Philly''s P-Hine{t} /> Hardcore Phant-[o]m$ Part One Chapter V

V

August 31^st, 2014

            4:53 p.m.

It took Herb an impressive (surprisingly enough) >9 minute drive to get to Al’s, pick him up and take him back. Al’s five older brothers indeed got quite the kick out of his explanation for leaving. “A f*****g Branding™!?” they teased. “How old are you!? /> Can we come???” Al’s brothers always liked to talk down to the poor guy. Being the youngest of all of six kids (I thought this was America not some place where they have lots of babies (like China (ugh!))?), he was used to getting the s**t end of the comradery shtick, but after thinking about it and putting up with it he realized: getting Branded™ was no simple ‘spicy Mexican matter’. “You guys are retarded,” Al told them back with political correctness (because that’s what counts). “To do it right, you really have to know what you’re doing and if you don’t let it heal correctly, you could end up in some real life or death, revelational s**t.”

“You mean revolutional?“

“No you idiot, revelations are what change lives…” (?)

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Al and Herb walked up House’s driveway from the road-

“F**k you-“

“Dude, they’re just busting your balls, f**k them,” Herb reassured.

“Yea, but they’re right. I’m f*****g 22 years old and I still live with my mom.”

“I’m 20 and I still live with my mom.”

“Yea, but you’re a b***h.”

“F**k you.”

“All I’m saying is that I have to get out. No question about it now.”

“Well it’s kinda hard man. I mean unless you go to college and sell out all of your original ideas to conform to whatever ‘America’s economy’ needs you to do.”

“That’s not what college is and you know it. Unlike me, you’re actually going and have only two years left-“

“Yea and it sucks.”

“But in the end, it’ll work out big time in our favor. Where tha f**k you think im’a be able to shoot up and bang hookers at without your place to crash at?”

“Yea I guess, I dunno, whatever,” Herb trailed off like he so often tended to do in talks like these (all the time anyway), before continuing, “I just think it’s kind of unfair that I can go to college for something that I don’t really like to do and then graduate and make lots of money doing something I don’t want to do- mind you- if I’m willing to give up any original thought to blindly follow my boss and company when, meanwhile, there are so many people out there who can find solace in simple, janitorial work or some s**t, but get paid s**t for it because our upper class and political/governing systems/institutions like to think that, despite the fact that we need janitors, cooks, fast-food workers and landscapers, they don’t deserve to be paid a living wage- or: to live might be a more appropriate way to put it.”

“So what now? You gonna go and become a janitor? Start solving math problems where you work and finally get widely noticed for the mathematical genius you really are?” #GoodWillHunting #BenAffleckAndMattDamon #GoodMovie #RobinWilliams #GoodPeeps

“No, but only because technology isn’t advanced enough to understand my math yet-“

“DDDUUUDDDEEEEEE!!!!”

Herb and Al were now descending the stairs from the aforementioned driveway. Randall, somehow ‘sober as a cat’, came running up to them XD.

“Animals as Leaders dude. OH. EM. F*****g GEE /> God!!!” Randall gave Al a very sloppy hug. “O. M. effFFF*****G GOD DUDE!!! That f*****g BAND!!! No Big L, but still-“

“Ahaha, I’m glad you like em’,” Al let out. Herb was confused (because of the Big L reference), but after he thought about it a little bit, not so-much-so (Hip-Hop fans and metalheads usually tended to get quite along)-)

Randall splurted, “dude, I LOVE EM’!”

Hershel was still on the couch watching the Brand™ in the fire and House was presumably inside at the moment. Randall’s shirt was thrown in the pool (therefore, making Randall shirtless) and he was sweating profusely. Like, really, he looked f*****g terrible />

After a minute, House came out of the glass door closest to where Herb and Al (who was still attached to a hugging-but-now-silent (and-creepier) Randall) were.

“W-ts ’sup guys!?” he said walking out with the bong in his hands and a big smile on his face as he held out his hand to shake: Herb’s first.

“Not much man, what’s up with him?” Herb responded.

“Man he’s wasted!” Hershel called out from the couch by the fire as he moved the Brand™ into a better position. The door House came out of was the first one of two, the other residing at the other end of the bar, the one closer to where the entrance to the outside downstairs area was, about 10 feet from the where the couch, TV above the bar and Hershel currently were, the other door being right all up in that s**t. “F*****g alcoholic here man! Ahahahahaha!!!!” Hershel ball-busted.

At this, Randall finally let go of Al and flew his arms up, screaming, “I am!!!” and then to House, “House, is that a bong?”

“Yea dude, you wanna hit it?-”

“F**K YEA I DO!!!”

