I returned Peter’s stash to its rightful (though dare I say unlawful!) place, and soon enough Peter returned in a similarly criminal manner. I could see in his bloodshot eyes that awful gleam of knowing. Like any good spy, I had returned his rifled-through things to their original places, carefully restacking the most casual of stacks, etc, and though any layman would have been none the wiser, something in those flat eyes knew that I knew that he was a fiend, both horticulturally and demonologically.
“How was smoking, brah-ntosaurus?” I asked. That last bit had come to me in a paleontological flash.
“Hey, brah! Good one!”
“Was it?”
“Yeah! The best I ever came up with was ‘Brah-k to the Future.’ “
“That’s not very funny, Peter.”
“I know.”
Did he know? Did he? I tried to look into his eyes, but all I got was the short black hair at the back of his head, as he had sat at his computer, returning to the conquest of Aiur.
I again walked out of the room, this time crossing our micro-foyer and entering the other room of the suite, held by two easy-going computer science majors. Let me call them Jim and Bob*, though neither of them are innocent or worth protecting.
“Hey Jim.” Jim didn’t stop playing his practice drumset, and answered me back over his shoulder, keeping time on those strange rubber cymbals.
His voice stayed beat-worthy too. “How’s. it. Go. Ing. Dude?”
“I think,” I said, closing his door and then walking towards him, lowering my voice conspiratorily, “that our new ‘friend’ Peter is smoking in our bathroom.”
“I’ve. Done. Worse. Man.”
“I didn’t need to know that. Also, try it in Iambic Pentameter.”
He stopped drumming, staying the silent rubber cymbals out of habit. There was a long pause, and then Jim turned.
“What shall be done to him by we
Is not for me to say. Though loath to be
a passenger upon this ship of hate,
I can but watch the unwinding of fate.”
“You are such a dick, Jim.”
“Let it be known- a phallus am I then.”
“Bye, Jim. I think you inverted that last bit.”
He turned back to the drums.
“Now is the winter of our discontent.”
I walked into the bathroom, locking the door. I pressed my head against the cool tile. I was alone in my endeavors then. A solitary hero. Separate from society, cut off by his quest, misunderstood and sour. Hardboiled. This so-called Peter just another gangster, another thug to be trampled under the heel of my moral, moral boot. And he was an invader, too, a despoiler of land, a rapist of civilization. Room 314 was my Troy, and Peter an awful Greek, come to burn the city, having entered silently in the womb of the Horse of Presumed Morality. This depraved, ineloquent Jersey Barrier was the new Rock to which I was Prometheanically chained.
I came home from class a few days later to find him sitting on his bed, two of his thuggish friends lounging like mafia blackjack dealers, asses on edges of chairs, elbows on knees, hands pressed together in false prayer, or conspiracy. They were passing around a bottle of Bankers Club Rum.
“Oh hey brah!” said Peter. “I thought you had class.”
“I had it.”
“Oh, well, uh, these are my brahs. We’re just killin’ time.”
“For what?”
“What, brah?”
“What are you killing time for? Some hip party?”
“Oh, uh, yeah, sure, brah.”
“You know we’re not supposed to have alcohol in here… no one here is of age.”
“Oh, well, I figured since you were so chill, brah, about that whole scrunchie thing…”
“Was there an age question that night, Peter?”
Peter looked me in the eyes. And winked. That horrible wink. He clearly had never tried such a wink before, as it scrunched the whole side of his face. “No, brah. S’all cool.” He kept the wink; it looked like he had just lost an eye after spitting up a tooth.
“Well then.”
“Brah-hemians! Pack that shit. I think we better head out.” The two henchmen got up. I half expected them to fold their chairs, but then I remembered that we weren’t in some Midtown loft playing Texas Hold ‘Em for the use of each other’s dames.
“Are you gonna be out past your bedtime… brah?”
“Oh fuck yeah, man.” He fist bumped one of his minions, and tried to fist bump me.
I did not return the gesture. “Ok, man.” he said. “Too cool. Too cool. Hey brahs, my other brah here is just. too. cool.”
Only my gentlemanly restraint, and the growing temptation to wait and see how weird it could get, kept me from lifting him up by the shirt and tossing him out of the window.
“You know it, brah-ve New World.” I said.
They all chuckled. As they exited the room, Peter turned. With that same sharklike gaze of knowing that I had seen earlier, he casually, though carefully, winked.
It was war.
Editor’s Note: “Jim” and “Bob” eventually wrote for readme, did improv with me and MesmericKiwi, and “Jim” played in the band with me and Sgt. Earth through which I met and began dating farkle-farkle. This is very important to the story.
