Riding With Brighton(4)

“Not really. Same shit as usual: baseball… parties.”

“Cool,” he tells me.

“You don’t really think that’s cool.”

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Sure I do.”

“Really?” I laugh at what has to be sarcasm. “Have you been to any of our games?”

“Well, no. I mean, it’s not my thing, but it’s yours. And you know… that’s cool.”

“What’s your thing?”

“I got all kinds of things.”

Fine. Don’t tell me anything. I’m not gonna beg.

“What the hell is going on in your drawing?” I ask, my eyebrows pinched together as I stare at all the crazy shit that seems to be spinning out of her mouth.

“She’s an oracle,” he states, like that should explain it all. When I don’t respond he adds, “She’s speaking the words of gods into some poor unsuspecting guy’s head.”

“No shit, huh?” I think about my dream, then ask him, “Did they really believe that? That something could just put thoughts in their heads?”

“Sure.”

“Do you believe that?”

He cocks his head at me and kind of shuts one eye like he can’t quite get me in focus. “No, Jay, I don’t,” he says with a smirk. “But I can see how they could. I mean, a world with little actual knowledge of how things work is a world where you’ll grasp on to just about anything to make sense of the crazy shit running through your brain, right?”

“What about dreams?” Okay, yes—I’m blatantly grasping on to the possibility that God himself was whispering to me last night and that’s why I woke up with such clarity, trying to take on the world. I’m desperate for a reason to get back to that place where change is possible.

“Huh?”

“Do you think the oracles whispered the words of the gods while the poor unsuspecting guys were sleeping?” He’s already looking at me weird, so I add, “That’s what I would believe if I were them. I mean, that’s when all the unexplained weird ideas end up in your head, right?”

“Why are you asking?”

I shake my head and look away from him. “I must have had some crazy dream last night because when I woke up I didn’t feel like myself.”

“That shit happens to me all the time. Don’t stress, Jay. There aren’t oracles coming into your room at night.”

“Really? I mean, about the dreams happening to you.”

“Yeah. Last week I was pissed off all day at Shaw… you know him?”

“Yeah, of course I know him.” He’s one of Brighton’s best friends.

“So you know that doesn’t make any sense because there’s no one nicer than Shaw. He’s about the only person I’ve never been pissed off at in real life. But then I remembered that I had a dream where he dropped his pants and pissed all over Nico’s Xbox and ruined the thing right when I was about to kick his ass for the first time in Mortal Kombat.”

He laughs, and I want to cry because that’s about as far away from a message from God as you can get. And yet I ask him, “So what do you think it meant?”

“The dream?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. I guess my subconscious was feeling inferior that night—I don’t have a shot in hell at ever beating Nico at that game, and I’ll never be hung like Shaw is. I mean, don’t get me wrong, my dick’s plenty big….”

I practically choke on the pen that, somehow, ended up back in my mouth.

“Careful there,” Brighton says with a laugh. “If you can’t handle that tiny Bic, what are you gonna do if you ever have a big one in your mouth?”

I throw my pen at him. “Can we stop with the fucking Bic jokes?”

He picks the pen up off his lap and casually starts drumming his, now two, pens against his desk for a few seconds before turning to me and saying, “You got another uni-ball in your backpack? I would really like a complete set.”

I reach over and yank the uni-ball out of his hand. “I get it, okay. I have obscene pens. Jesus, I’ve never talked about Bics and balls so much in my entire life. Can we change the damn subject?”

“Sure. You want to talk about breasts or vaginas? Would that make you feel more comfortable?”

I throw him a seething glare.

“What? I’m sorry, okay. You have no idea how fun it is to mess with homophobes when given the chance. I mean, it’s so fun right up until the second they threaten to tear your intestines out of your body and strangle you with them.”

My head snaps back, and my eyebrows furrow. “I’m not homophobic, asshole.”

“Asshole? Is that your subconscious talking again?”

“Jesus, is everything a perverted joke to you?”

His smile slowly slips away, and then he starts chewing on the inside of his mouth like he’s contemplating. “I went too far, didn’t I? You’re pissed at me.”

“Yes, you went too far. But no, I’m not pissed at you. It’s just a little insulting that you think I’m homophobic. I mean, I know we’re not best friends, but I thought you knew enough of me to understand that I’m not some judgmental, closed-minded prick.”