Chapter 11

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Farrago was alone in her room doing ghost hits off her favorite bubbler, watching Vampire Chef on her ForbiddenFruit laptop, and texting stupid-ass brain shit to her bestie, Anagram—she was multitasking—when her mom started banging on the door like a crazy lady.

“What?” said Farrago.

“Open up!”

“No.”

“Open this door right this instant!”

“Go away.”

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing in there!”

“That’s right. That’s what I think.”

“You want to be grounded again? That it? Try me. I’ll ground you in a Mammoth City second.”

“I thought I was.”

“What?”

“Grounded.”

“I’m not talking to you through a locked door. Open it. Now.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ll stand out here all night! All right? Don’t think I won’t. Cause I can stand out here a long, long time.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Her mother pounded. The door rattled in its frame. The wall shook. After a while the pounding stopped.

Silence. More silence. Then, “I won’t be insulted like this. Your behavior—it’s childish, it’s unacceptable.”

“Whatever.”

“Tell me this, then. One thing. Why do you enjoy tormenting me so? Can you just answer me that?”

“No.”

“You know I’m only concerned for your welfare. Ever since your brother left, you’re the only one I worry about. You’re my baby. You know that. I care about your well-being, your safety, your life. I care about you.”

“In your head.”

“And I think you’re spending way too much time cooped up in that room. It’s not healthy. Go outside, feel the sun, talk to people. Get out and do. There’s a whole world out there. It’s like you’re just hibernating or something.”

“How do you spell hibernating?” Farrago was texting play-by-play commentary to Anagram, who was loving every detail. Anagram hated her own mother, too.

“Now, don’t make me lose my temper again. Please don’t do that. You know how I hate to lose my temper.”

“You tell me often enough.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Can I go back to Dad’s tomorrow?”

“You’ve still got two more days left with me. But maybe, if your father’s free, and you open this damn door.”

“Guess I’ll tough it out in here, then.”

“You really disappoint me sometimes, Farrago. What goes on under that dome of yours I’m sure I haven’t the foggiest. If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if you were actually mine.” And back went the tiny little mom feet, clump-clump-clump like big heavy I-want-you-to-hear-every-serious-step feet, back down the hallway, back down the stairs.

“What a hosebag,” said Farrago to herself. Then she said it again, out loud: “hosebag.” She’d always been a passenger trapped on her mother’s struggle bus. She texted Anagram what had just happened. RBUs, Anagram texted back. She had always liked Anagram’s sense of humor. But why not? They were the same height, the same weight, the same age, the same coloring, the same aliens in similar earthsuits. Only difference, major though it was, was that Anagram had recently become a star and a celebrity, a celebrity and a star, by posting for months on MooTube her fashion dos and don’ts, made up out of stuff you could find in your refrigerator. I mean, could you believe it? Farrago was so mad crazy jealous she could just die. Wouldn’t you?

They’d met on the first day of fourth grade at Munch & Crunch Elementary. Their teacher, Miss Gazump, in an effort to demonstrate how much “fun” she was and how much “fun” they were all going to have in the coming year, dismissed the class at the end of the day according to eye color. Blue went first, then brown, green, gray, and finally hazel. That left Farrago and Anagram. They had tried to go out on green and then hazel, but Miss Gazump, after checking their respective irises, had held them back. They didn’t know the color of their eyes. Miss Gazump didn’t know, either. The issue never seemed to have come up before. Finally, after all the other kids with real colors had gone, Miss Gazump squatted down, gave the offending organs an up-close, extended scrutiny. At last she sighed, straightened up, and said, “You two are special. You have miscellaneous eyes.” And with that they were dismissed. They’d been BFFs ever since.

Mothers, of course, were a major topic, online and off. They seemed not so much a wholly different species as an unfortunate, often irritating, sometimes scary mutation of their children, a message from the future: avoid, at all costs, becoming this. Talking about mothers seemed to help ward them (the mothers) and the possibilities off. Two main issues: (1) Who were these creatures, really? and (2) What did they, what could they possibly, want? Hours of conversational fun.

Latest mom bomb: Farrago’s “role model” had been given for her birthday by one of her stupid friends a silver tiara, which she then proceeded to actually wear for an entire week, not just at home but also out in public, to the amusement of strangers and her daughter’s utter mortification.

And Anagram’s mom was somewhere in the middle of an interminable project to redecorate their home from top to bottom, which involved throwing out all the “junk.”

She said she wanted her family to embark on a new “lean, mean” way of life. Anagram’s dog, SpellChecker, had already run off weeks ago, spooked by the near-constant parade of painters, electricians, plumbers, and “living stylists.” Her father, under whatever name he was using that week, had already decamped to a one-room hideaway at the FluorescentLinoleum Inn. Her brother, BatteryCharge, had put his own locks on his door and denied access to all but his most shady friends.

Farrago, at least, had the freedom, sort of, that allowed her to shift from one nutso parent to the other in accordance with the mysterious rotations of their respective mental issues. This week was Carousel’s turn—no crisis, just part of the regular cycle. Farrago had no favorite, really, preferences exhibiting notoriously brief shelf lives. Sometimes one parent was crazy, sometimes the other, sometimes both were crazy at once. There was no predicting their nonsense.

Farrago signed off with Anagram. She had work to do, a dumbass paper for her Old Timey Times class, “Why Color Movies of Today Are So Superior to Antique Black and White.” She’d done her research. She’d collected her examples. She just couldn’t face the huge hassle of dragging a bunch of stupid words outta her brain. Who gives a fuck, anyway?

