Sitting on a bean bag, watching that god-damned O.J. trial. O.J. and cheetos, Except I didn't have any cheetos. But usually I did, And then there was Mark, and he was holding a copy of Pitch weekly, and he was saying. "There it is, Kenny, there it is."

There's what? I was gonna say, but I was chewing on an imaginary cheeto. And Mark needed encouragement like a monkey needed body odor. Who cares.

"There it is. That's how I'm gonna get Russell." All semester long, Russell had been giving Mark crap about being gay. I don't know why. It's not like Russell was Mark's type. I don't think Russell was anyone's type. But that's homophobia for you- it's the ugliest damn cusses that got it. "I will read it to you." Mark said, enunciating each word individually and precisely, doing an impression of someone he thought we both knew. But I didn't know anyone who talked like that. But I laughed anyway. But it was a giggle, only, and the cheetos that flew out of my mouth were, you bet your butt, imaginary.

"Don't smoke this shit! Our incense smells like marijuana. Etc etc etc."

I nodded my head, and channel surfed. Detergent ad, coca cola. Home shopping network necklace. Discovery frogs. "That's a good one, Mark. Clip out the add, but cut off the bit about don't smoke this shit. Rus'll puke all over the place."

"What are you, some kind of ferener?" Mark asked me, and I looked at him. "Russell puke all over the place. Russell die. Where's you're God damn helping verbs?" He made a feint, and I fell for it and winced.

"No, I said Russ..'ll puke. it's a called a contraction, ya homo."

"Goddamn, I hate even his name, you know?"

One summer when we were fifteen, before Mark knew he was gay, which was funny cause everyone else knew he was, Mark took me fishing. It was the first time I went and the last time and I absolutely loved it. We didn't catch a damn thing, but I didn't care. Mom was mad cause dad was on another business trip. We listened to Jane's Addiction blasting way too damn loud and I asked Mark, "So why's my mom so pissed at my dad?"

Mark said, "Cause you're dad had fucked your mom, and had an orgasm, and you were born.

"Shut up, asshole."

"Now she has to take care of his orgasm, while he runs around and gets more."

"My dad's not running around." And he wasn't- I asked him, and he laughed, which means 'no' in dad-speak.

"So? So maybe he goes on these trips and wears a hair-shirt and prays all day long for his company, and he's so good at it that they send him to all the best churches in the world."

"You're a dork, Mark."

"I'm just telling you why you're mom's pissed.

I flipped the tape, 'cause the worst part about being outdoors is the silence'. "Well, why can't she go and get her own then?"

"Sure, I'll do it." Not funny- he didn't know he was gay yet.

I punched him in the soldier.

He laughed. "What- and take care of some other guy's orgasm?"

We drank beers hocked from his parents refrigerator. ("Miss 'em? be glad for a refill-excuse," Mark said) I got sick in the sun and Mark held me while I puked. Then we rode our bikes around all night long, looking for prostitutes so we could say we saw one. But we didn't see any.

"What're you saying, exactly, Monsieur Mark?"

"Look." Mark unslung his bag, which wasn't a pack-pack, but a bag, and took out his huge, four-hundred pound psych book. Whenever he came over to study (quieter in my single room than in his with a roommate who's into Metallica (crappy band)) in the beginning of the semester he'd open that book and the spine would crrraaack. Not anymore. He opened it, flipped to some page in the back third, and pointed. "Now. Check. This. Out!" I read- something about heroin addiction.

"So what?"

"So?" His eyes were big, staring into mine. His eyebrows were all over the place. His hair was cut like a frat-boys. He was, I think, a goofy faggot. "These psychologists took a heroin junkie, and gave him some heroin in one of their hospital rooms."

"No way!" I believed every word he said. Smartest damn guy I knew. "Doctors would not give heroin to someone.

Mark slitted is eyes. "Psychiatrists are doctors, but these are psychologists."

"Oh."

"So. Kay. So. They give him his smack- and it has no effect!" "That sucks."

