.
The thing about that kinda high is, and I knew this, you come off it hard. Like getting hit
by a train, and run over by every freight car. We was up past dawn, and once I finally fell asleep,
the phone started ringing. I staggered outta bed, looked over at Marilena who was crashed out on
the other side. In the kitchen, the light coming in the windows was so goddamn bright, and the
clock on the stove said 2:17.
"Yeah," I said when I picked up the phone.
"Jesse Joe?" That was Lisa, the only person besides Cutcheon who called me that.
"Yeah."
"I wanted to call and apologize. About last night."
"You don't need to," I said.

15
"No, I feel like I really do. I don't want you to think it's anything about you. It isn't. I just
don't think we're--I don't think we're really compatible. I don't want--"
"No big deal. We was just fucking, right?"
"You don't have to use that kind of language," she said. Words I wasn't allowed to use
around Lisa that had to do with sex: fuck, ass, tits, screw, cock, dick, pussy, cunt.
"Naw. You don't get to tell me how to talk anymore."
"Fine. Fine. But I wanted to tell you that I--"
"Goodbye, right? That's what you wanted to tell me. Ain't no skin off my nose.
Goodbye." I felt like shit for being mean about it, but I didn't owe her nothing. She'd got what
she wanted from me.
After I hung up on her, I called Cutcheon to apologize for not showing up to work in the
morning like I'd said I was. Usually that's how I killed Saturday, waiting for Lisa to put in an
appearance. I'd go up to the shop, wear off my hangover drinking Cutcheon's coffee and messing
around on whatever motorcycle I was in the middle of. He wasn't pissed when I called, just
shrugged it off, and for a minute I thought maybe I'd go back to bed. Except Marilena was in my
bed, something I already regretted.
Instead, I started a pot of coffee and made myself some bacon and eggs. Ate breakfast at
three o'clock in the afternoon. When Marilena came into the kitchen, for about half a second, I
thought she was gonna come over to the table and lean her head down on my shoulder. That's
what Wavy used to do to me, when she'd slept over. Just like that, a whole night of drinking and
getting fucked up on meth, and I was already thinking about what I'd been trying to forget.
Marilena didn't come put her head on my shoulder. She sat down across from me, kinda
staring off into space. Her hair looked greasy and she had big dark circles under her eyes. I was

16
thinking about offering to cook her something, but she took out that plastic baggy and started
setting herself up a line. That decided me. I ate the last few bites of my breakfast and finished my
coffee quick. Gave me a little idea what Lisa was always thinking on those mornings when she
tried to get rid of me so fast. Wasn't hardly flattering.
"You want one?" she said after she did her line.
"Look, I gotta go into work, so I'll run you home here in a minute."
"Oh, if you're going out to Liam's, you can just take me with you."
"Not that kinda work. I gotta go into my actual job. Where do you need to go?"
She shrugged and after a minute said, "I could just stay here."
I didn't even answer that. I did my dishes and put on my boots. Then I went through the
house, picking up her shoes, her purse, the rest of her clothes, and carried them back into the
kitchen. I ended up dropping her off at Liam's to get shut of her. I didn't know if she was living
out there or what, and I didn't care.

17
Chapter Nine
Amy
June 1982
I wasn't sure why Wavy stopped liking me, whether it was something I did or if she just decided
she didn't like me. When she and Donal came to visit that summer, all Wavy did was sit in the
living room and read books. After she finished the books we had in the house, other books
started mysteriously appearing, so I knew she was sneaking out of the house at night and stealing
them. From the library? From our neighbors? I wasn't sure. Wherever she was going at night, she
didn't take me with her anymore. Sometimes, I woke up in the middle of the night and her bed
was empty, because she waited until I fell asleep before she snuck out of the house.
Mom complained about her attitude all the time, but I didn't see what Mom saw. She
called Wavy sullen and rude. To me, Wavy seemed angry. Or sad. Or maybe both. Of course,
Mom was mad that she had made Wavy four new dresses and Wavy wouldn't wear them. She
wore the same two pairs of jeans for the two weeks she was at our house. One pair was too big
and the other pair was too small.
"All that work for nothing. Not even so much as a thank you," Mom said about the
dresses.

18
As for Donal, he was rude. He put his feet up on furniture and spit and cursed and told
people to shut up and go to hell. There'd been a time when Wavy could have corrected him,
would have corrected him, but she didn't anymore.
The day Mom dropped us off at the mall, Donal was supposed to play at a neighbor's
house with their little boy. I think it was the only reason Mom let us go to the mall unsupervised,
so she could have the house to herself for a few hours.
As soon as we got to the mall, Wavy walked off, even though Mom had told us to stay
together. That never bothered me before, when I would have been included in her miniature
rebellion. Now it was annoying. If we were going to stay together, we would have to follow her
to keep track of her. After about half an hour of that, I got sick of following her around while she
pretended I didn't exist.
"I'm going to the arcade," I said to Leslie, while Wavy stood in the bookstore, reading. I
didn't even want to go to the arcade, but I wanted to get to do something I picked.
"Mom told us to stay together." Leslie was always willing to enforce the rules.
"Well, I'm tired of doing whatever Wavy wants. I'll meet you back at the fountain in an
hour."
Leslie glared at me, but there wasn't much she could do. She couldn't follow Wavy and
me both.
Dad was supposed to pick us up from the mall at five-thirty, in time to bring us home for
supper, but he was late. He was always late. It was after six by the time he pulled up in front of
the mall doors where the three of us were waiting. Leslie and I hurried over to get in the car,
Leslie in front, me in back. Wavy came after us, like she wasn't in any hurry at all, and got in the
back.