She refilled the bowl. She sparked up the bubbler. Leaf was a friend. Good and true. Leaf could always be counted on. It knew her. It knew what she liked. It knew where she wanted to go. And it took her there, without fail, each and every time. She liked traveling into the caramel. Where everything sharp and hard became soft and chewy. But even with a prime head on, her homework assignment remained naggingly in view, persistent, hovering. Just far away, so very far away. She’d rather watch her fish. She could stare at them for hours, gliding around in their lighted tank. So bright and smooth and alive. Some were quick. Flashes of cool neon. Some moved sooo slooowly. In no great hurry to go anywhere. That’s because none of the fish were trying to get to any particular place at all. They knew what they were doing. They were making patterns. The fish were talking to one another. They were talking to her. And the message, it wasn’t exactly verbal. It was something directed at the body. Something you knew without thinking. Something private. Fish knowledge. From the time when we, too, were little fishes. This is how the flying-saucer people in outer space communicated. This is how God spoke.

Sometime around there she fell asleep, or passed out, or whatever you want to call it. And when she came to, bad light was blooming behind the window curtains. Oh, shit. She was afraid to look at the clock: 11:11. Oh, God. She was supposed to be handing in her paper right about now. Fuckups like this were the reason she hadn’t already graduated, been released from learning prison. She’d been held back twice, once in third grade and once in seventh. She’d had attendance problems. She’d had grade problems. She’d had attitude problems. She didn’t seem to “get” school. What was the point, exactly? Only reason for the entire system’s existence, as she saw it, was to provide an elaborate babysitting service for parents who weren’t there, weren’t ever going to be there. Who knew what to do with her? So she’d been recycled. Now, with her freedom date from Tip O’ The Wedge High in actual sight, she was in major trouble again. She looked at the clock again. She ran through her options, her lack of options. She sat up quietly in bed for a moment. WTF. She reached for the bubbler. Wake ’n’ Bake time. All hail the leaf.

An hour later she had managed to get into most of her clothes. Same ones as yesterday, natch. But she still couldn’t find her StompYou boots. So she had another couple of hits. Searched around some more. Found missing boots in wastepaper basket. How the fuck had they ever gotten there? She went to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth. She washed her face. She looked at herself in the mirror. No consolation there.

She stepped out into the Haunted Hallway. Black walls covered in phosphorescent green ghost stickers to help light your way to the john in the darkest of nights. She paused to listen. House strangely silent. Where the fuck was her mother? Where was the fucking door banging when she needed it? She descended the circular Staircase of Doom into the Free Association Family Space, a large open area decorated in a squeaky cacophony of styles that made no sense to anyone but its wacko architect. The banged-up sticks of mismatched furniture had been painstakingly gathered over the years from random yard sales, not without cost in time, money, and fumigatory annoyance. The whole curious collection presided over by handpicked wall displays of Artworks by JingleBell, metallic fashionings depicting hellish landscapes on imaginary planets. Her mother believed these monstrosities were actually “bee-you-tee-full.” Of course, this was also a woman who tooled about town, to Farrago’s enduring mortification, in a car-size fully operational bright green pickle, the centerpiece of a now defunct ad campaign for the Sons & Daughter Pickle Emporium, purchased at auction several years ago in an appalling, but not uncommon, lapse of parental judgment. “Mom?” she said. No answer. In the kitchen she found a note stuck by turtle magnet to the battered door of the old Cold Comfort refrigerator: “Gone to Porcelain Shebang in Skeeter Hill with CheddarBake and LooseEnd. Jelly beans in bowl on counter. NothingCola in fridge. Have a nice day at school. Love, Maw.”

“What an asshat,” she said. She ate the beans. She drank the cola. Her favorite breakfast, for the last couple of years, anyway. She texted Anagram. Anagram was zoning out in her Consumer Heroes class and wondering where Farrago was. She texted Loophole. He was, surprise surprise, dutifully seated in his assigned chair in CutNPaste class but so freaking buzzed and skittery he was ready to punch Mr. PinchNerve right in his putty clown nose. Mr. PinchNerve was the lord prime of all CutNPaste and easily the most despised teacher at Tip O’ The Wedge. His car had been keyed (numerous times), his desk drawers painted shut, the sleeves of his suit jacket scissored off, and his spare toupee stolen from his briefcase and superglued to the bald bronze head atop the statue of the founder, Old White Guy, that stood outside the front entrance, perpetually blessing apprentice scholars past, present, and future. Loophole was ready to bolt. Where was she?

Loophole had transferred in halfway through the previous year. He’d been kicked out of half a dozen schools in High Falutin Heights for, among other offenses, chewing gum in a no-gum zone, calling his shop teacher a ten-thumbed monkey, throwing corn dodgers at the lunch ladies (yuk, yuk), heckling fellow students in BlushAndGrinSpeech class until the daughter of Principal Wigwam burst into tears and ran from the room, smearing dog shit inside the star quarterback’s jockstrap, fronting a general unpleasant air of all-around Don’tGiveAFuckdom, and, oh, yeah, selling raze to an undercover narc in the senior class and “borrowing” Nurse Budget’s car for a wild joyride that ended in emergency room visits for all participating revelers. What to do? His hapless parents exercised the nuclear option. They moved. And Tip O’ The Wedge, they announced, was to be the very last stop on their son’s erratic educational bus. After that, final destination: the Saint Fiduciary of the Bent Nail Home for Nasty Little Punks. Didn’t sound half bad to Loophole. They had a heated pool.

