THIEF PROOF
“The most addictive drug in history,” my father said. At his kitchen table in his trailer he cupped an empty coffee mug in his hands and brought up a parcel of phlegm that, disturbingly, didn’t seem to have a second place to go.
“It brings a son back to visit on the regular,” I said.
“First a thief,” he said. “Then a son. What happened to your finger?”
“Someone stole it.”
“Tough all around these days. I thought skrip turned you honest.”
“Don’t troll me on this. Xavier. Tell me. Or do you not partake yourself?”
“I do not, yet I can still access the truth now and then.”
“Ok. Let us work with that. At what point did my best friend from grade school supply my psychonaut father with meds to slip to me?”
“There’s diversification, son. My God, we raised you blind. I’m currently dodging on my surprise that that twerp is in on this. I thought he was a money dog. I would have guessed Michelle before him.”
“She’s trying to help me.”
“Dick, you have billions of money implanted in your back and she’s stopping you from cashing out.”
“It’s all speculative, it’s all news of the weird, these people are sketch and most of them want to basically sheet my back clean off for the glass anyway. So, no.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
“No.”
“Then that’s the skrip working.”
“Jesus.”
“Without video, you’ve got no one with a brain believing Elizabeth Casey blew into black glass and into you, and for damn sure no one believing those kids blew their heads off when they’re being their shitty little selves at school today, so I do have to wonder what you think is going on. Other than everything your body is witness to. You’re the proof. And you’re not excelling at it.”
“I have nearly ten hours of recordings from —”
“No. No, Dick. Kids get kits for Christmas that suck in Andromeda bounce-backs of old radio broadcasts. It’s fun. It’s creepy. It’s nothing. Don’t you run ads for that shit?”
“I did Aventura Outlet ads, I do married blouses! Fuck. For ten years. You know that.”
“Married blouses?”
“Marred!”
“Marred blouses! Excuse me!”
“Fucking spit that rheum out! What’s that cup for!”
“Now you’re with me. What’s it for? Skrip? Right? What do you think it’s for?”
“Not a clue.”
My father bent down, as if in prayer over his coffee mug, and deposited his sputum.
“Me neither,” he said.
To be continued
Art through AI