CENTRAL MALL
Saturday, October 19th
7:45 P.M.
Double D glanced around and rubbed his crossed arms. "Can we please hurry?! I think the mall closes at eight!"
"Picking out a good Halloween costume takes time, Double D!" Tomo stared back at the mirror, a mask in front of her face – it was now Paula Abdul. It was the thirty-sixth mask she tried on that night. "Consider yourself lucky we didn't drag you to thrift store to try to make our own costumes."
Double D made a noise through his teeth. "All the thrift stores I've been to are so unhygienic!" He reached into his pocket and took out a bottle of hand sanitizer, as if just the thought of germs gave him meningitis.
Eddy sat, fiddling with his cell phone, on a bench made of fake bones and skulls. His slouch was spectacular.
Yomi, in a black witch's robe and hat, came over to him and looked over his shoulder. "Who are you texting so much?"
He hid his cell phone and shot her a look. "No one. I'm looking through ring tones."
"If you boys are that bored, you can just leave, and we'll stay here."
"Nooo… Ed's having fun," Eddy gestured to Ed, who was actually terrified and screaming as Osaka ran after him in a Richard Nixon mask. "I actually do need a costume." He plucked a blank white mask out of Tomo's hand. She made a noise of protest, but then followed Eddy as he got up and noisily clomped his sneakers over to a bargain rack of weapons. He looked them quickly over, then turned to Tomo. "Pick one for me."
"Any weapon?"
"Any at all."
Tomo grabbed a giant-size fairy princess wand. It was white and had pink tinsel on the end of it.
Kagura, with one mask on her face and another atop her head, made a huge show of laughing at Eddy's "weapon". Little Chiyo, dressed adorably like a pirate girl, only giggled.
Eddy inspected it. He smiled. "It will look cooler when I pull the fairy jizz off of it! Like a PVC pipe or something."
"Hey," An employee of the store was forcibly dressed like a vampire when they walked in, but now he popped out his teeth and took off his cape. He looked like a normal young adult going nowhere now. "Are you guys checking out or what? We have to close."
"Yeah, yeah," Eddy said as he led the way for everyone to file in a line. He turned around to see if everyone was on line. "Double D, what are you dressing up as?"
Double D was now the one texting, probably to his parents. His fingers moved as if it was just another keyboard for him. Without missing a beat, he replied to Eddy, "A 'badass' gangster."
Eddy laughed out loud at the notion, actually impressed by Double D's quick, out-of-character response. He was still laughing as he turned to the cashier. It was a goth girl with purple-striped tights, pale skin, and an cute face. She cocked her head to the side. "Is your name Eddy?"
"Yeah."
She nodded. "We have the same math class."
Eddy bit his lip and struggled to remember as he said, "Yeah, we do."
She looked behind him at the others. She inspected them closely, then nodded, thinking for a moment. She glanced over both shoulders and Eddy knew what was coming next. "Can I hire you guys for a prank?"
"Of course!"
"Great, great," She grabbed his hand and whipped out a little black thing with a silver tip. Eddy squirmed, sure she was going to slit his wrist and drink his blood, but then she pressed it to his hand. It was only a pen. "This is my number… give me yours." She moved the pen to her own hand. "I'll call you later."
"Thanks," Eddy gave her the number and got out of line when she rang him up.
He looked at the number on his palm. She left her name – Shareena. "Double D, can I crash at your place tonight?"
Double D stopped texting like a robot to look up at Eddy. "I don't think that's probable."
"Why?" Eddy shook his fairy jizz stick. "Your parents are out of town on business! They will be for like, the next three days."
"What? Your parents are out of town?" Kagura jumped up next to them. "We should have a party!"
"Noooooo!" Double D squealed. "No! My goodness! My parents trusted me enough to leave me alone! I cannot disappoint them!"
"Not a REAL party!" Kagura said. "Just all of us. Our business has been going so well lately, we should celebrate. YOU, my friend, are losing your innocence tonight!"
