eyes. His hearing was still pure fuzz. “It grosses me right out. You can’t walk down the sidewalk in a straight line. You ball your socks up weird.”
Each tick of their kitchen clock pounded in the fall air. The only other sound for several minutes was the persistent glass tinkle of a hobo rummaging for bottles in the dumpster outside.
That evening they crawled into bed together and slept facing opposite walls. Meanwhile, their toothbrushes sat wet and foamy in the bathroom cabinet’s stainless steel cup, kissing like vintage film stars.
5
WHAT COLOUR IS A SUNSET?
“Alex! Check this bitch out! It’s like Pink Floyd records, right? Only they’re painted on the backs of these naked chicks.”
“Yeah.”
“All in a line, like ten of them. Just hanging out.
Naked.”
“This is me ignoring you.”
“You can totally see their butts.”
“I saw it, believe me. You don’t have to take it down—”
Tyson went up on tiptoe, all five foot five of him strained toward the top row of display copies, each backed with a thin cardboard sheet and shrink-wrapped to preserve its shape. He shook the one he wanted free from the tiered contraption, brought it down, and held it out at chest height. “Look where their butts smoosh into the edge of the pool. That’s the hottest shit in the world, right there. Imagine the guy whose job that is.”
“Do you even like Pink Floyd?”
“Imagine what it’d be like to paint butts and tits all day.” Tyson flipped the poster (item code: FLOYDPOOL-NUDE) back to face him and held it up appraisingly. He cooed. The poster dwarfed his upper body the same way broadsheet newspapers did old men. “Naked bitches needing planets drawn on them, 24/7, 9–5.”
Alex looked back over each shoulder, streams of people swirling past the two of them as they made their way haltingly through the aisles. For two weeks every semester, a visiting poster company turned this corner of the AQ into a winding, synthetic corn maze. It was one of the highest areas of foot traffic on campus; accordingly, over the years it had become a ritual that everyone pay a visit to inspect the wares. “Name me one member of Pink Floyd. Name me one
song.”
“Painting butts, man.” Tyson’s face peeked out over the top of the poster. “Do you think he’s a visual arts guy? Or just some lucky fuckface with a paint roller?”
The company had clearly done its research. Everything they sold was aimed like a homing missile at the modern dorm-room professional. Their periodic table of beers was a consistent big-ticket item; variant posters for suburban boy movies like
Fight Club
and
Reservoir Dogs
sold out early every single year. A young Bob Dylan tuning his bass nestled next to the bartender’s guide to cocktails, complete with pictures (item code: BOOZEGUIDE-2). Anything featuring Paris in black and white was a good bet for women and film students. They had WWII -era watercolour propaganda.
Guernica
. Hunter S. Thompson. There was an entire subsection for Dalí at the back, near the windows.
“Tyson, man, focus,” Alex said. “I’m coming to you as a friend here.”
“Fuck the triangle right off her back, I’m telling you,” Tyson mumbled, his eyes glassy. “I got something to put out that handshake guy on fire. Know what I mean? Aw, shit.”
“Just answer me this.”
“Wrong. The correct answer was My Dick.”
“What was the last great thing you read in
The Peak?”
Tyson’s glance lingered on the poster as he considered the question. “Define
great
. Do you mean world-changing? As in, somethingworth recommending to another human, which you know I’d never do? I’ll tell you this: I just read some really great bathroom graffiti. World-class stuff. Not one hour ago. On the hand dryer, where there’s that picture of three wavy red lines to simulate hot air? Someone wrote ‘bacon dispenser.’ Genius. Or, even, what about that video of the guy falling out of the AQ hedge? That thing has,
Each tick of their kitchen clock pounded in the fall air. The only other sound for several minutes was the persistent glass tinkle of a hobo rummaging for bottles in the dumpster outside.
That evening they crawled into bed together and slept facing opposite walls. Meanwhile, their toothbrushes sat wet and foamy in the bathroom cabinet’s stainless steel cup, kissing like vintage film stars.
5
WHAT COLOUR IS A SUNSET?
“Alex! Check this bitch out! It’s like Pink Floyd records, right? Only they’re painted on the backs of these naked chicks.”
“Yeah.”
“All in a line, like ten of them. Just hanging out.
Naked.”
“This is me ignoring you.”
“You can totally see their butts.”
“I saw it, believe me. You don’t have to take it down—”
Tyson went up on tiptoe, all five foot five of him strained toward the top row of display copies, each backed with a thin cardboard sheet and shrink-wrapped to preserve its shape. He shook the one he wanted free from the tiered contraption, brought it down, and held it out at chest height. “Look where their butts smoosh into the edge of the pool. That’s the hottest shit in the world, right there. Imagine the guy whose job that is.”
“Do you even like Pink Floyd?”
“Imagine what it’d be like to paint butts and tits all day.” Tyson flipped the poster (item code: FLOYDPOOL-NUDE) back to face him and held it up appraisingly. He cooed. The poster dwarfed his upper body the same way broadsheet newspapers did old men. “Naked bitches needing planets drawn on them, 24/7, 9–5.”
Alex looked back over each shoulder, streams of people swirling past the two of them as they made their way haltingly through the aisles. For two weeks every semester, a visiting poster company turned this corner of the AQ into a winding, synthetic corn maze. It was one of the highest areas of foot traffic on campus; accordingly, over the years it had become a ritual that everyone pay a visit to inspect the wares. “Name me one member of Pink Floyd. Name me one
song.”
“Painting butts, man.” Tyson’s face peeked out over the top of the poster. “Do you think he’s a visual arts guy? Or just some lucky fuckface with a paint roller?”
The company had clearly done its research. Everything they sold was aimed like a homing missile at the modern dorm-room professional. Their periodic table of beers was a consistent big-ticket item; variant posters for suburban boy movies like
Fight Club
and
Reservoir Dogs
sold out early every single year. A young Bob Dylan tuning his bass nestled next to the bartender’s guide to cocktails, complete with pictures (item code: BOOZEGUIDE-2). Anything featuring Paris in black and white was a good bet for women and film students. They had WWII -era watercolour propaganda.
Guernica
. Hunter S. Thompson. There was an entire subsection for Dalí at the back, near the windows.
“Tyson, man, focus,” Alex said. “I’m coming to you as a friend here.”
“Fuck the triangle right off her back, I’m telling you,” Tyson mumbled, his eyes glassy. “I got something to put out that handshake guy on fire. Know what I mean? Aw, shit.”
“Just answer me this.”
“Wrong. The correct answer was My Dick.”
“What was the last great thing you read in
The Peak?”
Tyson’s glance lingered on the poster as he considered the question. “Define
great
. Do you mean world-changing? As in, somethingworth recommending to another human, which you know I’d never do? I’ll tell you this: I just read some really great bathroom graffiti. World-class stuff. Not one hour ago. On the hand dryer, where there’s that picture of three wavy red lines to simulate hot air? Someone wrote ‘bacon dispenser.’ Genius. Or, even, what about that video of the guy falling out of the AQ hedge? That thing has,
Similar Books
