It was her highest score yet.
S’MORES
I saw Spider-Man and Janet out front of the library this afternoon.
Spider-Man was wearing big pajama pants, a winter vest, and a large plush tophat with the Superman logo on it.
He yelled, “Well lookie lookie”—dancing over with his fist out.
I bumped my fist against his.
Janet called me over for a hug. “Wuh, whay’s my huggy? I, nuh, need my huggy!”
She was parked against the wall charging her wheelchair and playing blackjack on her phone.
She wore a giant knit winter hat that went over her eyes a little.
There were shit stains on the inner thigh area of her jeans and she smelled like s’mores.
I hugged her and stood next to her with my back against the wall.
Spider-Man was really drunk, walking around the front walkway.
He took out a small, thin-bladed knife and danced, tophat waving.
He came up to Janet and mimed cutting her legs off, humming to himself.
She laughed, saying, “Stop, stop”—trying to play her game.
“Why?” he said, making slicing motions just above her legs. “You don’t need em.”
He kept doing the slicing motion, humming to himself.
“They’re still hers,” I said.
Janet said, “Yeah, they still mine, beb.”
Spider-Man smiled, raising his eyebrows up and down as he made cutting motions around her legs.
He put the knife in his vest pocket and walked around the front walkway of the library.
He came up to me and put his hand on my shoulder.
He said, “All I’m sayin is, man, take a motherfucker, take away his weapons, his clothes, everything, and drop his ass off in the Amazon, see what happens. Go ahead. Stick him in there at the fuckin Nile. Dahhhh. That’s bananas. That’s nuts. Are you high!? Fuckin 25 foot crocodile eat that happy-ass in a heartbeat.” He snapped his mouth closed and went, “Hahnnnnnnnn.” He made a jaw motion with both his arms closing together. “25 feet bro! Come on! Are you high!?” He measured a 25 foot crocodile out on the sidewalk — using paces — then did the snapping motion with his arms. “Fuckin nuts, fucking bananas, woo.”
It was cold out but very sunny, and sometimes I could only see Spider-Man as a negative, dancing around in the brightness.
“An there’s a fuckin herd of em, bro!” he said. “A herd of fuckin giant-ass crocodiles layered underneath the water, just waitin man! You fuckin gotta be kiddin me!” He walked away a little bit and came back shaking his head, holding the brim of his tophat. “You ever see a motherfuckin wildebeest around them things? Shit. That shit’s fuckin bananas.”
He acted like a wildebeest.
He trotted up to an imaginary body of water and stopped, looking side to side and blinking his eyes a lot.
“They come up to the water — sip sip — hmmmm that’s good. Look around, make sure no lions around and shit — sip sip — hmm, that’s good. Hey guys, let’s go!”
He waved the other wildebeests forward over his shoulder.
He walked around the front entrance area of the library, saying, “Ohhh-wowo. Ohhhhh-wowo. That’s what they say, bro. Ohh-wowo.”
Janet kept trying to show him her score in the videogame but he ignored her.
“Trivia,” he said, clasping his hands together with both his forefingers to his lips. “Lobsters, crab, shrimp and krilclass="underline" what are they?”
“Crustaceans?” I said.
“No, insects. Six legs. Fuckin exoskeleton. And they lay eggs.”
Spider-Man did an egg-laying motion.
He squatted down and put his hands on his hips, saying, “Pip pip pip.”
I was laughing.
He continued to do it, looking side to side.
He grabbed his 40 and drank the last of it in a few pulls.
Then he licked his lips, blinking his eyes. “Hmm, spicy!”
Janet laughed, slouching forward in her chair.
Spider-Man did the egg-laying motion again, extending his ass with his hands on his hips.
“Pip pip pip.” He stood up. “Shit bro, that’s like the motherfuckin tarantula hawk. You heard about this bitch?”
“Have I heard about the tarantula hawk?” I said.
He told me about the tarantula hawk.
“This some fuckin alien shit,” he said. “Gah be kiddin me! It’s a fucking wasp that attacks tarantulas man! Oohwee!” He made a face like he’d stubbed his toe. “That shit’s like four inches long bro”—gesturing with his fingers out, thumbs end-to-end. “You kiddin me?!” He started pacing a little, shaking his head. “Are you high!? Fucking tarantula hawk swoop down”—he motioned with his one hand like he was dive bombing, made the other hand into a crawling spider, “stings — shish, shish. Meanwhile this guy’s biting — narsh narsh — sting, bite, sting, bite, fuuuucckkk!! It’s bananas. That’s totally bananas, man. Tony bananas. After a few stings, that spider’s done, man. Fuckatta here. Then the tranchula hawk carries the motherfucker back to the nest, where there’s already a hole and drops that motherfucker in.” He chopped one hand into the other hand. “LAYS EGGS ON THE MOTHERFUCKER”—pauses, staring at me—“pip pip pip, then covers em back up and leaves. So when the eggs hatch they got something to eat before they climb out the ground and fly away.” He made a ‘twinkling’ motion with his fingers going up to the sky. “What!?” He paced away, pointing at me. “That’s nuts man. That’s some alien shit.” He turned around. “You wanna tell me we came here from a man and woman!? Hahhhh, nah du. Nah, that’s some outerspace shit. Some alien shit. Fuck that.”
Janet said, “Fock dat. Heh. Dayum.”
The front of her vest was dark with drool.
She took some lipstick out of her pocket, told me she stole it from a pharmacy.
“I, um, I only take, luh, little things.”
“She a klepto, man!” Spider-Man said. “She see something, she take it. She have to take it. Shit. That’s what a klepto is man!”
Janet applied some lipstick.
Spider-Man told her to rub her lips together, demonstrating himself with his hands on his hips.
Janet was looking at me, pushing her lips out with her eyes closed.
“Do — do it look, good?” she said.
“Yeah, it looks nice,” I said.
She laughed, opening her eyes.
Then she hiccupped, front teeth biting down over her bottom lip.
“Wait, why you puttin lipstick on?” Spider-Man said, folding his arms. “Who you tryna kiss?”
“Yuh, you beb!” she said. “Shit.”
Spider-Man danced up to her and they kissed.
He told me more about Janet’s crimes.
She was laughing the whole time.
He told me about how he and Janet and his friend Tony used to steal DVDs from video rental places.
Tony was also in a wheelchair.
Spider-Man would go into a videostore pushing him, acting like they didn’t know Janet, who’d go in a few minutes later.
Then Tony would knock over a display case and Spider-Man would apologize to the employees and help them clean it up while Janet put stacks of DVDs in her wheelchair and left — Spider-Man and Tony following soon after.
All in all they stole about 300 DVDs at different places.
I was laughing.
Spider-Man said, “Nah, but man, Tony, he was my best friend, man. I loved him. He just died like — shit — three days ago.”
His eyes got a little more red and watery.
When I asked what happened, Spider-Man just said Tony had gotten really sick, had sores on his legs all the way into the bone, couldn’t breathe.
“His body just didn’t wanna do it anymore,” he said. “But nah, he ok now.”