(tbh)

benadryl submarine 2: bold, futile, flavor!

So this time Joey, Brayden, and Sam Smith were downstairs, sitting on an auburn couch without plastic wrap on it, with about an eighth of an ounce of weed between them. It was Joey’s couch, which was abnormal. Joey’s younger sister, Katherine, was there too, but she was on her phone, not very interested in the conversation.

The weed was almost entirely Sam Smith’s fault. he found 3 gs dead in a ziploc baggie under a toilet at Budget Burger, put it to his chest and said “Ooh-hoo-hoo”. Brayden, who had suggested the “smoke sesh”, brought less than a half gram of shake he stole from his older brother wrapped in that nasty ripped-out piece of a WallyWorld-bag solution. He was the one who had gotten the group “on the weed”, so to speak, having smoked for the previous year or so, stealing from his brother. He never got away with a sufficient amount, and so the three had become used to pretending to be high, ritualized placebo group delusional simulacrum performed every Friday and Saturday, off infinitesimal, tenth-of-a-gram style quantities.

This sesh marked all three’s first time smoking from a source that was psychoactive. Usually they smoked at Brayden’s house, windows down, 1AM or so. Joey liked to maintain distance, and as such had never let the two know where he lived. Despite this, he really wanted to try smoking outside, and his mom was never home anyway, so he offered to host.

Following an hour-plus conversational lull, in which three of the four were entrenched in a compilation of hogs getting blown up with bootleg fireworks on the Roku, Brayden spoke. “Well gents, it appears we have stumbled upon something good. We no longer must subsist on crumbs, like rats. Today, it seems, has become the tomorrow we always thought to be hypothetical. We must invest in our futures, even still.”

“Oh, yeah?”, asked Sam Smith. “Since when did you get a job?”

Brayden, a maverick, yanked his chain wallet out of his flimsy tan jeans, and unfolded a striking likeness of one Ulysses S. Grant. “I must maintain utmost secrecy on the issue, boys, but suffice it to say I received a veritable bounty from my distant relatives this ‘Brayden Day,’ at some point in the last six months.”

Joey sighed silently. Sam Smith asked “Why do you have that cute little nickname for your birthday when you won’t tell us when it is? It’s not like I’m gonna get anything for you. What’s the big deal?”

Brayden, who, as you might have already guessed, was standing up on the coffee table, bent down real close to Sam Smith’s face, fogging up his glasses, and yelled, “What did I Tell YOU, Sam Smith, about iNFORmAtioN??”

Sam Smith sulked there on the couch, and recited what was basically Brayden’s catchphrase at that point. “Information is currency, the only pure currency, and any indiscretion, regardless how well-intentioned, will be perfectly punished by the cruel hand of the market.”

“That’s precisely right, Sam Smith, here, you get a Brayden Coin.” Brayden got a melty piece of gelt out his back pocket and gave it to Sam Smith. He then turned to Joey, said, “Aww, I gotta give you some love too,” and gave him a head-pat and the other melty piece of gelt that had stuck to the one he gave to Sam Smith.

“Now”, muttered Brayden, “Where was I?”

“We must invest in our futures,” said Joey, the first of three times he would be speaking that night.

“Precisely”, said Brayden. “The mind voyage we are about to go on must be as intense as we can afford. Does anyone have any other dollars they haven’t made me aware of?” Sam Smith and Joey briskly shook their heads no. “Well then”, Brayden said, cadence high, shoulders low. “It appears we must find the finest fifty-dollar bong in all of West Nixon County.” He looked on empty, waiting for the scene to change.

Joey was the mobile one. Brayden had access to his brother’s car, but never had gas money. Joey’s mom gave him one of those debit cards that seems infinite when you’re that age, but monitored him closely, supposedly. He was only to buy gas and food for him and Katherine, which he probably could have weaseled around with a bit, considering she was almost never home, to tell you the truth, but Joey was an honest kid. He took painstaking care thus far to ensure that Brayden didn’t find out about the card. Luckily, he had already developed a reputation for sparse exposition. Unfortunately, as they entered his 2004 Kia Amanti, he turned the key to a “blinky-blink”. His gas light. Ohhhh, shit.