Double D's mouth dropped.
"But you can keep your virginity."
Double D looked a little less horrified, but still remotely so. "But… but… what do you...? I can't, my parents-!"
"But we gotta make a quick stop on the way. HEY TOMO!"
"YEAH!" Tomo shouted form across the store.
"WAIT… THIS CONVERSATION SHOULD BE DONE QUIETLY. C'MERE!"
Tomo darted over as Double D stepped closer to Kagura. "Kagura, my parents didn't want me having people over without-"
Kagura ignored him as she spoke to Tomo. "At the Quick Stop, which was the clerk that sold booze to us?"
"Randall," Tomo said.
Double D turned red. "Booze? You don't imply that-"
"You guys are done," Shareena said after she rang up Osaka.
"So I am sleeping over?" Eddy asked, checking his phone again as they all walked out.
"Oooh! Oooh! Me too!" Ed cut in.
Double D was in distress now. He grabbed his head in frustration and ended up whacking his skull with his cell phone. "What? Nooo-!"
---
DOUBLE D'S HOUSE
Saturday, October 19th
8:46 PM
Double D slid from the wall to the floor. "Horrible idea. Horrible idea."
"Hey, lighten up! You might think its fun. Besides, you'd have to do it at some point. Might as well be with friends you trust." Eddy searched Double D's pale face for some sign of being convinced. Nothing showed but worry. "Come on, Double D. Even I've drank before. Even Ed has before." Nothing. "Ed's actually gotten totally drunk before."
Double D looked up Eddy in surprise. "When did this occur?"
Eddy sat up on the counter top of Double D's freakishly neat, generally silver-colored kitchen. "A few months ago, I guess. Ed thought it was cream soda in his parents' liquor cabinet. He thought they had a special cabinet for awesome sodas."
Ed nodded eagerly. "They had no bubbles! I'm scared of the soda bubbles, Double D. And uh… uhh.. I thought it wouldn't burn my mouth. 'Cause no bubbles! But it did burn!"
Double D gave Ed one of those looks. "Why didn't you stop? No, never mind. I don't think you know the answer." Double D sat down and worry came over again. If you were looking at him, you could almost see the wave washing over him. It was a sensation now familiar to Double D.
Eddy's phone audibly vibrated from where he was sitting on the countertop.
Double D was so distracted, he only then noticed that. "Please don't sit on the counter tops. That's many shades of inappropriate. Also, how many times have you been texted or called tonight?"
Eddy got off the counter and started snooping in all the drawers. "Dunno."
"Who is trying so hard to contact you?"
"Dunno."
"…Are you avoiding your brother again?"
"Can you honestly blame me?!"
Ed's head whipped back and forth between the two, recognizing that something was wrong and actually knowing the situation quite well, but unable to think of what to say to fix it.
Eddy continued. "You've seen his band members. Total serial killers."
Double D was standing at this point, but he and Eddy were still across the room. "You know they're not serial killers."
"Rapists, then."
"Please."
"Well, they're creepers!!"
"Ring ring!!" Ed blurted.
They both looked at him.
Ed looked at them (he's a little cockeyed, so he could actually accomplish this). "Uhhhhhh…. Someone's at the door!"
"You get that," Eddy said, taking his phone out. "I'm gonna turn this thing off."
Double D opened his front door. "Wow, there actually was someone here."
As Double D greeted the girls at the door, Eddy fired off a very quick text to his parents that he was sleeping at Double D's house. He didn't even glance at his inbox or voice mails, and he didn't wait for a response before turning it off.
"Sorry we took so long!!" Tomo burst in with a couple paper bags. "The usual clerk wasn't there, and it took A LOT of badgering before we got this one to, you know, break the law for our sake and stuff."
"Do you have any sodas?" Kagura asked. She was making her way over to Double D's pantry.
"Or pop?" Osaka asked. "I hear it's similar."
Eddy laughed at Osaka. Double D walked calmly over to his kitchen table and sat/collapsed in the uncomfortable-looking chair.
