Another Broken Wizard by Colin Dodds

town until my dad gets past his surgery.”
“Okaay,” Marissa said.
She said it like she might humor a recovering alcoholic who said he just wanted one little drink.
“I have some interviews lined up back in New York,” I lied. “I think I’ll stay around there a while longer. What’s up with you?”
“Just working, spending time with little Angelica, and partying.”
“How is Angelica?”
    “She’s good. Her dad has her most nights, until I put some money away and get my own place. That should be soon. I’m going to get better shifts at the place I work. I’m banging the night manager.”
“Well, there you go. You can’t keep a good woman down.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” she said, lighting a cigarette.
“What happened here?” I asked, nodding toward the hole in the wall, the blood and the general disarray.
    “What? The bloody hole in the wall? This is Worcester. Most apartments have that,” Marissa said, a devilish smile spreading, like a child who’d put something on your chair.
    “It’s a nice touch, really. But what happened?”
    “The apartment is just the beginning of the mess Joe made. I had to spend most of today cleaning the place up just so it would look like this. That’s what happened,” she said, rage suddenly animating her features.
    “That’s bullshit, Cravesi!” Joe yelled at Marissa, leaning out of the bathroom in a towel, his wet hair hanging down by his shoulders.
    “Fuck you, Rousseau! I was cleaning all fucking day.”
    “You did maybe half the cleaning, and it only took a few hours. And I bought lunch.”
    “One grinder for two hours of work? Yeah, you’re the fucking dictionary definition of generosity.”
    “So what the fuck happened?” I interrupted.
    Joe walked out of the bathroom, wearing jeans. An unfinished tattoo of a samurai warrior covered his chubby midriff. The tattoo artist had illustrated every fold of the samurai’s robe, but hadn’t gotten around to filling in the colors, so the picture looked more like a map of the Balkans than anything. Joe paused next to the couch and picked up a pack of cigarettes.
    “Marissa, can I have a cigarette?”
    “Fine. But admit that I did most of the cleaning for your dumb bullshit.”
    “Okay. Even though you didn’t do most of the cleaning and I paid for lunch, I admit it,” Joe said, lighting the cigarette with a level of focus that seemed like overkill. Then he shoved his pile of shirts and books onto the floor and sat down next to me.
    “Enough already. What the hell happened?” I asked.
    “Fucking last night got out of hand in a big way,” Joe finally said, laughing.
    “ Out of hand doesn’t really express it. I might have to move back in with my parents,” Marissa added.
“You know Sully?” he asked.
“From up on Burncoat?”
“No this is a different guy, from Main South, by The Pickle Barrel. Well, me and some of my friends almost killed him last night.”
“What the fuck, Joe?” I said, looking at the hole in the wall.
    “I know, right?” he said, laughing his convulsive machine-gun laugh. It took a minute for Joe to gather himself back to a storytelling condition.
    “So I had some people over. There was Smitty, Burger and Rich Papadopolis and a bunch of guys. And we’re just hanging out and drinking. We do the coke that’s left over from the night before, then someone gets the totally original idea to score some more coke. So Smitty starts calling around, and I remember this guy Sully, who I used to buy from. But Sully is a real prick. I think he stole some CDs at a party I had here in the summer, and he just generally acted disrespectfully when he was here. Nobody likes him. But he always has coke, because he hangs out with these thugs from around Main South.”
    “Okay, let’s just stop there: Main South, plus the fact that he sells cocaine, should tell you that he has friends who can fuck you up,” Marissa said to me, angry at Joe and amused by the danger all at