"Gets better, Monsieur Kenneth. Then they take him back to his place, and they shoot him up with water."

"Cruel."

"No! He's totally wasted- thinks it's totally heroin!" Mark was in some kind of heaven. Happy as a hyena. High on a humorous horse.

I nodded my head, I wanted to be witty like Mark. I wanted to have girls chase me like they chased Mark. I wanted to let them catch me, the way he didn't. "Yea, yea. You give Russell that pot incense, he takes it to a junkie's house, the junkie gets high, and Russell gets busted for possession of heroin AND marijuana, and he's got neither. Goes to jail, gets butt-slammed, and never bugs you again, cause secretly, he liked it."

"No!" I think he wanted to call me wiener dog or something, but between the two of us, he had a bigger problem with his gayness than I did. Gay? That means we don't buy the same magazines- nothing more, But for him, it meant he couldn't act like he thought I thought he was coming o to me. And wiener dog was what he called me in junior high, cause it's what his grandpa called him.

"I'm gonna buy a bunch of this stuff, and make Russell think he's totally wasted, and then I'm gonna..."

"What? Rape him? Pee on him? Make him dance the hula in a grass skirt and tape it for America's funniest home videos?"

"I don't know what I'm gonna do."

It was two in the a.m. it was about four weeks into the semester. It was a Thursday night, which meant people were trying to sleep.

"Wake up you faggot!"

Russell, drunk as hell, pounding on Mark's door. I opened my door too, guilt by association. "Go to bed you stupid motherfucker," Russell and I said at the same time. I laughed, he didn't. He was too drunk to know I'd said something too.

"What're you doing, Russell?

Russell hitched his chest like he was gonna belch, then whadayaknow, he did. "I'm pounding on this faggot's door the way I'm gonna pound on his head, you little sissy." Russell called me sissy because he was totally in love with my girlfriend Lisa. He had been totally in love with Melanie my highschool girlfriend and even liked Jean my cousin, who I played doctor with on occasion when we were very much younger.

But sissy didn't make Lisa want me less and him more, and sissy didn't make me all scared at his big burliness, and sissy didn't make me shrug my shoulders and go back to sleep. "Cut it out before I get the R.A., Russ."

He pounded a few more times, and then he looked at me. "He do you in the butt, yet?"

Nothing smart or cool like Mark would've said came out of my mouth. "You're such a dick, Russell."

"No, he wants my dick." He turned back to pounding "Open up you goddamn queer, fight me like a man! The R.A. showed up eventually. "Demerit for making noise. Demerit for being drunk. Demerit for wearing that god-awful shirt."

But Russell never could let good-humour win him in a bad situation.

Mark bought the shit, which I say because I think incense is nasty stuff, and it was supposed to smell like pot. It was shit-shit. And bought like fifty sticks. I went with him to the candle shop to buy some legitimate incense, too. "This is an awful lot of work for just one asshole like Russell."

I think he wanted to make a joke about asshole's, since, you know, they were a trick of his trade, so to speak. I don't think he knew I wouldn't think it crude of him. Hell, I thought it up, right? And I had decided in a debate with fellow classmates in social psych that if a gay guy ever hit on me, I be flattered, and would say no like I do to the dudes handing out coupon books at the beginning of the semester. Hell, I say no to fat chicks, right? So what's the difference? "Well, all this work and he won't bug me anymore."

He got some cherry incense, and orange, and apple. "Those are all fruit flavors," I said, emphasizing the word "fruit". And he laughed. He'd get used to it someday.

We were seventeen, a long time ago, the three of us. I was shy, Russell was too ugly to get the chicks, and while Mark the God attracted them in droves, he didn't seem interested. So we three hung out, and drove around in Russell's dad's fucked-up 76 El Camino. Olive green. Guaranteed to drive them away in droves. Once, Mark and I were playing Super Sprint at the 7-11 when screech here comes Russell, and when we looked out the window, he honked his horn like he wanted to piss-off the dead.

