Page 1 of Dirty Like Brody
Prologue
Jessa
Iwill never forgetthe first time he spoketome.
I remember everything, right down to the music that was playing on the Discman I had tucked into the back of my jeans. (It was my brother’s new Chris Cornell album, and the song was “Can’t Change Me.”) When the bullies started taunting me I turned it up, but I still heard whattheysaid.
I was eight years old, and the last girl on the playground anyone would ever guess would grow up to become a fashion model. Every day I came to school in clothes that were worn and usually a couple sizes too big for me, hand-me-downs, either from my brother or from Zane. When I wore their baggy clothes, the other kids didn’t spend so much time telling me how skinnyIwas.
But they said otherthings.
I was sitting alone in the playground after school when it happened, up on top of a climbing dome; my brother and his friends called it “Thunderdome” because they’d made a game of dangling like monkeys from the bars inside and kicking the crap out of each other. The bullies were standing at the bottom of Thunderdome, so I couldn’t even run away. They were big bullies. Fifth grade bullies, and while my brother, who was in seventh, would’ve intervened, he wasn’tthere.
“How come you got shit stains all over your jeans?” the dumb-looking one asked me, leaning on Thunderdome and looking bored. “Doesn’t your mom dolaundry?”
“You got a shit leak in those saggy diapers, dork?” the even dumber-looking one asked, and they bothsnorted.
“Yeah, she’s so full of shit her eyes arebrown.”
“What’s wrong, baby dork? Yougonnacry?”
No. I wasn’t going to cry. My brother had a lot of friends and while they were neverthatmean to me, twelve-year-old boys could be relentless. I knew how to hold my own. I’d cry later, at home, when no one couldseeme.
Besides… the new boy was coming over, and I definitely wasn’t crying in frontofhim.
He was in seventh grade, but the rumor was that he was thirteen or even fourteen and had flunked a grade or two. Obviously, he was super cool. He wore an actual leather jacket, black with silver zippers, like rock stars wore. He smoked outside the school, hung out alone at the edge of the school grounds, and spent more time in the principal’s office than the principal. I never knew what he did to get in trouble, but whatever it was, he did italot.
The other kids in my class thought he was scary. I just thought hewassad.
Ever since Dad died, I knew sad when Isawit.
The bullies saw him coming and they started getting squirrelly. I thought they’d run but he was there too fast, closing the distance with his leisurely, long-leggedstride.
“You guys’re so interested in shit, there’s some over here I can show you, yeah?” He stood with his hands in his pockets, his posture relaxed, as the bullies startedgoingpale.
I slipped myheadphonesoff.
“Naw, I don’twanna—”
“Sure you do, it’s right over here.” He toed the ground at his feet with his sneaker. The grass was still damp from a bit of rain in the afternoon and mudsquishedout.
The bullies started shaking and sniveling, babbling apologies and excuses. There was a brief, almost wordless negotiation, at the end of which they ended up on their knees in frontofhim.
He hadn’t moved. His hands were still in hispockets.
“Just have a little taste and tell me if it’s fresh,” he told them, in a tone that brooked no argument, squishing his foot in the muckagain.
Then he looked up, his brown hair flopping over one eye, and winkedatme.
I stared from my perch atop Thunderdome with unabashed, eight-year-old awe as the bullies bent forward,shuddering.
He was going to make themeatshit!
Forme!
I was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure it was just wet mud, but those bullies were scared enough to believe it. And ate it,theydid.
He then told them to apologize to me, which they also did, eyes downcast and shaking, spluttering mud. One of them was crying, snuffling through his snot and tears. Then he told them to beat it and they ran away, blubbering and tripping over theirownfeet.
