Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick
FOR MR. SCOTT FLEMING,
HERO OF TEENAGERS,
HERO OF MINE
PART ONE
Feel the Pain
CHAPTER 1
Lying down, shivering on the last seat of school bus 161, pinned by his teensy doggie gaze, which is completely 100% cute—I’m such a girl, I know—I say, “You won’t believe the bull I had to endure today.”
My legs are propped up against the window, toes pointing toward the roof so that the poodle skirt I made in Life Skills class settles around my midsection. Yeah, it’s the twenty-first century and I wear poodle skirts. I like dogs. I’m a freak. So what? And before anybody reading along gets too jazzed up thinking about my skirt flipped up around my waist, my lovely getaway sticks exposed, allow me to say there’s no teenage flesh to be seen here.
I have on two pairs of sweatpants, three pairs of wool socks, two pairs of gloves, a big old hat that covers my freakishly little ears, and three jackets—because I don’t own a proper winter coat and it’s extremely cold sleeping on Hello Yellow through the dismal January nights.
I can see my breath.
Ice sheets form on the windows.
My teeth chatter.
Sometimes I wake up because my lungs hurt so bad from taking in so much freezing air. It’s like gargling chips of dry ice.
My water bottle freezes if I take it out of my inner coat pocket.
Forget about peeing, unless you want to shiver your butt off—literally.
And it’s pretty lonely too.
Because I am holding him up above my head, Bobby Big Boy (Triple B) looks down at me, panting with his perfect pink tongue hanging out of his mouth. His breath stinks like the butts he’s always trying to sniff whenever he’s around any dog women—BBB’s an awful flirt even though he is totally monogamous and loyal to Ms. Jenny—but I want to kiss him anyway, because he is a sexy mutt and the most dependable man I know. He’ll never leave me—ever—which is why I don’t mind the smelly doggie kisses. Plus he’s wearing his dapper plaid coat, which I also made in Life Skills class, and his doggie jacket makes him look beautiful. His hair is mussed around the ears like Brad Pitt, or maybe like he needs a bath, but his eyes are loyal and kind.
As I finish my confession, I keep him waiting, suspended above me, his little legs running like he thinks he’s on a treadmill or something. There’s no rush. We are alone, we have all night, and Bobby Big Boy digs air running above my face.
I’ve been sleeping with Triple B for somewhere around a year now. I found him in a shoebox half starved—no tags. No lie. He looked like a sock that had been flushed down the toilet—having traveled through all those gross pipes—only to be spit out of some sewer grate into a wet orange Nike box set up sideways like some elementary school kid’s diorama. PATHETIC ALMOST DEAD MUTT, the exhibition would have been labeled, had some little tyke taken it into the science fair. Needless to say, I rescued his butt from the curb and nursed him back to health, mostly with scraps of meat I initially stole from Donna’s dinner table until she caught me and started buying BBB dog food.
Did I put up Lost-Dog-Found posters?
I’ll put it to you this way—if I ever meet the people who let Triple B get so skinny, watch out.
Bobby Big Boy is still air-running like a champ, and will keep at it until I lower him.