Idiot. Quarters are like gold to teenage boys. His honking could wait. I had three wrenches. and if I could get by the drones on one more race, I'd have a fourth and be able to add super-traction tires to my car.

He kept honking and we kept driving and at last when we just couldn't beat the super-speed drones anymore, we quit. Actually, Mark was still twirling his steering wheel like he was born with one in his mouth (must of ripped his mom to shreds) but he didn't enjoy the game much once I was gone. We walked over to Russell's spaz-mobile, and he just kept leaning on the horn: Eee, ee-ee-eeee, eee, ee-ee-eeee. He was looking out at nothing, and you could almost see the drool that wanted to spill out as he grinded the mind gears. "What the hell's that, Morse code?" Mark said.

The honking stopped and Russell looked at us, numb. Finally, "Yea, it means fuck-heads get out here." He started his car, which was amazing. Those Camino's got battery's the size of a Toyotas. "Let's go."

Mark and looked at each other. I was hungry, Mark was planning on mowing the lawn before his mom had a conniption. "Where we going?" I asked.

"Just get in the car!" Russell said, pissed as hell. I mean, he was mad in a major way. I noticed his eyes were red, and so was his jaw. So we got in.

Yea, he peeled out. My god.

"What were you two doing in there, anyway? Buying tampons?"

I was in the back seat, Mark in front. He said, "Why, does your sister need some more? She use up the last batch I bought her?"

The front seat tasted terrible as my head slammed into it- me with no seat belt on, of course. Neither was Mark, so it wasn't tough for Russell to grab him by his neck. "Don't you EVER say ANYTHING about my sister again, or I swear to god I'll KILL you. You got that asshole?" I could smell the burnt rubber of Russell's tires. Behind us, cars were honking at our sudden stop.

Mark smacked Russell's hand away, which were as white as the white's of Mark eyes, which were wide. "What the fuck's your problem, Russ? Jesus Christ, you coulda killed us."

"Just don't talk about my sister. She's off-limits."

That got us giggling. We didn't have to say anything- the off-limits thing was funny enough. Even Russell managed a smile. "You guys know what I mean.

Didn't make any sense, though- we were always insulting each other's mothers. "Your mamma's so fat..." or "Your Mamma's so ugly..." or "Your mamma's so easy..." Russell had a so many panties in a bunch, he could've started a franchise.

So we drove around and Russell didn't say anything after that, and neither did Mark nor I. After a while Russell started humming under his breath, and bobbing his head to some kind of imaginary song, and pretty soon he started hitting the steering wheel rhythmically, harder and harder with his music in his head, and then he made some kind of loud sniffing sound, and I would've laughed out loud if it weren't so God damned pathetic. Finally he just pulled over onto a side street, turned the car off, and cried.

It's got nothing to do with anything at all- just a character trait. Mark was always the sensitive one. I had no idea what to do, but Mark put his hand on Russell's big fat shoulder like they were brothers. Hell, maybe they were. I don't know. I felt like an odd-shaped piece of very bad art- embarrassed and ignored. What do you do in that kind of situation? I got out of the car on Mark's side. I went for a walk, leaving Mark to rub Russell's meaty back, Mark saying, "Hey man- it's cool. It's allright, man," in that soft soothing voice he has. When I got bored I came back, and Mark was holding Russell in his arms, and they were both crying, and I'm telling you, it doesn't have anything to do with anything, Mark was just the nicest person in the world, end of bra.

"Okay, Kenny, you gotta let me use your room."

"For what, all that shit-shit? No way, it's stinks bad enough when you smoke reg'lar cigarettes in here."

"Russell will never smoke in my room. You gotta let me use yours."

Mark's plan, he said, was to fill my room with as much incense as humanly possible, to attract Russell, and get him fucked up. "You see, the other incense is so he'll think I'm using it to cover the smell of the pot."

"That never works, Mark, I should know."

