East Town Venom

“You ready?” Dad looks back at me from the driver’s seat with a glimmering smile, like dumping his daughter on his friend and moving to Africa is the best thing in the world. Mom types away on her iPhone from the passenger’s seat.

“No,” I say routinely. Disagreeing with my parents is always something I favorably try for.

“Great!” He parks the car in front of a cute blue and white house. The paint on the once-white picket fence is peeling unattractively and the yard spits clumps of weeds here and there. A tree on the far side of the house has a handmade swing attached to the thickest branch, but the whole thing looks like a deathtrap to me.

Dad climbs out of the car and doesn’t open the door for me when he passes, so I open it myself and get out, standing on the curb where cracked pavement meets my feet.

“Lovely,” I say to myself, eyeing the house once again.

I follow Dad up the driveway and across a path that leads to the front door. Before he reaches for the doorbell I get ready to start counting. I have this thing I like to do where I count how many seconds it takes a person to answer their door. He rings the doorbell once and I don’t even make it to three when it opens up widely and before me appears a man that is about my father’s age.

“Paul!” The man says, opening his arms to my father.

Dad does the same. “Tony!” They embrace in a hug of manliness and give each other a quick update on life before I’m even noticed.

“So you must be Helen,” Tony says, giving me a glowing grin.

“Lacie,” my dad and I say in unison, correcting him.

“Oh, sorry then, Lacie. You can call me Tony.” His smile is still bright and friendly and with relief, I find no hint of hate. I find out why in exactly ten seconds. “Lemme get the boys down here.” He turns back into the house and yells, “BOYS, GET YOUR ASSES DOWN HERE!!”

This Tony guy isn’t so bad.

Suddenly, about five seventeen year old guys come down a flight of stairs and I’m faced with someone’s funny way to torture me. They’re gorgeous. The hair. The piercings. The skinny jeans. The tattoos. The apathetic looks with the emotion-filled eyes.

I start to feel my mouth drop, but regain my composure and stare at anything but these walking sex machines. Tony elbows one in the gut and the kid gives him a look that could kill, but then realizes what the gesture meant.

“Oh!” the kid says, finally understanding. “Right. I’m Frank.” The kid has neck-long black hair, hazel eyes with a black ring of eyeliner added nicely around them, and really, really nice lips. A small hoop hugs his the left side of his bottom lip and a similar ring is pierced on the right side of his nose.

“I’m this guy’s son,” he says pointing to Tony. When he does, the sleeve of his hoodie moves slightly upward and I catch glimpse of a tattoo on his wrist, but I don’t actually find out what it says before he points to the guy behind him. “This is Skylar.”

Skylar smiles childishly and waves. I can already tell he’s a jumping bean full of energy. His hair is a bright, neon blue and his eyes are also a bright and gorgeous blue. The dark black of his eyeliner makes the color of his eyes pop out even more, making them look electrifying. He has snake bites and I think I catch a glimpse of something shiny on his eyebrow from behind his sky-blue bangs. His ears poke out of the sides of his hair and he has a large assortment of piercings all up and down his ears.

Frank points to the guy next to him. “This is Maliki.” The kid called Maliki gives me a head nod, but not much of a smile. His cheeks are naturally blushed pink against his pale, soft-looking skin. To the left of his dark brown eyes and right below his temple are two silver studs. Anti-eyebrow piercings I think they're called. His thin, choppy hair reaches down to his shoulders and is the deep color of blood-red. He has a simple black stud, which I first thought was a beauty mark, but realized it was just a Monroe piercing right above his lip. His sharp eyes kind of scare me so I just give him a half-smile and look back to Frank.

He elbows the next guy who’s standing in front of Mailki. “Ainsley.” The boy smiles and I think I just learned the name of the cutest thing on Earth. Ainsley has his lip pierced and his cheeks, like silver dimples. Now I’ve never been a fan of the cheek piercings, but this boy makes them work. His bangs are cut in a straight-line just above his hazel eyes. The tips of his neck-long black hair are dyed a vibrant red, like my own hair.

I keep staring at Ainsley until I hear Frank’s voice again. He points to the last kid standing next to Maliki. “And Xavier.”

I give Xavier a quick look, but he kind of scares me. He has these really intense sea-green eyes, but despite that his face looks kind of soft and charming. Right under his lips is a spider-bite piercing and on his arm is an elaborate tattoo of a snake coiled around his forearm. Just before I move my eyes back to Frank I catch a glimpse of his hair. From the front it’s all black and shoulder-length, but in the back it’s a fiery mixture of scruffy-hair dyed red and orange.

