The Twelve-Fingered Boy by John Hornor Jacobs Read Free Book Online Page B

was a baby. Stacks of novels sent by the do-gooders at the sheriff’s department outreach: King, Hemingway, Shelley, Howard. Hell, even Shakespeare. I’m not an idiot. I like to read. It makes the outside closer, the walls thinner. After a week, Jack’s got his orange jumpers in a drawer, but no pictures of family, no posters of bands, no books, no magazines. And that reminds me that Quincrux left him a gift but I’ve never seen it. I never thought to ask.
    â€œWhat was it Quincrux gave you? The gift that says something about you. And him.”
    Jack pulls a comic from underneath his mattress. “This. I meant to show you.”
    It’s an X-Men comic. A big-breasted super-mutant with fiery eyes glares at me. Weird. She’s hot but angry. What could make her so angry?
    â€œI don’t get it. What’s he trying to say?”
    Jack hesitates. He throws the comic onto the bed, then goes over to the desk and sits at the chair.
    â€œI don’t know.” He sighs and looks down at his hands in his lap. “That I’m a mutant.”
    I laugh. “Naw. That’s—I don’t know—silly.”
    He looks at the door, making sure no one can see, and holds up his hand, fingers splayed.
    â€œNot so silly.”
    â€œBut it’s just…” I stop and think a bit. I need to say this right. “My cousin is double-jointed. A kid I knew in school could add any two numbers in her head like lightning. You could just call ’em out, and she’d answer. You’d have to get a calculator to check, but she was always right. Another kid could play any instrument he could touch, like he’d been playing it all his life.” This last one I saw on television, but I don’t tell Jack that. “So I don’t think having extra fingers makes you—”
    â€œA mutant?” Jack shakes his head and sighs again. “It does make me different.” He’s not looking at me. He’s got that far-off, thousand-mile stare. I worry that sometime the little dude won’t be able to get back from wherever it is he goes when he gets that way.
    â€œHey, man. We’re all different.” That’s what your momma believes. That we can all grow up to be president or millionaires and everyone is a little Van Gogh and there’s never been another like us. But most kids in the general pop could be clones, all pressed out from the same mold, they’re so damned homogeneous. Maybe I just think so because I don’t know them well enough. But, I swear, all I have to get to know is one. But maybe Jack really is different.
    â€œLet me buy you some ice cream, Jack, me boy. I’m flush this week and got a sweet tooth.”
    He laughs. “Awesome. I don’t have any money.”
    â€œHeck, I’ll even throw in a burger, son.”

    We hit the commissary and eat the breakfast of champions: cheeseburgers, cheesy fries con jalapeños, and icy sodas, followed by orange Push-Ups. The Commons is a madhouse—the D-Wing cadre howling and throwing paper at the TV showing ESPN, and the C-Wing brutes glowering and gloating on the opposite side. Whoever holds the remote is king.
    We head out to the yard, stomachs burbling.
    Casimir Pulaski Detention Center is in the shape of a large X. A, B, C, and D wings form the arms of the cross, with Admin and classrooms and offices in the center, where the arms meet. The yard, a wide expanse of grass and basketball courts and bleachers lining a half-size football field, is one of the biggest differences between juvie and a penitentiary yard. The yard is lush, well-kept, and filled with balls and laughter and boys running about, acting like idiots, which is exactly the way boys are supposed to act.
    Even I know that.
    The illusion of a playground is broken only by the bulls. No Booth today. But Red Wolf, Wilkins, Peters, Blanchard, and Diegal lurk about, hands on billy clubs and pepper spray. We call the