"Exactly! But I need an excuse for all these other incense sticks."

I myself smoked the damnable weed maybe four times. once in high school, the other times when I got here. I think Mark maybe tried it once, which he did because someone told him it clears up zits. Not only a lie, but not necessary for Mark- he never had them. And Russell smoked it maybe... a billion times? Sorry, math never was my strong suit (thank you very much). Russ- he could sniff it out like a blood-hound sniffs out corpses.

"Okay. Allright! But if the cops bust my ass for possession, you're bailing me out and buying me a microwave."

"Thanks! Ah shit, this is gonna be great! I'm gonna nail his ass."

I knew it was a metaphor for 'make him wish he'd never messed with the great Mark Trainer', and not a euphemism for sexual intercourse, but when Mark said 'Nail his ass' he forgot for a moment he was a homosexual talking to a hetero. First time for him, too.

Mark told me about that time in the car later, when we were here at school and he'd revealed his sexual preference. We were in my room, drunk as skunks, sharing two liter bottle of warm Pepsi that was guaranteed to make us puke the next morning.

Mark almost never cried, but I could tell when he wanted to.

"It's all fucked up, Kenny."

"What is?"

"The world."

"Watchoo mean?"

"I held him in my arms, man."

"Who, Mark?"

"I made him forget 'bout his old man."

"Who, Mark?"

"I told him he could crash at my house if it ever happened again."

"Who Mark, you goddamn drunk sonofabitch?"

"Then he goes an' pulls this shit."

"Wait- what shit?"

Russell's dad was probably the only person in the world uglier than Russell himself. Apparently Russell had gotten too big for his old man to take out his rage on, so, he turned to Russell's sister. When Russell tried to intervene, he got three-hundred pound back-hand instead of the usual love-taps from a doting father. So Russell ran out.

"I even told that fat fuck he could bring his sister with him."

"What he'd do, Mark?"

"You wanna know something? He thinks his dad killed his mom."

"I thought his mom ran off when he was four or something."

"Yea, that's what he thought. I mean, that's what he said he said he thought he thought. Fuck." Mark closed his eyes and put his head in his hands. I took a pull on the two-liter- almost gone. Belch. when it's warm it does that.

"He didn't kill his mom. She ran off and got a job peddlin' her butt to businessmen in Las Vegas."

A giggled. Mark didn't. I think he was soberer than me.

"I'm gonna kick his ass Kenny, you bet."

"Why, what'd he do?"

"Gonna mess him up.

But that was months ago and I frankly wanted to forget all about that night, if only because the next day I barfed up lung and a few other vital organs. But I had to remember it when, incense in place, Mark giggled like a madman and said, "Yes yes yes! Told you I was gonna get him! yes yes yes!"

"What, exactly, are you gonna do, Mark."

But the master was in control. "Remember the plan?"

"It's stupid, Mark. Won't work. He's not that stupid."

Mark got very serious and stopped smiling. "Yes he is, Ken. He's that stupid, because he fucked with me."

I couldn't help it- I had to laugh out loud at that one. "Winner of this year's Oscar for most corny display of machismo, Mark Trainer!"

He laughed back and said, "You asshole. Good thing I like ya."

"Hands off, ya homo!" I laughed back at him.

He giggled again as he started lighting incense.

"What if he doesn't smell it?"

"He'll smell it, the God damn joneser."

"Okay- but what if he isn't here to smell it?"

"On a Tuesday night? That fat fuck? What's he got- blow-up doll at a motel somewhere?"

I shrugged "Maybe."

Mark was concentrating on getting the shit-shit lit. "He'd just pop the bitch."

I'd never heard him say bitch before.

Go figure. It worked. Mark went to his room and waited for me to call. Russell showed up about an hour later- he was the third one. I bullshitted the first two, and when folks knocked on the door after that, I let 'em knock.

When he appeared, I tried to hide my disdain, which he knew existed since he'd been giving Mark shit. I hid it in a false-high. "Wazzup, Russ?"