19
"Wavy shoplifted a watch," Leslie said, as soon as we were all in the car.
"What?" Dad had been about to put the car in gear, but he stopped and looked at Leslie
first and then Wavy, and then me. I looked at Wavy, surprised. All those times we took things
when we were younger, we never stole anything from a store.
"I saw her. She took a watch off a display counter in JC Penney's and put it in her
pocket."
I never hated Leslie as much as I hated her when she was tattling on someone. It wasn't
that I thought shoplifting was okay, but I didn't think reporting Wavy to Dad was all that great,
either.
"Is that true, Wavy?" he said.
She ignored him.
"Goddamn it! I asked you a question!"
He yelled so loudly that Leslie and I flinched in our seats, but Wavy went on staring out
the car window. I didn’t know what was going to happen, because I had never been in that kind
of trouble. Dad had yelled at me a few times, but never like that, and I had never done anything
as bad as stealing something from a store.
"This is the absolute limit. I am not going to put up with this anymore," Dad said.
If it had been Mom, there was no doubt in my mind that she would have marched Wavy
right back into the mall. She would have made her return the watch and apologize. That was how
Mom operated, but it was not how Dad operated. He put the car in drive and headed home.
None of us said a word on the way there, but when we turned the corner to go down our
street, the silence was broken by what we saw at the end of the block.
"What in the hell?" Dad said.

20
"Oh my god," Leslie said.
"What is that?" I said.
Wavy said nothing, so I guess she wasn't shocked to see two police cars and an
ambulance parked in front of one of our neighbor's houses. Not just any neighbor's house, but the
neighbor whose son had a play date with Donal.
Dad pulled into our driveway, and we all went into the house, thinking Mom would be
able to tell us what was going on, but Mom wasn't there. Back outside, neighbors were gathered
around in little clumps whispering with each other, and as Dad and Leslie and I approached each
group, they fell silent.
"Have you seen Brenda?" Dad said, and each group pointed him closer and closer to the
house with the patrol cars and the ambulance out front. He turned to Leslie and me and said, "I
want you girls to go back to the house, go inside, and wait there for your mother and I."
When we got back to the house, Wavy was sitting on the porch. She stood up when she
saw us, and for the first time the angry-sad look was gone off her face. She looked scared, as
scared as I felt. Her whole face was a question: what happened?
"I don't know. Dad told us to wait at home. He's going to find Mom."
"Donal?" she said.
"I’m sure they're together. They'll be home soon," Leslie said, but she wasn't exactly
convincing.
Because Dad had told us to, we went inside, but Wavy stayed out on the porch. Looking
out through the dining room curtains, I watched her pace back and forth.
For nearly an hour we waited for any kind of news, and when Dad finally came home, he
held Donal by the arm, practically dragging him up the front walk, with Mom trailing close

21
behind them. When Wavy went to meet them, Dad brushed past her, and she fell into line behind
Mom. I ran to the dining room doorway and watched as Dad led Donal through the living room
and into the kitchen. His grip on Donal's arm was so tight that his fingers had gone nearly white.
In the kitchen, Dad jerked out one of the chairs and slammed Donal into it. Donal looked
annoyed. Not scared or upset, just annoyed.
"This is it. We're done, Brenda. We are absolutely done." Dad was shaking, that's how
angry he was, and I waited to hear what else he would say, but then he saw me standing behind
Wavy.
"Go to your room, Amy. Right now." Normally, he would have sent all of us out,
including Donal and Wavy, but he only made me leave. They got to stay to hear whatever Dad
had to say.
I went, not to my room, but to the dining room, where I could still hear most of what was
said. Enough to figure out what had happened. What was happening.
"It was an accident. I'm not sure he knew the gun was loaded," Mom said.
"He could have killed that boy! It's a goddamn miracle he didn't! Just think about--"
"I didn't even point the gun at him. I'm not an idiot," Donal said. "He's the one who--"
"You shut your mouth. Not another word out of you," Dad said. "He is six years old and
he brought a loaded gun into our home. Into our neighbor's home. I will not have him in this
house ever again. Do you hear me? Ever. They go home tonight and they don't come back here."
"How can you ask me to do that?" Mom was crying. Sobbing.
"I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. These two goddamn delinquents are never spending
another night under the same roof as my daughters. He is a budding felon like his father and she's
a conniving little thief. We are done with them."

