Spider-Man and Keith came back.
Keith was drunk as fuck, sipping liquor from a small plastic orange-juice container and laughing like ‘guh guh guh.’
He had slicked-back gray hair and a boiled-looking face with deep wrinkles.
He wore a leather coat, sweater, dress pants and dress shoes.
He had very small, perfectly straight teeth, except for one front tooth that looked like a drop of spit coming out of his gumline.
I kept expecting it to fall out.
He started talking like, “Yeah no…no yeah, I mean, no because….”
Eventually he told us about some tents he’d seen in a nearby alley, said we should go grab them.
“Yeah no, I mean I got these tents,” he said. “They’re in this one yard. No but I, see there was, shit I gotta go to sleep. But no, there’s tents, I got tents. I woke up too early though, and I gotta, I gotta go to sleep now.”
“How long they been there?” Spider-Man said.
“I mean no,” Keith said. “Onissly, I think yeah, maybe two or three nights or somethin.”
“Oh, what?” Spider-Man said, relighting the cigarette in his mouth. “They ain gonna be there then. Hellllll to the motherfuckin nah.”
I stared idly at the cherry on his cigarette before turning to look at Keith.
Keith had put in plastic vampire teeth.
He bit at me, opening his eyes real big.
And for a second, it genuinely scared me.
Like my heart beat faster and I almost jumped at him.
But then the teeth fell out a little.
Keith, you silly bastard.
I can see why you’re banned in outerspace!
…the fucking galaxy!
“Let’s go get the tents,” I said.
“Nah, they won’t be there,” Spider-Man said, shaking his head. “Shit.”
Keith still had the vampire teeth in, kind of.
He made a serious expression. “Hey but no, who knows, man. But onissly though, I have to go to sleep, so, let’s va-moose.”
Spider-Man and I left to go get the tents.
Keith gave us vague instructions, following far behind, trying to keep up.
At one point, we lost him.
But then he came out from behind a parked car and made a scary face at us with the plastic vampire fangs in his mouth — both hands up high over his head, walking wide-legged for some reason.
“He always cross the street in the middle,” Spider-Man said, laughing. “I’on’t know, he likes them thrills I guess.”
We went down an alley.
Keith showed us the backyard.
“They’re in, um — they’re over there,” he said.
He was laughing, trying to keep the vampire teeth in his mouth.
He walked down the alley, yelling something about needing to go to sleep.
Spider-Man went into the backyard and grabbed a duffle bag and a rolled-up tarp.
On the walk back, we discussed how nice the tent would be if we could get it set up, especially since it was going to rain.
We both agreed: it would be really nice.
I asked him how many points this mission would be worth, because sometimes he referenced things in terms of points, like a videogame.
“Dah, gotta be nuts. Fuckin, 50 thousand easy, du.”
Back at the vacant lot, Janet was playing a game on her cellphone, music on loud.
“Yay,” she said. “I, luh, luff camping, beb. Shit. Dayum. Heh.”
Spider-Man and I tried to set up the tent and we almost completed it but then the last piece was broken.
Defeat.
Felt like I could’ve made the tent work somehow if I had like an hour to search the lot and nearby alleys.
But no.
Spider-Man said fuck it, he just wanted the tarps, to wrap him and Janet up at night…“human taco style.”
He demonstrated with his hands, slapping them down over each other.
“Human taco,” I said.
Janet turned over a little with her bare ass hanging out of the sleeping bag. “I wanna be a, a taco, beb. Shit. Heh.”
Spider-Man had both palms up, slapping one down then the other on top.
“Shwoop shwoop,” he said, laughing. “Wrapped up like a motherfucker!”
I said, “Oh, I met Ms. Meow Meow and uh, Bluey.”
“Bloo-AY!” Spider-Man yelled. “Hayo yeah. Those her babies.”
Janet reminded him he’d promised to get her a real dog when they settled in Vegas.
“You said, beb,” she said.
Spider-Man nodded, looking at the ground.
“An a kitty,” she said.
“Shit, I ain buyin no farm!” Spider-Man said, looking up. “Fuckatta here! What?!” He shook his head. “That’s bananas.”
Janet was laughing. “An a — a ham-ther peez.”
Spider-Man made a face at me.
“A dog, a kitty, and a hamster,” I said.
Janet laughed.
Spider-Man told me about a hamster he bought his oldest daughter when she was very young (she was now my age).
“Mr. Wiggles,” Spider-Man said, smiling. He reached down and picked up a bottle cap. “Shit, he’s no bigger than this when we got him. What!? Are you high?!”
I was smiling.
I already liked Mr. Wiggles.
Wanted to know everything about him: from basic history on through the entire lineage of his thoughts.
“Shit, I did everything for his happy lil ass,” Spider-Man said. “I built him a mansion, fuckin everything.” He described the layout of the hamster mansion. “That shit was like, this tall”—hand by his waist, “and this wide”—hands maybe three feet apart. “There were two places to eat, four places to sleep, shit, three bathrooms, motherfuckin tubes, slides, whistles, a hot tub an a motherfuckin tennis court. Wha’s really going on?”
I adjusted my ass on the rocks and glass, picked up a hooked piece of glass and threw it.
The sky was gray, air smelled like rain.
“Mr. Wiggles, man we loved that little guy,” Spider-Man said. “He was like a dog, bro. Shit, we’d put him out in his plastic ball and he’d follow my daughter around. He’d go by the door when she left for school and just stay by the door for a long time, bro. Fuckatta here. Shit, Mr. Wiggles lived that life, man. He lived seven years! Seven years!” He looked up and pointed at the sky. “We miss you, Wiggles!” Then he looked at me and slapped his thigh, mimed like he was holding a videogame controller. “I’d take him out of his ball and set him right here in my lap, play my videogames. He’d sit on my lap for hours. Man, he had it all. Best life a hamster could have. Fuckin bananas! But nah then my daughter, Josalie, she wake me up all cryin one day. I said, ‘Oh boy.’” He whistled a note. “Mr. Wiggles had passed. So I call up my friends and like, seven people or so came over. Everyone had on suits and everything, what?! We took turns in the backyard diggin with this little garden shovel, haha, then everyone threw some dirt on him. I said the sermon bro! I said, ‘Lord, we thank you for Mr. Wiggles and we know you’ll take care of him now.’ Maaaan, everybody was crying they eyes out. Nang! We put stones around his grave, everything. Everything for his happy lil ass. It was beautiful. Just beautiful, man. Shit man, he had everything. I even bought him a girlfriend.” He made double ok signs with his hands. “‘Mrs. Frederickson.’ My daughter named her. I’on’t know where she get these names from. But nah, her and Wiggles hated each other, du. She was cold, man! She was cold to Mr. Wiggles! She died after like, a year though, so whatever. And we ain do no big funeral for her I just put her in a cigar box, wrapped it in tape, and threw her ass in the garbage.”
I laughed, looking at the rocks and glass.
“She’a cold bitch, man,” he said again, opening his eyes wide and turning his head sideways a little. “I just tossed her.”
It was getting windy.
I felt a few raindrops.
Janet showed Spider-Man her score on the cellphone videogame.