Loophole and Farrago texted back and forth for a while. Blah, blah, blah. Then Loophole told Farrago to meet him in thirty at the Rock Pile. BackAlley’s Rock Pile was a dark, dorky, smelly den of T-shirts, music memorabilia, and video games down at the west end of the Mess O’ Stuff Mall, right next to the Shellack Shack. BackAlley was from one of those countries where the War had come for a brief visit and had liked the place so much that it decided on a lengthy stayover. So BackAlley bugged out while the bugging out was good. Most of his family had been killed the last time the War had been their guest. He’d left with a suitcase full of spare clothes and an ATM card to his dead uncle’s account in a foreign no-questions-asked bank. The family money wasn’t exactly clean, but then whose was? He’d used most of the funds as seed to finance his dream, this shrine to pop culture in the land that invented pop culture. He could see the hundreds and the thousands and the hundreds of thousands and—dare he even contemplate?—the millions rolling toward him, wave after green wave. He and all his castaway relatives finally redeemed from life and released from history. A reality, unfortunately, that never materialized. Location, no doubt, a major issue. But where else was he going to open a store? All he had ever wanted in life was to migrate to a sheltered oasis free of explosions and hot lead, where corruption was on the down low, the air smelled of trees, children played in the grass, and, in the enveloping quiet, he could be quietly stacking. So why not Randomburg (formerly DeficitFalls)? Home to the famous BigBadGorge, which thousands of tourists drove hundreds of miles in order to gawk at. Home to CorrugatedDreams, the nation’s largest manufacturer of cardboard boxes. Two interstate exits from the Mess O’ Stuff Mall, third largest in the world. And only 4.5 miles from the Shuttlecock Indian Casino and Hotel. But most important, the place where that classic golden age musical Painted Clouds (translated into BackAlley’s language as Drippy Sky) had been shot, a film BackAlley happened to see at a very impressionable age on his rich cousin’s giant XoLoTron. He’d never seen a TV screen so big or a movie so real that he thought he’d imagined it himself. Wherein a naive, cash-challenged foreign exchange student from Upper Maxistan travels to Mammoth Country, settles into the postcard perfection of Randomburg (formerly DeficitFalls), here called Goodyville, and naturally gets tangled up in the lives and loves of the adorable SteamGasket family he’s staying with. All the characters smile a lot and burst into catchy song whenever they look at one another for too long. And in spite of the predictable series of comical misadventures (all massively entertaining), our hero ends up fucking all the right good-looking people, founds a wildly successful business making calibrated nibbins, gets elected mayor, and finally marries the achingly available daughter of the wealthiest man in Goodyville in a lavish production number involving most of the population of said town. Afterward, BackAlley couldn’t sleep for a week and his mother scolded his cousin for showing him what she was sure must have been a horror movie. Today he could still sing all the tunes from the sound track and would if you looked at him too long. To Loophole and Farrago, though, he was a cool dude. They liked his accent and the crazy, off-the-dress-code clothes he wore. And he listened to the same music they did. He watched the same TV. Sometimes he even sparked up with them and let them play for free his rare collection of vintage video games. Burro Squash and Kosmic Karnivores and Froggy on Ice. This visit, though, was to make a score. BackAlley also sold beer and leaf out of his car to a select number of personal clients. Guess what? Loophole qualified.

Standing in the hot parking lot behind the mall, staring into the open trunk of BackAlley’s powerful little Zoomzini, as if supposedly gazing upon museum treasures under glass, was not exactly how Farrago wanted to spend these precious few, unexpectedly “free” hours she was certainly going to get punished for. What she wanted to do was just get ultra wasted. As soon as possible. That was the necessity. What happened afterward was optional. Loophole was taking an eternity to button the deal. Talking and talking about nothing and nothing. And BackAlley, of course, was standing quite close to her. Very, very close. This was the downside to BackAlley. He liked to crowd your space. Within minutes of their first meeting Farrago could feel his invisible hand reaching out to touch her where she didn’t want to be touched. She knew without really pulling up the visual that BackAlley wanted to fuck her in a creepy, cuddly, foreign sort of way. This was the sort of transmission from the testosterone zone she tried to ignore as best she could. But frankly, sometimes her nerves got a bit fried. She gave Loophole an elbow tap in the ribs. Finally Loophole handed over the cash. BackAlley handed over the “product.” They left.

“Well, that took forever and a half,” she said as they climbed into Loophole’s XYZ, a muscle car on steroids.

“Whaddya want from me?” He was trying to open the plastic vial of BackAlley’s leaf, which seemed to be secured by an excessive amount of cheap sticky tape.

“Where’s the piece?” she said, rooting around in the glove box, stuffed with old parking tickets, old crinkled maps, old pizza rinds, and an old pair of black panties with a red skull sewn over the crotch. Hers? Probably.

“Under the dash,” he said. “There’s a box.”

She felt around until her fingers located and retrieved a metal first aid kit with a couple of magnets glued to the bottom. “Cool,” she said. “This is new. When’d you get it?”

“I don’t remember.” He still hadn’t gotten the vial open. “Why all these fucking questions?”

“Just curious. I like to know what you do.”

“Well, right now, see, what I’m doing is just trying to get into this fucking lockbox!” Exasperated, he chucked the vial over to her. “Why’s he got to go and wrap it all up like that? It’s like trying to peel a golf ball.”

She passed the opened vial back to him.

“How’d you do that?”

