“I heard that you have a new friend,” Uncle Ball said to Shadow.
Shadow had no idea who this person was except that he was important, and that he was fun, and that he was dangerous. Nothing scared Shadow, and after a few hours of this guy talking to Rose, Shadow found himself in the most badass car he had ever seen and headed to Milwaukee, where he knew he used to live but had never been to.
“Friend?” Shadow said in that hard way that he said things back then.
“Yeah, this guy X. Your mom told me you are hanging out with him and that he is trouble.”
“X is the only fucking friend I have left. Cage is gone. Tigress is gone. I never made lasting friends in Normal. I was brought up here, where they attack me every chance they get, my sister is trying to kill me, and I have X. Him, Jazz, and Grr are my entire fucking life.”
That was the first time Uncle Ball was scared of me. “Okay,” Ball said. “Hey, what happened to you?”
“Bullies, Char, Less, Rose and Mumble. I can’t stay in one place long enough to set my feet. I am only respected by high schoolers, X and Jazz, and I am not giving any of them up.” Suddenly the Buck 110 pocket knife I had stolen was in my hand and open.
“Put that away,” Uncle Ball said.
“Why?”
“Because if I get in an accident, it will go right through your stomach, that’s why. And if your attitude doesn’t change, I will take you right back to that town and leave you there.” Uncle Ball was getting his feet under him again. Shadow had swept him off of them and Ball had landed right on his ass. Now he was setting himself again.
“What’s with the mouth?”
“Cussing is going to be a problem?” Shadow said. “Rose does it, Mumble, X, Cage did it, Stone, Wrath, you, Less does it, and every asshole in that fucking school has a lot of cussing to do while they are trying—and failing—to kick my ass. If you want me to stop cussing, you are about seven years late.”
“No, I guess you’re right. Cuss words have been in your life all your life. Just try to keep it under control. I want to introduce you to an old friend of yours and I don’t want you to offend her,” Ball said. “Capeesh?”
Guardian shifted out at the mention of a woman. Shadow only had two women in his life, Jazz and Grr, and he was content with that.
“Who is this friend of mine, Uncle Ball?”
“It’s a surprise. Now tell me about this girl Jazz. I hear you finally got started on your number?”
Shush popped out as soon as the word number came out of Uncle Ball’s mouth, and suddenly Shush was back in that room, drunk with a high schooler named Stranger fucking him. He couldn’t talk. He just touched a finger to his lips, looked out the window, and whispered, “Shhh.”
Out came Joe, now called G.I. Joe and he said, “The kids at school call me G.I. Joe.”
“Stupid name.”
“Yeah, stupid life. What were you asking me?” Joe said.
“This girl. This Jazz girl, I’m really proud of you. You finally got your first piece of ass. Tell me about it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mumble told me. Somehow you managed to work it so that your girlfriend could spend the night under your mother’s roof no less, and he walked in on you guys in the living room fucking in the dark watching some movie.” Ball laughed. “How was it? Was it good pussy?”
“That night was one of the most important nights of my life. I did not have sex with her. I did not even kiss her.”
“Ha! Bullshit. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. You got laid,” Ball said. “Tell me about it.”
Knife is in my hands again. This time it’s Guardian. “Jazz is my girlfriend. I am in love with her.” He tapped the side of his knife on his jeans. “I did not fuck her. I did not kiss her. I held her hand and she gently laid her cheek on my shoulder and we watched a movie. It was sweet and important, and it was my favorite night to be alive. I’ll never forget it.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
Silence. There must have been some talking but I don’t remember it. He must have stopped and gotten us some food at some fast food joint, but I don’t remember it. He was hanging out with someone else and that kid is gone.
He is one of three. We call them The Lost Boys. Not the vampires that Less was obsessed with, but Peter’s crew. There are three of them. No one knows where they are. No one knows what they know. No one knows why they left, but they are gone. Three alters that were around from the ages of ten to thirteen. The last one vanished on this trip to Milwaukee.
See Uncle Ball had been gone for a while and was finally coming up to Allenton to take me away from that hell. That hell that I learned to love so much. He was taking me away from Rose and he was taking me away from X. I was being carried away by the one person I used to love the most. And I was trying to remember that love.
That Lost Boy in that car with him never came back. What was said and what happened is gone now, maybe forever. If they ever come back, they might have a story to tell, but whatever it is, it is horrible.
When we got to Uncle Ball’s house, we walked in and I was looking dead at Easy.
“Hi Jesse,” she purred. She wrapped her wrists around the back of my neck and pulled me in for a lover’s hug. She pressed her mouth against my neck just enough to breathe on it and get my pants to stir against her body. “How you have grown.”
They had gotten back together. She was back.
“We found each other again and we are getting married,” Uncle Ball said. “I haven’t told anyone except Metal Head. I wanted you to be the first in the family to know about it.”
She sauntered away. She was wearing a short shirt and panties.
“Put some pants on. We have company,” Ball said.
She waved a hand over her head and disappeared behind a corner.
“Look, I love her and she loves me. And listen, when we got back together she was pregnant with another man’s child. It turned out to be a boy.” Uncle Ball looked at me and he laid his hand on my right shoulder. “I am raising another man’s son. I told you it would not be a problem. She even named him Ball.”
She came out with a bundle.
She was wearing pants.
I looked at the infant’s face and saw that its head was huge. It looked lopsided. The face was bright red, red like a tomato. And it was covered, absolutely covered in pimples. It began to wail as soon as she placed it in my arms.
