“And your friends are involved with this.”
“No, my friends occasionally make purchases from their dealer, but they’re never involved with the deliveries. The Old Man Bikers Club found out and threatened to report them to the police. That’s what started their war.”
“This is fucking nuts.”
“If you can keep a secret, I can hook you up. Or, I suppose for the next few months,Icould mail you some chocolate. You could build up your supply before the season’s over. And all I ask in exchange is to see the obituary.”
She has her eyes closed and she’s petting my dog, who looks as if she’s in absolute heaven getting Goldie love.
And I cave.
Like I wasn’t going to anyway.
I grunt and groan too while I lower myself to the floor by her head, pull out my phone, and open up my Instagram.
“In early January, the facial hair catastrophe of Fletcher Huxley died a premature death despite also lasting too long in this world,” I read.
Goldie giggles, making Sweet Pea jiggle on top of her.
“If you can’t be dignified in the face of death, I’m not going to read this to you,” I say, which makes her laugh harder.
But laughing harder makes her wince and grab her hip.
Dammit.
“Massage ever help?” I ask her.
“Not as much as I wish it did. Keep reading? Please?”
I don’t want to read her this obituary. I want to rub her hip and help her stretch and make her feel better.
But instead, I do as she asked. “The death of the ’stache was seen around the world, though its graphic demise was censored in pockets of the world that worship mustaches. Fire was a fitting end to a facial feature that had clearly seen things in its day. Some good. Some bad. Some dirty. It was rumored to still be hiding half an airplane meal from three years ago in its depths.”
Goldie gets a full cackle out of that one.
“During its time on earth, it spawned many imitators, much to the chagrin of three-quarters of the population of the world’s women. But despite the near-universal hatred of the ’stache from hell, it found its supporters in various pockets of society. Memorials have appeared on places such aRate That ’Stache dot com, an Instagram account dedicated to the weirdest wonders of the world, and on a billboard in a random town in Kansas. The dearly departed mustache is also reported to be inspiration for Guy Knightly’s newest installation at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, a sculpture that some say resembles a dying chicken, which he entitledDeath of Huxley’s Third Mustache Hair from the Right.”
Even I have to pause and clear my throat after that one.
As far as burns go, that was solid.
And Goldie’s laughing so hard now that a little piggy snort escapes her nose.
Fucking. Delightful.
“You might have to stop,” she gasps. “This hurts.”
“There’s only one more paragraph, you wimp,” I say.
That cracks her up even more.
But she sobers as another wince of pain crosses her features.
“Okay, I’m done,” I say.
“No, please finish. I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to hear you read it.”
Motherfucker.