22
"What are you talking about?"
"According to Leslie, your niece shoplifted a watch at the mall today."
"Wavy, is that true?" Mom said.
If Wavy answered, it wasn't loud enough to be heard through the wall.
"Well, show her. Aren't you proud of yourself? Is it in your pocket? Let's see it."
"Don't touch me!" That time Wavy was loud enough to hear, and so was the sound that
followed: skin against skin, Wavy hitting my father?
"Wavy!" Mom shouted, and then for a few moments there was silence.
"That's about par for the course," Dad said. "We'll be lucky if the Coreys don't sue us.
Obviously, I'll offer to pay for the damage to their house, and we'll hope that's good enough. Are
we done, now, Brenda?"
Mom didn't answer, I think because she was crying again.
"I want you two to go out and wait in the car. I'll drive you home," Dad said. He finally
sounded calm, almost like my father again.
A minute later, Wavy and Donal came walking through the front hall together and went
out the door. I got up, not sure what to do. I wasn't brave enough to follow them, but I wanted to
do something. Dad solved it for me when he came out of the kitchen.
"I told you to go to your room," he said.
"I'm sorry."
"Will you go upstairs and pack your cousins' things? They're going home."
How many times had I helped Wavy and Donal pack to go home over the years? Several
dozen, but that was the last time. I went into the kitchen, where Mom was sitting at the table
crying. I got a couple of trash bags out of the cupboard and then I went to hug her. I wanted to

23
say something to make her feel better, but I couldn't think of anything. The watch Wavy had
stolen was lying on the table. It was nothing special. Just a watch. Not even a Swatch like I got
for my birthday, just a plain silver watch with a white band. Mom picked it up and handed it to
me.
"She might as well have it," she said.
I took the watch upstairs and packed it with the rest of Wavy's things, including the four
dresses Mom had made that Wavy wouldn't wear. I went through my closet as quickly as I could,
picking out a few pairs of jeans, some shirts and sweaters, and a pair of my Keds. They would all
be too big for Wavy, but they wouldn't be any worse than the clothes she was wearing now, none
of which fit her. Then I went down the hall and packed Donal's stuff into another trash bag. He'd
come with a backpack, like the one Wavy wore everywhere, but his wasn't there, so he must have
taken it to the neighbor's house. With a gun in it.
The whole time I was packing, Leslie was in her room listening to music. She didn't
come out at all. I carried the two bags downstairs, and I would have taken them out to the car,
but Dad stopped me.
"I'm going to take them home and then I'll be back late tonight."
"Can I say goodbye?" I said.
"No, Amy. I don't think you'd better."
He took the bags out of my hands and carried them out to the car. Wavy and Donal were
sitting in the back seat, so he put their luggage in the front passenger's seat. Then he got in the
car and drove away.

24
Chapter Ten
Wavy
July 1982
It was my fault Donal got hurt. When Sean and Mama started fighting, I took him up to my room
and locked the door. I thought we'd be safe up there, but we weren't. It was an old house and the
door was warped. Sean only had to kick it to break the lock. I didn't know if he really thought
Mama had hidden his money and his smack in my room, or if he just wanted to break things.
"You know where it is, you little bitch! Where is it?" he screamed at me, but I kept Donal
behind me, so that Sean couldn't touch him. He only hit me twice, not that hard, and I kept Donal
safe.
After Sean was gone, Donal was crying and mad.
"If I still had my gun, I'd kill him," he said, and then, "Is Mama okay?"
I let him go downstairs to check on her, and when she left, she took him with her, even
though I begged her not to. I was standing in the driveway as she drove away. I was looking at
the stars when I heard the crash down the road. I called 911, even though I knew I wasn't
supposed to, because Donal could have died. I let Mama take him and she almost got him killed.
He came home from the hospital with a cast on his arm, but Liam took him away to live
in Sandy's trailer. Mama had to stay in the hospital a month and then go to what Donal said was

25
"rehab," but I think was another hospital. Rehab was where you went if you wanted to stop doing
drugs, and I didn't think Liam would send her there.
The first month at the farmhouse by myself, it was quiet, because Sean didn't come
around while Mama was gone. Nobody came around, but the trailers were never locked, so I
could sneak in to see Donal and to get food, as long as I was careful.
In August, the letter came about school registration. Like I did the year before, I filled out
the form and signed Mama's name. I could write her signature nicer than she wrote it. I mailed
the form back with money I stole from Dee's purse to pay my fees.
On the first day, the bus picked me up, but since I was going to the new high school in
Belton, it wasn't the same bus that Donal would ride. When I asked him whether Sandy had
registered him for school, he said, "I hope not! I don't wanna go to school."
One afternoon in September, after the bus dropped me off, I was in my room reading my
new library book, when I heard someone walk across the back porch and into the kitchen.
Kellen. He wasn’t alone, though.
"Jesus Christ. What happened up here?" Dee said.
"That crazy bitch. What are we supposed to do with all this shit? There's no way to
salvage this," Butch said.
"I'm not kidding. You know I love her, but she needs to be in some kinda mental hospital.
She's lucky somebody called 911, or they'd both be dead."
"She's damn lucky we weren't cooking that night. She could have got us all busted."
Then Kellen: "I'm gonna haul this crap down to the trash barrel and burn it."

