He had started buying weed from Andy, probably because he was desperate for a sense of rebellion, and desperate to distance himself from me. He could make that initiation of friendship I couldn’t – if friendship was what you wanted to call it. It was hard to pity him, because he was the reason I was there in the first place. I tried to imagine this face more clearly in the dark, sneering at me, assessing me based on our three years of friendship in which we couldn’t have really known each other. His face was drenched in freckles that hadn’t faded with ears his head hadn’t caught up with: puppet-mouthed – a ventriloquist dummy. I had been friends with Nick since middle school because in middle school you needed to call someone a friend. When did you get to be such a pussy?” Nick had never called me that before and began using it recently since we started hanging out with Andy. Andy was in the kitchen now, and I would lose him if we didn’t continue. He was peering into the living room where Andy’s dad had on a porno.
“Oh shit, look at those tits,” Nick said and halted in front of me so quickly I almost ran into him. He wore his pants down low, and so did Nick: Andy imitating music video rappers, Nick imitating Andy, me in my coupon purchased Penny jeans from a shopping trip with my mom.
#BULB BOY VASQUEZ TV#
I caught some flickering light from the TV emitting onto Andy. Andy strutted ahead, taking us past the living room where his dad was in a Wild Turkey pass out, with no care of waking him. This was a hushed thrill for me, something covert I didn’t know the consequences of. I creaked through the house, careful of the floorboard squeaks my feet could ignite. Nick trailed behind Andy, and I trailed behind Nick. “Come on,” he said and got up, which meant we needed to follow. I heard every word and was silent because I kept noticing the scar creased above Andy’s mouth, which I wanted to kiss since before he knew me. Nick was silent because I could tell he was hardly paying attention. I was pretty sure he was looking to me and not my friend, Nick next to me. Andy tapped his foot up and down in saggy sweats like he was going to jump out of himself, waiting for a response.
Giving it that title was generous though.
Or, his dad called it a warehouse, and so did the granddad before him. He was talking about the tobacco warehouse his dad inherited, now dilapidated. When I was at Andy’s house he looked at me and said, “I want to stone that place to the ground.” We were getting high on the basement couch, and he was behind a thin mist of smoke.