Joey had gotten gas in front of Brayden before. always with cash, with the last of whatever cash he had at the time. when asked about it, he’d shrug, say, “did a lot of dishes this week”, then make that Joey-face of sheer, zenlike resignation. Brayden was vigilant, in that sense. Sam Smith got a job as a lifeguard the summer before, and Brayden got verbally basically all the information on his W2, and traced it with IRS-level intensity. he staged an intervention because Sam Smith bought a forty dollar Rilo Kiley vinyl, deeming it, as he was prone to deem, “hysteria.” If Brayden got his god damned bloodhound nose on Joey’s mom’s credit card, it is needless to say, there would be hell to pay.

Joey pulled up to pump 18. He weighed his options. If he paid outside, Brayden would 100% figure out Joey’s PIN, get the card sometime in the next year when his guard was down, and put as much as possible into his fledgling cryptocurrency, also called Brayden Coin, currently valued at 53 femtocents. That would be bad. If he paid inside, he could potentially keep substantial distance from Brayden. Tactically, he said his second, penultimate sentence of the night.

“I’ll leave the AC on for y’all.”

He went in and gave the attendant the card, holding up 10 fingers and pointing to his car, the only one on the left side of the gas station. The attendant nodded, waved, and said “Hello,” as Katherine walked in. She took a couple seconds to find a Viscous Baggie, a popular Japanese treat among the youths which tasted predominantly umami and faintly salty. She raised her eyebrows at Joey, who shrugged his shoulders and added it to his bill.

As the siblings approached the vehicle, Brayden got out and confronted them. “Where’d you get that Viscous Baggie, Katherine? How much gas? Why are you guys gaslighting me?”

Joey silently sighed, and started pumping, pointing to the number, to answer Brayden’s second question. Katherine stopped doing the standard tonguing of her Viscous Baggie to say, “Joey got it for me, freak.” Brayden made a face like he was genuinely hurt, but on the inside, he was elated at the revelation.

It should be important to stress that none present were “stoners” except in philosophy and perhaps rhetoric. Their first idea, for bong buying, was to hit up WallyWorld. Brayden had a three-step plan. First, immediately, he took Sam Smith to the seasonal section, presently September yellow-orange-brown bullshit. He sort of said “haha” and carried on for about ten seconds, then zoomed out, leaving Sam Smith marooned. He got back to Katherine and Joey, and asked Katherine to come with him, getting her to speed-walk away from her brother, leaving everyone stranded but them two. They were beelining to the meat section. Brayden had very little practical, real world knowledge. In his mind, the “most expensive” item in a store correlated one-to-one with the “heaviest meat.” The heaviest meat that Brayden had ever seen bought, like, on TV or something, was a whole rotisserie chicken. The first one they saw was raw, and Brayden picked it up with exuberance, asking Katherine, “Don’t you want it?”

Katherine smirked, letting out a little laughter out her nose like steam. She said, “Absolutely.” The two walked back, with Katherine holding the chicken. “Can you get this for me, my big beautiful brother? I’m houngry.” Joey knew that he’d been beat, and limply put up an “ok” hand sign. The four then proceeded to the vase section, finding nothing recognizable, and called over an aged, uniform-clad, roving worker, who chastised them, calling them fools. She was an old woman, from a faint, idyllic, pre-stoner era, and she saw better for the world than what she observed. She escorted them out, allowing them to buy the chicken under close supervision, leaving them with a “Scram mallrats! Go back to Freddy Fred’s!”

Freddy Fred’s was a novelty shop chain that operated out of most malls in the United States, and functioned as a social nexus point for all sorts of minor-league miscreants. You had your graphic tees, with Zach and Jortie: The Science Brothers, beer funnels, hilarious metallic posters mocking “bitches” and “sluts,” and, near the back, bongs. They were kept under a glass display case. They had plenty made of plastic and silicon, but oddly, only a couple of glass. One was $150, one was $50. Brayden asked for the fifty dollar one, saying “uh, yeah, we’re gonna have some fun tonight.” The ~32 year old woman working the register snickered, and didn’t say anything.

