(no subject)
the following is a story
No Surpises Please
The smell is what got me; otherwise, I would have never started doing it. When I held it to my lips, the sweet aroma filled my nose, encouraging me to take it in.
"Light that fatty up boy!" Adema said, "skibbity-skibbity-skwah!"
"The lighter's in the glove box," I pointed and he leaned forward in his seat, exposing the '¿What Would Jimmy Say?' tailored to the back of his jacket, and grabbed the lighter.
"Gimme that shit yo," he took the cigar from my lips, closed his eyes, and caressed the tip with his tongue.
"Quit dude," I laughed, "you're getting' it all wet!"
"Whateva mang," he flipped it horizontal, with the end at his lips, and lit the open tip with my lighter.
"Pass that back cracka," Pinto said from the back seat.
"Open the windows," I said, "it's gonna smell like shit in here and my dad will snap."
Adema took a puff and passed the blunt back as he rolled down his window.
"You're so paranoid dude," smoke floating from his mouth as he talked.
"Yeah right," I looked in the rear-view mirror at Pinto. He was sitting behind
Adema, looking out his window, a dazed look in his eyes. I knew he was thinking about her, they broke up the day before. He looked sad, in a way, and I had hoped this trip would make him feel better. We were headed to our church. Well, it wasn't really a church; it was more of a porn shop. Adema had been there before, so he felt obligated to "baptize" all of us as we turned 18. Pinto and I were the first. Adema became the priest, and we became the altar boys.
Pinto looked down and realized the cigar ash had fallen on the seat.
"Oops," he said, "Tank?"
That's me, well, my real name is Topher, but everyone calls me Ape Tank, or Tank for short. Pinto gave me the name because of the way I walk, with my arms hanging sown and my hands turned back - ape - and because I'm big - tank. I don't know, it has a ring to it.
"I accidentally got some ash on the seat."
"Did it burn?"
"Yeah."
"Shit. Whatever, it's a crappy car anyway," I said.
"Oh," he said, than went back to looking out the window, the wind blowing through his hair. There was a car stalled out on the other side of the street, the hood open, releasing a cloud of smoke into the night's air. The driver was in front of it, kicking the bumper in a fit of rage. We had a good laugh.
"The cops aren't going to pull us over, are they?" asked Boink. Boink was Adema's nickname. I don't really know who gave it to him, but it start off as Llamaboink, because, well, he liked llamas. A lot. Every now and than someone will call him the full thing, but it's usually just Boink.
"Probably no, and if they do, so what? We're all over 18," I replied.
"Yeah, I guess," he said, "AWW SNIGGITY-SCHNAPS, THERE IT IS!"
I pulled into the parking lot and put it into park. Pinto was teaching me how to drive stick. Let me tell you, that shit is hard.
We got out and looked around, there was a Christian bookstore across the street, which is where we got the name for "The Church". We went inside and a guy checked our ids, than put them into this little machine that took a picture of them.
Then we were free. As we walked in, we could hear Sublime playing over the sound system, and I bowed my head in respect for a god. I always have, and always will do it. I can't not. There was so much stuff inside. In the first room was the cash registers set on display cases filled with pipes and bongs and other "tobacco" paraphernalia. There were tee shirts and dirty playing cards and such, the kind of things you would find in little tourist shops in Florida.
The next room was filled with sex toys and lingerie. Pinto and I were talking about buying Sobea something when Boink called us over.
"What did you find?" I asked.
"This," he said, and presented a plastic woman in a glass case. She was frozen in one position, kneeling, hands in her lap, mouth open. I was actually quite disturbed; I don't see how anyone could have sex with it.
"Dude, you have to touch this," said Boink. I looked toward the base of the glass and saw a small hole in the glass where you could stick your finger in and touch a separate, "sample", fake vagina.
"No way!" I looked at Pinto and he shook his head.
"Aww, come on you fuckers, I did it!"
"Aight, I'll try it," Pinto said, giving into Boinks pleas, "EW GROSS, it's COLD! AHH!"
"He turned around and shook it off, "You defiantly need to try that."
"Fine," I pitched my last bit of self-decency and stuck my finger into the hole.
Pinto was right, it was cold. And it felt like those sticky hands that you buy in the quarter machines outside of grocery stores. It made me sick and now I deffinatly didn't understand why someone would have sex with it. At all.
"That's fucking sick dude," I said as Boink was dying of laughter. Gross.
We moved to the next room, and we could still hear Brad's vocals above us '…Well I had a million dollars, but I'd, I'd spend it all. If I could find that Hanna…'. The walls were filled with movies, DVDs and VHSs, much too dirty to describe on paper.
Right away, Boink pointed to the other side of the room, "Don't go over there, S&M and gay porn."
Pinto and I agreed, being that we were straight and not bondage freaks, it wasn't hard to. We spent the next 15 minutes looking at all the DVDs, giggling like little school girls at the funny names that were suppose to be clever, but just came off as stupid. We made our decisions, and I bought one for Trent, one of our friends that was too young to come along, but gave me money to get him something. We were gonna watch it all at a sleep over at Trent's house later, so I didn't really mind.
We got back in the car and started on our way home, waving goodbye to the church. It was about 10 o'clock and it would take about 45 minutes to get back. It was dark and the roads we empty. I turned on the radio and flipped to our local rock station.
"Hey, that's Tool!" yelled Pinto, "blast that shit!"
So I did.
"Learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim…," he sang along.
As the song ended, we pulled up to a stoplight.
There was a car with four girls in it, they looked to be our age.
"They're pretty hot," said Boink.
"Yeah they are," Pinto seconded.
The girl that was driving rolled down her window and said something to Boink, then giggled.
"What did she say," I asked.
" 'Hey cutie', she's hot!" he said.
Just than, the light turned green, and the hotties took off at full speed.
"Dude, Tank, catch up with them," Pinto said as he undid his belt buckle, "I'm gonna moon them."
He undid his seatbelt and got into position. I sped up and got right beside them, keeping steady. I looked over and saw Pinto had dropped trou', and the girls were laughing. At least I think they were laughing, all I could think of is Pinto's ass cheeks pressed up against my window. Goddamn that kid.
He pulled up his pants and sat down, we were all laughing our asses off.
The girls pulled back and swerved from the right lane to the left lane and charged us, forcing us to move into the right lane. They pulled next to us, the two girls in the back with their pants down in the same gesture Pinto had given them.
"Oh my god, oh my god," Boink screamed, jumping around excitedly, "maybe they'll show us their tits!" He pulled up his shirt, exposing his nipples. It was too late though, they had slowed and onto another street. We watched them hoping to see another glimpse of skin, but there was none.
I turned around and looked at the speedometer, it read 65 mph, so I put my foot on the brake and finally looked up.
I saw this next part like a movie, my mind separate from my body. It's like I had died when I saw that car in front of me. It was the one stalled in the road on the way to the church. Gleaming in the moonlight, it sat there, half in my lane, half in the shoulder. I saw it. I saw my car hit it, in front right section. I saw my car flip onto its roof. I could feel immense pain, and a very loud screech in my ears. And than it was gone. I could hear my heartbeat, and than, like the pain, it was gone as well. Eventually the paramedics came, with their paddles and their medicine. They shocked me, but it didn't hurt, I could barely feel it. I could hear Pinto and Boink in the background of the commotion, I'm glad they made it. I would be hard without them, but I guess in time, they'll join me.
All sound cut off after the paramedics put me in the body bag, and as the zipped it up, I could hear my favorite Radiohead song, "No surprises". I've always imagined it this way. Dark and silent, unlike most of my life, I realized one thing: I could get used to this.
well, most of it is anyway