She held up a hand. “Long, sharp nails,” she said.

Piece loaded. Piece lit. And in seconds they were expelling endless plumes of sweet smoke. Hotboxin’ in the parking lot of the Mess O’ Stuff Mall. They watched the people, the stooges, jingling their car keys on the way in, pushing their carts of shiny crap on the way out.

“Look at that fucker,” said Loophole. An elderly man with a cane came hobbling out of the building, stopped, stared out in apparent confusion at the vast glittering field of sunstruck metal and glass. “CurtainCall before the face-lift,” he said. “Probably can’t even remember which row he was in. Or which fucking black camper is his fucking black camper.” Farrago started to laugh. She didn’t want to, but she did.

“Oh, wait, wait, lookee here. Effigy and her pack of grotty rug rats.” Young mother trying to balance two ridiculously overloaded shopping bags between her arms while simultaneously attempting to herd a couple of small, screaming offspring to their car. “Probably ran out of the kids’ Temperall this morning.”

“Stop,” said Farrago, struggling to hold herself in. “I so don’t want to laugh at them.”

“Yes, you do. You know you do. Hey, man, check out this dude. NoName right around the time he got the lead in Galactic Cowhand.” Slender guy in bunny sneakers, torn jeans, and a stained RoadBurn T-shirt. Acne scars and looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of weeks.

Now her laughing machine had started, and once started, she couldn’t stop it.

“Amazing,” said Loophole. “Who’d have thunk it? All these rich celebs shopping at a crappy mall in Randomburg.”

“How’d they even find this shithole?”

“They know bargains when they see ’em.” The laughs kept coming.

“Who’d you take me for when you first spied me?” said Farrago.

“You? Easy peasy. Hiding out there in the back corner of Mr. OlivePit’s Jolly Roger Democracy class hoping no one’ll notice you, hoping you’ll never get called on.”

“Ever again in my whole fucking life.”

“Yeah. You were a dead ringer for MissyMiss.”

“The porn star?”

“The rock star.”

“Before the Algorithms or after?”

“Before, of course. One look and I knew you were a penis paradise. That’s where I wanted to vacay. And I knew I would.”

“So confident,” she said.

“Well. Look at me.”

So she did. Then, without a word, she leaned over and kissed him. Hard. He kissed back. Hard. They mixed syrups. When they pulled apart, they looked at each other again and realized there was no apart.

“Let’s bounce,” said Loophole, turning the key in the ignition, turning to look at her. “Where to?”

“Spin the wheel,” she said.

Loophole was famous for dramatic exits. His signature move. The louder, the faster, the better. They went roaring out of that parking lot, scattering pedestrians, screeching cars, panicked bicyclists, and nearly T-boning a transmission-plagued melon truck.

“Stash the piece,” said Loophole, glancing at the mirror for telltale signs of revolving red lights.

Which Farrago did. Between her legs.

They cruised the town. They went up a street. They went down a street. They went down a street. They went up a street. Like that.

They toured the greater Randomburg metroplex area. All three blocks of it. Nothing, nothing, and nothing.

They checked out the major Kid Haunts. The KwikiKween. RestYourAss State Park. GameYou. No one haunting. No one else cutting school.

They scoped out Tip O’ The Wedge. So still, so silent, so solid-looking from the outside. Hard to believe the pimpled turmoil caged within.

“Wonder what’s going on in MinyMoe’s class,” said Loophole.

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“You hungry?”

“Read my mind.”

They drove over to LooseyJuicy’s, the run-down one out on CornView that got robbed last month by a couple of gunmen who were supposed to be degenerate illegal immigrants or something. Lunchtime. Place packed, line out the door. Even the drive-thru all jammed up.

“Wanna go somewhere else?” said Loophole.

“I didn’t wanna come here in the first place.”

“You like the BroccoliSliders.”

“When I’m drunk.”

“Wanna go somewhere else?”

“We’re fucking here,” Farrago said. “Let’s fucking eat. Get in behind the teal Oracle. The one with the Yowsa plates. God, what are they doing all the way up here?” She picked up the piece, packed it, sparked it, ripped it, passed it on to Loophole. Until they were sitting inside their car, inside a cloud of burning leaf, going round and round until a space finally opened up. They got food of some sort. Later, neither one of them could remember exactly what sort, but they ate it. It was food. After a while the smoke pouring out their windows began to attract unwanted attention—knowing smiles from fellow leafers, scowls from mommies with kids.

“All right,” said Loophole. “Now that we’ve done our duty, freaked out the normies at LooseyJuicy’s, we can shove off.”

“Do it,” said Farrago.

Broke outta there like a bat from, well, somewhere else. They cruised around. Out on Route 73, clutching a DustyBoy in one hand, the piece in the other, Loophole made a clumsy right onto Old Windmill Road. He glanced at Farrago. He glanced away.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“Driving.”

“Well, drive someplace else. Now!”

“Let’s just check out the parking lot. The lunchtime crowd. For fun. See how ol’ Pops is doing.”

She started pounding on his shoulder with both fists.

“Hey, cut it. That hurts.”

“Turn the fucking car around!” She continued to pound.

“All right, all right. Just stop with the fucking hands.” He turned left into a DominationDonuts. Pulled up to the door. Parked. “Wanna Burpleberry Cream?” he said.

She glared at him.

“Fills your face,” he said, quoting the ad.

She glared.

“Well, long as we’re here, believe I’ll snag me a couple of those Choco Grenades.” He opened his door.