26
"We'll have to buy new furniture, before tomorrow. Liam is talking about hiring a
physical therapist to come in, which is just asking for trouble, having people coming around
here," Butch said.
"I don't know who you think would take care of her otherwise," Dee said.
"Oh, I suppose Sean'll manage. He always seems to. Either way, we gotta clean this up."
I had only cleaned the rooms I needed: the kitchen, the bathroom, my bedroom. I just
closed the door that led to the front of the house and never went in there. Butch and Dee cleaned
while Kellen moved furniture.
"You need a hand with that?" Butch asked twice.
"I got it," Kellen said both times, because he could move a couch by himself. I watched
him out the window, taking things out to the trash barrel behind the barn. The ruined couch, the
broken coffee table, Mama's bed. All the things Sean destroyed the night of their fight.
After they finished cleaning, someone knocked on the door at the bottom of the stairs.
"Is she here?" Kellen said.
"I don't know," Butch said. "Crazy fucking kid always sneaking around. If it's not nailed
down, she'll steal it. Hell, sometimes even if it is nailed down. I'm still missing that goddamn .38
Special."
The gun Donal took to Tulsa. I only stole it in case I needed to use it on Sean, but then
Donal found it.
Kellen came up the stairs, a slow steady thump on each step. I thought of opening the
window and crawling down the trellis, but it would take too long. Instead I stayed where I was,
reading my book.
"Oh. Hey. I wasn't sure if you was here," he said.

27
When I didn't answer, he took a few steps into the room. I didn't look up, just watched
him out of the corner of my eye. He had lost weight. That was what meth did to you, but I
thought he would have to do a lot of it to ever be as skinny as Liam.
"Are you okay?" he said. Then he sniffled and rubbed his nose. "I didn't know you was--
you been staying up here?"
He fidgeted, rubbing his hands together and running them through his hair.
"You, uh--you know, Val's coming home tomorrow. From the hospital. Did they tell you
that?"
They. I wondered who he thought they were that they told me anything. Even Donal didn't
always tell me things. Now that he had the cast off his arm, he was too busy riding his motorbike
and following Liam around. It was a good thing I taught him to read, because I didn't think he
was going to school.
"Do you need anything? Anything I can bring you?" Kellen said. He chewed at his
fingernails. Then he shifted on his feet, took two more steps toward the bed. "You, uh--I seen the
door down there's busted. What happened?"
I bit the inside of my cheek hard, because every single word in my mouth felt like broken
glass. I wanted to spit them at him, but there was no point. It wouldn't matter what I said. He
sniffled again and cracked his knuckles. He was like Liam now. He couldn't stay still.
"You know I can fix that for you, if you want."
At least that was something useful, and I was starting to think he wouldn't leave unless I
spoke to him. I swallowed all the broken glass words and said, "Yes."
"Alright. Yeah. When I come back later, I'll bring up some tools and fix it for you. If you
ever need anything, you know I can take care of it. Just let me know. Okay?"

28
He stood there for another minute fidgeting and sniffling, and finally he turned around
and went down the stairs. After I heard him go out the kitchen door and ride away, I went down
to the bathroom and took off my shirt. Then I poured alcohol over the razor blade to be sure it
was clean. I always started at the top of my shoulder and went halfway down to my elbow. Then
I started at the top again and made another line. And another. And another. The cuts didn't have
to be very deep, just enough to hurt and to draw blood. I made nine of them on each side and by
the time I was done, I didn't feel like crying. It was magic that way.

29
Chapter Eleven
Marilena
March 1983
Of course, Sandy ended up with Liam. Girls like her always did. Blowup fuckdoll girls with
perfect teeth and big balloon tits. For girls like me, there was a lower tier. The guys who weren't
as good looking or weren't as important. With Liam's crew, there were three tiers, with Liam, his
brother Sean, and Butch on top. As far as I could tell, Butch wasn't interested in anything but
business, and the only woman Sean was interested in was his brother's wife.
On the second tier, there were guys like Vic, who was a nice dresser and drove a nice car,
but didn't seem to do much beyond that. Neil, who would screw anything in a skirt, whether it
was moving or not. Scott was cute, but all he did was sit around and smoke dope. He didn't even
have a car. Danny had a car, but he was just a kid. Barely out of high school.
And then there was Kellen. He was important to Liam's business, but in the looks
department, he was a bottom rung. In the brains department, he was also a bottom rung. He was
always half a step behind in conversation, and if you used anything but short words, he got
confused. He was nothing special, but he was better than turning tricks at a club. He owned a
house, and a bike, and it was nothing for him to get dope from Liam. That was one of the perks
of his job, which as far as I could tell, was basically being a big, scary guy who didn't get bored
driving for hours and hours.

30
Girls like Sandy, they could have their pick, but for me, the choice was suck a lot of guys'
dicks or suck Kellen's. And he didn't even expect that very often. Most of the time it was enough
to fuck him, and it never took more than ten minutes. Most guys, if you don't fuck them a couple
times a week, they start looking around and wondering why they're paying your way.
In the beginning, I was still doing some work for Liam. A little lab work, and some
smaller local deals, but eventually, I didn't even have to do that. I could stay at Kellen's place and
watch TV and smoke. He didn't let me smoke when he was there. I had to snort it with him, but
while he was gone, I could smoke. Also, Kellen never smacked me around the way Liam did
Sandy, so there was something to be said for that. He actually said that: "It ain't my policy to hit
women." That was a good thing. A guy Liam's size, it wasn't like he was really going to hurt you.
Black eye, split lip, that was worst he ever did to Sandy. A guy like Kellen, all three-hundred-
plus pounds of him and those big greasy hands, he was the kind of guy who could put you in the
hospital. I'd seen him do it to grown men.
Sometimes, when I spent too many nights in a row with Kellen, I'd start to miss the clubs.
The partying, the flirting, that sort of thing. Not the tricks. When I was working, I always told
myself I was doing a public service, especially when a nasty old man in a suit came in. The kind
of old man who was a church deacon or a preacher. A hypocrite with manicured hands and Aqua
Velva aftershave. I liked to imagine I was protecting his granddaughter. If he was there pinching
my nipples while I rode his dick, he wasn't sneaking around some little girl's room, running his
bony hands up under her nightgown. He wasn't telling her she was Eve in the Garden, full of
Original Sin, and that nobody would believe her if she told.
I'd go out to the ranch sometimes when Kellen had work, especially if he was going to be
gone a few days, so I wasn't at his house alone. I'd hang out with Sandy or Dee and Rickie. We'd

