We’re all of us here, at least the ones who matter. Angus sucking on a sweet and lugging a secret stash: naked dog-eared ladies in the bottom of his hockey bag. Toad makes number two, his face an egg scramble, sad pockets under runny eyes. And me makes three. Lewis chose us special. He tucked black origami swans into our satchels with maps drawn in chalk. Little fraggot’s got something to prove. We could care less—we’ve got better things to do. But then someone spills the juice: Lewis has a pool.
He’s crouched over the side of it when we roll up. Big concrete scoop filled with dead leaves and Styrofoam. Ass empty. False ficking advertising, you ask us. Lewis talons his toes over the edge like he’s gonna jump. “Pussy up,” he rough-and-toughs. “Whippoorwill ficktards. Marigold cunts.” Lewis learned to swear from Mr. Smit’s birds and botany book.
“Ficking cool it,” we say. Angus bites the head off his lollipop and spits it into the hole. The saucer bumps around the crater, clanks its way toward a pile of moon sludge. Then it cools the chit down.
“Eat chit,” Lewis puffs. “Pansyass mothers,” and jumps.
The sound’s not what we figured, all mouse wet and puckered. It’s less bone crackage, more fatass Margie rips a pair of moist panties. We’re dying to look so bad we can taste buttercream.
Toad leans over the edge, whistles. “Check it.”
Standing at the bottom of the pool is a girl. She’s hot as hell, and centerfold naked. At her feet is a pool of Lewis, puddled up around her ankles. She looks down at it and steps swannishly out.
“Cockscomb suckers,” she bites. “You didn’t think I’d do it, did you?”
Girl Lew stares at us, tits glaring. She turns to Toad and cocks a hip. “Take me to the park.”
“You?” Toad gulps. “Like that?”
“Second base, oldtimer. Third if you buy me a dress.”
Toad’s a decent guy but he’s no saint. We’re all human. He shrugs at us and they go humping off together.
“What’d I tell you?” Angus says. “Kid’s a flaming frag.” He tongues his lollipop stick for the last suck of flavor, then lobs it into Lew’s old skin. It catches in an elbow crease, a toothpick in a turkey club.
*
We sneak-follow Toad and Lew to the park, where they beach in two sherbet-green lawn chairs they stole from Lewis’s ma. They even nab a yard flamingo, just for kicks. Shore it up by an old crank radio with dried Bazooka on the dial.
We hide ourselves behind a birch tree so boneass skinny all our parts jut out. But Lew and Toad don’t notice. They’re slip-sliding to third base.
“Touch it,” she says. “Cut the chit and touch it already.”
“It’s weird,” Toad says. “Can’t I just stick with the breasts?”
Fair’s fair, since he didn’t buy her a dress anyway: she’s wearing an old silk kimono Toad dug out of a dumpster somewhere that wilts off her like mayo lettuce. He unpeels it so she is naked from waist up, same owl-eye shlobes from before, nips darker than the discs. Toad pinches one between his fingers and Lew grunts.
“Careful,” she snaps. “You’re not killing a ficking flea.”
“Look.” Toad drops the offending hand. “It’s weird. I’m still getting used to it.”
“Bushtit. You think I’m not?” She thwacks his palm against her bare chest. “Try again.”
We watch. We’ve never cared much for Lew before but this, now this is powder. We’ve got an hour till curfew and we’re hard up for visuals. What tits may come.
But then Angus blows it. He folds a gum-wrapper jet plane and sails it smack-dab-crash at the pink flamingo. Toad is grateful for the interruption, we can tell. He plucks it up and reads the message. Hey fragalicious. Cock check?
Lew snatches it and reads it crimson. Angus snigger-scatters, but I dart behind the merry-go, just in time to see Lew wheel around on Toad, all teeth grit and hair fury.
“They’re just joshing,” Toad quakes. “You know the guys.”
“Naw,” she says. “I don’t.” She slaps him, digs her fingers into his ears and flicks for a nice ossicle crunch. Toad yelps but she is husking him already, peeling off his epidermis—Latin, says Ms. Carradine—down over his freckles and zit-burn. She strips off his skin in one crispy sheet, no static cling.
“Crack an ass knuckle,” Lew whistles. “I’ll be hot damned.”
