Disclaimer: Never owned DBZ, never will. Therefore, not my property. Talk to Toei and FUNimation for that crap.

This will be either my most ingenious work or the worst thing I've ever done. You be the judge.

Waste

By Son Rhandi

Prologue

We got so fucking wasted last night… Recoom's over on the couch there, sleeping. I can smell the Wild Turkey on his breath from across the room. Guldo's next to 'im, lyin' on his side, cheek smothered in his own vomit. He was out before he even finished a half-bottle of Mike's, the little guy. Berter's awake there at the arm of the sofa, head brought to his knees and holding an empty can of Colt 45, a couple of used blunts in the wide mouth. I'll bet he's crying again. He does that sometimes after a night of booze and reefer. Ginyu's not here, but I smell eggs. Maybe he's fixin' up some breakfast for us, or maybe one of the guys just let one. Shit, I don't know. I need a shower real bad. Fuckin' plumbing's down again. All we got is the sinks and those are barely workin'…

I was thinkin' recently if this is an okay way to live, y'know? I'm not gonna lie; we've been leading the slum life ever since this whole economy thing went downhill. Politicians call it 'a severe economic slump,' but let's be honest, shall we? It's a goddamned depression. Hell, even I can see that. We all started getting' fired one by one... I was the first one to lose my job. I was over there at the old Food Lion. Y'know, nothin' fancy, just a cashier. I didn't bring home much to begin with, but it helped. Guldo there was next, worked at one o' those… What're they called? Those water-ridey things? Jet Skis! Yeah! He worked at a Jet Ski rental shop on the beach, that is, when people could afford stuff like that.

Berter was always real smart. Hell, he actually got someplace… or at least to a place better than we were at. He was a, um… tour guide for that museum down the street. That one exhibit with the dinosaur bones and shit? Yeah, he was a guide for that section of it. Man, he loved that job. I remember he'd always be readin' up on the Jurassic Park period and velociraptors and all the stuff like that, always talking to whichever one of us passed by. We were lookin' at a picture book one time, and I saw a drawing of a poly, uh… poly… one o' those dinosaurs with the real hard heads. I told him he looked a lot like it. 'Nah. I'm a T-Rex,' he said, smiling. I never much cared about that sort of thing, really, but Bert'll go on and on about it for hours. He's a saurian-type so I guess that would be important to him. That old museum closed down a year ago. He's been real depressed ever since…

Then came Ginyu. Man, I'll never forget that day. Ol' Ginyu was a gym teacher, if you can believe it. Nothing but a teen jock at heart. The kids loved him, too, or so he told us. I was off that day, I remember, when he got laid off. Home watchin' some TV, don't recall what program was on, but he came in, looking all ragged. The sleeves of his jump suit were riddled with cigarette burns and his eyes were all red and puffy like he'd been crying or somethin'. He looked me dead in the eye; 'Mother-fuckers took my life' was all he said. I don't think him getting fired had anything to do with our turncoat consumer economy, but it was a sad day, in any case. Recoom's the only one who still has steady work now. Repairs roads for the state, so he's pretty secure and our only real source of income. The rest of us work odd jobs to get by. Thank God this apartment is cheap, even if it is a little cramped.

Before all this shit went down, we'd have a few drinks and toke up every now and again, but the insane drinking and touch-and-go pot smoking started after Ginyu was fired. He wasn't there one morning and didn't come back till later that night. He held up like… 4 six-packs, a box of Mike's and five dime bags—one for each of us—and said to us, 'I spent the last of my cash on this shit. Let's kick back and forget six months in one night.' …We've been trying a whole year to forget. Beer and liquor and grass haven't help any, just burned a frickin' hole in everyone's pockets.

I know things are bad, but my god, what the hell gives us the right to do this to ourselves?