remember the lighter?”
“No, man, you had it last,” Keith said.
He could tell Kevin was about ready to have another crying jag.
“Hold on,” Keith said. “That guy’s still here. I’ll just go ask him for a light.”
Kevin fished in his pocket until he came up with twenty dollars and slid that over to Keith. “Give him that.”
When Keith came back, the man followed him and sat down between Keith and Kevin. He kept borrowing the lighter that Kevin had bought from him to light his fancy new cigarettes. Kevin thought the used cigarettes tasted weird and Keith wouldn’t smoke them at all. The man kept taking beers, too. They all introduced themselves and talked about what they did. The man’s name was John Wad. He was kind of famous. He had a YouTube channel with over a thousand subscribers. He did product reviews. He pulled out his phone and sat it on the table. They all gathered around and watched some of his product reviews. Now Kevin wanted to buy more things. Keith probably wanted to but couldn’t because he was poor. Kevin wondered how John Wad could afford those things since he looked kind of poor too and he said people sent them to him for free.
Wild Times finally opened and no one besides the waiter came out to the party patio. Over the course of the evening, between the three of them, they ordered nine pitchers of beer.
John Wad asked if maybe they wanted to go someplace else and continue hanging out. He said he had drugs. Kevin thought this sounded fun but he also needed to buy things so he said no. Keith drove them to Meijer. He was all over the road and kept yelling at Kevin. They went to Meijer and bought a coffeemaker and some cheap watches. All things they’d watched reviews for on John Wad’s YouTube channel.
When they got back to the penthouse, Kevin told Keith he would have to find somewhere else to stay tonight. He went into the penthouse and vomited all over.
The next afternoon when Kevin got up, he went into the kitchen to find Keith molesting Joan. He must have forgotten to lock the door. The apartment smelled really bad and there were puddles of puke everywhere.
Keith had his fist buried in Joan’s rectum.
“Oh my God, Keith, I trusted you!”
Kevin grabbed the unopened coffeemaker and began opening it.
Keith was sticking his arm farther up Joan’s rectum. He didn’t say anything. He looked frenzied. Kevin wondered if he was still drunk or if maybe he’d gone back to John Wad’s and done drugs with him.
Kevin plugged the coffeemaker into a wall and turned it on.
“I should be able to leave you alone with my wife without worrying about you mauling her!”
Keith yanked out his hand and brandished it at Kevin. “Ha!” he barked. “I thought I could trust you! But here it is – my dick! You guys have had it the entire time!”
“That’s probably just some poop.”
“This is definitely my dick.” He brought it over to Kevin. It smelled really bad.
He disappeared into the bathroom.
Kevin stared at the coffeemaker for a couple of minutes and then went out to the balcony to stand and stare. The balcony was a lot like the party patio except it was smaller and higher off the ground. He looked around for some cigarette butts but couldn’t find any.
Keith came out. Kevin said, “We need to go to Applebee’s. The coffeemaker doesn’t work.”
They went to Applebee’s.
The manager refused to seat them at Applebee’s so they went to the cafeteria in the building where Kevin worked and ate a late lunch. They didn’t serve beer and Kevin said, “Well, now we’re definitely going to have to go to Wild Times.”
A man named Kenneth Sands came over and asked where Kevin had been all day.
“Home,” Kevin said.
“You’ve been home all week.”
“I’m on sabbatical. Plus we had a bit of a crisis this morning.”
Kenneth Sands asked about Keith and Kevin said Keith would be taking his place for a while.
When Kenneth Sands left Keith said, “What do you mean taking your place for a while?”
Kevin rolled his eyes and started talking. “I’ve been thinking about some things. You’ve been living with me, rent free, for ... a really long time. It’s time you started pulling your weight. My father owns this company. I have a sizeable trust fund. That’s what allows me to stay home and play video games all day before going to Applebee’s and then Wild Times. But you’re poor and you need the money. So you come in and work for me and I’ll give you a little bit of what I make.”
This sounded a lot like slavery to Keith and he expressed his concerns but, when Kevin had a crying jag, he let it rest.