Brayden was again in shotgun on the way back, despite Katherine technically calling it. He rolled the windows, all of them, down because he liked to take it breezy. They stopped first up at a traffic light bisecting two stroads. Brayden started yelling at the homeless guy right outside, bearing a small, barely readable 8.5x11 sign that just said “veteran.” Brayden yelled, “Veteran of what, buddy, Iraq? I’m supposed to give you money, kiss your ass, call you Mister for killing some kids and losing? How’s about you give me a quarter, for standing on my god damn street corner? Hey, also, another thing too, why do you smell like a stale bra?”

The homeless guy was kind of aghast, but he resolutely said “I fought for your right to say that, buddy, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” Brayden didn’t hear him. He was busy telling Sam Smith that joke about the Brazilian dude in the sauna. Sam Smith hated the joke. He didn’t even laugh at it the first time.

The four made it home around 6:30 PM. Joey just kind of ignored the whole business with the chicken. Brayden, who had literally never cooked before, threw the whole damn thing in the oven, didn’t take the plastic wrap off, didn’t put it on a sheet tray, nothing like that. He set the oven to 550 for some reason, broil, maybe he thought he was boiling it? He certainly didn’t season the chicken, and had no side items planned. He sauntered back into the living room and announced that “We’re eating good tonight!”

The bong did not really make that much sense. There was a little compartment to put water, like, six fluid ounces max. Mostly, it was a long rod with a small hole running down it. They were unsure of where to put the weed, which was the present quandary when Brayden reentered. Brayden, unfortunately, had an idea. There was a little divot at the base, near the water chamber. He grabbed a ziploc bag from the kitchen, and poked a little hole in the bottom with a knife. He loved to do this. He held it in place, over the hole, to be sort of like a bowl. the others gathered around. Brayden said “Sam Smith, gimme the ganj!”

Sam Smith said “Hey! Shouldn’t I get greens?”

Failing to recognizably imitate his favorite YouTuber, Brayden said “No!” He placed about 0.6 grams into the plastic bowl. He carried a lighter with a picture of a zonked-eyes happy-mouth style cartoon, which lit the leaf and plastic into a sticky fuming goop. It pulled a little bit, but not very well, and didn’t seem to be getting water action at all. Brayden tried putting his mouth all the way around it, and fiddled with various positions for about three minutes. At this point, the device, which he now realized was a RealTime Dildo with Lifelike Jizz Action, began cumming water into his mouth. “Aw ,,,,, FUCK”, he exclaimed.

Sam Smith hit the deck like it was Basic Training. Joey and Katherine silently smirked. Brayden exited the room, then reentered. “WE,” he exclaimed, as he sat down, incredulous, “have been SCREWED”. Sam Smith was trying desperately not to point and laugh, but Joey broke, doing as such, for his last line of the night: “GAH-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Brayden was seething within, like a powderkeg. Unfortunately, his potential energy was instead summoned by the kinetic energy that suddenly bursted from the kitchen. The fat and melted plastic from the chicken sank to the bottom of the oven, all up around the electric heating element. He noticed it, not when it started smoking, but when it caught fire, easily eating through the rest of dinner. Brayden, acting on rash, stupid instinct, ran in heroically, jacking off the glass cock with vicious alacrity, and making it jizz water all over the open grease flame, ejaculating prematurely. He deftly switched the oven off with a lunge, his first helpful action of the day, perhaps year. The jizz water steamed instantly once it reached the chicken, shooting liquid pain all over Brayden, causing him to run out screaming, as the others had at that point already done. Brayden laid down in the nearest water source, a dirty puddle next to the sewer drain. Joey and the others gathered around him.

“Aren’t you gonna say ‘I’m sorry’, Brayden? Or… anything?”, asked Sam Smith, with arms crossed out in front.

“It’s OK, right! Joey can pay for it! He paid for that chicken! Just bill your mother!”

Joey was miffed. he kicked Brayden in just the right spot on his temple, causing him to start crying uncontrollably, while laughing and maintaining eerie cheer.

“It’s ok! It’s alright! We just got into some weed! I’m feeling great.”

They left Brayden in that ditch, threw some flour into the oven and cleaned it out, then went the back way to Sam Smith’s place and smoked the rest of the weed through a coke can, getting high as shit and watching YouTube playlists of people getting cysts removed. Katherine was getting in on it too, it was honestly a nice bonding experience for her and her brother.

“Fuck off, man, I’m just trying to listen to Green Day, fucking vibe,” said Brayden through bubbles of stagnant water, to no one.