Chapter Fourteen: Post-Black Friday Blues

            Along with Patrick, Glen left the store of Ropers with a passion. He slumped down with the walk all the way to his Ford Focus and Patrick followed.

“Thanks for inviting me to this party.” Patrick said.

“You’re welcome.”

“And thanks for the job in Shipping and Receiving.”

“Glad you’re thankful, Barb was about to fire your ass.”

“What a bitch.”

When they got to the Ford Focus, before Glen entered, he asked Patrick, “You got it?”

“It’s in my pocket.” Patrick said.

“Good, I’m gonna need it after this.”

 

“Okay everybody, thanks for coming to my special Black Friday party. I want to introduce you to the man next to me with the lime green hair and the provider of the Mary Jane for all of us to personal use.”

“Thanks Patrick.” said the other three at the dinner table in Glen’s condo.

“Patrick, the black gentleman to your right is Tommy Melrose.”

“Man Glen, don’t say ‘black gentleman’ you racist fuck. And don’t use my last name either.” Tommy said with a smile on his face.

“Next to him is Jasmine Raynor, a happy-go-lucky woman living the life, and proud to be a lesbian.”

Jasmine gave out the wave, Patrick chuckled at that.

“And lastly but not least, Jimbo Raynor, brother of Jasmine. He is very smart and should be in Harvard, but sadly, I have to explain that his mother is a serious nuisance who has been texting me a lot lately, as well as your brother Todd.”

“Sorry, I can’t control them.” Jimbo said.

“Jimbo and Jasmine are brother and sister of my late fiancée, Shelia.”

“Yeah, you were telling me about that. Sorry, dude.” Patrick said.

“That’s okay, life throws bullshit at you. You have to move on. And with that being said, while I serve fest, which is a Turkey that was in my slow cooker, cooking for over twelve hours but should be good, more than good in fact, there happens to be a big prize under everyone plates. Tom and Jim will have bigger prizes, and Patrick is for the happy drug you have provided us.”

“Man, marijuana isn’t a drug.” Tommy said.

Glen went on, “And for Jasmine, a little bit of money to get you what you wanted for Christmas.”

He then got off of his seat while everyone looked under their respective plates.

Simultaneously, Jim and Tom said, “Holy shit!” with Jim adding, “six-hundred dollars!”

Jasmine said, “I’ll be able to get a rabbit with this, thanks Glen.”

Patrick asked, “you looking to get a rabbit?”

“Well, yes. I’ve been looking to get one but I can’t get a ride to the animal shelter of Pets N’ More.” Jasmine said.

“You don’t got a car? Me either. But, I have a rabbit, I’ll sell him to you.”

“Well, what kid is it?”

“It’s a brown rabbit, a dwarf I think, I bought it from some guy at a flea market in Hochington.”

“Hochington? We’re that fucking faggot and that cop were killin’ people and shit?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, also in Erbing too.”

“Man, fuckin’ white people like that scare the shit out of me. And you know what sucks? That motherfucker will not get executed. That’s the reason why I don’t like payin’ taxes.”

“You mean that Andrew guy?” Jim asked.

“Yeah, he’s the guy who got caught?”

Both Patrick and Jimbo, “Yeah.”

“Man, fuck that little faggot. He had it good. His fuckin’ family had money and shit and he still does this shit?”

“Actually, he was working for a North Korean terrorist group.” Patrick said.

“Yeah, it was North Korea trying to get our money.” Jimbo added.

“Man, our fuckin’ money ain’t shit nowadays.” Tom said.

Patrick shrugged while he began to roll a doobie with the Zig Zag’s nearby, “Our money means a lot to Korea. My buddy from the Army just got out of there. You’d be surprised what $30 can get ya.”

“Yeah, I heard about all that shit.” Tom said.

“Tommy!” Glen from the kitchen.

Tom looked over, “Yeah?”

“Tommy!”

“What, Glen?”

“Tommy!”

“What the fuck, Glen?”

Patrick and Jim chuckled.

“Can you help me?” Glen peeped out of the kitchen.

Tommy got up and said to Patrick, “He does this shit, this Tommy shit. It’s from some old song.”

“Tommy, Can You Hear Me? By The Who?” Patrick asked.

“Some shit like that, it’s some old song and it fuckin’ sucks.” Tommy said.

“I like that song.” Jimbo said.

“Shut the fuck up, Jimbo.”

“I agree with Jimbo, I got that in Vinyl.” Patrick added.