"Jesus, Ken, you smoking doobage in here?"

A person who was honestly fucked-up would've laughed at his choice of words. So I tried, but it was lame. Russ was too eager to notice though. "Got any left?"

My line was: "No, I just tossed the last roach. Come in and get a contact-high if you want."

"Cool!" What a geek. He sat down, I closed the door. He inhaled deep, sitting in my bed, eyes closed. "Aaah!"

"Ya wanna beer or something?" I was supposed to say next.

"Yea!" He said, with enthusiasm and incredulity. "You're gonna get your ass in a sling for this one, Ken."

"And you with me," I said as I handed him the cheapest beer in town.

He cracked it, guzzled, and inhaled some more. "What's that stink?"

"Cherry, orange, and apple incense. I was trying to cover up the smell."

"Didn't work much." He said, finishing his beer. I gave him another.

We talked for a while. "I didn't think you did this shit." "I do when I flunk tests" "Amen too that." I saw to it that he put away a six-pack while the incense smell wore away. He was glassy-eyed, and damn it if it wasn't the booze, but the shit! I mean, the shit-shit. Then I started him on the hard stuff.

"Tequila?" put some in flask for myself, then only pretended to drink it- complete with wince.

"Sure..." he said. "Must've been some kind of F."

"It's this or suicide, Russ. You wanna clean up the mess?"

"No sir. This'll do fine, thanks."

When he was completely fucked up, and ready to be sifted though a strainer, but before he actually passed out, I asked him. "So what's your beef with Mark?"

That got his eyes open. "Dunno. He's a faggot."

"So. You're a Pisces. What's the difference?"

"They'll ruin the country, damn queers." He burped wetly.

"You dumb fuck, Russ. Mark isn't a politician. He's not trying to change anybody."

"Sure he is. Wants everybody to be a faggot like him."

"No, he doesn't"

"Does too. Wants everyone to be his queer-pal. Tried to get me once, even."

"You're sick in the head, Russ. Mark doesn't hit on his friends."

Then the fat slob smiled. "Well, he ain't my friend, is he?"

I rolled my eyes and re-filled his glass.

When he was gone and drooling, I poked him. Nothing. His skin was oily and malleable. I poked him again, and almost kicked him, out of spite. Then I called Mark. It was three a.m. and I was tired enough to sleep on nails.

But Mark was awake enough for both of us. He came in and said, "Wake up, you fat-fuck."

Nothing.

"Wake up or I'll stick my dick in your mouth."

Nope. "Wake up before I whip it out and beat you with it."

Uh-uh.

Mark looked at me. "Homophobes aren't afraid of other people's dicks. It's their own they're scared of." He pushed on Russell's ass with his knee. "Did you here me? Wake up before I pull out your willie and give it a good wank."

But Russ was out out out.

"Good" Mark said, "This should be easy. Help me get him outside."

I picked up his legs, which weighed about a thousand pounds. That would mean Mark's end had to weigh a million. But he had enough muscle for it, the jock.

"What're you gonna do, Mark?"

"Gonna put him in his car."

"Then what?"

"I dunno. Park him behind Upshots." That was the gay bar in town.

"That's it? I risked ten-to-fifteen for a bad hangover and a cheap scare?"

We were huffing and puffing by the time we got to the elevator, and weird noises were coming out of Russell's throat. Mark pushed the down button.

He shrugged. "Maybe I'll squirt some soft-soap into a condom and shove it up his ass, make him think he had too much queer-fun at the bar."

"No way, Mark. He'll come for me, since I was the one that got him like this."

He looked me straight in the eye. "No he won't. He'll be too embarrassed to say anything to anybody."

We got him to his car, and into the front seat. Mark told me to run back up and get his keys, which I did. Russell had the filthiest-half room in the world- it was a wonder his roommate didn't gag from living with it every day. When I got back to the car, there was Mark behind the wheel like he owned the son of a bitch, and Russell laid out, with his head in Mark's lap. I gave him the keys. "You want me to follow you, give a ride home?"

