Just an English assignment I decided to publish. Enjoy! :)
It was Sunday night, most of the sane residents of Portland were fast asleep, and R.P. McMurphy was drunk.
Of course, that didn't stop him from driving a borrowed Buick around the city at 3 A.M with the radio cranked, a hooker riding shotgun and two of his buddies in the back filling the car with a steady stream of cigarette smoke.
McMurphy cruised through the downtown, trying to pull the address of Vermicelli's house from his brain. There was a poker tournament going on tonight.
The neon lights glowed pastel in the dark of the night, red, green, blue and yellow reflecting in the water droplets on the windshield. McMurphy rolled down the window, trying to empty the car of smoke. Candy followed his example, rolling down her own window and swiping at the grey wisps with outstretched fingers, giggling.
"We're not gonna make it," Quinn drawled from the backseat.
McMurphy grinned at him in the rearview mirror, maintaining an iron grip on the wheel though his senses were rendered numb by the bottle of Irish whiskey Candy had clutched in one hand. "We'll make it."
"Look at the fuel gauge, Mac."
McMurphy looked. The needle was toeing the empty line. "Huh." He could've sworn he'd filled this thing three hours ago. "Wonder why."
"It's little wonder why, with all the doughnuts you were doin' in the that abandoned lot," Richard muttered. Richard was probably the soberest of the lot, despite the other three repeatedly offering him drinks.
"Worth it." McMurphy tapped his fingers on the wheel. "Say, anybody got money for gas?"
Candy shook her head, taking a slug of whiskey. Her chocolate hair had come out of the updo she'd had it in at the beginning of the night, curls falling loose over her bare shoulders, the sequins of her dress flashing in the light. Quinn tried to get his wallet out of his pocket and failed miserably.
McMurphy entered a more respectable neighbourhood, realizing he'd left the window open and struggling to roll it up. "Hold up," Richard said. "If we don't have money for gas, how're we gonna have money to play poker?"
McMurphy frowned. "True, ol' buddy."
Candy turned to face them, tapping her electric blue-painted nails on the glass of the bottle. "I say we scrap the poker idea," she said. She was slurring slightly. "Let's go find somethin' more fun to do."
McMurphy let out a booming laugh. "More fun than poker? Women."
Candy smacked him lightly. "I'm serious! Let's...let's go break into the laundromat."
"Laundromat? What for?" McMurphy was already pulling to the side of the road, for the lack of anything better to do.
"Because I always liked how warm the clothes are when they come out of the dryer."
"Let's hold it to a vote, fellas. Laundromat or misery?" McMurphy pulled the keys out of the ignition and began struggling with his seatbelt."
"Laundromat!" Quinn roared.
"Misery," Richard mumbled. McMurphy was pretty sure he just said it to be contrary.
"Three for laundromat, one for misery. Let's go!"
The four got out of the Buick and congregated on the sidewalk in front of the laundromat, Candy passing the whiskey around and McMurphy lighting a cigarette. Rain was misting down, but he felt warm all over.
"How do we get in?" Richard asked eventually.
Quinn pressed the bottle into his hands. "You're askin' stupid questions. Somebody find a rock."
"Why a rock?"
"To smack some sense into you with!"
A rock was procured from the front garden of the apartment building next door. McMurphy took it, feeling its grainy texture before hurling it through the front window. Glass shattered with a sound like an icicle hitting concrete.
They climbed into the darkened laundromat, shoes squeaking on the tile floor. Candy headed to one of the square appliances, peeking in through the glass door and pouting. "No clothes inside."
McMurphy thought for a moment before coming up with a solution that seemed perfectly reasonable in his alcohol and admittedly weed-induced haze. "Let's just use ours."
And that was how, half an hour later, members of the Portland police department sent to investigate reports of the laundromat being broken into found the four sitting in front of a dryer, missing every article of clothing and waiting patiently for a non-operating dryer to warm their clothes up.