Caring Is Creepy
David Zimmerman
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 1569479771
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Fifteen-year-old Lynn Marie Sugrue is doing her best to make it through a difficult summer. Her mother works long hours as a nurse, and Lynn suspects that her mother’s pill-popping boyfriend has enlisted her in his petty criminal enterprises. Lynn finds refuge in online flirtations, eventually meeting up with a troubled young soldier, Logan Loy, and inviting him home. When he’s forced to stay over in a storage space accessible through her closet, and the Army subsequently lists him as AWOL, she realizes that he’s the one thing in her life that she can control. Meanwhile, her mother’s boyfriend is on the receiving end of a series of increasingly violent threats, which places Lynn squarely in the cross-hairs.
platform in the center, there was some sort of pit lined with yellow sand. He handed me and Dani our beers. “It’s where they fight the dogs,” H.K. said. “You want to see something that’ll blow your little girly minds, come to one of these dog fights. Shit, man, they’re vicious as all fuck.” “Do the dogs die?” Dani asked. “Them dogs love it. Believe me. They live to fight,” H.K. said, warming to the topic. “I’m thinking about running a couple myself once I get the money.” “Do those terriers
something.” He handed me a tiny paper man about the length of my face made of dozens of intricate folds. Logan had even found a way to make the man appear to have curly hair. “It’s me.” I nodded. Looking closer, I realized he’d torn a page from Anne of Green Gables. This made me none too happy, as it was one of my all-time favorite books. He saw right away what had come into my head. “Don’t worry. I made sure to use a boring page. It’s where she’s up in her room all upset about something that
something? Did he touch—?” “No, no, Mom.” I shooed that idea away with my hand. “That’s not what I’m talking about.” “Then what?” she said, putting her hands on her hips. When I didn’t speak up right away, she stepped across the kitchen to fetch her quilted cigarette bag from the counter. The motor in the fridge chug-chugged and stopped. The room went dead still. The metal clasp on her bag sounded like a Black Cat firecracker when she snapped it shut again. Mom knew something was up, so I
the wall behind his head. I hobbled over and lit up that side of the room with my flashlight. He’d turned one wall into a cartoon strip. In the first panel, men in turbans chased a girl who looked a bit like me. In the next, they cut off her breasts. The blood formed a huge waterfall down the wall and he’d even colored a bit of the floor red. It looked like he’d melted a red crayon and let it drip and pool. In the final panel, the turban men chucked the girl’s boobs in a bonfire. The drawings
was whimper. The barking of the dogs got closer. The sound made Hayes’s hands shake. Even in the rain I could tell he was crying. He muttered “fuck” over and over again. His face crumpled up on itself. I knew by looking at him all he wanted to do was run. But he stayed. For that, I forgave him the rest. All of it. “I seen them both—Butthole and the Army guy!” Burns shouted. “They’re going at it in the house!” “We should get,” Travis said, closer now. “Fuck no,” Marty said. “That little bitch