Free Daddy's by Lindsay Hunter Page A

mouth pop. Freeman’s little brother’s hand crept up her ankle and she quieted down. Someone noticed the time. So many hours left to fill. With renewed dedication we paired off to make out, which is a real good time-killer. Katie was asleep with her mouth open but Joey got in there and slurped away. Later we’d call Joey Slurpee and he’d punch a wall over it, not least because it was Katie who he’d been kissing, Katie who ate a ashtray and had a uniboob and a mouth with twice the teeth everybody else had, all coated with a even sheen of butter. Tina’s mama came out in her undies and a tank top and stood in her flip-flops among us. She pushed at Ingalls’ shoulder till he woke up and walked him into her bedroom, holding his arm like a blind man. All the mamas loved Ingalls. He was nearly eighteen so it was alright. Tina’s little sister started crying from her crib and Gin stopped making out with Freeman to make a sympathetic sound before Freeman’s little brother rolled her over his way. Tina made up a bottle of juice and went in and the baby stopped crying. Suddenly we were tired, guppy-mouthing each other. The room smelled like breath. We heard murmurs from Tina’s mama’s bedroom and someone kicked up the fan a notch to drown out the sound. Above it all we could hear the highway just outside Tina’s apartment complex, which sounded like what we imagined the ocean to sound like. Joey put his head in Katie’s lap. Katie’s head lolled until it nestled in the catshit corner. Gin spooned Freeman’s brother. Freeman palmed his balls. Turtle hicced once from the bathroom. Tina settled on the carpeting under the baby’s crib. In the morning our mamas would pick us up while Tina’s mama flipped pancakes to mask the scent of barf and smoke. Our mamas’d drag us to the grocery store, ask what we wanted: Cream of? Instant? 2-minute? Chicken? Meatloaf. Are we out of? Do you need? Ketchup. Mayonnaise. Lightbulbs? Tampons? Kibble? Your father. Your brother. Go and get. Orange? Cherry? Lime. Are you listening? Do you hear me? Look at me. But all that was later. Ingalls came out of Tina’s mama’s room in a long T-shirt and rummaged till he found some Twinkies, and then he went back in. The fan whirred and chilled the room. Our mouths tasted like other mouths. We longed for water. The highway inhaled, exhaled. Later we’d tell about how bored we were and what a redneck Tina’s mama was. We wouldn’t mention how glamorous it felt to say we were bored, and how in the dark we got chill bumps up and down our arms at the idea that this was life, and life smelled like peach carpet spray and cinnamon chewing gum and cheap-flavored wine, all backwashed up.
     

SEX ARMAGEDDON
     

    To keep warm we play sex armageddon. It used to be called analocalypse. Sex armageddon sounds more serious and less specific.
     
    Anything goes in sex armageddon. Jordan once snorted a Frito and coughed it out onto my breasts, then clapped them together until the Frito was in bits.
     
    We’ve been living in Jordan’s car for about six weeks now, parked on an overlook. In the mornings Jordan meanders down the mountain to wash dishes in the kitchen of a bowling alley. I straighten up the car, read, nap, wash myself with the moist towlettes Jordan brings home. My mother told me I’d amount to nothing if I kept following Jordan around, and she was right. But amounting to nothing is also a job, it takes work, if you let slack a little you can find yourself thinking fondly of the orange walls at the high school you dropped out of, or of the crispy onions your mother sprinkled over your pizza, or of the ceiling you’d look into while you dreamed of being an actress or something.
     
    In the evening Jordan comes back with dinner. Sometimes it’s something hot from the kitchen, whatever he can get, a large fries, some jalapeno poppers. Sometimes it’s whatever he got from the vending machine. Oreos. Mixed nuts. Fritos.
     
    Tonight it’s