Randall, Herb and Al followed House over to the couches and chairs circling around the fire pit where he placed down the bong in front of Hershel who quickly lit the thing to take a hit while Randall was nudging him in the ribs (according to Randall (in reality, it was more like Hershel’s head)) in an attempt to get him to give him a hit first.

“What?” Hershel asked as he inhaled.

“I want a hit-“

“Well, hold up-”

“So where’s Barry at?” Herb asked as he sat down in the chair farthest from the stairs. “You said he was coming, right?”

“Yea, he’s in the bathroom-“

Hershel: “Been there a f****n’ while- Randall!!!?”

Randall started coughing just after he hit the thing and (maybe because of how fucked up he already was?) almost dropped the bong and destroyed it like a real piece o’ s**t, so Hershel laughed as he gently grabbed the bong from Randall’s quivering hands. “You f****n’ idiot,” Hershel told him. “If you can’t hit it, just leave it on the table and I’ll light it for you-“

“I can hit it, you f*****g a*****e!”

“You just almost dropped the thing!”

“So!?”

“This is glass dude! If you drop it, it breaks!”

“Yea whatever. Quit being such a cop-“

The glass basement door opened and House’s two awesome Labradors came darting out of it along with- Barry coming back from his ‘short’ pee-pee.

“Oh s**t, is that Barry!?” Al asked as, just at that moment, House’s dogs came pillaging in and forcing Al’s complete attention to be diverted in their favor.

“That was a long piss man!” House told Barry.

“Yea, I really had to go. What’s up dude?” and Barry went to shake hands with Herb, who was now pretty fucked up from the bong hit that he just took, but not so bad that he couldn’t comprehend anything that was going on (like he would after he hit it again :/).

“Oh hey man, not much-“

“Yea? You get a hit offa that bong? Ahahaha!!” He turned to Al and once again /> offered his pristine hand :o.

“Sup dawg?”

Al fist-bumped him, still completely focused on the dogs, both now bellies-up on the ground, and said, “House, your dogs are the most awesome dogs on the planet! A-coo-chi-coo!!”

Barry sat down on the couch in between Randall on his left and Hershel on his right and as Al took the bong off the table and began lighting it, Randall started to talk about how awesome the new season of Archer was. House definitely agreed with him. Barry just kind of sat there and rolled his eyes like, ‘man, what is up with this dude?’ (referring to Randall /> or House or anyone there actually). Barry didn’t really like any of these guys, but he hung out with them because they had good weed- very good weed. Being a metalhead (‘knowledgeable’), Barry knew how retarded™ everyone else always was, but whenever he’d smoke weed, he’d feel a little better about it, more accepting of it because weed (and this didn’t happen for everyone (just as alcohol or pills surely didn’t do this for him)) would stop him from thinking too much. His guard would go down and he’d stop being such an angry, judgmental piece of s**t, flaunting his leather jacket and boots around like on some fucked-up black-metal runway #VargVikernes2016(<Joke). Weed made him calm, stopped his judgments from overtaking, but as much as it was the substance, Barry Swindle didn’t think that he liked things that fucked him up beyond all #ReasonableDoubt or conclusion like in a Jay-Z video #MindlessHotBitchesCanBeDrugsToo. He just liked to have fun, roll through life like on a wave J, chill out, whatevss. Would have been nice if others could have gotten the same outcome though :p or, perhaps, more so, if they wouldn’t bad-mouth something so much without ever trying it themselves or understanding the good in it that other people, separate from themselves, may have been able to get from it- in a way in which they (as the prosecutor) may never understand (get over it, no one will understand everything). Weed itself could only ever do so much as anything could- no matter how much you smoke or drink or whatever, it’s still the dude fucked up doing the acting (or not-acting #ThinkALittleDeeper #Don’tJudgeWhatYouDon’tKnow(AndYouDon’tKnow,InReality,AnyoneElse’sLife)).

Barry had hair down a little past his shoulders that took him over five years to grow and a gay-a*s ‘politically incorrect’ goatee that he always gave himself props for. Maybe if people didn’t give him so much s**t, he wouldn’t have turned out to be a murderer? Maybe if people didn’t him give so much s**t, he would have killed more people? Maybe if people didn’t like giving out s**t so much, we wouldn’t have to question what s**t does to other living things (what do you think it does? It’s s**t (smelly©), not positive reinforcement with a thought-out personally attained/gotten disciplinary scorecard or some s**t-)??

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Barry’d hit the bong. House would hit the bong. Al would hit the bong. Randall would flail his arms about for no reason after taking another shot /> Randall would fall over :’(. Hershel would laugh and move the Brand™ when needed, Herb would stare into space, Al would talk and talk and talk and talk and everyone just remained and hung-out like all was wonderful in the world because the universe and stuff and like…