31
drink, smoke, have ourselves a little girl time. Or even if they weren't there, I could hang out and
watch my daddy preach hellfire on TV, because Sandy's trailer had a big satellite dish that got
stuff from all around.
That's what I was doing, when Liam's daughter walked in. She was maybe twelve, and
the kind of pale and fragile that people describe as angelic, because they don't know angels aren't
wispy girls, but merciless four-faced demons with flaming swords. Wavy was one of those girls
you could tell was going to make some pedophile really happy, or hell, maybe she already had
made Kellen happy that way.
I always wondered about them. The first time I ever saw her, she was such a little thing.
Big-eyed and pink-cheeked, crawling up on Kellen's lap. Dee had made some joke about him
being her boyfriend, and it got laughed off, but the way he looked at her. Devoted. Adoring. The
way men only look in romantic movies.
She was so quiet, like a ghost. She stood there, looking at me, not saying anything.
"Hey, baby," I said, the way Sandy did, to be nice.
No surprise, she didn't answer, but she did take a couple steps into the room.
"You looking for Sandy?"
I knew exactly who she was looking for. She thought Kellen might be there because his
bike was parked up next to the porch. We'd ridden out there, and then he and Neil took a car out
on the run.
"Oh. You're looking for your boyfriend," I said, trying to get a rise out of her, but she
didn't bat an eye. "What? He's not your boyfriend anymore? It's okay. I'd share him with you.
There's more than enough of him to go around. Honestly, though, I think the break-in period
would be a little rough for you, baby girl.

32
"Or did he already break you in? One of those nights when you went up into the meadow
with him, did he take off your little girly panties and put his big fucking hog in you? Or just his
greasy fingers? Is that why he's not your boyfriend anymore? Because you didn't like the games
he wanted play?"
There was something about the look on her face that made me keep going like that.
Maybe it was because she reminded me of my grandmother. Haughty, looking down her nose at
me. Even though I never saw Wavy smile, I always had the feeling she was laughing at me. Or
maybe she didn't even understand me. Maybe she was retarded. Whatever she was, she didn't
react to anything I said. She walked across the room and laid something down on the coffee
table. A folded up piece of paper.
After she left, I picked it up. It had Kellen written on the outside, and when I unfolded it,
I had to admit she probably wasn't retarded. She had nice handwriting, like my grandmother's.
Kellen,
You said to let you know if I needed anything.
The water heater burst.
I turned off the valve, but there's no hot water at the house.
Wavy
I tossed it back on the coffee table with all the empty beer cans and crap. It was late when
Sandy and Liam and his little boy came back. She went to put Donal to bed, while Liam and I
got a bump. Then Sandy and I did a girl show for Liam, like we used to at the club. After, she
gave me a wad of cash out of the flour canister in the kitchen. That's how you could tell she was

33
a pro. She knew what it was worth to make a threesome look like it was for real, make eating ass
look like it was a picnic.
I slept over in the spare room, since Kellen and Neil weren't going to be back until
tomorrow. That's what woke me, those two coming back and making noise. I wasn't sure what
time it was, maybe noon, and when I went out to the living room, Kellen and Liam were in the
kitchen talking. Well, Liam was talking and Kellen was eating donuts. While I watched him, he
put a whole donut into his mouth, almost made me sick. He wouldn't be so fat if he didn't eat like
that.
I sat down on the couch and put a little something into my pipe to pick me up. Right as I
was about to light it, Kellen came in and looked at me.
"You ready to go?" he said.
"Are you serious? What time is it?"
"Almost one. I need to get up to the shop. You can stay here or I can drop you at the
house."
"Can we take the car? It's too bright out there to be on the bike."
He didn't answer me, because he was staring at something on the floor. He bent over and
picked it up--a sheet of paper--Wavy's note. Of course, it was lying there on the floor like trash,
but it was from her, so it probably called to him like a burning bush. I swear, almost any time I
started to think he wasn't a moron, he'd have to read something, and I'd go right back to thinking
he was retarded. It took him five minutes to read that note, frowning at it like he was having to
translate it from Ancient Hebrew.
"I gotta go take care of something," he said.
"What?"

34
"Up to the farmhouse." That was really all he was going to say, which pissed me off. Like
he had any business being secretive with me.
"Yeah, your little girlfriend came down here yesterday and left you that note," I said.
"Was you planning on telling me?"
"You seem to have found it just fine."
"Like I said, you can stay here or I'll drop you off at the house," he said.
I picked up the pipe and lit it. He turned around and stomped out of the trailer.