“I cannot believe how stupid you can be sometimes,” she said. “I mean seriously, dangerously stupid. You think I want a replay of what happened last time he caught me with you?”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s inside counting up his receipts.”

“Until he comes out.”

“He ain’t gonna see nothing in the two seconds it takes us to go by.”

“I hate you.”

Took some more leaf, some more beer, some more tooling around until some semblance of chill was restored.

They went out to the Spirit Mound. One bogus car in the gravel lot. A purple PavementEater with a bumper sticker that read: F@#% BUMPER STICKERS.

“Oh, my God,” said Farrago. “It’s RoamingMinute.” She scrunched down in her seat. “You see him?”

“I’m looking,” said Loophole, scoping left, right, front. “No nothing. He’s probably down by the river. Taking a piss in it.”

“Bet that skank Hollaback is with him, too.” She and Hollaback hated each other. Neither knew why.

“Wait—I hear voices. Somebody’s coming.”

“Is it them?”

“Two people, looks like, coming out of the woods. Yeah, it’s them. Uh-oh, they’ve seen the car. They’re coming over.”

“Oh, shit.” Farrago sat back up again. She watched the couple cross the gravel lot. “Little Miss Hollaback. She walks like a truck driver.”

“RoamingMinute looks like an extra from White Line Washouts.”

They were still laughing as RoamingMinute and Hollaback approached their car, dividing up without a word, RoamingMinute toward the driver’s side, Hollaback toward the passenger’s, guy to guy, girl to girl, everybody happy.

“What’s so funny?” said Hollaback, leaning her finely engineered boobs into the open window. Farrago took one look at her masklike face. All she needed. Hollaback had “high” eyes. Well, good for her.

“Nothing much. Loophole and I like to laugh.”

“So do I. Laughing, you know?”

“It’s the best.”

“Like looking at your ride,” said RoamingMinute to Loophole, “every time I look at it.” He patted the roof affectionately.

“A real beast,” said Loophole. Which led into a private boy-stuff discussion on the subtleties under the hood.

Hollaback bent over, clawing at her bare calf. “Watch out,” she said. “Skeeters are crazy bad over near the Mound.”

“Those ain’t skeeters,” said Farrago.

“No?”

“Native juju. They’re the souls of the Shuttlecock, come back to wreak their bloody revenge. On pasty heathens like you.”

“Yeah? Like to see what’d they do against a can of PestOff. Got a cig?”

Farrago fished around in her bag for a pack of Daredevils. Handed her one, which Hollaback immediately lit and sucked on as if it were her first good, deep breath of the day.

“So what are you guys doing out here?” said Hollaback.

“Could ask you the same question. Aren’t you supposed to be in class or something?”

“Not today. I’m at home right now, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m sick. I’ve got the crud.”

“Yikes.” Farrago shrank back in her seat. “Then don’t stand so fucking close.”

“I’m not contagious.”

“Right.”

“Hear about PressOn?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“Whaddya think’ll happen to her?”

“Hope she likes jail.”

“You know, she said to me once she didn’t think God wanted her to be happy.”

“Well, obviously, BallBearings didn’t.”

“‘Smack that bitch up.’”

“Yeah. One of those.”

“At least he’s not dead.”

“Yet.”

“She just cut him up a little. Right?”

“She’s my hero.”

“What?” said Loophole suddenly, tearing himself away from a hard-core face-to-face with RoamingMinute on comparative compression ratios, the Mayflower head versus the Trillium head. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing you need to hear.”

“I need to hear everything.”

“She said she’d like to slice you up with a box cutter,” said RoamingMinute.

“That’s what I thought.”

“It’s nothing, all right? Just go back to your car crap and everything’ll be fine. I’ll explain it to you later.”

“I’m not liking this.”

“Who said you had to?”

RoamingMinute let out a half chuckle, half cough kind of sound. Loophole glared at him. “Hey,” RoamingMinute said. “It’s funny.”

“So’s your face.”

“Paparazzi would kill to get a clear shot at my face.”

“They’re not the only ones.”

“All right, boys,” said Farrago. “Separate corners, huh?”

“Hey, Farrago,” said RoamingMinute. “Know what a pussy is?”

“Let me guess. A box a penis comes in?”

“Oh, you heard it, huh?”

“Only about a century ago.”

“Still funny,” said Loophole.

“If you’re twelve,” said Farrago.

“She’s got no sense of humor,” said Loophole to RoamingMinute.

“Neither does Hollaback.”

“I hang with you, don’t I?” said Hollaback.

“Why don’t you two just go back to sucking off a piston rod or whatever?” said Farrago. “Everyone’ll be happier.”

So they did. Grumbling.

“Going to AloeVera’s party Friday?” said Hollaback.

“Who’s gonna be there?”

“The usuals, you know. SettingDefault and AnchorBolt and Luminaria, that bald witch she runs around with, all us cool kids, and a mess of her rat bastard friends from Saint Peppermint’s. Plus the Fiscal Cliffs are playing, supposedly. Her mother’s life coach has a son who’s in the band.”

“I don’t know.”

“She’s even gonna have NutClusters the clown.”

“Really? Doing what?”

“Clown stuff, I suppose.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“Her parents are throwing it, actually. Trying to make up for the last five years, when there were birthdays but no parties.”

“Tell me about it. That girl’s fucking cried her way through high school. So when’d the parents get back together?”

“Not sure that they have. But they’re together enough at the moment to give her this whatever-it-is. So you coming?”

“When is it again?”

“Friday. Eight.”

