Maverick Jetpants in the City of Quality by Bill Peters

chinfat.
    â€œHe knows you, Tam, knows you real well,” Bop-Shop Carl says. “You guys used to play lacrosse, or kill cockroaches. This guy hung out with you all the time.”
    Expression flinches out of Squeezebeagler Tam’s face. “Which one are you?” he says.
    You can feel stadiums in Real Dad’s brain collapsing, his eyes getting shinier, like there’s an Oh Shit coming big enough to explode the Bible. But listen to what Real Dad says, only this once, because no way am I ever bringing this up again:
    â€œListen, guys, Tam, Sverg, Carl, it’s. What I meant was, sometimes, your voice; you just end up saying ‘I,’ and what you mean is, it was your boss, or whoever it may be, in a given situation, and, and, and, but you just start saying ‘I,’ instead of whoever’s actually—and it’s just—and I’m only being honest, here, because at this point what can you even expect to—there’s no point in, you know—you cut out the middleman! I believe: I am a person who believes: that the world should be entertaining, that regardless of, you know, you look at, I knew a guy at Griffiss; he’s doing flyovers in Iraq—and, and, the world, the dreamscape; the alchemy—it, it’s all, just—life! Storytelling!”
    Sverg and Bop-Shop Carl look at each other, almost concerned now.
    â€œI’m gonna take off,” Garrett Alfieri says.
    â€œNo, wait, no!” I go.
    â€œIt was good to see you, though,” Garrett Alfieri says. “Colonel Hellstache? ‘Never change.’ I wrote that in your yearbook, man. You kept your word. We need more of that out there in the big world. Throw-down-closing-time; that’s what it’s all about.”
    I shake his hand out of reflex.
    If that weren’t enough to morph you to your bed permanently and turn you into a Bed Centaur, here, still, is Real Dad:
    â€œDale,” Bop-Shop Carl says, standing chest to chest with Real Dad now, pupils narrowing. “How about I ask you something?”
    Real Dad pretends to laugh, still friends. “Okay, what’s that.”
    â€œHow about, we don’t know you,” Bop-Shop Carl says. “How about, a guy came to see a show last week at a place down the street. Nobody knew him, and he was, like you, following everybody the fuck around. That guy stabbed a friend of ours in the bathroom,” he slashes his leg with his index finger. “Femoral artery. All next morning: mopping up the stall.”
    Real Dad raises his palms, padding the air. “Look: on a better day, friend, I swear: You and I would be toasting to live music and friendship.”
    â€œOn a better day, we wouldn’t ,” Bop-Shop Carl says.
    â€œDale,” Sverg unwedges his wallet out of his jeans and hands Real Dad a twenty. “Get yourself a cab. Not your night, okay?”
    Once, in kindergarten, Real Dad and I were playing Frisbee in our backyard. Several people, wearing bright orange vests, wandered onto our lawn from the woods nearby. I figured out, a few years later, they were hunters. “Get the hell out of here,” I am very sure Real Dad said. I’m hoping for Part II: The Proto-Stachening of that to happen, say, right now.
    But the doorman’s already leading me and Real Dad out, and we’re already walking out into the bar crowds on Monroe Avenue. Steam from the late-night sausage cart in front of the bank is extra visible, with a line of dudes wearing those zip-up sweater turtlenecks I could never pull off wearing. The bruise-colored light from the street lamps makes all the closed novelty shops seem foggier or grainier, like when you see dark, synthesizer-y MTV videos from 1983.
    â€œThey’re just joking—they’re stressed out,” Real Dad tells me, hands in pockets, looking at the sidewalk. “They’re musicians, journalists—deadlines.”
    I shoulder around a group of