Toad, our Toad, is a vision in shrivel. Not only is he old, he’s clitoricious. Got a bowed spine and big veiny goombas. Sag hag. Crinkle coffin. Bonesac delight.
Toad pats the crow’s-feet scratching at her eyes and Lew wrenches the flamingo from the grass. “Here.” She hands it to Grandma Toad. “Old bitch needs a cane.”
Toad hobbles till the ‘mingo snaps a wire leg, then rests her hands on her kneecaps and breathes gray. She’s only made it ten feet. Behind her Lew giggles, then uncorks herself from the kimono. Naked again, she drops the silk over Toad’s shoulders. “Here. Granny needs this more than I do.”
“What you going to do about that?” Toad asks, eyeing Lew’s fur clam.
“Nothing.” Lew shrugs. “I don’t mind.” She saunters off behind the swing set, hips in boom-chicka swing. I can’t stop staring, so I don’t.
“Well?” Toad grumps. She knows I’m hiding.
“Yeah.”
“You get off on this chit?”
“Angus beat it,” I say, to change the subject. “How bout pancakes?” And Toady nods.
*
The waitress at the diner frowns at nude Japano Gram but it’s Senior Sunday so they let us in. I watch as Toad chomps down a tower of flapjacks, home fries, and two eggs over easy. She sits there reeking of piss and Ovaltine, yolking the whole plate yellow.
“Hungry?” she asks. I shake my head no but she crams soggy fries into my mouth anyway. Her skin’s dripping off her but she’s stronger than she looks. When the yolk dribbles out, she napkins me.
Toad keeps pinching her knees and elbows, maybe to squeeze out all the ancient prune. But her skin makes sticky mounds like a poontang sail. She’s got little white hairs all over her, sheen of nutsac bristle. It’s enough to make me sick.
“You still whack the kak?”
I ask because she’s clenching the neck of the ketchup bottle until sauce spurts out in a bright red plash. She rubs her eyes, cataract soup.
“You whack the kak, Toady? You still got a kak?”
“Ingrate,” she hisses. “Kids today.”
Toad stands up and shuffles to the bathroom. Barefoot, barenail, ten tenterhooks of gnarly gold. The waitress sticks a finger in her mouth, fake yurks.
I follow Toad down the hall. Don’t get the wrong idea—I don’t have her back. I want to see if she goes cootch or meat.
Cootch it is. Stick figure on the bathroom door wearing a ficking triangle. Toad toddles through and the door swings shut behind her. Gets my ire up, one of our own pissing from a dew-flap. It’s high time I act. Do something before we’re all giving up our manhoods and pissing out the chitholes. So I follow.
But she’s waiting for me, crouched behind a bowl of chocolate mints (meats don’t get mints). Toad grabs my collar and steers me into the stall where she dunks my head in the fat white pot. I sputter-gulp-choke, feel the tug as the water swirls and starry-nights, pulling the flesh up off my bones. There’s a lightness to it, loosed of all that heavy, heavy skin.
When it’s over, I skitter to my feet. Toad strokes her grammy ‘stache.
“Plumpkin chumpkin,” she says. “Who’s a Margie now?”
I look in the mirror. String cheese ponytail, no kak. Now I’ve got a pink taco, too, but I’m not wrinkle-old or smooth-sexy.
I’m fat.
Saturated armpits, whale blubber arms. Rolls of dough around the middle, lump pies on each thigh. Face so fat it might break my neck. A bubbadub chin and juggies down to my button, if I could just find the little ficker.
Toad laughs and laughs. She laughs so hard her crabass heart starts to pitter-chitter-bam, so she stumbles out into the hall to cadge a defibrillate.
I’m on Toad’s heels when I see Angus, flanked by two new guys at a shiny red booth. Angus, the one who got away. Angus, the original dude, with his meat kak and proud stack of sweatlogged pornos.
“Angus,” I say, “hey Angus,” hoping he might see me underneath. But the other guys see me first, point and chortle into their milkshakes.
“Angus. Hey, man. It’s me.”
Angus stares at me for a long cold second. Then he unsheathes his straw.
“Fraggoty Anne,” he gobs. “Fatassedy massedy Anne.”
He aims the straw poison-dart-style at my center folds, and blows.
–Art by Joanna Jankowska