35
Chapter Twelve
Kellen
I went to the shop and got the Willys and borrowed this five-gallon bucket that Cutcheon kept
full of plumbing crap. Then I swung by the hardware store and bought a new hot water heater.
Up to the farmhouse, as always, the kitchen door was unlocked. I stepped inside to get the key
for the cellar door off the hook, and saw the sink was full of dirty dishes. The kitchen had been
clean, when I was up there with Butch to clean the place up, but it was filthy now. I wished I'd
had a hit before I left Liam's, because being there, I felt so goddamn tired. I could hear the TV in
the front room, so I went in there. Sean and Val was on the couch, both doped to the gills. I
wondered, did Liam know his brother was shooting his wife up with heroin? Maybe he did, and
he didn't give a shit.
"Hey," I said.
"Hey." Sean didn't even open his eyes to answer me, so I put my foot up and nudged his
legs where they was propped on the coffee table. He looked at me and said, "What?"
"What's going on with the hot water heater?"
"I don't know. There's no hot water."
"You gonna do something about it?" I said, just cuz I was pissed.
"Like what?"
"That's what I figured."

36
I went back outside, and carried Cutcheon's bucket down to the cellar. I could see what'd
happened. The water heater musta been leaking for a long time, from the way it had cut tracks in
the cellar floor, and then when the bottom finally rusted out, it flooded the place. Prolly the first
they'd knew about it was they lost hot water, and then who'd come down and waded through the
mud to shut off the valve? Wavy. There was her footprints cutting across the floor. How long
had the hot water been out? I couldn't decide. The mud had solidified, so maybe a few days.
Maybe the sink was always full of dishes, even when they had hot water.
I cut the old tank loose and hauled it up the steps out to the trash pile. It didn't look like
nobody had burned trash since I was out there last, either. Whole damn ditch behind the barn was
full of garbage. I got the new water heater, carried it down to the cellar, and got to work hooking
it into the gas and water lines. Not too long after, I heard the school bus coming up the road, and
then somebody opened the kitchen door above my head. Somebody? Was I kidding myself?
Wavy.
It made me nervous, because everything about her reminded me of what I was. Even if I
could get myself square with that, justify it by telling myself I never did nothing wrong, it
knocked me sideway every time I saw her. Hell, every time I thought about her. I still loved her,
only now she hated me.
I got the new pipes connected, and then I soldered it all in place. I liked doing that part.
Not enough to wanna be a plumber, but quite a bit. That point when the solder has flowed around
the joint, but you keep the torch there just a little longer to be sure, the flame is so pretty. It
ripples and it ain't just red or blue. There's green in it, maybe cuz of the copper or whatever's in
the solder.
"Aurora borealis," Wavy said from up on the cellar steps.

37
Made my heart beat funny, knowing she was watching me. How long had she been up
there?
"Aurora borealis," I said, to try to set it in my mind, so I wouldn't forget. "What is that?"
"Northern Lights."
I'd heard something about that, but I didn't know what it was, so I repeated "Aurora
borealis." I could look it up in Cutcheon's Encyclopedia Britannica, if I remembered it long
enough.
She was quiet, but I knew she was still there, even if I wasn't brave enough to look at her.
"I come down here as soon as I got your note. I was out on business yesterday.
Otherwise, I woulda took care of this before now. We need a better way for you to let me know
if you need something, cuz you leaving that note with Marilena, wasn't no guarantee that'd get to
me. Maybe next time you need something, you can leave me a note down to the shop. Or if you
can't get into town, you could mail me a letter there. Address is real easy. 33 East 3rd Street. Only
takes a day for local delivery, and they'll deliver it postage due. Cutcheon'd make sure I got it.
"That old man. His son and daughter-in-law come down to visit a couple weeks ago. He
lit into them about driving a Mercedes. You'da thought they'd told him they was fixing to
become Mormons the way he went on. Goddamn end of the world, his boy driving a Jerry car.
What'd we fight that war for? That's what he told him. Looking at me like I was gonna jump in,
and I was trying to keep a straight face. Not like I'm a fan of German cars, but I thought he was
gonna have a heart attack."
Knowing Wavy was there listening, it made the knot in my chest ease up. I fiddled
around, taking my time packing stuff up, just to have an excuse to keep talking. By then I'd took
a couple looks at her outta the corner of my eye. All I could see of her was her legs and feet. She

38
was wearing some corduroy pants and cheap canvas sneakers. Mud-stained from her trip through
the cellar.
I was trying to decide how to tell her about the run me and Neil had just went on. Not the
deal, but the fact that we seen a tornado on the drive back. Close enough it was pretty cool to
look at, but far enough away it wasn't dangerous. Just roaring along a couple miles off the
highway.
"So, we gone down to Oklahoma yesterday, that's where I was. And on the drive--"
Upstairs the phone started ringing. Good three solid minutes of it ringing. Finally it
stopped, and right as I went to keep talking, somebody hammered on the floor.
"Kellen! Fucking phone for you!" Sean yelled down.
"I'ma go up and take that and I'll be back down," I said, but wasn't nobody there listening
to me. Wavy had run off. So I packed the rest of the tools and went upstairs, locking the cellar
door behind me.
I figured it'd be Butch or Liam, but it was Marilena.
"When are you coming back?" she said.
"When I'm done up here."
"When you're done, huh? You up there banging your little girlfriend?"
"Jesus Christ," I said.
She laughed. It wasn't the first time she'd said shit like that.
"Seriously, when are you coming back?"
"I fucking told you. When I'm done."
"God. I'm surprised you haven't split her little twat in two."

