I.
“You look like the Godfather.”
“I need a ring.”
I wonder then if that’s the right stereotype I’m injecting. Doesn’t matter. We laugh. A good time was had by all with my court jester by my side. That’s definitely the wrong injection. King in his castle. That’s better.
II.
Chaz and Mayday have gone to Nikki Beach. Chaz, on his last Sunday night in South Beach before heading back to Queens (after a six-month stretch), decides that he should be there tonight, at the world’s hottest Sunday Night party. Mayday decides to go with him. And as a going away gift, he’s buying. They come inside to tell me (while I’m comfortably taking a break from looking at porn all day) of this master plan and invite me along. And it would be a sin for me not to go with my bros.
I decline. I have too much to do. Still have photos of Roxy to get to, my god. (I’m sorry Roxy. Tonight, I promise.)
There is much talk of proper attire. Chaz, who never wears a shirt, wonders if he should wear one. And can he wear flip-flops? Checks with Giselle as she’s inside studying. Studying like only she can, which is madly. Never, have I seen anyone study like her. Sitting in front of the computer, class on video on the screen before her, but she plays them at double-speed so it sounds like some impossibly fast-talking auctioneer. Only rather than trying to sell a car, he’s talking lab-level medical terminology. Hypo-accute-this. Dyslexinteri-that. And the next professor has a different accent which Giselle has to adapt to; his lecture, another pronunciation nightmare. And she absorbs it all.
“How’d you do on your test?”
Nonchalanty but not braggingly, she replies, “I think I made a 100.”
She sounds disappointed.
III.
“Any spare change, sir?”
“Not unless you take plastic.”
He is an old, black man in a blue baseball cap. A little unshaven, gray haired, but kempt. His pants are baggy and dark gray.
“Any change today, sir?”
“Nothing. I’ve got nothing today.”
The odd couple. Mayday and I are The Odd Couple, I realize. God, it’s hot today.
“Here’s a dollar.”
“God bless, sir.”
“No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As I drive the scooter home with the groceries strapped to the hook behind the handlebars, I think that this must be capitalism.
IV.
I expect Chaz and Mayday to be back any minute now. Something surely went wrong.