Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian

being a shift worker at Cub Foods was about what she’d expect from someone like me.
    “Bath time comes early today?” Baker asked.
    “There’s a reason they tell you to wash your vegetables before you eat them. And that reason is me and Layne Beauchant and Terry Gribbener.”
    Both Conley and Baker laughed, but Jim said, “Terry Gribbener? You work with that fucking loadie?”
    “How do you know him?” Baker asked Jim.
    “He used to go out with my sister,” Jim said.
    “What happened there?” Conley asked, passing Jim the joint.
    “What do you think happened?” Jim asked, after he exhaled a bunch of smoke. “ She went to college; he’s working at Cub Foods.”
    My chest got all tight. I couldn’t help but be offended. Not that I hoped to make a career at Cub Foods myself, but the fact that Jim could be that obvious of a prick flared through me. But then Baker chucked me a towel and told me to dry off my hands so I could smoke with them. I watched her light the joint, her boobs all awesome under the triangles of her bikini, and hoped this was the same pot from the night I’d first smoked with her.
    The kind that made me sleepy and lazy and would erase this for-no-reason panic feeling I was getting every time I looked at the sky.
    I took a big hit off the joint and handed it to Conley, who passed it to Jim, who put it out and tucked it in the Hello Kitty pencil case that was sitting on a little inflatable thing, which they must have used to transport the towel and everything else.
    “Taber’s parents are out of town ’cause his grandma died,”
    Jim said. “I told him we should get a keg.”
    “I don’t think Taber’s up for a party right now,” Conley said.
    “Taber’s kind of a little bitch about stuff sometimes,” Jim said, his hand running down Baker’s bare back.
    “God, Jim!” Baker said. “His grandmother just died! He might not want a house full of drunk people right now.”
    “It was just his grandmother ,” Jim said. “She was, like, ninety-nine years old. He’s acting all sensitive, like it was his mother or something.”
    Baker glanced at me, all nervous. For a second, I regretted our dead parents talk. Most people didn’t know shit about me, and moments like these were the exact reason they didn’t.
    “If you can’t be sensitive about death, what can you be sensitive about?” Conley said, like some philosopher wearing sunglasses.
    Jim stared at Conley, then Baker, looking completely hacked off.
    “I don’t know what it is with you girls lately,” Jim said, sounding like a little bitch himself. “Conley’s either talking about her ugly swimsuit or you’re all mopey about school being over. There’s fuckall I can say without you two jumping down my throat.”
    “You think my bikini’s ugly?” Conley shouted, sitting up.
    “No, god,” Jim shouted back. “I couldn’t give a shit!”
    “Jim, come on …” Baker started.
    “Evan, you heard him!” Conley shouted. “I mean, who says that to someone?”
    I looked away from everyone, away from the wall of approaching clouds and the shouting. This right here was reason #674 that most of the time I Didn’t Say Anything.
    “How’d you get that scar, dude?” Jim asked.
    “Bike accident,” Baker said for me.
    “Bullshit,” Jim said. “That looks like you got in a fucking knife fight, dude.”
    Christ, I hated the way Jim said “dude.”
    I shrugged, and said, “Yeah, so what if it was?”
    “You told me it was a bike accident,” Baker said.
    I shrugged. “I didn’t want you guys making a big deal about my cancer.”
    “You have cancer ?” Conley asked.
    “The tumor was the size of a grapefruit,” I said. Christ.
    Whatever weed this was, it was working.
    “He’s just making shit up, Conley,” Baker said, catching on.
    “My dad’s an oncologist,” Conley said. “Seriously, what kind of cancer was it?”
    “I didn’t have cancer,” I said.
    Baker kicked water at me. “Evan, god, just tell us