Sloppy Firsts Read Online Free PDF Page A

all this and laugh—especially when it comes from an adult who heartily tee-heed all along. This is why I also refuse advice from my mother and my sister.
     
    So I told her that this was all a misunderstanding. "Life Sucks, Then You Die" is not my personal philosophy, no, no, no. Life Sucks, Then You Die (L.S.T.Y.D.) is the name of an indie funk band that I just love, love,love . She not only totally bought it, but started acting like she’sheard of them because she couldn’t stand the idea of not being clued in anymore.
     
    "They had one song that got some airplay," I said.
     
    "Right! They did, didn’t they? What was the name again?" Her peepers were popping right out of her head at this point.
     
    "’Tongue-Kissing Cousins.’"
     
    "Right!" Brandi starts nearly every sentence with that exclamation. It’s a method of positively affirming her mixed-up counselees, something she learned in one of her Professional Counselor classes no doubt. "’Tongue-Kissing Cousins.’ That song rocks."
     
    "It’s a slow jam."
     
    "That’s right! A slow jam."
     
    And so continued our bonding for a minute or two until she deemed me stable enough to let me go with nary a mark on my permanent record.
     
    Then a kind of weird thing happened.
     
    I walked out of her office and nearly tripped over two bare legs covered in scars and scabs. Marcus Flutie was slumped in a chair, stretching his long limbs right in front of the door. Marcus is what we at PHS categorize as a "Dreg." I think he was waiting to meet with his parole officer. Last spring, he got busted for buying or selling or using—I don’t know for sure—as part of the town’s War on Drugs effort that followed Heath’s death. Marcus was four years younger than Heath and his burnout buds, so they made him their marijuana-smoking mascot. (He’s a year older than Hope and me, but he’s on our grade level because he got left back in elementary school for doing God only knows what.) Of course, marijuana being the gateway drug and all, they moved on to bigger and better mind-altering substances: acid, E, ’shrooms, Special K, heroin, etc.
     
    The other thing about Marcus is that crackheaded girls who don’t know any better think he’s sexy. I don’t see it. He’s got dusty reddish dreads that a girl could never run her hands through. His eyes are always half-shut. His lips are usually curled into a semi-smile, like he’s in on a big joke that’s being played on you but you don’t know it yet. Healways has a girlfriend and healways cheats on her. Thus, Marcus is widely known by the moniker "Krispy Kreme" because he’s always "burnt to a crisp" and is rumored to have "bought three boxes of donuts." (In PHS lingo, that means he’s slept with at least thirty-six girls. A dozen donuts per box—get it?)
     
    In short, Marcus Flutie is precisely the type of "unsavory character" that the Weavers wanted to get Hope away from. This really wasn’t necessary because Hope hates Marcus and the rest of Heath’s former friends almost as much as she hates drugs and alcohol. She would be profoundly disappointed if I associated with him or his vices, so I walked right past him. My hand was on the doorknob when he called out to me.
     
    "Hey,Tongue-Kissing Cousin!"
     
    Though I used to see him sometimes at Hope’s house, Marcus and I had never, ever acknowledged each other’s existence before. So I froze, not knowing whether I should (a) laugh, (b) say something, or (c) ignore him and keep on walking. I chose a brilliant combo of (a) and (b).
     
    "Uh, yeah. Ha. Ha. Ha."
     
    I turned around and saw that Marcus was smiling at me. It freaked me out. I mean, it wasn’t an unfamiliar smile. He smiled like he knew me and was used to looking at me full in the face even though I don’t remember him ever giving me so much as a lazy I’m-too-stoned-to-avert-my-eyes look when I walked past his desk in homeroom.
     
    "I almost pissed myself out here," he said.
     
    "Uh, thanks, I