Chapter 1
Max, a fourteen-year-old black kid, rolled a blunt in the basement of his parent’s house. This took place during a warm summer morning. His second best friend Earl, a fourteen-year-old Mexican kid, sat down there with him. Right then, the folks weren’t home. Max expertly split the blunt with his fingernail. He dumped the tobacco into the garbage can. Then he took out his, “good sense” bag, filled with roughly a quarter ounce of weed. He grabbed a few nuggets. He groundd them up on the glass coffee table, until all that remained was a fine green powder. Then he dropped that into the empty cigar rap. Now the tricky part. The twist. Like a pro, Max rolled one side of the paper under the other, closing off the loop. Then he licked it, then he took out his lighter, lit it, then dried it. Now it was ready to smoke.
They were sitting on a worn out old green couch from the 1970’s, looking at a document. It seemed to have been written by a kid. The handwriting looked unrefined. Under the text there appeared to be what looked like a tugboat on fire. There was a caption that read, “Viking Funeral.” It seemed dated and signed in dried blood.
It was early, and morning light seeped in through the dirty windows. Max and Earl both wore wrinkled black suits and white shirts and black ties. They looked like they were about to go to a funeral. Except they also wore what looked like homemade Viking helmets.
Besides the couch, and an old chair, most of the basement was filled with music equipment: a drum set, a bass guitar, a acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a keyboard play, a Moog player. They also had a laptop down there filled with all kind of illegally downloaded music editing software, and many gigs of music. They downloaded Fruity Loops, and Ableton, Reason, and Final Cut Pro. They even stole some sampling equipment and recording equipment. They had a mini-studio down there.
Max watched as Earl tapped drumsticks on the coffee table. Earl tapped his drumstick on things whenever he got a chance. It was very annoying. But Earl was the best drummer Max had ever seen in person so he couldn’t really argue with him. Drummers were all an eccentric lot in his opinion.
Earl tapped the table; “I know we signed the document of whatever you want to call it, in blood. But that was years ago. We were just kids. We can’t possibly go through with it.”
Max leaned forward. He folded the document and placed it in his pocket. He saw a mouse scurry for cover. They lived in squalor. “We have to do it. He would have done the same for us. You know he would have.”
Earl stopped tapping. “Yeah, but he wasn’t like us. And you know it. He wasn’t scared of anything. I don’t know how. But he wasn’t.”
“We pulled of as many dumb things as he did.”
Earl seemed to think about it for a few seconds. “But we were fucked up all those times.”
“Right. All we have to do is get more fucked up than we ever have in our short miserable lives, and we’ll have the guts to pull this off no problem.”
Earl closed his eyes and shook his head. “This isn’t one dumb thing we’re talking about here. This is a whole list of dumb things. And I’m not talking about dumb pranks. But like real life crimes. Worst of all there is no way to do it without getting Doris involved. Unless you know anyone else with a damn boat. If you think she is going to go along with this then you need to get your head checked.”
Max leaned back confidently. “No reason she’s got to know about it.”
“And anyway, the funeral is in a few hours. How the fuck are we going to get fucked up by then? I don’t see any booze around here. And it’s not like your parents keep a stocked liquor cabinet. They like, don’t even believe in booze.”
Max snapped into his native Jamaican accent. “We from Jamaica mon, we way cool. You Mexicans are way too uptight. That’s why you’re always fighting all the time.”
Max’s parents were former black panther/hippie/intellectuals. Stolen college textbooks on all subjects covered every loose bit of free table space in the house.
Earl stuck out his middle finger. “Fuck you, man.”
“I bet if we collect all of your parents empties, then we will have enough to pay a homeless guy to buy us a decent bottle of whiskey.”
Earl struck the “Thinker” pose. “I could really use a drink right now. I’m not saying I’ll go through with the rest of it. But I’ll help you out with this first part of the plan at least.”
Max took a small Good Sense bag of weed and pack of zigzags out of his Ninja Turtles backpack. “Before we do anything I’ve got to get my mind right. I’m starting to feel my emotions and I don’t like it.”
“Shit, you’ve had weed this whole time?”
“I was waiting for the right time to bust it out. As you can see I don’t have much. Put some music on.”
Max dropped the shake out on the coffee table. He began the process of rolling a joint. He was an expert so it did not take him long.
Earl flipped open the laptop and searched through the Itunes library for a fitting song to take their mind off thing. He found Thotland by Bulletproof Dolphin. That was one of his favorite bands.