39
I hung up on her laughing. The last thing I wanted to do was go and see her, but I didn't
really have a choice. Still, I come at it sideways. When I went back down the hill, I went into
Dee's trailer first, where I could tell she was in as shitty a mood as I was. She was standing at the
kitchen counter, reading a magazine, doing that thing where she stood on one leg almost like a
bird and jiggled the other foot. Just seeing her that twitchy, all I wanted to do was go home and
sleep. Except I knew I couldn't, so I said, "You mind if I have something?"
"No, help yourself." She handed me the Tupperware box she kept her shit in, and I cut
out two big lines and snorted them right off the kitchen counter, which made her laugh. "Jesus.
You're gonna be so fucked up."
She was right, but after it hit my system, for the first time all day I felt like something
other than hammered shit. Made me wanna go out and do things. Or fuck. Or drive. I really
wanted to go fast. Then I remembered why I was even there.
"Did you know the hot water was out up to the farmhouse?"
"No. It is?"
"Well, it ain't now. I went up and fixed it, but I wondered why nobody told me. I guess
Wavy come down here and left a message. That's the only reason I knew."
"God, if that kid would learn to use the phone," Dee said.
"She don't like people talking in her ear."
The back of my throat got to burning from the shit I'd snorted, so I went over to the fridge
and got out a beer. Drunk half of it in two swallows, standing there with the door still open.
When I turned around, Dee was right there. She put her arms around me and pressed her tits up
against me.

40
"You've really lost some weight. You look good," she said. I guess she meant it as a
compliment, but it wasn't nothing I did. Just the meth.
She kissed me, which I couldn't hardly stand cuz of how crap my throat felt. Then she
unzipped my fly and grabbed my dick.
"Gimme a break," I said.
"I can't believe you'd rather be with that skank Marilena than with me," Dee said. She
went on stroking my dick, even though I put my hand on her wrist to stop her.
"I'd rather somebody put a bullet in my head, but nobody offered me that yet."
She laughed. I let go of her wrist, but she didn't let go of me.
"Besides, you ain't interested in being with me. You just want about five minutes of my
time. Like always," I said.
"Oh, you're good for more than five minutes."
Maybe that was a compliment, too, but same as her telling me I'd lost weight, my hard-on
was just the meth. I could always get hard, and I could stay hard, and that was half the problem. I
was all the time pounding the bejesus outta Marilena and I couldn't even remember the last time I
came.
That was pretty much how it went down with Dee. I bent her over the kitchen table and
did her from behind. Part of me was wondering what Liam would say if he walked in, but the
rest of me was wondering when I could quit. Finally Dee got what she was after, and that let me
off the hook. While I did up my fly, she sat on the kitchen table with her pants off, smoking a
cigarette.
"Anyway, you'd tell me, though, if there was a problem up to the farmhouse? If Wavy
needed something?" I said.

41
"Yeah, I'm still the one who does the grocery shopping for them, so I'd tell you if there
was a problem."
Once I had my belt did, I left. My dick was still hard, but I'd had enough useless fucking.
I wanted to do something, anything that wasn't sitting still. When I walked into Sandy's trailer,
Marilena was in the middle of the living room, turning these circles the way she did when she
was high. One hand in her hair, the other held out like the tail of a windmill. Sandy was talking
on the phone to somebody, and Liam was high as fucking high, maybe as high as me.
"I'ma go out to the drags," I said.
"Yeah? What're you gonna take out there?" Liam said.
"I'm gonna go drag the shit outta that goddamn Barracuda.. You wanna go?"
"Fuck the drags," Marilena said. "I hate going racing."
"Didn't nobody ask you, did they?" I said.
"Shit, yeah, let's go race. Sandy, baby, I'm gonna go up the hill and borrow Sean's
Corvette. Get ready." Liam was already heading out the door.
So Liam and Sandy took the Corvette, and I took the Barracuda. I hoped Marilena would
stay there, but no, when she seen that everybody was going, she loaded up in the car. She did like
always, made up to me without really apologizing.
"It was a joke. You know that, right? I don't actually think you mess around with that
little girl. I was only kidding," she said.
"Yeah, well, it ain't funny."
"I didn't mean it. It was just a joke." That was always her excuse when she said
something shitty to me. Just a joke.

42
I could either let it ride or wind it up into a real fight. I shrugged and she scooted up next
to me so I had to put my arm around her. She put on a good face for the ride out to the dunes, and
acted like she was happy to be there, smiling and all.
Soon as we come across the finish line on the first race, though, she started bitching.
"It's so dusty! Why don't you roll the windows up?"
"Because I like it."
"Well, I don't!"
"You don't gotta ride then. Sandy got another lawn chair."
So after that, her and Sandy sat up on the slope together, just watching.
I beat two different Chargers and some little ricer car. Hell, I even beat Liam in Sean's
Corvette. He wasn't too happy about that, but we didn't have no money on it, so he just brushed it
off.
Then I set to race this guy in a Polara. Not just any Polara. My old Polara. I'd sold it to
him maybe three years back, and at the time, he bragged all big about what he was gonna do to
it. Soup it up. Make it fast. Like I hadn't done nothing to it. Alls I could see was that he'd put
some stupid useless spoiler on the back and give it a cheap paint job. He'd talked like I didn't
know shit about cars, but it looked to me like I'd learned a whole lot since then and he hadn't.
Cuz that Barracuda I rebuilt was hell on wheels. Fucking fast and looked good. Best paint job I'd
did, and them glass-pack mufflers made it sound like it was gonna eat your lunch.
I didn't plan on humiliating him. I just wanted to beat him, and I was fixing to, except
when we went through the narrow spot next to the dune, that asshole hit me. Didn't just tap me,
neither. The whole length of the Polara scraped down the front fender on my side of the 'Cuda,
sparks flying and everything. When we got down to the finish, I stepped out, planning to give

