Maverick Jetpants in the City of Quality by Bill Peters Page B

in at work today, little currency flow, liquidity, whatnot. I got a home, I got a cash.”
    â€œNecro’s got a home, he’s got a cash,” Lip Cheese says.
    Because Necro? The same kid who gets fired like it’s his job? “What does that even mean, you Maverick Shitpants?”
    â€œI’m going to get paid to take and sell my drawings online!” Necro says.
    Food climbs back up my throat. Suddenly, there’s a part of my brain that says: You can always go home and have a nice Sadness Custard Montage and sell your tears at GNC. But our waiter shows up, calls us “guys” like he knows us, and instead I say: “Can I get fries and coffee?”
    Necro tells me the name of the website: NecronicA. “Like Metallica,” he says. “Except NecronicA.” Which he laughs at harder than any joke I’ve ever told him.
    â€œNecro’s got a home! Necro’s got a cash!” Lip Cheese says, scraping his napkin across his mouth.
    â€œLip Cheese: He’s got a home, he’s got a cash, he’s got Holy Grail Points,” Necro says.
    â€œI’m doing data entry—at Paychex!” Lip Cheese, of all people, says, this same kid who once told Sandra Buckley, after he went with her to see Ransom : “You know something? You made a great movie even better.”
    â€œNate’s got no home, Nate’s got no cash,” Necro says.
    â€œNate, you’re pathetic,” Lip Cheese says. And he and Necro start cracking up! Necro, with the throat-cackle he was using around the Weapons of Mankinders, with their fat-guy shorts and their thick-lens serial-killer glasses!
    â€œWhatever, Washcloth King,” I go to Lip Cheese. “Whatever, Got Beat Up by a Girl.”
    But when Necro doesn’t laugh at that, and Lip Cheese’s ears even don’t turn red from embarrassment, I feel myself getting light-headed. Because right now, Toby is leading with 1,560 Holy Grail Points, and Necro has 1,511. And I have 1,363, and Lip Cheese has 317. And I don’t know how many Holy Grail Points they think Having a Home and a Cash is worth, but it starts to make me think that maybe I’ll never have even 1,400 Holy Grail Points, and that maybe Lip Cheese might now finally be catching up with me Holy-Grail-Point-wise. And maybe ten years from now, I’ll never have a Plan, and nobody will ever ask me what’s wrong or if I need help.
    Then, Necro leans over the table and tells me something I wasn’t expecting.
    â€œThis NecronicA I got, this is a business opportunity venture,” he says. “There’s money behind this; capital—you know—expenditure or whatever. You were asking: When are we going to take and make that money? Here’s where. NecronicA’s receiving money from this nonprofit that I guess Bambert runs to take and revitalize the city and is going to get a metric fuck-ton of donations for. That guy, Brandon-who-you-met, told me to apply a few months ago with some work samples—it’s all anonymous application-wise—and this panel of judges decided to give me a grant, to draw, like Man-Serum-Bagelheart era!”
    â€œWhat, you needed his permission?” I say.
    Necro sputters into his palm. “No, man! Like a grant of money. It’s part of this whole thing, where I can just workon NecronicA—like an artist-in-residence studio deal. He’s giving me a $17,000 stipend—what I make a year at work; he’s giving me my very own Necro HQ, and the payment installments start once I move in.”
    â€œNecro’s got a home, he’s got a cash!” Lip Cheese says.
    â€œAfter the explosion, Bambert decided he couldn’t take and just sell only weapons anymore—he needed to do something positive and community-based. So, he sat in his basement, in total self-induced psychological quarantine, and had this huge revelation: The northwest quadrant of downtown Rochester is