"Ok, everyone, act normal."
"Why?"
"Shhhh."
"Why?"
"There’s people here."
"Who?"
"Shhhh."
"Why?"
"It’s Ashley, y’allll." That’s Zombie Lizard. She’s got a kitchen knife and a roll of masking tape, which she’s taping around her body, fully clothed. "It’s my elevator briefcase."
"Well," I say, "you missed a snap."
I button up her briefcase.
"Hey," she says. "Hey! Did I say you could button up my briefcase?!"
"I self-informed," I tell her.
But she’s screaming, standing up, running out the house and taping herself to Ashley as soon as Ashley is in range. Ashley takes it all in stride, helping her friend tape the two of them together and spinning the two of them around like a dance move.
I’m their umbrella.
"Where did you get that?"
"From the rain."
Where did I get this?
"You bought it." ::a whisper in my ear.
"Who said that?"
"Chad."
"Where did I get it?"
"YOU BOUGHT IT!" Chad says. He’s screaming, running down the street naked, carrying a board.
I’m gonna flip out of my unconventional style here for a moment so you can understand what’s going on. Because I want to make this very clear. This isn’t an element of my pseudo-schizophrenic landscape—bubbles from the noise. This isn’t something I made up, while candy-flipping. This is not poetic license. This is Chad, my friend, running down the street, naked, with a board.
Ashley has us taped together.
She’s really a gem for putting up with all of this.
And, for a while, we were in this together. We made the Naughty together, remember? Yeah, we did. We were. Now we both grip Zombie’s tape and hold each other for the fall. Music from the house is on. Neighbors’ shadows on their windows, watching us—crazy house. Teardrops. Stuntman. Circus. Sculpture. Rhône.
And Chad, my friend, jacked off his mind on LSD, normally beautiful Chad, with long black hair, who sucks dick beautifully and cracks us all up with stories about crack whores and who actually lived in a crack house, in west Dayton, before he founded the House of Transformation—to the tune of some music from Fight Club—is running up and down the street, screaming, naked, carrying a board.
He’s slapping the board on the street. When he gets to the end he holds the board above his head and screams something that no one can understand. Then he slaps the board down on the street—banging the shit out of it—and he picks it up and runs the other way.