“Fuck that song…” said Tommy, then next with excitement, “Holy shit, Cranberry! I like ya, Glen. Hey wait… it’s not the Ropers brand, is it?”

“No, it isn’t. I just had some Dr. S from Ropers, tasted like crap.” Glen replied.

Tommy appeared with the Cranberry on a plate, and placed it at the center.

Glen came with Turkey on a large silver platter and said to Tommy, “move that Cranberry over, the Turkey gets in the center.”

“What? Is this some traditional bullshit? Fine, I’ll put the cranberry by me.” He said while moving it too close to his plate.

Glen placed the Turkey down on the table and said to Tommy, “you are not taking all the cranberry, Tommy.”
Stop callin’ me Tommy motherfucker, or I will take it all.”

            Ten minutes later of pure gluttony, the conversation continued on with nearly empty plates and Tommy hogging the rest of the Cranberry.

“So, Jimbo, how was your thanksgiving?” Glen asked.

“Same as always, annoying family members. I dressed my best and it wasn’t to my mom’s standards and she was awfully critical about me, how I dressed and also not showing PDA to her in public. It’s a little redundant.” Jimbo replied.

“The song remains the same.” Glen added.

“Also,” Jasmine this time, “Todd is really mad. All the time, he kept talking about kicking your ass and also the drug dealers that beat him up.”

“I could tell by the 2,000 text messages he had sent me already.” Glen said.

“Todd?” Patrick said while snapping his fingers, it seems that the name or person in reference was familiar to him.

“You know Todd?” Jimbo asked.

“Isn’t he a pill dealer?” Patrick asked.

“Yeah, he sells pharmaceuticals illegally.”

“Like Vicodin and Ambien?”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit, was he the guy who got ripped off by the Eastpointe gang?”

“Yeah,” Jimbo and Jasmine said simultaneously, next for Jimbo to say, “he kept complaining about that all day long yesterday, that and wanting Glen’s blood on his hands.”

Glen was about to take a bite of turkey, but stopped and said, “Really?”

“Well, yes.”

“Did he say he wanted my blood in his hands?”

“Um, yes. You and the gang that ripped him off.”

“Oh, shit man,” Patrick said, “somebody wants you dead.”

“If he really wanted to fight me, he would come here or at my job to confront me, opposed to a billion text messages, each with a homophobic remark.”

“Wait, I know him.” Patrick said.

“What?” Said Glen, Jasmine and Jimbo.

“Well,” he shrugged, “I don’t really know him, but he was once at a party selling pills at a high price. And for those who didn’t buy, he would call them faggots and the chicks dykes. This guy was about to get his ass kicked. It was at some redneck’s trailer.”

“Clinton Estates?” Jimbo asked.

“No, um, the one in Mt. Clemens. That where I live.”

“That’s also the home of Tommy.” Glen said while noticing that he was eating the last of the Cranberry.
Glen added, “The Cranberry robber.”

After swallowing it down, Tommy pointed at Patrick, “Yeah, nigga, you live in the Clem too?”

“Yeah, the trailer park.”

“Yeah, they got a lot of good shit over there.” Tommy added.

 

And later that day, Tommy, Patrick and Glen stood outside the condo with cigarettes. Smoking and continuing on with their own convo while staring into the Dark Michigan pre-winter sky.

“I didn’t know you guys were part of the mob.” Patrick said, the aura of his breath due to the cold has showed up in front of him.

“Not really, just a subsidy.” Glen said, finishing his cigarette and getting the aura and smoke mixed together.

“Yeah, I hope you can be trusted.” Tommy said.

“I ain’t gonna say shit, I break the law too.” Patrick said, he smoked then continued, “you know, if you want some more weed, just give me a call. Don’t hit me up at work though, don’t want people to get suspicious.”

“Well, I’ll let Tommy be your customer.” Glen said, “but yes, not at work. Most people who are salary or upper-hourly employees are very in-touch with their feminine side, they don’t like you. With Martha, and I got the answer just before we left…”

“The answer to what? How she’s a bitch?” Patrick asked.

“Yes, it seems that her husband is in love with a website, and she just basically allows him to surf it all night long.”

“A porno site?” both Tommy and Patrick asked with smiles.

“Ah, no actually, it’s Wikipedia. He is apparently a big editor on there and get anal over badly written articles.” Glen said.

“Jesus Christ.” Patrick said while looking away and smoking a cigarette.

“What the fuck is Wikipedia?” Tommy asked, appearing dumbfounded.

“It’s like an encyclopedia for the internet. Only, people can come on by and edit and fuck with them, only you have to sign up, I think. I don’t know. But, I’m gonna be doing that shit tonight.” Patrick said.