“I’ll try. I may have something.”

“You know the leaf she gets, right? Flowering tops. Heirloom quality. From Papa Presto.”

“The good papa.”

“Word is she’s got raze, too.”

“Raze? Really?”

“Last time I tried that shit, over at TaffyPull’s house, I got double vision real bad and then I forgot who I was and then I forgot I was an actual person.”

“What time’d you say?”

“Eight. But you know, you can show up whenever. Till dawn, practically.”

“Might be worth checking out.”

“Friday.”

“Got it.”

“Hey, babe,” said Hollaback over the roof of the XYZ, “ready to split?” And to Farrago, “His mom wants us both for dinner tonight. She’s making his favorite: fried husker balls with some kind of crazy-ass sweet sauce makes you wanna barf.”

“Yum.”

She shrugged. “Hey, he likes it.” She looked at her phone. “C’mon, we gotta sky. BurningBush needs a ride to her Jiggle class.”

“Right there,” he said. And to Loophole, “Gum Turpentine. You can download it off of SplinterFlicks. Wait till you dig on what goes down at the end up in that fucking barn.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“It’s tight, man.”

“Let’s go already,” said Hollaback. “She’s gonna be late.”

Farrago looked at her phone. “Yeah, we gotta slide, too.”

“Parents?”

Farrago shook her head. “Meeting somebody.”

“Laters.”

“Peace.”

“Blow out the candles,” said Loophole.

“Got my wish on right here,” said RoamingMinute, grabbing his crotch with his right hand, shaking it.

Loophole and Farrago watched the pair go crunching away across the gravel.

“What a couple of d-bags,” said Loophole.

“Don’t ever turn your back on either one of ’em.”

“Got that right.”

Loophole placed his hand on the ignition key. Turned and looked at Farrago. “Say the word, bird.”

“Ka-ching!”

“Bangin’.”

Twisted the key, crushed the pedal, went shrieking out of that lot like a demon loosed from a spell. Another grand exit. Hooting and hollering down the straightaway till the first major intersection, when Farrago warned him to lighten up.

“See the Persimmon Petroleum sign over there?” she said. “Sergeant Bicuspid likes to hide behind it with his radar gun on stun.”

“What a dickwad.”

“Even worse if he stops ya.”

“Watch me now. Daddy Road Rules. See, I’m turning with my turning light on.”

“Looks like he’s not even there.”

“Cameras, Farrago. You never know where the cameras are.”

“Watching, watching, watching.”

“Your mom home?”

“Who cares?”

“She doesn’t exactly like me.”

“Who cares?”

“I was thinking about you. Parental freakouts are a real buzzkill.”

“No drama. We walk in the house. We go upstairs. We go in my room. We lock the door. End of mom story.”

At the next red light he leaned over, wrapped his arm around her waist, pulled her to him. Their mouths always seemed to fit together so incredibly well. Tongues, too. When they heard honking, they pried themselves apart.

“What is wrong with people?” said Farrago. “Tell me a single place in this whole fucking town you need to get to that quickly.”

“I love you, babe.”

“Me, too.” She looked at her phone. Scrolled through the most recent dozen-plus messages. Replies? Just to Anagram and Filibuster. The rest could wait.

At her house, amazingly enough, no mom car. Blessed be the spirit in the sky. Inside, past the perpetually unlocked door, they found, in a prearranged tableau on the kitchen table, a collection of detailed Mumbleware depicting each and every character of the whole lovably roguish cast of the infinite Corporverse: the two-headed, eight-armed CEOs, junior execs secretly operating elaborate multiplanet pyramid schemes, fetching assistants in black leather catsuits, one-eyed financial officers who each spoke a separate exotic language, accountants sweating real acid, security guards with ever-shifting allegiances, a cleaning staff running its own investment firm out of key toilet stalls, and assorted stooges of species both tellurian and cosmic, right down to an alarmingly lifelike rendering of—everyone’s favorite—MarginCall, the wisecracking monkey from the Huminahumina galaxy who actually happened to run the whole damn show. Amid this impressive display was propped a note: GONE TO MOUNT BARBELL FOR BIG AUCTION. LAST PIECES OF BUTTERMUFFIN ESTATE UP FOR BID. I SO WANT THE LORD PITTERPAT MUSING CHAIR, THE ENCHANTED POOL FOUNTAIN PEN, AND THE FAMOUS SET OF CRYSTAL CRUETS, A GIFT FROM PRESIDENT AND FIRST LADY BLADDERSTONE. WISH ME LUCK. (REALLY WANT THOSE LONG-LOST CRUETS.) MONEY FOR ZA ON COUNTER. LOVE, MOM.

Loophole grabbed the bills, stuffed them in his pocket. “Get some more leaf later,” he said.

“Want a beer?”

“Sure.”

Farrago opened the fridge, grabbed two DustyBoys, headed down the hallway to the stairs. “We can’t go all night,” she said. “I’ve got to finish this paper I was supposed to turn in today.”

“What’s it on?”

“I can’t remember. The usual. Some bullshit or something.”

“Well, I can help, then. I’m an expert on that topic.”

She turned, stuck her tongue out at him.

Up in her room Farrago immediately disappeared into her closet. Loophole plopped his bony ass onto the cracked and split cushion marking his spot on the red leather couch in front of the big TV screen. Farrago had informed her mother several years earlier that she wasn’t going to stay overnight ever again until she (the mother) bought her (the daughter) a no less than fifty-inch HootchieCootchie. Bazam. First the big bedroom, then the big TV. Say it and it shall appear.