"Pop and soda are the same thing," Yomi said as she took a seat next to Double D.
Osaka stared for a second. "WHAT?"
"You didn't know that?"
"I… I guess I did… but I always pictured them… different, you know?"
"Do you drink beer or what?" Tomo started fishing through the paper bags.
"What about lemons? Got any lemons?" Kagura shouted to Double D.
"I always pictured soda as being brown… or maybe tan…" Osaka looked up at the plain white ceiling light in thought.
"Hey, look, your parents do have a liquor cabinet thing!" Tomo bounded over to the side of the pantry.
"I hate to trouble you, but may I please have some water?" Chiyo asked (adorably!).
"It's locked… that sucks!" Tomo again.
"I can get it myself. Where are your cups?" Chiyo again.
"And when you say pop, I think the color's more weird, you know? Pink or purple or something." Osaka again.
"It's okay, Double D, I found the water glasses! I got it!"
"'More weird' is bad grammar. Say 'weirder'." Yomi now.
Osaka pressed a hand to her forehead, as if SHE was the one thinking These people, I swear! "No, no, see… again, they mean different things, I thought they meant different things, like when you say 'weirder' I picture something different than 'more weird' stuff."
"I mean, it's REALLY locked!!"
"Oh no, I dropped my glass of water! I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!! I'll mop it up myself! Where's the mop?" Chiyo was pretty much weeping.
Yomi looked Double D up and down. "To their credit, you actually do look sort of like you need a drink."
---
DOUBLE D'S HOUSE
Saturday, October 19th
No one is paying attention, but it's about 10 PM
"Hey, where'd your phone go? It's been ringing all day, and now it's just GONE!" Tomo looked Eddy up and down.
"I don't CARE where my phone went!" Eddy was talking slower than he normally did. He sat back slowly and put his feet up on Double D's coffee table. Kagura, Tomo, and Osaka gathered around him like a sage at a campfire, or some metaphor like that… "You know what? I've decided… just now… not to care. Anymore. I don't care what my family does."
"You care about your family? Or, I mean, you did? Why?" Kagura's cheeks were a little flushed. She was on her third beer. "I haven't cared in YEARS!"
"I don't care about any of them. Not anymore. Weren't you listening?"
She squinted. "Whaaaat?"
"We're just curious! Curious, that's all!" Tomo was really worked up. Just saying this made her gesture enough to knock over a lamp. "About your brother." She stopped.
"What ABOUT my brother? What brother?"
Kagura stared at him intently. "Your brother. You seem to really hate him."
"I, I do. I do hate him! He's a fucking freak! HE ruined my life!" Cue drunken rage.
Kagura and Osaka looked at him calmly, but Tomo flinched a foot away when Eddy got up.
"He acted like such a freak in high school and he acts like such a freak now… it freaks my parents out. That's why they won't let me do anything!"
"But, but, but they DO!" Tomo insisted. "You're always out doing stuff."
"But I'm gonna be in so much trouble," Eddy said quietly.
"Why?!"
"'Cause…" He sat down and looked a little like he might cry. "'Cause the reason I came to Double D's tonight, you know… I didn't ask my parents' permission or anything. .. they woulda said no… there was supposed to be some family dinner tonight. A big get-together. With my brother and his creepy bandmates… 'cause they're actually getting successful now and my parents don't know when we'll get to see him again."
"Why couldn't you eat dinner with them?!" Tomo tried to drink out of an empty bottle, then just dropped it.
"Because they're creepers and I hate them."
They all stared back at him.
"Stop it! This is a stupid therapy session thing! Retarded!"
"Can I give you some advice?" Osaka raised her hand. "Please?"
"No!"
Osaka stood up. "This… seems like a really bad time in your life. But you know, there will be more good times. You got a long life ahead of you, with lots more bad times and lots more good times. And that's just life for ya." Osaka sat back down.
Eddy stared at her.
"What?"
"That actually makes me feel better."
She smiled. "No woman, no cry."