“Do they got like definitions for ‘nigga?’” Tommy asked.

“I think they do.” Glen said, noticing some person at the other condo running around behind cars in the parking lot, he wondered quickly that if it was a midget or a toddler.

“They have articles for everything, even beheadings. What I’m gonna do is go to the word Bitch and delete the article and copy and paste Martha’s name on it a million times.”

“Martha?” Tommy asked.

“My boss, she’s a bitch who hates men, now I know the reason why. It’s fucking silly though, I get treated like shit because her husband won’t fuck her and sits on the chair getting angry about badly written articles.”

“I’m gonna do that shit too. I got an IPad, I’m gonna fuck shit up.” Tommy said.

Glen kept his eyes on that little person and he realized that it was a toddler, wearing just a diaper and a t-shirt, a bad combination for the Michigan winter.

“The hell?” Glen said.

Tommy and Patrick regarded Glen as he began his walk towards the other parking lot, but they continued on talking about the future hijacking on Wikipedia. He heard Patrick talk about how he plans on vandalizing the Sperm article and adding that he would input his former boss Martha’s full name and list her as a sperm eater. Tommy said he would like to vandalize the George W. Bush article. Glen’s walk to the other parking lot stopped as he looked around the cars, he heard Patrick say, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

That made Tommy laugh his ass off.

The Toddler was finally found between an old Ford Escort and a Mercury Sable. He squatted on the ground and was shivering furiously.

Glen approached him with kindness and didn’t want to scare the child, he tried with being gentle, “Hey?”

He turned over while hearing Tommy say, “You’re right, he didn’t care about us, him and that race-traitor Condezzlia Rice. Fuck that Oreo bitch!”

“Is your mom or dad here?” Glen asked while slowly approaching.

The toddler did not reply, Glen imagined that the toddler would rather deal with a woman.

“Do you live around here? Is Mom and Dad around?” He asked.

“My mom lives at three two two.”

Glen looked over quickly to locate 322, and pointed to him with a smile, “322?”

He nodded with a shiver.

“Well, let’s get you inside.” Glen said.

 

Patrick and Tommy, while still under the fading influence laughed and laughed about vandalizing Wikipedia after a few minutes. They turned towards where Glen walked to, seeing him arrive back.

“What the hell were you doing?’ Tommy asked.

“I saw a toddler who left the house, so I returned him to his mother.” Glen said.

“Well, looks like we have a hero.” Patrick asked.

Glen looked away with a sigh.

“What’s wrong, Glen? You look like something’s pissing you off.” Tommy said.

“Well, just concerned. I returned the child to the condo, I see a fat mother with more make-up on than I ever really noticed on a woman and three dudes in the house rolling up some weed.” Glen told them.

“So? It’s weed. We’re they doing other shit, did they invite you in?” Tommy asked.

Len shook his head, “No, the mom took the kid from my hands and slapped him and rushed him to his room while yelling about leaving the house, and three guys were at the dinner table rolling doobies and staring a hole through me.”

“They’re paranoid.” Patrick said.

“I know, listen Tommy, thanks for driving Patrick home. Well get together some other time. Patrick, you start in as an overnight stock guy Monday morning.” Glen said.

“Thanks, I need to get my ass some sleep, I’ve been up for fucking over twenty-four hours.” Patrick said.

 

A few minutes past with Jimbo and Jasmine sitting on the long couch and watching TV. Glen stripped down in the living room to just his boxers, he held his cellphone and said to them, “Keep that TV down low. I’ll drive you home when I wake up. If you are going to take a walk, don’t lock your ass out. I’m not getting up to open the door, alright?”

The two acknowledged, with Jim saying, “Thanks for letting us stay the night.”

“Use the computer, do what you want, but keep it down low, I’m really sleepy. I need my sleep.”

“We will, thanks for letting us stay the night.” Jim added.
He walked into the room and turned on the lamp, he saw his unmade bed with a smile on his face.

He said, “It’s been a very long day.”

He walked to the start of the bed, spread his arms and fell backwards, holding the cellphone. Upon impact, he heard the text tone.  He slowly raised the phone up and with hesitation pressed on the messaging app.

He saw two previous texts from Thomas Floyd saying ‘Good Job,’ one from Regatta saying, ‘U wanna come over?’ and this new one from Todd, ‘U are a dead man, faggot.’

“…Get a fuckin’ life…” Glen slurred.

He shut off the phone and tossed it to his right, making impact on the floor.

And off he went to sleep.