"You have room service?" Jake said blandly.
"For eighteen grand a week? You bet your ass I got fuckin' room service."
Jake simply shook his head, pondering the American system of justice. While his father was fighting to keep common state prisoners from being treated like cattle or medical experiments, those with money were living in luxury prisons with room service and full service bars.
"So how are things on the outside?" Matt asked. "I saw on that Celebrity Insight show the other night that Nerdly is still engaged to that snatch he's been pounding. You haven't been able to talk him out of it yet?"
"It's not my place to talk Nerdly out of marrying anyone," Jake said. "He says he's in love, that he's found his soulmate. And now he wants to spend the rest of his life with her in a state of legally sanctioned cohabitation."
"Fuckin' love," Matt said with a shake of his head. "He's setting himself up to ruin his whole goddamn life, and probably a few future lives to boot."
Jake simply shrugged. "That's his right, isn't it?"
"I suppose," Matt said.
In fact, Jake had questioned Nerdly rather thoroughly about his engagement to Sharon. This had taken place while they'd still been out on the tour of Europe, on the flight from Paris to Marseille. It was during this conversation that Nerdly — his oldest friend — had convinced him that he wasn't feeling mere infatuation for Sharon, that he was in actual love with her, that he really did want to marry her, that he wanted nothing more out of life than to breed with her. His plan had been to fly to Las Vegas immediately upon their return to the United States and legalize their nuptials in the first chapel they came upon.
"At least I was able to talk him out of that quick wedding he was going for," Jake said to Matt.
"That was a stroke of genius on your part," Matt agreed, taking a long pull of his beer. "Telling him that his bitch would always resent him for the quick wedding."
"Well," Jake admitted, "part of that was to slow him down a little — that is true — but mostly I was being honest with him there. We all know that chicks live for the wedding, and if he were to give her the thirty dollar special in some sleazy chapel on the strip when he was a multi-millionaire who could afford her dream wedding, eventually Sharon would end up resenting him for it."
Matt shrugged this off as if it were unimportant, which, to him, it was. "Whatever your reasoning, you did good. Hopefully the extra time will let him have a few second thoughts before he destroys his life."
"He hasn't had them yet," Jake said. "The wedding is set for October 31 in the McAndrew's Park rose garden in downtown Heritage. I'm gonna be the best man. You, Coop, Darren, and Charlie are gonna be the groomsmen."
"Really?" Matt said, seemingly touched that the man he'd derided and teased ever since the first day he'd met him actually wanted him to be a groomsman.
"Really," Jake said. "And did I tell you that Nerdly is planning to convert to Judaism?"
Matt blinked. "Nerdly wants to become a Jew?" he said slowly.
"That's what he tells me," Jake confirmed. "He's been studying up on it ever since we came back from tour. He stopped eating pork, started reading the Torah, and he even got himself a yarmulke."
"What in the fuck is up with that shit?" Matt demanded. "Nerdly's a fuckin' atheist! He's told us ten thousand times that logic does not support the existence of an omnipotent deity!"
"Yes, he did say that," Jake agreed. "But apparently Sharon's parents are opposed to her marrying a man who is not Jewish."
"So he's gonna practice a religion he doesn't believe in just to marry this bitch?"
"I think it started out that way," Jake said. "But as he's studied up on the religion and everything associated with it, I think he started to get into it. He'll go on and on for hours about it when you talk to him now. I think he likes everything about it except for the part about there being a God. That's kind of where his worlds collide."
"He's a fuckin' nutcase," Matt said, shaking his head in wonder. "He's the one that should be locked up, not me."
"And I haven't even told you about their plans for the wedding yet," Jake said.
Matt looked at him suspiciously. "What do you mean?"
Jake took a long drink of his beer and then lit a cigarette. He blew the smoke slowly across Matt's cell. "The ceremony," he said, "is going to be a combination of traditional Jewish wedding, with a few Christian influences, and..." Jake trailed off, unsure how to say this last part.
"And what?" Matt demanded.
"And... uh... Star Trek," he finally spit out.
Matt looked at him in disbelief. "Star Trek?"
"The Next Generation, to be exact. Apparently both he and Sharon are quite taken with that show. He's even planning to invite Patrick Stewart and LeVar Burton to the wedding."
"I'm afraid to ask," Matt said, "but what exactly takes place at a Star Trek, The Next Generation wedding?"
"It's pretty much the normal Jewish ceremony except for... uh... the way the wedding party dresses."
"What do you mean?"
"We'll be dressed as Star Trek characters," Jake told him. "Nerdly will be Captain Picard. Sharon will be Dr. Crusher. I'll be Commander Riker."
"He wants us to dress up as Star Trek characters?" Matt said in disbelief. "Is he fucking high? There is no way in hell I would ever do something like that."
"You'll do it," Jake said. "You know you will."
"I will not!" Matt said. "I'll be burned at the fuckin' stake before I dress up in some fucking science fiction outfit and pretend to be some asshole from a stupid ass show! That's humiliating!"
"You'll do it," Jake said. "Because if you don't, Nerdly will tell you that you don't have a hair on your ass for the rest of your life. And... he'll be right."
Matt was gritting his teeth now. "That motherfucker," he said. "He would do that, wouldn't he?"
"You know it."
Matt sighed in resignation. "Who will I have to dress as?"
"You get to be Worf," Jake told him.
This seemed to mollify Matt a little bit. "Well... at least I get to play the baddest ass motherfucker on the show."
"He thought you'd be pleased with his selection," Jake said.
"I'm not putting on any makeup though," Matt warned. "That is absolutely where I draw the fuckin' line."
"You won't have to wear the makeup," Jake assured him.
"All right," Matt said. "I'll tell him I'm in the next time I see him."
"There is one thing I'm a little worried about though," Jake said.
"What's that?"
"He's not planning on having her sign a prenup."
Matt looked at him as if he were joking. "No prenup? What is he? A fucking moron? He's not really stupid enough to marry some bitch without making her sign a prenup, is he?
"He is," Jake said. "He told me that since he and Sharon are 'compatible on the sub-atomic level', there is no need to worry about what might happen if they part ways. In his view, he and Sharon divorcing is 'as likely as general relativity being proven an unsound hypothesis'."
"That means unlikely, right?"
"Right."
"I think he's being naïve," Matt said. "How does he know this Sharon bitch ain't getting set up to hose him? I mean, that Mindy Snow bitch fooled you, didn't she?"
"Yeah," Jake said sourly. "She did. For a while anyway."
"And you knew a thing or two about women when that happened. Nerdly don't know shit. He's bagged his share of bitches, of course, but only since he started playing in the band with us. He was a fuckin' virgin before we did that first gig at D Street West, remember?"
"I remember," Jake said. "He'd never even gotten his hand on a tit before that."
"Exactly," Matt said. "He's never earned a bitch on his own merits before. I don't think he knows the underhandedness and deceit your average bitch is capable of when it comes to latching onto a man with money and fame."
"I don't know," Jake said. "Helen and I spent a lot of time with Nerdly and Sharon when we were out on tour. It's not my impression that she's trying to put one over on him. I really think she loves him."