Tabitha calls me up.
“Turn on the TV. Shooting in San Antonio.”
Tabitha calls me up.
“Turn on the TV. Shooting at some retirement home in
Seattle.”
Tabitha calls me up.
Tabitha calls me up.
It’s 10 a.m. Tabitha calls me up.
“Hey, douchebag, what’s for lunch?”
And suddenly I realize we’re back to our old, comfortable
relationship again. I feel this bubble of happiness that rises in my chest like
gas.
“I don’t know,” I say. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I asked you.”
X
Tabitha’s sprawled across the booth with one boot
propped on the table. She has a cigarette between her fingers and she’s
poking her tongue between her teeth as she draws lightning bolts around her
knees. Blue ink zigzags up and down her legs.
“We should do a stunt book,” she says. “Get on the Internet
and look up sex positions. Try every one we find. Even the really dirty, weird
ones that you know some dorky kid made up. The Dirty Sanchez – that kind of
shit.”
She’s staring down at a notebook on the table. At the top of
the page she’s written THINGS THAT WILL MAKE US RICH.
So far, she’s got:
Come up with a cool website concept – evil pranks? Guerilla bungee
jumping?
Rob some banks.
Laundering money – look up how?
We struck that last one out because, well, self-mutilation
videos seem impractical. There are physical limitations, you know? I mean, you can only cut yourself so many times before the scarring starts
taking a toll on your appearance.
But the stunt book ... that sounds promising. My balls start
pulsing at the mere thought of all the crazy sex we would be forced to have
while researching it. Tabitha’s right – the Dirty Sanchez is a given. The
Alabama Hot Pocket … well, maybe not that one, but I’d do an Alligator
Fuckhouse for sure. A Rusty Trombone. A Cincinnati Bowtie.
Maybe a Dirty Cowboy, if we can figure out what a Dirty
Cowboy is.
“I’m down for that,” I say. “We could make it like a
guidebook. Rate the positions, give tips. Call it something like, A Loser’s Guide to Dirty, Nasty Sex. It
could be like a coffee table book.”
Tabitha shrugs noncommittally.
“Maybe. Sounds like a lot of work.”
She starts coloring in one of the lightning bolts. A woman
in a Skinny Burger uniform steps out of the bathroom and walks past our booth.
She glances at us and does a double take when she sees Tabitha’s cigarette.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” she says.
“There is no excuse for you.” Tabitha doesn’t
look up from her drawing.
“Ma’am, there’s no smoking in here.”
“I smoke in here all the time.”
“I don’t think so. There’s no smoking in here.”
“Really? Since when?”
“Since never.”
“Wait, so, what you’re telling me is, you’ve never not allowed smoking in here?”
The woman squinches her eyebrows together. I can see the
wheels in her head spinning as she tries to decipher Tabitha’s statement. Is it
nonsense? Is it a joke? Is this girl crazy? On drugs? No telling.
Obviously in over her head, the woman decides to forgo further debate in favor of a much
simpler and less difficult solution: she tries wielding brute authority at us.
“Ma’am … ”she says, punching her fists into her hips.
Tabitha smirks. Staring at the woman, she plants the
cigarette between her lips and takes a nice, long drag off of it. The woman
leans forward to pluck the cigarette out of her hand, but Tabitha lashes a boot
out to drive her back.
“If you touch me, I’ll sue the shit out of you,” she hisses,
though she does grudgingly reach over and drop the cigarette in my drink. “Happy
now?”
“Yes. Thank you, ma’am.” The woman turns and shuffles toward
the front of the restaurant. She rolls her eyes and shakes
her head at the other customers as if to say she had no idea such people
existed. Tabitha rips the notebook page over and starts a new list.
PEOPLE I HATE AND WANT TO KILL
Below that she scratches, FAT ASS SKINNY BURGER HOES.
Then, as an afterthought, THE EASTER BUNNY.
She lights another cigarette. I grab my drink and peer ruefully at the butt floating in it, then go to throw it away.
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