*****
eddy takes another pull. "why does anybody care what rich people do??" he bellows. "I have four warrants and I build hot-air balloons in my yard..."The boys will never know exactly what happened back at the complex, tho there was plenty of postulating. She-thought-we-were-after-her-credit-cards led to she-thought-we-was-disposin-somebody and finally to she-thought-we-found-the-body-she-disposed-of. No one guesses that the crack in the air, the little lightning that met just above their heads, it snapping down from Sal's window and welling up from the squishy roach-ridden dumpster. It bringing them to wince a split-second before actually hearing anything unusual. It being the force that inspired their panic and the force that inspired her cry. The sound itself serving only as alibi for their loss of balance and form, and of course they can't understand that they were met with a memory that was not theirs; of course they don't know they were just lightning rods. Of course they can't figure why the lady would scream like that.
They decided to hightail it home. None of 'em are rich enough to get bothered by cops (even tho eddy doesn't really have 4 warrants out) and the beer store's still open. Now they're trying to undo their encounter with Sal's memory (of some twit named Bernard) the only way they know how.
"...and soon enough I'll be dreamin' of a life I just finished every sundown"
Eddy gets incoherent sometimes. It's unpredictable, but so's lightning. Sometimes Mark writes down what he says for a laff the next day. They're at Eddy's house. It's clean in a messy way, devoid of hot-air balloons or balloon parts. The colors all seem to be dropping-off somehow, not changing or growing dim, rather falling into view from behind themselves, tipping into focus.
"brain-bleach, brother - where's Mooze at?"
Mark insists that you know you're good friends with someone when their drunken rambling works like a lullaby. He's dozing off, lit cigarette stuffed between the middle and ring fingers of his left hand. Pitz found a roll of duct tape and is busy setting fly traps around the room. Now Eddy's settled pretty well into watching him work, having come to accept Mark's habit like his parents told him to accept the Italian custom of belching loudly after a good meal. (He still hasn't witnessed an Italian doing that, and he suspects the "custom" might be a fable thought up and smuggled into popular knowledge by some old-fashioned racists. Eddy is sensitive to these things.).
Mark inhales and sits up sharply when the fire burns close to his fingers. He tries to take a drag but burns his throat, calling up a bit of wetness round his eyes. He puts out the butt, but not without dropping a pile of ashes into the carpet. He blinks slowly, watching Pitz watch. Kneeling on the floor like that, it almost looks like Pitz is praying with his eyes open or working a spell. Mark yawns and sez you catch more flies with honey-mustard before falling back to sleep.
