Page 44 of Badd Love
"Dude, what?" I rolled my head side to side, trying to see if he was telling the truth. "I did?"
"Yup."
I looked at him, and his shoulders were shaking. “You're a dick," I said.
"Just fuckin' with you, Space Cadet Badd."
“Yeah, and whose idea was it to take your dad's boat and get stoned? I have no tolerance, Jax, you know this."
“Yeah, that's why it's fun."
"Can you get us back? I don't think I can move."
“Yeah, I'm straight."
"I'd still love you if you weren't."
He elbowed me. "Shut up. I mean I'm not too stoned to drive the boat back."
"If you're not stoned out of your gourd right now, man, then you smokewayyyyytoo much pot," I told him.
"I've always had a high tolerance. First time I smoked pot with Jimmy Hansen, Colin Cray, and Kajuk Wilson, I didn't get high at all. They rolled another joint and I smoked the whole thing myself before I felt anything." He shrugged. "Just how I am."
"HowisKajuk, anyway?" I asked. "Haven't seen him in a while."
"Me either," Jax answered. "Not for a year or so. Last I heard, he was living in the interior somewhere near Fairbanks. He had all that trouble with Jess or whatever-her-name-was, remember? After that, he was just like, fuck this, and went native."
I snorted. "Dude. He's Inupiak. Heisa native."
"Oh, right. Maybe I am a little high. But you know what I mean."
"Uncle Ink would cuff you upside the head for that ignorant ass bullshit."
"Fuck off. It's Kajuk. He'd laugh at me. And you know what I mean—the old ways or whatever."
"He was always talking about doing that, wasn't he? Getting away from everything."
"Jess really did him dirty," Jax said. "I know he wasn't innocent in that whole thing, but she did him dirty. I think it was more about starting over than anything else."
"I never liked Jess." I closed my eyes and let the world float around me.
"What happened in LA, Dane?" Jax's voice was quiet.
"And now we come to the real reason we're out here. Get me stoned and make me talk."
“Well, yeah. You're a tough nut to crack, Dane. You don't like talking about the real shit. You joke and act a fool to hide how you really feel about things."
"And you're so open?"
"About what? My life is about as interesting as a cardboard box. I code, I work for fucking Best Buy, I get stoned with friends, go for hikes, go fishing…there's no drama to talk about."
"You're telling me there's no part of you still pining after Sunni?"
He lurched upright in a swift, violent sit-up. "Oh fuck you all the way off, asshole."
I cackled. "Wow, some big-time metaphor mixing happening, there. I think it's either fuck you or fuck all the way off. It's never fuck you all the way off."
“Thanks for the cursing lesson, oh wise one."