“What’s wro- why does it have pimples?” I said. I think it was Joe. I can’t be sure. The shifting on this trip is so wild and out of control it is all just a blur. But we talked about it. Me and Bekah talked about it and I have put together a few terrible pieces.
“They’re not pimples,” she said. She took the baby back from me and walked away looking at it. “It’s not pimples, is it little Ball? Not wee, wee, woo, who pimples at allzy, wallzy. Ball, tell him.”
“Well they are what the doctor is calling milk bumps. They are not pimples. They are an allergic reaction to milk. Formula won’t help it and the kids gotta eat, so she just keeps breastfeeding it, and when it can eat solid food, the doctor said they will go away.”
“Okay,” I said. “That is okay, I guess. Is the milk hurting him in any other way?”
“Shit, I don’t know. I don’t think so. Can’t be sure,” Uncle Ball said. “But he is mine. He is my son, no matter who his real father is. I can raise him even though he is not mine. Just like I could raise you. I’m still your godfather you know?”
I hugged him and he started for a moment, then he hugged me back. “Hey, I love you, kid. Always will. You will always be special to me. You belong to me. In a real way you belong to me.”
“You belong to me too, Uncle Ball. Always. You will always belong to me.”
“Okay then, stop yelling at me, you little asshole, and tell me about Allenton. Is it really that bad? Do you want to come live with me?” he said. “It might be hard to pull you away from Rose, but I bet I could do it.”
“Can’t leave X. Won’t leave Jazz.”
“You love her, huh?” he said. He dropped into a worn chair I assumed was the man of the house’s throne and I sat on the couch.
“Never loved anything like I love Jazz. I want to be with her forever.”
“Love is dangerous. It can make you stupid.”
“But you love,” and I jerked my thumb in Easy’s direction.
He leaned over and whispered, “She is the best fuck and the best suck I have ever had. This chick can swallow every inch of me and my balls. And I’m a big guy. You know I’m a big guy, right?”
“Always assumed.”
“Good, that’s good. Well I love her but I can still…” he barely breathed the next words, “…fuck around when I need to. Can still work the number and come home to the best pussy in town. It’s a win/win.”
We ate. I think we watched a movie. Easy kept eyeing me from across the room. She put her fingertip to her lips a few times when Uncle Ball wasn’t looking, and she got up. She walked over to grab Little Ball out of his carrier. She brought him over to the couch next to me and pulled her t-shirt over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra and I was looking at her breasts.
“My God, Easy!” Uncle Ball shouted.
“Gotta feed him. You want to feed him? You want to pull out your tits and pop them in his mouth?”
I was looking at the TV, the pizza box, the coffee table, anything that I could.
“It’s fine, it’s natural. He can watch if he wants. It can be a learning experience for when he has a kid.” She rolled her eyes, looked at the ceiling and sighed as the babe began to suckle. “I’m not going to be ashamed of feeding my kid.”
“It’s fine,” I said looking at the floor. “Does it take a long time?”
“No, just about fifteen minutes. Hey, I heard you have a girlfriend. Tell me about her. Is she hot?”
I turned to look at her and I could see her other breast was out and resting on display on Little Ball’s stomach.
“She is pretty. She is cute. She is gorgeous,” Guardian said, looking at Easy’s face as hard as he could, fighting not to take his eyes off of hers.
“Sounds interesting,” she said and she gave me a little shove. She finished feeding Little Ball and handed him to Uncle Ball. “You thirsty? You want a drink?” she said before she pulled her shirt back on.
“I’m fi- fine.”
He had to work, but I was not going to be left alone with her.
“I gotta go. I have a shift to do. The truck is going to be here in a few minutes.”
“Truck?”
“Yeah I drive a truck around the city and plow. If you haven’t noticed, this is Milwaukee in January. I share a truck with a friend. He drives for eight hours, then I drive for eight hours.”
“Can I come?” I asked.
“Not supposed to have anyone in my truck with me. The city is pretty stern about that. If a cop sees you in the passenger seat, he can really fuck up my job for me.”
“You’re going to be gone for eight hours?”
“Yeah, there are a few movies around here. And some food. Some frozen pizza, I know you love pizza, and some coke in the fridge. Easy will be here. It will be fine.”
Lost Boy number two vanished before Uncle Ball could get back. I don’t have any idea what happened when he left. I know that I was asleep on the couch in a t-shirt and underwear when Ball came back.
I can tell you that while I’m sitting here, I can taste breast milk.
In the morning I was awoken by an exaggerated yawn. I turned around from the back of the couch and saw Easy in her shirt and no underwear. She grabbed Little Ball from the car seat he had been sitting in and she bent over. I saw everything she was showing and I turned back around.
“He needs to be fed again,” she whispered. “Do you want to watch?”
I froze. I vanished. I don’t know what happened next. I can taste it on my lips again.
I remember seeing her walking away and going into her bedroom. I remember that giving birth had done nothing to her body. And I remember Uncle Ball walking in laughing.
“Sorry about that. She is a wild one.”
“Sorry about what?” I asked confused.
“About her walking in here almost butt naked. It won’t happen again, I promise. Look, I gotta go to my other job now. Raising someone else’s kid is expensive.”
I remember, when he left, trying to get back to sleep. My teenage body would not let me put her out of my mind. Shifting is a mess to try to explain when I talk about this trip, but when I went back to Allenton that night, the third Lost Boy was gone.
I refuse to call them Aunt Easy’s Boys.
Jesse Teller 
Leave a comment