Page 40 of Mr. Frosty Pants
Joel shifted his feet forward on the ice and moved ahead, using his arm strength to get some momentum going without freeing himself completely from the wall. “Yeah, I’m working on one calledZombie Dog, but I feel like it’s not really coming together. I can’t put my finger on why. I think it’s a character development problem.”
“You can’t figure out the zombie dog’s motivations?” Casey chuckled, taking Joel’s elbow and steadying him before letting go to skate a circle beside him.
“No, I’ve got the zombie dog nailed. He’s a zombie. He wants to eat brains. I guess I can’t figure out why, in one crucial scene, the main character doesn’t call for help. It feels too easy to say that his cell phone is dead or missing…” Joel trailed off, frowning. “But if he calls for help, that ruins everything.”
“Maybe the zombie dog ate the cell phone.”
Joel laughed. “Mistook it for brains?”
“Maybe the dude—I’m assuming the main character is a guy?”
Joel nodded.
“Maybe the dude panics and chucks his phone at the dog, who snaps it up and swallows it whole.” Casey opened his mouth wide, mimicking the dog catching and eating the phone.
Joel laughed. “Might work. Hell, I can try it. See if it feels right. Writing’s all about it feeling right, you know?”
Casey shook his head. “I guess. I took a poetry class one semester and, well, nothing ever felt right about what I wrote. I was horrible at it.”
“Says who?”
“Says me and the fact that I barely passed. I scraped by with aC because I had perfect attendance and this professor was a dick who made that a third of our grade. Thank God.”
Joel snorted, pausing in his efforts on the far side of the rink near the shining holiday lights on the rooftop of Preservation Pub. “I can’t really see you writing poetry.”
“I know, right? Do you ever write poetry?”
“Hmm…horror poetry,” Joel said, tasting the words. “No, but that could be fun. I doubt there’s a living in it, though.”
“Is that why you write your books? To make a living?”
“It supplements. I mean, I’m not killing it out in the book market, but it brings in the money that I actually live on. Between the mortgage on Vreeland’s and what it takes to keep the store running, I don’t take any salary from the business myself.”
“It’s amazing that you make enough from writing to support your needs.”
Joel shrugged. He wasn’t going to tell Casey that some weeks he was hungrier than he’d like to be. That he had to supplement Bruno’s diet, and sometimes his own, with fish he caught from the lake. One day, things would turn around for him. He just didn’t know when or how.
“How’s your dad doing?” Casey asked.
Joel shook his head. “Not great. But that’s life. At least I’m not living with him anymore. That’s the only good thing about it.”
“RJ said—” Casey broke off, his mouth clomping shut like he was holding back something he regretted bringing up.
“RJ said what?”
“It’s not first-date conversation material.”
Kids swept by them, laughter rising into the night. The stars above twinkled dimly behind clouds that swept over them in a fine haze. The Christmas music bopped around them, and the bright decorations of the square somehow created a sense of intimacy. Enough that Joel leaned closer and said, “Tell me anyway.”
“He said your dad used to hit you.”
“Yeah. He did.” Joel’s stomach went heavy, like he’d swallowed lead. The cold night air stung his eyes, and he blinked rapidly. “He suspected I was queer. When he’d had too much to drink, I guess he thought he could punch it out of me.”
Casey’s eyes darkened, and his cheeks got even more ruddy. “That asshole.”
“Yeah, well.” Joel huffed, trying to loosen the tightness in his throat. “That was my life. I never wanted you to know about it.”
“Oh, man.” Casey glanced around them, pain etched into his expression. That look, that pity and hurt, was exactly why Joel had kept the abuse to himself. Well, that and fear that stubborn Casey Stevens would try to do something about it, and while being beaten sucked, the alternative—being put into foster care—had scared him shitless. Casey put his arm around Joel, tugging him away from the wall. “Lean on me. Let’s get a beer, huh? What do you say?”
