Picture a rubber octopus. One of those toy things for little kids with dangly long arms, that a five year old threw carelessly into a corner of his room. Now you have a general idea, how Richie looked loitering in a comfy chair at Bev`s apartment. Somehow with his head hanging from the armrest he managed to take a puff of the blunt in his hand and offered it to Eddie who crouched in the sofa next to him.
„Bah Richie! You know, I don`t do shit! Why do keep shoving it in my face?"
„Just tryina be polite, mate. This shit is dope!" Richie grinned behind the fog in his face.
„Eat shit and go fuck yourself!"
„The only thing I fuck is your mom!"
„Just because your sister got tired of blowing you dick!"
There was instant cheering and hand clapping from all the Losers at this latest installment of the neverending stand-up soap opera, these two boys pulled of. Who needs a TV with Eddie and Richie around?
Not the Losers who had gathered at Bev`s just like they would on pretty much every saturday night.
Or just any day when they needed to be left alone, to get away from teachers, bullies or parents. Wich, in this shithole, they called their hometown was pretty much the same after all. Everyone had a home and and a family allright, but this here was THEIR place. „Loser`s Lair" as they called it, a home away from home. Even Stan had his own little space here, a cozy armchair in soothing grey with a monochrome rug under it that marked the boundary of his private space. No matter how much trash she allowed to pile up in the flat, Beverly always made sure his safety zone was clean and neat. He appreciated that very much, and even more he appreciated that no one ever tried to talk him into drinking or smoking pot. It was enough he had to listen to their terrible chaos talk, not being able to count the bars of the far too loud music that twisted his poor brain. Presently he sipped on the cup of Earl Grey Bev had fixed him. She lay on the couch with her feet on Eddie`s knees, no matter how much he protested about her stinky socks, head on Ben`s lap, gracefully receiving the joint out of Richie`s hand.
„Spaggheti Man versus the Four-eyed-Gronkh from Venus! Round twenty seven. Take it away boys!"she announced happily.
„Ah forget it!" waved Richie. „His mom`s a dork, Eddie`s a dork. Guess he has that in his genes."
„Dunno" Eddie shrugged. „Sometimes I wear Levi`s..."
This time, Bev almost fell off the couch, choking on the smoke. Ben grabbed her at the last moment, himself coughing and snorting with laughter.
„Eddie, you`re too much. One day you`ll kill us all!"
„What!? What did I say?!"
The joint had made its way to Bill who absentmindedly stared out the window, his head slowly rocking to the rhythm. From his position he could see the backyard with the dustbins, where in warm summer nights like this the rats gathered to feast on the waste of Derry. Just as they had in those days three years ago, in the worst summer of his life. Of all their lives. But things had gotten better for them. It would never be perfect but they were alive, they had each other. And this place. Probably there was not much more to expect out of life for a loser. Speaking of.
„Mike?"
The farmboy turned down the offer. No dope for him today, he was busy going over Bill`s new project for creative writing class. Turning the last page of his friend`s new ambitious script he shook his head gently.
„Bill, you know I usually like your crazy stuff and Mister de Palma lets you get away with a lot of shit, but seriously... A giant space turtle?! Nobody`s going to read this."
A little disappointed Bill handed the joint back to Ben."You think so? I thought it would make for a whole novel or so. Maybe even an entire series..."
Mike shook his head again, putting the papers back on the table.
„You should lay off that dope, man" he smiled.
When they got of the sewers on that day, dirty, bleeding and exhausted their work had not yet been done. There was one more task left for them and in a way it was much harder than anything else. In a way Beverly had taken the biggest amount of shit of them all. And she had the biggest amount of nothing waiting for her. Actually she didn`t even have a home anymore. Bill was well aware of that from the very moment he had stepped over Alvin`s fucked up shape and in all the horror and the fightingt the thought about that always revolved somewhere in the back of his head. A protectory home for Bev or her being shipped to some unknown relatives somewhere, nowhere? They would not let this shit fly.
Meanwhile the other Loser`s conversation had degenerated to a point of nonsense that was beyond good and evil.
„Tit sounds tinny. But `boob` is quite woody, isn`t it?" Richie elaborted his newest ground breaking linguistic theory.
„Blurry is much more woody, Sir" babbled Ben from underneath his blanket called Beverly whose interjection of „Ronnie. Raygun." was met with unilateral disapproval.
„That`s fucking terrible, Bev!" reprimanded Eddie. „It`s neither tinny nor wooden."
„Ronnie is wooden" she insisted.
„No. Tombstone is wooden!" the small boy announced dead serious, once more earning braying laughter without understanding his own joke.
„Gore Vidal" droned a sonorous voice from the armchair. This was Stan`s only contribution to this evening`s intellectual enterprise, but it won the competition for being wooden and tinny at the same time. Visuably proud of himself the Jewish boy sank bank in his armchair and resumed his private musings.
This was not their first clean up job in Bev`s bathroom and after all the shit they `d been through they thought it would be easier, but it was not. The boys would not allow Beverly to see any of this. Ben was led her gently to her room, telling her to try to get some sleep. They would take care of everything. Mike had brought all the tools and they worked in silence, just as the first time. But this time it felt more real, they were not dealing with an evil alien`s grotesque prank, this was down to earth, flesh and blood. But with some puking and crying but they got their job done.
Bev was still sound asleep when the six boys walked out of the house early in the next morning, all carrying waste bags. The first sunrays peeked over the rooftops and no one witnessed them throwing their carriage into the dumpster, stirring up some of those fat rats who soon would return to continue their meal. Utterly exhausted, muscles aching the boys looked at each other, making a silent promise and went their ways.
Bill made an effort to shrug off those unpleasant memories.
„Allright, I need something to eat! Anyone for half-baked fridge pizza?"
No one was, so he walked into the kitchen alone, staggering a little. Bill took one of the pizzas Ben had brought last week out of the freezer and put in the microwave.
While the timer counted backwards he took a blue ceramic cookie jar from the cupboard and twisted the lid open. He sighed a little at its content. It was hardly ever really empty, but never as full as it should be. There were a few neatly folded dollar bills, undoubtedly Stan`s newspaper money, a heap of coins that Richie had milked out of the one armed bandit in the Archade before they kicked him out and that was all. Okay, there was also a chocolate bar from Eddie, which was cute but didn`t help for a thing. Sighing deeply Bill stuffed the 20 bucks he`d gotten from his aunt last week in and put the jar back. He would have to talk to Bev about that dope again, against their convention she smoked alone sometimes and that was bad. As much as he understood his girlfriend`s need to turn off that goddamn world and the pain it had inflicted her, this was not the way to go.
Outside the music was hammering louder, all of them singing along about an all-time loser running headlong to his death. Yeah, maybe. But what the fuck. Aren`t we all? Things did not go so bad in here, after all. Sometimes the neighbors complained about the music and the peculiar smell, but all in all, just as expected in Derry, no one gave a shit. And maybe, just for once, that was a good thing. They would make it, whatever "it" was, on their own.
All-time loser? Never. Never ever!
There was a little ring from the microwave, Bill took his pizza out and returned to the living room, just in time for the flute solo.
My moral message: Smoke weed and listen to Tull!
And concerning shitty parents: Make it a wonderful day...