Chicken Read Online Free Page B

It’s only recently that I’ve realized an orange-and-purple Styrofoam lizard marionette might not have been the best use of all that cash. Of course, back then, I had no idea the flow of twenties would ever end. I convince myself it doesn’t matter, there’s nothing here I’d want, much less need, so who cares if Daddy gave his last five bucks to my stupid little sister without so much as a you’re almost a man now, son, you understand apology. 
    That’s when it hits me, a smell as literally bittersweet as the memories it shoves up my nose and into my brain. Just like that I’m back at the ranch, sitting on the bench in the barn aisle, polishing my saddle while Vern bangs his hoof against his stall, demanding attention or sweet feed. He was the first horse that was mine alone and the first one Daddy sold. A well-bred barrel horse can still pay off a good chunk of debt, even in trying times like these.
    We lift our heads, eyes searching and nostrils flaring like a couple of coondogs casting for a trail. Brant punches my arm, points out a camo-covered booth near the end of the row. He takes off, turning his torso so his shoulder slices through the crowd, and I fall into his wake, fighting the urge to grab hold of the back of his shirt so he can’t disappear. Two parents and nine children—all decked out in matching red, white, or blue T-shirts bearing the Old Navy American flag like some sort of family crest—pile out of a booth that sells red razorback lawn ornaments. Brant’s shoulder bounces right off the sweaty slab of a dad. He stumbles backward, nostrils now flaring in an entirely different way. 
    Before he can do something stupid, I steer him toward the emptied-out razorback booth. He accepts my recalculated route, and I follow him around a herd of snarling stone hogs until we come out safely on the other side of the wannabe Duggars. He shoots a curled lip over his shoulder, and it occurs to me that if we were, in fact, a couple of coondogs, he’d be brash Old Dan for sure, leaving me as Little Ann, the smart one, yeah, but also the girl. I frown.
    We reach the leathersmith’s tent and duck under the camo netting draped across the entrance. Inside, thick green-and-brown tarps create a suffocating sort of darkness I haven’t experienced since the last time I stepped foot in a Hollister store two Christmases ago—just switch out the odor of sterilized sand and the psychedelic beat of MGMT with the scent of cowhide and a guitar riff from Diamond Rio.
    There’s only two tables in the booth, their ends pushed together to make a backward L-shape. An old man stands behind them, not a scrap of hair on his head but for a wispy, white goatee. He’s leaning over the front table, showing a slightly less-old man a leather-handled hunting knife. A little boy taps his grimy fingers on a display case full of pocket knives, leaving greasy, green smudges. I make a mental note not to let any bare skin touch the glass. 
    A family of four fills the narrow space between the second table and the tarp wall, trying on hand-tooled belts. Brant and I wait behind them, the tight quarters forcing my right hip bone into his left butt cheek. My nose hovers just above his shoulder, breathing in the sweat behind his ear.  When he turns his head to roll his eyes about this new slow-moving family, his mouth comes so close my hands start shaking. I jam them in my back pockets. 
    The family leaves without buying anything. Brant steps up to the table. One half is covered in wallets and cuff bracelets, the other in a snakey pile of black and brown belts. Brant unfolds a wallet and presses it over his face, inhaling with a passion he normally reserves for marijuana and bacon. He’s only moved a foot away, but it feels like extra-sticky bandages have been ripped off all the parts of my body he was touching, tearing off hair and skin and leaving me raw and exposed, like everyone can see I’ve got these festering self-inflicted wounds