• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The van pulled from the curb and we walked back up to the front of the shop.

Chev put his arm around my shoulders.

—Your first real job. Me and your mom are so proud.

—Fuck you, I'm not going. I'll call Po Sin later and tell him not to send the guy.

—Yes, you are going. And to celebrate, me and your mom are gonna fuck like bunnies tonight.

I shrugged his arm off.

—Don't, man, that's not cool.

—Gonna fuck and fuck and fuck all night long.

—Dude, you're grossing me out.

He stopped at the door, pumping his groin at me.

—Gonna git our fuck aaawwwnnn.

I walked past him into the shop and locked the door. He grabbed the handle and shook it.

—Let me in, dick.

On the counter, his phone began to buzz and I picked it up.

—Want me to get it?

He stuck his finger against the glass.

—Do not answer that.

I looked at the number.

—Caller unknown. Probably a customer. Let me get this for you.

—Do not pick that up.

I flipped the phone open.

—White Lightning Tattoo.

Chev jammed a hand in his pocket, going for his keys.

—Asshole!

I nodded my head, phone at my ear, backing from the door.

—A string of barbed wire? Around your biceps? Yeah, sure, we can do that.

Chev turned the key.

—Do not say another word.

I covered the mouthpiece with my hand.

—No, it's cool, I can handle this.

He pushed the door open.

—Give me the phone.

I took my hand from the mouthpiece.

—Sure, sure, we can do that wire around your arm. We can also tattoo lameass poser wannabe on your forehead.

Chev came at me, grabbing for the phone.

I held it over my head, screaming.

—Or how about you just get a unicorn on your hip so people will know what a real man you are!

Chev snagged my wrist.

—Asshole.

I jerked my hand free, yelling at the phone.

—Or a rainbow on your ankle!

And it flew from my hand and hit the polished cement floor and cracked open and the screen shattered into five pieces.

We stood there and looked at the phone.

I toed one of the pieces.

—So, I guess I won't be blowing off Po Sin in the morning.

THE LAST TIME I'D SEEN HER

Chev's mom and dad are dead.

Which is why I can't make jokes about fucking his mom when he starts making jokes about fucking mine. It's also why he's constantly in my ass about calling my mom and being nicer to her and being more responsible so she doesn't have to worry about me. Like my mom worries. Like she can retain a single coherent thought long enough to work up a good worry. Not that I want to rag on her or anything, I mean, she's my mom. But life hasn't disrupted her mellow since, like, 1968. How is anything I do or say gonna break that trend?

Chev doesn't see it that way. Which makes sense. You take someone who doesn't have something themselves, they're always gonna put more value on it than the person who does have it. So, sure, I love my mom. But Chev may love her a little more than me. Which is maybe not as fucked up as it sounds like at first.

—Hey Mom.

—Who is it?

—It's me, Mom.

—Web? Is that you?

—It's me, Mom.

—Cool. That's cool.

There was a pause. A long one. This might mean she was:

A) Waiting for me to tell her why I was calling.

or

B) So stoned she had forgotten I was on the line.

—So, Mom.

—Who is this?

Which was pretty much a dead giveaway that the answer was B.

—It's Web, Mom.

—Heeey Web. How you doing, baby?

—I'm cool, Mom, how about you?

—Alright, alright. The blackberries are ripening nicely.

—That's cool.

—Yeah. I could send you a couple quarts. Or some pies. Should I send you some pies?

Every time I talk to Theodora Goodhue of Wild Blackberry Pie Farms, she offers to send me some of her world-famous, all organic, bush-ripened blackberries. Or some of her equally famous pies. Then she hangs up the phone and, her short-term memory impeded as it is by the intake of her far more famous Wild Blackberry Cannabis Sativa, she promptly forgets.

—No, that's cool. I still have some of the last batch you sent.

—The crop's gonna be something special this year.

I never have any illusions about which crop