wastrels p.3

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    "There is no meaning in the world!"
    "What does that even mean, Yak?" His name was Jakob which he said with a Y, so we called him Yak.
    "I can't tell you, because there is no meaning!"
    "Good talk." I tried to ignore whatever else he wanted to say. His full name was Yak Sand, I guess. He was always in the cafe, always smoking cigarettes, shouting out of his mouth, and not ordering anything. I liked to imagine that Jane hated him more than she hated me because that made me happy. "What do you think, Jane?"
    "You both make some good points." She stood waiting for an order, holding her pencil like a dagger.
    "Ah, you're just saying that."
    "I _am_ just saying that." She had a temper yet it was her job to be nice. She vibrated from the constant effort of holding it in, a vein pulsing on her neck, a twitch in her right eye, a package full of glorious bloodshed that she wouldn't be able to hold in forever. Beautiful. I wanted to be there when she finally snapped.


    "Frankie, let's go on an adventure. I'm bored." We were still at the cafe. Or maybe we were there again.
    "How do we do that?"
    "I dunno. Let's get shit-faced."
    "We did that yesterday."
    "Well how did people used to go on adventures? Strike out into the wilderness?"
    "Off the edge of the map."
    "Get press-ganged?"
    "Get cholera."
    "Shoot animals?"
    "Shoot natives."
    "Invade a country?"
    "Discover a civilization."
    "Can we do that stuff now?"
    "Not really."
    "Whaddawe do, Frankie?"
    "We could go to a different bar than usual."
    Blackouts were my primary mode of travel, and filled with phantom hours that I could only assume I had enjoyed. "That'll do. Jane! Check, please. I'm getting the dry-shakes over here."
    "No, you've been drinking coffee all day."
    Frankie lurched to his feet. "My God, she's right, Roger. We need downers, stat! I feel horribly lucid." He held his filthy hands before his face, stared at his own palms in horror. I couldn't have agreed more. I was starting to see the shapes of people again. A woman at the counter showing her spine. A man whose eyes slid beneath folds of skin. His rat-monkey children were shrieking and scratching themselves. The younger one still had a second set of teeth hiding in his face.
    "Let's get out of here."