5.
Nate puts the bottle to his lips, tilts his head back, and lets the beer flow uncontested from the bottle into his stomach. He finishes, bangs the bottle on the table, “Man, that was great.”
“I got to give it to you, Nate. You the only one I know that can do a whole bottle without swallowing. You think you should try to be on America’s Most Talented?” asks Joey sincerely.
“Too expensive, Joey. Think about all the beer I gotta buy to go into training for the show. I been thinking a lot about your t-shirt. I thunk about it since I was driving over here and I come up with the perfect answer,” says Nate extending his fist toward Joey and expecting a fist bump in return.
Joey obliges on the fist bump and says, “Talk to me.”
“It’s as easy as stealing change out of the tip jar.”
Nate and Joey simultaneously glance over to the tip jar on the bar. Seeing they’re the only two in Barlow’s Beer Stop, and Joey doesn’t tip, the tip jar only has the two singles the bartender put in for seed money.
Nate says, “I say you go down to the police station and press charges against Sunny for attempt to insult you with a deadly weapon, to wit her mouth and for won ton disruption of personal property.”
Joey sits back and ponders Nate’s suggestion. After a moment, he leans forward, “You got it right, Sunny’s mouth is a dangerous weapon. When she gets going she’s like a terrorist. I thought won ton was something you get at a Chinese restaurant. You sure you got the words right?”
Nate doesn’t blink. He says, “It’s one of those cases where the word is the same in two languages but means different things.”
“Where’d you pick this up?”
“I was bored the other night waiting for Cutie to come back from the store with beer for me so I turned on cartoons. You’d be surprised whatcha learn from cartoons. They are very educational.”
Joey puts his beer to his lips, tilt his head back and lets the remaining liquid slide down his throat into his belly. He slams the beer bottle on the table loud enough to make Skinny drop the glass he’s washing.
Joey closes his fist and hits himself in the solar plexus. A long, low, rumbling burp comes out of Joey’s mouth the way lava comes out of a volcano cone. When the burp ends, Joey say, “Man, that felt good. Nate, this is the best advice anybody every give me in my life. I’m heading to the police station now.”
Skinny calls over, “You serious?”
Joey glances over at Skinny, “About what?”
Skinny says, “I can already see the final score.”
Joey says, “The Sox win?”
“I wasn’t taking about the Sox, I was talking about what’s gonna happen to Sunny.”
Joey says, “Maybe they’ll give Sunny ten to twenty years in prison. I won’t be waiting for her neither when she gets out.”
Nate fist bumps Joey and says, “If I break up with Cutie, you mind if I take a shot at Sunny when she gets out? Maybe I can get conjugal visits with her in prison, I heard that’s what they’re doing these days. I thought me and Sunny had something special the night we cheated on you.”
“Go for it,” says Joey.
Both men stand up and walk of Barlow’s Beer Stop. Skinny shakes his head.