43
him a piece of my mind, but he came running at me like a crazy man, planted both his hands on
my chest and tried to shove me. Not that he really could.
"Motherfucker, you sideswiped me!" he was yelling.
"Hell, I did. You're the one hit me. Look at my fucking car!" The paint was wrecked and
there was two deep gouges from where his bumper had dug into the Cuda's fender. A couple
guys wandered over, started looking at the damage, speculating on who hit who.
"This dumbass Injun dinged up my car and trying to say it's my fault," the guy said.
"You know how I know it's your fault? Cuz when you bought that car, I told you it was
out of alignment, and you never fixed it. It still pulls to the right and you ain't strong enough to
control it at high speed."
He swung on me, but I caught his fist before he could hit me. I punched him in the jaw,
but not hard, just to let him know not to fuck with me. Liam was standing off to the side,
laughing. As soon as I let the guy go, he came right back at me. So that time, I punched him for
real. Knocked him on his ass.
By then a couple of the guy's friends had come around and helped him up. I could see
them trying to decide whether they wanted to get into it with me. I was pissed, but I felt like we
was square. Cuz he was gonna be feeling that punch for a while and his car was in worse shape
than mine.
"Come on, let's go," Liam said.
The guy walked off a few feet, muttering to his friends: "You can't trust redskins. That
fucking reservation nigger sold me the car."
I went for him, Liam behind me saying, "Whoa whoa whoa!" He didn't mean it, though,
cuz he jumped in with me, and we started tearing guys apart.

44
I started with the guy in the Polara, but after that, I beat the shit outta anybody who was
stupid enough to get within my reach. After the first half dozen guys, everybody else wised up,
and a buncha folks started up their cars and left. I had officially closed down the drags for the
night.
I went back to the Barracuda, where Sandy was standing with her hands over her mouth,
and Marilena was smirking and shaking her head. When I popped the trunk and took out the tire
iron, though, she stopped smiling.
"Don't be stupid, Jesse. If you kill him, they will put you away," she said.
"Oh, this ain't for him."
I walked a circle around the Polara, swinging that tire iron til I'd broke out all the lights
and windows. Then I reached in through the driver's side and popped the hood. I started with the
easy stuff--cables and hoses and belts--just ripping it out. Then I got in there with the tire iron
and wrecked everything.
I was so pissed, I wanted to destroy that car, but I was sad, too, cuz there was a time
when I loved that car. I guess I'd got used to feeling split in two.
After I finished under the hood, I went back around the car, using the tire iron to punch
holes through the side panels. That's what I was doing when the Highway Patrol showed up.

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A note on the alternate version of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

"Responsibilities? Like Wavy Quinn?"

"What's the story behind that?" Lisa said.

anything inappropriate, it's just weird."

told a lie. I wasn't friends with Liam.

"It's nothing creepy, though, right?" she said.

"Oh, hell, no. Her mama's sick--"

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

"Her mother is crazy!"

also for that minute or so, I felt like a regular person.

"You sure you want me to?"

her side away from me and went to sleep.

She wasn't even willing to lie to be polite.

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

show up for it.

of me didn't. Wavy was watching me.

run you home. I gotta go take care of something."

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

dinner, but she never would.

about where I was on the weekends, I couldn't relax with her.

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

tangled up with my life.

bottom, but it wasn't. Not by a long shot.

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

my legs, or yanked on my dress.

"He's not hurting her," Mr. Fletcher said.

having Shane like me.

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

that Caroline thought I was interesting.

"Why not?" Caroline said.

At first, I said, "Bus."

anything unless your parents gave you permission.

happened on her birthday.

did: "Not allowed."

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

get her, or how I would eat, so it was safer not to do it.

The next day, Caroline brought me a letter.

the last half hour of the school day.

where you have to move the tiles around to make a picture.

"Aren't you going to eat your cupcake?" she said.

I didn't know whether to nod or shake my head, so I didn't do either.

"Go ahead. They're really good."

She smiled, waiting for me to take a bite.

"My mom made them special."

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

didn't like chocolate cake. Those would be simple answers.

Maybe this is dirty.

Maybe I'm dirty.

Maybe there's something wrong with me.

anymore, there was definitely something wrong with me.

After Caroline cried, she got mad.

"You're ruining my birthday," she said.

the day. She said, "For being so very rude."

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

and refusing to talk. He couldn't do anything about Caroline, though.

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

worked up to the bank now.

"Hey, Dale. Hey, Lisa," I said.

was some kinda joke, because Lisa laughed.

All the Truly Bad Shit / Copyright 2016 Bryn Greenwood

"I'm fine," she said.

"Yeah, I can see that."

figured he meant to be a dick.