Kevin recovered and said, “Speaking of which, with the three of us living there, the apartment’s gotten really messy. I’ve been thinking about calling a cleaning service and just wanted to let you know I’ll expect you to pay a third.”
“But I don’t have any money and I think Joan’s been dead for a while.”
“But you will have money as soon as I start paying you. I’ll just take it out of that. Along with rent and gas money and beer and cigarettes and lavish meals at Applebee’s.”
Keith said yes because he was afraid Kevin would start crying.
After their late lunch they sat in the car and watched some more of John Wad’s product reviews before going to an outdoor mall and buying things.
Kevin fell in love with the outdoor mall.
There was a different Applebee’s across the street. They went there and had dinner. Kevin took a stack of a hundred ‘Customer Suggestion’ slips and wrote “Party patio” on all of them.
They went to buy cigarettes and go to Wild Times. Kevin expressed to Keith how much he liked the outdoor mall area. It was called the Green Woods Mall. Kevin liked how everything was new and closer together. He liked how many people there were.
“I could really see us going back there,” he said.
John Wad wasn’t at Wild Times when they got there but he showed up later with a couple of younger, trashy girls who he said were going to buy drugs from him. Later they all went back to the penthouse where some concern was expressed regarding Joan. Some high end products were destroyed and a couple of product reviews were shot on John’s phone. A small fire was started and the fire department had to come for a few minutes.
Keith woke up and went into the kitchen. Kevin was buckling his brown braided leather belt.
“Joan’s become very distant,” he said.
“Pretty sure she’s dead,” Keith said.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Want to go to Applebee’s?”
“I don’t know ...”
“Come on. I’ve called a cleaning service. They’ll be here in a few minutes. I don’t like to be around people when they’re working.”
“I guess. I still can’t buy anything.”
“Well, that’s all going to change.”
“Even when I start going to work it sounds like most of my money is going to go to you.”
“I was talking about the videos we shot with John Wad. That’ll generate ad revenues. Soon neither one of us will need to work. People will send us stuff for free and then we’ll film reviews. A lot of people will watch the reviews and then YouTube or Google or whoever will pay us to advertise.”
“Sounds too goo to be true.”
“That’s just capitalism. You get rewarded for doing stuff people are interested in.”
“I guess.” Keith shrugged.
“We’ll call it Review Boys. We’ll get tons of subscribers.”
They went to Applebee’s. The manager who had thrown them out wasn’t there so they each ate a lavish meal and drank a lot of beer. Kevin wrote down a bunch of things he wanted to buy and review on napkins. Then they went to the Green Woods Mall and then Meijer to buy things.
First they had to buy a camera to record their reviews.
They returned to the penthouse. Keith carried many things. He had to
go back to the car and make a second trip. Kevin turned on the lights. The cleaning service had done a pretty good job. Joan was still on the floor.
When Keith returned, Kevin was on the phone. He had thought they would have taken care of Joan. No one answered and he began leaving a message.
Keith tried to tell him to hang up the phone but Kevin went on and on. Keith had to punch him in the stomach to get him to stop.
He flopped around on the floor, acting really dramatic.
“The cleaning service is not going to get rid of Joan,” Keith said.
Kevin finally managed to stand up.
“Well, she’s acting like a big piece of trash,” Kevin said.
“I’m pretty sure she’s dead,” Keith said. It felt like he’d said that a lot.
“Maybe I need to ask her to leave.”
“You’re probably lucky they didn’t call the police.”
“We’ve got some videos to shoot.”
Kevin made Keith film the videos. Sometimes he requested that he come into view so he could insult him. This went on until Keith could barely hold his eyes open. Kevin told Keith he was taking a cab to Wild Times.
“You need to stay here and upload all those videos,” Kevin said.
Kevin left.
Keith was pretty sure Wild Times was closed.
Kevin came back in a disheveled state to find Keith asleep in front of the laptop.
“What are you doing?” Kevin bellowed. He seemed mad but also unfocused.
Keith was groggy and tired. “Must have fallen asleep,” he said.
“I hope you got all of those videos edited and uploaded.”
“I think I did. I was so tired.”
Kevin checked his luxurious watch. “Also, you should have been at work like an hour ago.”
Keith stood