by Anonymous
Kasper came through through the patio door on the ground level apartment. Duffy and his significant other Kate occupied that place for the time being. Month to month was the best they could do on the bi-weekly payments from their deadend jobs.
Duffy was alone in the two bedroom apartment when Kasper came through. About a month ago Kasper had returned from one of his infamous runaways, this time coming back from California. Duffy had doubts he would ever return.
Duffy got his friend a job as a projectionist at the theatre he managed. He managed it fullheartedly but Kasper had only ever showed up halfheartedly, and he let him sleep in the spare room rent free.
They had, in all fairness, been the best of friends since the first time they were acquainted, way back years ago in high school. Even though Kate objected until she was red in the face and out of breath she knew she stood no chance in swaying Duffy. He was after all the man of the house and Kasper was thicker then kin to him.
Duffy was well aware that Kasper had just been paid and hadn’t yet had a chance to be debaucherous since his last fiasco where he’d ended up tearing off the oil pan of his 1988 Oldsmobile Royale Brougham during a botched suicide attempt on an the lawn of an exgirlfriend.
The first words to come out of Kaspers mouth after he closed the giant doublepane sliding glass doors were “Fuck ya Duff. It’s almost Christmas. We just got paid. Let’t get lit like a Christmas tree, ya hoto,”.
Nothing more needed to be said. “I’ll get the keys.”
It was twentytwo minutes after 18:00, the beginning of what would soon be the end. December in Edmonton is a long, cold, and dark month. It’s well past sunset as Duffy and Kasper walk out to the beatup red Dodge Shadow.
Duffy had always had the same car since Kasper first met him years ago. Each car of Duffy’s that dies is replaced by one of the exact same year and colour. As far as the register office is concerned he’s only ever had the one and only red Shadow.
Duffy shuffled into the beater to start it up while Kasper used the sleeve of his jacket to brush off the snow covered car. He used his California driver’s license to scratch off the ice on all 6 windows. By the time Kasper hopped into the passenger seat the car was warm enough.
He put his hands in front of the passengerside heat vent that blasted hot stale air.
“Where to, avocado?” Duffy asked.
“Header towards 107 and 118. Maybe Hemi is fishing the streets. If so then we can kill two birds with one stone”.
Duffy took a liking to calling him that after Kasper got a tattoo of an avocado split with a banner that wrapped around inside his elbow on his right arm, Split It & Pit It, an homage to his newfound obsession with both tattoos and avocados. Since his last stint in Southern California he had even sprouted two pits into little plants. Duffy always joked that he took better care of those two plants than he did himself. It was funny cause it was true.
Hemi was their favorite street walker on 107 avenue. Young, but not illegal, but still young enough that the drugs and the streets hadn’t taken there toll on her good looks yet. Duffy was after her services but Kasper just wanted to smoke her crack. It was always the biggest count with the best stuff you could find. She also had no qualms giving Duffy those bareback BJs!