he grew up. Never again. And after this, it’s got to be south all the way. Mexico, if they can make it. Safer there. Incognito.
The bus stops at Halsey, and a fat woman and little girl get on. God, the woman’s superfat, stuffed into her jeans in a way that says her Doughboy suburban husband is too, that they care more about Supersize Me and BBQ than the fact that the rest of the world has to look at them. Christ, Penny just had a baby, stomach sawed in half, and she looks a million times better. He misses his Penny, as he does whenever they’re apart, even though it’s only been a few hours, even though she’s in a bad state these days. There’s no explaining it—when she’s all backed up into him, her head on his bicep, his face in the back of her neck, he’s home.
The bus lurches; no one else gets on. He scans the car, surprised to find he’s enjoying the soft weight in his lap. Mrs. Fatty’s eating a taffy and reading a supermarket rag. Little girl’s cute, big bug eyes staring at him, and then he sees her perfect straw-straight Sunday-go-to-church hair pulled into fucking butterfly clips like Brandi’s, which reminds him of the bathroom and this morning—god, was it really just this morning, what was he thinking, little cokey-whore’s probably going to tell his brother and she sure as shit isn’t going to give him no glowing recommendation to her boss. Not to mention she full-on freaked out when she saw him with the kid under his arm, ducking behind the gas station. Brandi was still all glassy-eyed, repeating herself like his retard cousin Jo-Jo, “What’re you doin’, Jay, what’re you doin’, Jay?” When he disappeared over the wild hillside behind the brick building with it tucked under his jacket, she yelled hoarsely after him, “What the fuck have you done?”
He wonders now, looking down at it. Of course now he knows it isn’t Buddy; it’s some cross-eyed, chicken-skinned one hundred percent Caucasian. This is one blue-eyed white loaf of dough that even Hitler wouldn’t shove in an oven. But an ugly little fucker. Jesus. Definitely not his kid, so now-fucking-what to do? He was so sure he had the right car, the one those two got in at the hospital, but if he thinks back, the bitch who went inside at the gas station was too tall, too bootylicious, to be that flat-ass Francie.
Before they got on all these buses and connections, before all these people saw him with it, he had been thinking about maybe bugging out—bad idea, chalk it up to not thinking straight with his balls and back aching—leaving it on the bench of the MAX line, like this morning’s newspaper, read and done with. Now he can’t. With his free hand, Jason pulls his sunglasses out of the inside pocket of his jacket, drugstore aviators with scratches on the mirrored lenses, and he puts them on, even though it’s gray out, even though now there are hash marks messing with his vision. What to do, what to do?
“What’s his name?” It’s the little girl, with a voice like a cartoon kid, high-pitched and corn syrup sweet.
“Buddy.” Conviction, no hesitation. Nice. He can’t help it; he allows himself a pleased smirk.
“Oh.”
“He’s cute,” the fat woman says. When she smiles, the corners of her mouth push her cheeks up against the sides of her nostrils. He wonders if she could suffocate herself, smiling. As if in answer, she stops, snuffs hard, and he can practically taste the snot sliding down the back of his throat. He looks away, back down at the top of its head, hair with no color, not brown, not yellow, just dull, slicked straight down. White babies could be so homely! He pictures the real Buddy’s thick black hair and eyelashes, a gift from Jason to his son, lady-killer eyes.
Still, he thinks, it’s somebody’s baby. It means something to somebody. Something to somebody driving a brandy-ass-new Volvo worth fifty gees. Or did it? Bitch just left it in the car, never looked back. Got to get a bottle of water, too good to drink tap. Dumb bitch, it’s the same stuff. And too stupid to lock the fucking doors of the car, that’s for sure. Nausea rolls in his stomach and the soles of his feet inside his leather boots prickle with sweat. What the fuck has he done?
But, okay, even if the parents didn’t