“Annnd...” Frank’s eyes search the group. “Where’s Dillon?”

Skylar and Ainsley turn at almost the exact same time and Skylar's voice perks up. “Dillon!” And in that moment I watch as Skylar disappears and then reappears with a kid attached to his hip. He pushes Dillon to the front of the group and introduces him, “Dillon!”

The kid shoots him a displeased look and then he looks at me, waves and shyly says, “Hi.”
By his voice and his height I realize he’s young. Younger than me. So I’m assuming he’s the younger son of Tony. Although, the kid looks pretty mature for a middle schooler. His hair is light-brown with strips of hair dyed black underneath. I notice he already has his nose pierced, like his brother. I also find myself eyeing a very distinguishable scar under his lip.

Suddenly, my dad makes a loud ahem sound. “Well, it was nice meeting you boys, but...” Dad pretends to check his watch, pretending he might be late. “If I don’t leave now, we may miss our flight.” He gives a believable smile and then looks between Tony and I. “Her stuff’s in the car. Would you mind helping me get it all out quickly?”

“Sure thing, Paul.” Tony looks at the boys and shoos them inside and then maneuvers between Frank, me, and Dad.

Dad gives me a farewell-pat on the head, smiles, and says, “Stay strong, my little soldier,” and then follows Tony out into the weed-choked yard.
“Little soldier” repeats in my head for awhile. Dad’s never been in the military and since when the fuck have I been “his little soldier”?

As the other guys go back inside, they talk amongst themselves. Only Frank stays behind with me as I watch my father and Tony walk back to the car.

“Your mom’s not going to say goodbye?”

“She’s not very good with goodbyes,” I tell him, completely making it up.

“It must be hard. Leaving their only kid behind and all.”

“They seem to be doing fine.”

“What about you?”

I don’t answer. When I turn back into the house he gives me a pretty smile, which only makes me glare more.

“You wanna see your room?” he attempts, sliding in front of me, blocking my way to where everyone else disappeared to.

“Sure.” Better than having to see my dad again.

I follow him up a spiral staircase that leads to a loft with at least seven different doors, all decorated in some sort of special way. He points to the first door of three on the right. It’s covered in assorted posters, photographs, and the letters ETV. “That’s me and Ainsley’s room.” He points to the next, which is painted with a rainbow of different colors. “Maliki and Xavier.”

The last door is painted blue. A little plane, a cloud, and a small black bird are painted beautifully on its wooden surface. “And this is yours. You’ll be bunking with Skylar.” He opens the door and it swings open to reveal what I think to be close to paradise. “He’s a bit of an artist.” Frank smiles. “Freedom of expression and all that.”

“It’s amazing.”

The walls are, of course, blue. The floor is a white, fluffy carpet that feels similar to how a cloud should feel. It’s dim inside, but a stream of tiny lights hang around the room like stars. Small paper birds hang from every part of the ceiling on thin, invisible strings. The bed sits in a corner, up against a window that takes up almost the entire wall. It’s big and fluffy, and all white. Like a giant cloud, floating in the sky.

“He’s has a bit of an obsession.”

“I can see,” I say, still a little breathless from just seeing the room.

“He’s a good guy though,” Frank says as if trying to reassure me.

I try to figure out Frank’s expression, but I can’t. He just stays staring inside the room, leaning his body against the door frame. So I say, “I’m sure he is.”

“Anyway,” he looks at me again. “The rooms down there are Dillon’s, Tony’s, and the bathroom.”

I can’t help but notice he missed one. When we turn back into now mine and Skylar’s room, I hear my dad and Tony downstairs.

“Thanks, Tony,” I hear my dad say. I notice Frank gets just as I quiet as I am, interested in the conversation too.

“No problem. Carrying bags is really nothing...”

My dad laughs. “No I mean taking her off our hands. She just would have been trouble if we took her to Africa with us.” My dad laughs again and Tony laughs nervously with him. “You know teenagers. Especially her. Always needing to rebel.”

“Uh, right,” Tony says, obviously uncomfortable. “You know, I think you should go. Don’t wanna miss that flight, now do you?”

My arms are crossed and I'm biting the inside of my lip. Frank's looking at me, but the boy is smart enough not to say anything.

I scoff, “His little soldier, right.”