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    Titty Baby
    Titty Baby
    Titty Baby
    Ebook32 pages26 minutes

    Titty Baby

    By Barb Johnson

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The lives of four unlikely friends intersect on the backstreets of New Orleans. Living amid poverty and violence, these fragile heroes of the American underclass redefine our notions of family, redemption, and love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 20, 2009
    ISBN9780061966514
    Titty Baby
    Author

    Barb Johnson

    Barb Johnson has been a carpenter in New Orleans for more than twenty years. In 2008 she received her MFA from the University of New Orleans. While there, she won a grant from the Astraea Foundation, Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers, and Washington Square's short story competition. She is the fifth recipient of AROHO's $50,000 Gift of Freedom. This is her first collection.

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      Book preview

      Titty Baby - Barb Johnson

      Titty Baby

      Short Story

      Barb Johnson

      For Virginia Sonnier

      And for Mid-City—

      heart of New Orleans,

      heart of my heart

      Contents

      Begin Reading

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Praise

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      Titty Baby

      You got titties, Jerry Beatty told Pudge in P.E. this afternoon. Right in front of everyone. The entire fifth grade had to run the fifty-yard dash, and Pudge was last. He always is. When he got close to the finish line, a bunch of Jerry’s friends threw themselves on the ground and covered their heads. Incoming! they yelled, like soldiers on TV.

      Now Pudge cuts down Palmyra Street away from the rest of the after-school crowd. Every once in a while, he moves his notebook aside to study his problem chest. There’s something about his new shirt that shows off his titties, which, up until today, were a kind of secret. His mother bought him this new outfit. For incentive, she said. It’s not for him, exactly, but for the slim boy he’s meant to be.

      Big Luce! Pudge calls down the street. Big Luce is about to walk back inside the Corner Laundry, and Pudge wants to catch her before she does. His tight pants cut into his thighs, and walking fast turns up the volume of the new denim scratching against itself. Stampede! he hears in his head when he tries to run. And the laughing. Big Luce! Pudge calls again and waves.

      Big Luce stops at the gate behind the Laundromat. How goes it with you? she asks as Pudge pushes straight into the courtyard, where his classmates won’t be able to see him.

      Pudge’s insides are fizzing, but he can’t think of what that’s called. Fizzing. I’m fizzing, he tries out in his mind. Okay, I guess, he says to Big Luce.

      That bad, huh?

      It might be that Big Luce can read his mind. Or maybe she’s kidding? Sometimes people are kidding, but Pudge doesn’t catch on in time. Or maybe she saw the titties poking out of his new shirt this morning and knows what kind of day they

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