Preparation

 

 

—Well, I have known married parent and I have known

divorced parents. I was a Hulkamaniac before six-years-old. I

didn’t learn to ride a bicycle until I was eleven. When I was

thirteen-years-old, I smoked a cigarette for the first time while I

was walking to middle school. I sucked the smoke softly into

my virgin lungs and my walkman cassette player was playing DJ

Quik. It was early springtime—the worms that remained from

overnight left streaks of shimmering slime across the morning

sidewalks like sparkling veins. I sucked too deep and coughed; I

reached down and grabbed the crotch of my denim pants as I

coughed; I was gangster: young, rural, white-kid gangster. I got

my nose broken with a tree branch in my first fist fight (it was

my first, I didn’t know that sticks were acceptable) and in my

second fist fight my bottom lip was split in two.

I gave up gangster. I graduated high school while fighting a

rough run of acne—no junior, or senior prom, but I still managed

to fuck Lora several times just before I turned seventeen.

I probably should have pulled out. I didn’t pull out, I loved her,

and anyway, enough about my childhood, tell me about yours—

 

Moonmoth finished writing everything down in preparation

for his first phone call with Sunbug. He read it out loud to

Valentino, and Valentino laughed.

Moonmoth tore it out of the notebook and crumpled it up.

“What the fuck, Valentino?” he asked, “What the fuck?”

“Just call her and wing it,” Valentino said.

“I will for sure call her tomorrow,” Moonmoth replied.