“C’mon,” said Loophole. “I’m in the mood for a real slaughter today.” The controller was in his hand, the meDepot5 on, the superscreen fired up. Primed to enter the enchanted Dominion of MumboJumbodom, where the darkness was “stygian,” the passage “parlous,” the goal “ethereal.” Beware the Shatterbeast, the wily Grimchocks. Farrago had already lost a leg in a battle with the vicious Razrface on Level VIII, which had necessitated a lengthy detour back to the Healing Chamber on Level II and then a further delay hunting for hidden prosthetic parts in the Wood of Mangled Dreams. But even on hobble speed she’d managed to dispatch 4,682 tiny X-shaped minions, double her Treasure Trove, and add to her collection of weaponry the difficult-to-access Meridian Blade and—everyone’s favorite—the triple-barreled Destiny Maker.

“Let’s go,” said Loophole. “Smell the blood.”

One of the places Farrago kept her stash was in the inside zippered pocket of an ugly old coat her mom had given her, which she, of course, had never worn. At least it was good for something. Carried the stash back to the couch and the great bubbler that sat regally on the coffee table in front of it. Fired up the bowl. Fired up the game.

Click-click-click. Kill-kill-kill.

“We keep playing this good,” said Loophole, “we just might really make it to Level LXXXVIII.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You know what happens when you hit Level LXXXVIII?”

“Uh…no.”

“No one does.”

“Has anyone ever reached this magic LXXXVIII?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“What’s with all the questions? Jeez.”

“You win any money for getting there?”

“Of course you don’t win any money.”

“Then what’s the fucking point?”

“The game, stupid—winning the fucking game.”

“All right, then, let’s win the fucking game.”

Click-click-click. Kill-kill-kill.

A pizza was ordered, delivered, eaten. Somewhere in there.

Two hours later, when they had arrived at Level XXIII (where the Willomorphs acquire demented xenic weaponry and there’s a three-minute time limit to clear each entered room), her mom started banging on her door like a you-know-what. “Don’t think you’re fooling anybody, young lady. I can smell that shit all the way downstairs.”

“She’s baaaaack,” Farrago said to Loophole. To her mother, “Yeah? Stuff some tissues up your nose.”

“Who’ve you got in there with you? It’s not that Loophole boy, is it? Better not be that Loophole boy.”

“Nobody. There’s nobody in here with me.”

“I’m sure I heard voices. As in more than one.”

“I like to talk to myself. Don’t you?”

Long pause. “You better not be lying to me.”

“When have I ever lied to you?”

“Every time you open your mouth.”

“Goodnight, Mother.”

“Had a big day at the auction. Got those estate pieces I wanted. At a decent price, too.”

“That’s nice.”

“Got you something. A special surprise. Wanna see it?”

“Not right now, Mother. I’m a bit preoccupied.”

“With your homework?”

“Gotta get this paper done.”

“I’ll leave it on the kitchen table. It’s the heavy object in the FlavorTown bag. Be real careful when you open it.”

“I will, Mother.”

“Goodnight, Farrago. And please, don’t call me Mother. So formal. Makes me feel like your granny.”

Silence. More silence.

“I think she’s gone,” said Farrago.

“You wish.” He gave a nod toward the screen. “Watch out up ahead here. Possible ambush at the Wobblety Bridge.”

“Don’t worry. I see ’em.”

“Look out—they’re gathering. They’re gathering!”

“This what you call a horde?”

“Kill the fuckers! Kill all of ’em!”

Both of them working their controllers as if the controllers themselves were living things trying frantically to escape the white-knuckled grip of their hands. Then all at once: sudden stillness. Battle over. On the screen, in the enchanted land, a field drenched in blood, strewn with stray body parts.

“Smoke break,” said Farrago. She lifted the bubbler onto her lap. Loophole hit the Pause button. They smoked.

“So whaddya think your mom boughtcha?” said Loophole.

“I don’t know. Heavy. What’s heavy?”

“A big rock. This leaf.”

“Hope it’s better than that pickle peeler she got me at the Tri-Rivers swap meet.”

“C’mon, now. Be fair. You love that pickle peeler. I saw you kissing it just the other day.”

“You.” She pushed him over onto his side, then got on top of him. She pretended to pummel his chest.

“Hey, watch it. We’re gonna lose the level.” He moved the controllers out of the way.

“Fuck the level.” She pushed herself off Loophole’s body. “Take your clothes off.”

“Why? We’re in the middle of a game.”

“We’re always in the middle of a game.”

“Well, there you go.”

“I’ll tell ya what you’re gonna do.”

“Yeah?”

“Once we sign off here, you’re gonna split, race on home to those slidey blacky satiny sheets of yours, start makin’ mayo to the many me’s on your digital frame.” She knew the layout. She’d been to his place, the closet-size studio above Big Fat’s Tats out on Knackerback Road, which his parents didn’t even know he had. Actually there were two digital photo frames on the nightstand next to his bed. On one an impressive rotation of exes, currents, basted beauties, and random GIFs. On the other a seemingly endless slide show of favorite cum shots. His own. Lots of practice required to get camera click in sync with biological click. But by now he was an old hand at it. Fun fact: the greater the height, the greater the distance of the goop loop, the hotter the bust.

“Yeah?” said Loophole. “So?”

“So what’s the point?”

“An orgasm.”

“But you could have a real orgasm right now with a real me.”

“We’re in the middle of a game.”

“We’re always in the middle of a game.”

