Only the Message Mattered 3

Drunkenness, Meria learned, was not altogether unpleasant - like she drank the space heater and was no longer destined for the blue-collar workforce and would not become a thirty-year-old single mother living in a double-wide with six bastard children. Unfortunately, the price for lovely enebriation was alcohol, which tasted like flaming plastic no matter how much sugar and coconut was added.

"Loooooooooook," Q Maria drawled, drooled, and the word took nearly four seconds to make its way out of her beery mouth. Her eyes, which were red-rimmed, were glued on the doorway, from whence an incredible buff guy in a shredded Metallica T-shirt had just emerged. "Tell me you wouldn wanna squeeze tha' man til 'e popped."

"Eh, not really my, my" searching for the word, "you know, type."

Q Maria's head swiveled, mouth open, to her friend. "What you could you possibly want that that piece of fucking heaven doesn't have?" Drunkenness, apparently, had no effect on Q's vocabulary or diction...

"Boobs."

"Seriously? Don't joke about sexuality, man, because that means less competition for me." ... but it did have an effect on her reasoning.

Uh...

Wavering, Q stood up and approached Hot Guy, and Meria thought that maybe she'd close her eyes for a sec and savor the swallowed-a-space-heater feeling. A fizzy space heater. When she woke up, there was a piece of paper taped to her shirt that she barely had time to detach and read before she barfed all over it.

M,

With Brian, have the car, will pick you up, sry

Q

......................................................................

She never picked me up. I waited for hours at the bar, made friends with Clarence the bartender, nursed my first ever hangover (no longer a beer virgin, I) until the early morning. Finally Clarence grew weary of his unwanted caucasian Northerner companion - "Gotta lock up, sweetie. Here, five bucks on me. Sorry your friend's a bitch."

"Yeah, thanks."

As I wandered the pale-yellow Charleston morning, I came upon a dank corner between two storefronts, and, hungover, pissed, and alone, I hunkered down into it, fiver tucked safely in my pocket, to await a sign (from QMT or from the universe, either would have sufficed.)

I was obviously not the first misfortunate wanderer to use this corner as a temporary shelter; there were two empty beer bottles there by my feet, a candy bar wrapper and, strangely, a pristine paperback with the covers held flat with two rubber bands. I, the cat whom curiosity killed, reached for the book. "The Portable Thoreau," it read. I slid off the bands and opened it up, and - o god - neatly scribed in the cover was

I had to go to New Orleans post-haste, with or without Quincy Maria Taylor, with or without Pope Innocence the 1993 craptrap, with or without the manilla envelope with enclosed Santo's letter and which rested as far as I knew in Pope Innocence's dashboard. I took the paperback and - fuck my hangover - left my hideaway in search of a bus depot.

...................................................

Dominic possessed four things: his shirt (green and blue striped, too small across his skinny chest), his jeans (nothing special about them, except that they might have been girl-jeans initially, but Lyssa had gotten them from the Salvation Army so), his sneakers (New Balance, size six), and the wad of ten-dollar bills Santo had given him when they'd parted ways in Mount Pleasant a few weeks back.

Dominic wished more than anything to spend those tenners on things (food things, to be honest) for him and Lyssa, but he had a job to do and Santo had promised more money upon the completion of that job, so

Dom hopped on a greyhound headed for Iowa.

............................................................

Hey boy brince, hey Brian, hey beautiful. Hey, did you know it would be like this?

No beautiful. Try some of this shit, beautiful.

Hey handsome, what happened to m' friend?

Hakuna matata, beautiful. Smoke up, Quincy.

I love you, Brian.

You're drugged, beautiful. Shh.

.............................................................

Hey boy prince, good morning.

It's three PM beautiful. Sunny and warm in Raleigh.

Where?

Raleigh.

No! Damn it! (Alert now but woozy, Quincy sits up and finds she is in her beat up old car. Raleigh is very much not the correct city.) Fuckwad! Get out of my fucking car, eh? (Shoving the deliciously sexy Brian, who refuses.)

What's this, beautiful? I read it while you were, uh, asleep. (Guffaw)

(Can't remember shit; what is the envelope he's holding?) What the hell'd you give me, dickface? I feel like shit. Get out of my car. (How'd we even get to Raleigh? Given the amount of empties, neither of us could have been sober enough to stay between the lines.)

(Poor Meria, all alone in Charleston. Oh well.)

(The boy prince pulls the yellow paper out of the envelope. Quincy remembers now: the rest stop, the messenger, Meria being a bitch and refusing to let Q read the page. Brian holds the thing out.) You read this, beautiful?

(Reading.)

Wanna go to New Orleans, beautiful?

Not with you. You could have raped me or something.

Can't rape a whore. (Guffaw.)

Fuck off.

(Guffaw.)

(Quincy and the boy prince toss out the empties and head back south.)