Read Online All the Wild Children by Josh Stallings - Free Book Online Page A

told him I liked my fangs, they made me look fierce.  He and my mother took that choice away.  To this day when my tongue slides across my teeth I feel a pang of anger and loss. 
    Flash forward two months.  I hate my braces.  They hurt like hell.  Lark and I are hanging around the house.  He’s bored.  I’m bitching about the braces. 
    “You want em off?”
    “Huh, yes.”
    “Cool.”  Lark gets up and leaves the room.  He comes back with a pair of pliers and a pair of wire cutters. 
    “Open up.”
    “Do you know what you’re doing?”
    “No.  You want them off or not?”  I open my mouth as an answer.  Big mistake.  The wire he cuts is sprung tight.  When it snaps, it springs open, and through my cheek.  I almost bite Lark’s finger off trying to get away.  I’m bleeding and screaming. 
    “Shut the fuck up and let me look.”
    “Naamph  phukkk!”
    “Dude, we got to get some ice on the bitch.”
    “Phuckkks Lummer!”
    “Calm down you’re spitting blood all over the carpet.”  I don’t, not right away.  Three hours later when Mom comes in I’m perfectly calm.  Watching a Batman rerun. 
    “JJ there’s a bag of books in my car, can you carry them in?” 
    “Nogggth proggglen.”  She calmly walks over, tilts my cheek up into the light.
    “Lark!”
    “It was an accident!”  He is yelling from upstairs.  He hasn’t learned to lie to her face yet.  That will come.  For all of us.  “His braces snapped, I put ice on it.”
    The next day the braces come off.  I am given a retainer.  By week’s end I have thrown it away.  I like my teeth crooked.  They look like me. 
     
    Lark is growing up.  He has hit that wonderful madness called puberty.  I haven’t.  He pulls away from me and goes to Lilly’s side of the age divide.  They are continually ditching me.  Leaving me with Shaun.  I watch them walk away and I so want to be them.  They are the big kids.  They hitchhike and smoke Marlboros.  They come home giggling with red eyes.  They have a secret language.  They listen to secret bands.  They are cool.  I’m not.  My brother grows his hair out and dresses like a working hippy gypsy cowboy.  He wears a felt hat with a floral scarf for a hat band.  He plays bass in a band.  He has a girlfriend.  I hate myself for not being cool enough for him to bring along.
    Lark is having a party at the house.  Scott Thomson is trouble.  He and another kid are going off into the woods.  I know they are doing something they shouldn’t.  Something cool.
    “We’re just going off to cut some wood.”  He’s smirking.
    “Yeah, cut.  Some.  Wood.”
    “Let me come.”
    “Naaa, I don’t think you’re old enough to cut wood.”
    “I’ve been chopping wood since I was eight, dip shit.”
    “Oooow, Scott he called you a dip shit.  You takin that?”
    Scott looks at me, hardening his eyes.  He throws a punch, stopping inches in front of my eyes.
    “Made you flinch!”
    “Did not.”
    “So did.”
    “Fuck you fucker.  Big fat fucking fucker.”  My face is growing red. 
    “Whoa JJ, cool it down.  I was kidding.  Kidding.”  My temper is known by those in the inner circle.  They know the signs.  They know it will lead to something that will generally bring adult attention to bear.                
    “You’re still a fucker.”
    “OK.  Wanna go cut some wood with a couple of fuckers?”  He’s grinning.  I’m grinning. 
    I cough the first toke out.  Scott has to tell me to hold it in.  By the time the joint is a brown oily roach I am flying.  It feels fantastic.  I am free of my mind.  I am safe from myself and the boogie men in the shadows.  People say pot makes them paranoid.  It made me invincible.
    “Asshole, you got my brother stoned?”
    “Naaa, come on.”
    “Fuck you.  Look at him.”  I giggle at Lark.
    “OK, maybe, but he asked me to.”
    “Hehehe... The trees are alive.”
    “Yeah, they are, time