Max lit the joint, took two hits then passed it to Earl. “You know booze isn’t going to be enough. We’re going to need the Xans.”
Earl seemed to get spooked. “Word? You think we need the Xans? If we were going to do this I’d hate to not remember any of it.”
“Bro, if we’re going to do this we’re going to have to be cool as ice. We’re going to need all the help we can get. I don’t think simple liquid courage is going to be enough for the Herculean tasks ahead of us.”
“Like I said, all I’m doing is getting a drink or two. In honor of our dearly departed friend.”
“And the best damn rock star there ever was.”
“If he only would have gotten a chance.”
“Okay, I’ll check if my mom re-upped when we go over there.”
“Cool, I figure we’re going to need a couple of bars each.”
“Damn. A couple of bars? I don’t want to go to sleep in the middle of the day either.”
“That’s why we’re going to mix the booze with some kind of energy drink.”
“Well it doesn’t matter. I’m not going through with it. I’m tagging along to have a few drinks with you. After all. We’re in a state of grief. If we were old enough we’d be getting drunk at a wake right now. Or at least later on today.”
Max smiled conspiratorially. “That’s right. We’re just going to have a few drinks. I was thinking on the top of the hill on Balduck Park. That should be a nice spot this time of day.”
Earl stood up and sat behind the drums. “Sure. That is if everything goes according to plan. When you know it won’t. Dealing with bums never goes as planned.”
They couldn’t find any quarters. But they found some nickels. They used a hammer to smash them into the circumference of a quarter. It was a way to trick the arcade game into letting you play for cheap. There was a downside of course. Sometimes it put the machine out of business for a few days because the fucked up coins would screw up the system. But to the boys it was worth it. Mostly because it was a scam Clint taught them. They did a lot of things in a attempt to keep his memory alive, as best as two fourteen year old kids in the ghetto could.
“I’ve got a good feeling about today. Clint will be watching over us every step of the way.”
Earl stopped passing the joint mid motion. “You really believe that?”
“Who knows?”
“Yeah. Would be nice though.”
“It would be kind of creepy to.”
They laughed a little. Then they got sad again. Max exhaled a large cloud of weed smoke. “But how are we going to do the other stuff man? We’re going to need a car. I don’t even know how to drive. Do you?”
Max nodded. “My brother showed my how before we went to jail.”
“Oh word? That’s tight. That’s fucked up that your bro is in jail. He’s way to wavy for that.”
“The waviest. He showed me all types of shit before they put him away.”
“How is he doing in there?”
“He’s good. About as good as could be expected anyway. Last time I talked to him he said he’d been hitting the weights and the books all the time so when he gets out of there he will be a new man.”
None of the kids mention that Max’s brother Jason was facing a fifty-year bid, for an armed robbery that went wrong. And he most likely will never see the outside of prison walls again, unless Max can bust him out, which he constantly dreams of doing. It seemed like a long shot to Earl, but what the hell, let the kid dream.
With a sense of melancholy, Earl smoked, “He got caught up in the game. It happens one way or another. No one gets away clean.” Then it was like Earl just remembered what Max said. “What kind of other stuff did he show you?”
Max got a mischievous smile on his face. “A whole bunch of shit.”
“If it’s about crime I don’t want to know about it. That’s why Clint always said, we have to stick to this music shit.”
“Yeah, but now Clint’s not around anymore.”
“Maybe he is. Maybe there is no then. Maybe it’s all an ever expanding now. I once heard MF Doom say that in an interview. Shit sounded deep.”
“All the more reason to keep on the mission.”
“Word.”
“Life comes at you fast.”
“What time is it right now?
Earl checked his Mickey Mouse watch. “Almost noon. The liquor store should be opening up about now.”
“Might as well get a role on then.”
Earl put his drumsticks in his pocket. He dug through the couch cushions looking for quarters or change that could be exchanged for quarters. “And we got to find at least fifty cent so I can whoop your ass at Street Fighter.”
Mr. C’s the local liquor store had a Street Fighter arcade game that all that was a hub of competition for the whole neighborhood. Max and Earl were about equal in skill level. Clint would easily beat them without even trying.
And Doris, the other member of the band, didn’t fuck with videogames.
Earl got up. “You’re lucky your parents let you smoke weed, inside even. My parents would kill if they ever caught me getting high.”
Max stood up. “But your parents get drunk like every night. That is some hypocritical shit bro.”
“I know. That’s because they are stupid Americans, not cool Jamaicans like your folks.”
“Yeah well they’re both broke as shit so who gives a fuck.”