He shrugged.

“Know what? You bug me.” She went back to the bubbler. Concentrated on that. And, after a while, everything just sort…of…drifted…off.

She was Altadora, superchick with a wicked twin-bladed starsticker and a kickass bod, slicing and dicing her way through ravenous hordes of mechanized undead and gibbering mutant elves mistakenly released from their subterranean dens by the heroic klutz Loophole/Zantar, when at the labyrinthine House of Lachrymals, instead of stealing a cup of magic longevity brew, which is what he was supposed to do, Loophole/Zantar impetuously decided to violate one of the cardinal rules of Level XXX: never piss in the cauldron. Beasties don’t like that. They’ll swarm you in half a sec. But what thrill-ride fun slaughtering the nasty pests left and right. Gave her a real bump. Added bonus: the diamondlike drops of sweat flying dramatically from Altadora’s forehead at every twisty thrust and parry. Made her feel so savage hot. Those four-eyed obsessives at MediaKills were some slammin’ perfectionists. Props to Art.

And on to Level XXXI. The wonder of Attitudinal Falls. The horror of the Movable Morass. And ever the all-consuming hunt. So she was happy, she guessed. At least for the moment. Bouncing around in her head. For she knew something her stupid parents and their fart-bag friends and all the fart bags of the world did not know, something important, something really important you should know, we should all know, and it was this: we are here to have fun. Period. That’s it. End of big meaning. Over and out. Send. And the better you felt, the holier you were. How’s that for kneelin’ and mumblin’?

Time for a pee break.

“Pause it,” said Farrago.

Loophole did.

She unlocked her door, padded unsteadily down the hallway to the famous Glass Shitbox, her mother-designed “comfort station” with floor-to-ceiling mirrors on each wall, providing brutally honest vistas in every direction. First-time visitors had been often known to exit the john wearing the sort of somber expressions usually seen at funeral-home viewings. Farrago actually liked looking at herself. Oh, there were some areas that needed tweaking—minor bulge reductions here and there, a slight enlargement of boobs—but overall, the whole package still good enough to be snapped and posted on what she knew was Loophole’s favorite website: Hottie Chicks Clicking Selfie Pics in Bathroom Mirrors. So far, 57,879 hits. Take that, Tip O’ The Wedge haters. She sat down, peed, wiped herself, stood up, and, before leaving, carefully checked out her thigh gap in the door mirror. All right. Looking fine.

Back in her room she found Loophole with his head collapsed on the back of the couch, mouth wide open, making nasty snoring sounds.

“Hey, douche bag,” she said. She kicked his leg.

“Huh?” He sat up. He looked around. He looked at her. “What?”

“Wake up, Sky Lord. Wake up and get killing.”

“Where you been?”

“The crapper, asshole.”

“Wow. You were gone so long.”

“Well, you know, it’s like so far away. You need a fucking passport to get there.”

“Next time tell me where you’re going.”

“I did tell you.”

“Tell me louder next time.”

“Where’s the bubbler?”

“I don’t know. I thought you had it.”

She looked around the room. “I don’t see it.”

He pointed. “Right there, shithead. On the table right in front of you.”

“Oh. Silly me.” She picked up the bubbler, sparked it up. When she exhaled, the smoke left her body in one long, long sugary stream. In quick fantastic seconds her head felt like cotton candy. And after that, she just slowly slid on down into herself.

She played the game some more. She killed some more monsters. She talked to Loophole. She couldn’t remember about what. Sometimes, after a while, she would get up, stumble over to a wall. She loved walls. All walls. She loved to lean against them. She loved to touch them, allow her own drowsy fingertips to wander aimlessly over the cool, waxy, electric surface of them. She pressed the skin of her cheek against the paint, light breaking across the pebbly face of it in such infinitely interesting patterns. Ridges. Shadows. All those dark, cozy places to hide in.

So she’d been staring at Loophole for over an eon now. He’d been staring back. Graveyard’s eyes. So blue, so pointy, so crazy. In a good way. He had ’em.

“What?” she said.

“How you feeling?”

“Frosted,” she said. Her smile was all over her face.

“Want some sprinkles on top?” He held up a small brown glass bottle he had magically produced from some pocket or other.

“What’s that?”

“Secret killah dust.”

“Holding out on me, huh?”

He unscrewed the cap, poured a tiny mound of grayish-white powder on top of the already packed bowl. He looked at Farrago. “You’re gonna like how you feel wearing this.” He clicked on the lighter. Fire. Smoke. Delirium.

Just then, right in the middle of a tricky-ass transposition to the realm of the Fog Sentients, where travel to other dimensions was not only possible but required, the meDepot5 abruptly died, and the TV went black.

“Fuck,” said Loophole. “That you?”

“Probably.” She had discovered some time ago during her journeys under the leaf that her mind or her body or whatever she was when she was really rockin’ it became possessed by weird unconscious powers over the voodoo of technology. Televisions changed channels at random, computer screens froze, remotes failed. She figured she must put out some kind of witchy death ray that messed with electricity. Potent stuff, this leaf.

“Well,” said Loophole. “Reset the fucker.” But he certainly wasn’t about to budge a single inch.

“You’re closer.”

“I ordered the pizza.”

“I went down and got it.”

“I loaded the last bowl.”

Farrago looked at her fish. Back and forth. Round and round. Caged iridescence. She looked at the clock. 11:11.

“Okay,” she said. “I don’t think I wanna talk anymore.”

And you know what? She didn’t.

She was so faded.