"Naw, I'll walk. The better to bask in my own glory."

Whatever the fuck that meant. I went to bed.

BAM BAM BAM. Good god, was that my head? My room smelled like a nightmare on acid and my head felt like it fit right in. Shit, I could never handle beer much anyway, and I think it was the incense that made what little hangover I had even worse. God damn but it stunk.

BAM BAM BAM "GODDAMN IT OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR NOW." So much for Mark's theory on Russell's embarrassment. Groggily, I stumbled toward the door. Weird, my sides actually itched.

"Whaddaya want, Russ?" What I wanted was to sleep through my next first two classes.

"Ken, God damn it, let me in or I swear," and he hit the door again, hard.

I was starting to get just the littlest bit scared. After all, Russ outweighed me by a good hundred pounds if not more. I wasn't really afraid of tangling with him, but I was afraid what we would end up doing to my room. Okay, fine, I was not that keen on getting a fat lip just for a chance to smack Russ around. "Or what, Russ?" I said, "Aren't you going to do that anyway?"

"Damn it Kenny," Russ said. Kenny? He hadn't called me that since high school. "Let me in. Just let me."

What the fuck. "Allright, but you better be cool." I opened the door, and he flew in.

Not at me. He just flew in and threw himself at my bed. "Where's the faggot, Ken?"

"Holy shit, Russ!" His face was all bruised up. Mark must have really worked him over. His lip was split and swollen, his nose looked like an abused tomato, and his eyes were ringed with black.

"You tell me where he is, Ken, I'm gonna kill that fucker, kill him dead." It was almost poetic, except that it was Russ, and for him killing something until it was dead meant it for real.

"Why, what did he do?" I tried to fake it. Not that you had to be a genius to see that I knew what Mark had done. But then again, Russ is as far away from genius as you can get.

And then Russ looked at me. His face was about as rearranged as a face can get with out falling off, and still I had to ask him what Mark had done. And Russ didn't answer me with the "Isn't it fuckin' obvious?" answer that I expected, He just looked at me, and then he looked away, fast, and said, "Nuthin'"

I couldn't believe it. Nuthin'. I swear to you, Mark had never done anything remotely that aggressive, ever. At least, not like that. not so sneaky, so planned. Mark went on the spur of the moment.

The Russ started to cry. "God damn it Ken, just tell me where he is. I just want to kill him." The he got up and walked out of my room. "I just want to kill him."

Mark called me about a week later, and gave me the details. I was very revolted. Mark told me that he didn't start it, but he had to finish it. People like Russ needed to be shown that their anger and their hatred wasn't going to rule the world anymore. "What the fuck are you talking about, Mark?"

"Remember that week I went D.C. for the young Republicans convention?"

"Yea."

"Y'ever wonder why I didn't tell you about it until I got there?"

"No."

"Well, I wasn't in D.C."

"So."

"I was in the hospital, Ken."

"What?"

"He beat me up, Ken. We happened to be in the same bar one night, and he saw me kissing Leon. He got pissed off, and started yelling things, so I blew him a kiss, and he left, waited for me in the alley.

"Bullshit, Mark. You're like, what, a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and twice as healthy as he is.

"Sure, but you put up a fight when the guy busts a beer bottle over your head."

"Okay, fine, but that doesn't justify-"

"God damn it, Ken, he tried to eviscerate me."

I didn't say anything for a while. Then, "Bullshit."

Mark's voice was very distant. "Next time he better finish the job, huh?"

So Russ dropped out of school, and Mark never came back. He tried to tell me he didn't plan it that way, that he was just going to do the soft-soap in the condom behind Upshots, maybe get some of his gay friends to leave a few messages on his machine. But one thing led to another, and he said, he'd never been so angry in his whole life. It fed on itself, he said.

Great. My room still smells like shit.