fiction--"SHIT'S BLURRY, MAAAAAN."

I looked over at Seth. "What?" I said.

"You heard me, braw. Shit's fucking blurry, man. Where'd she get the cabbage?"

"Oh," I said, flicking a cigarette butt into the remnants of the Thai food. "Jezelle got it from Hand." Hand was a son-of-a-pop from the East side of Detroit. He was fond of walking the streets at night, in his leather checkerboard jacket with a Gat shoved into the front of his pants. I was always amazed that he'd never blown his johnson off. The guy was careless, is all I am saying. Oh, one more thing: more times than not, he "spiced up" his "cabbage" with pistol-shots of Weed-B-Gone. Ironic, sure, but he always had return customers.

Jezelle: hmm. Yeah. Jezelle. Jezelle was a substitute teacher for the Eastpointe school system. During the day, she lectured little fucking punks about George Washington and nuclear power and some fucking Greek's hypothesis (okay, theorum) and, at night, she baked herself good, shimmied her tight little ass into black dresses and hit the streets of Detroit for some top-notch fun. And...she also supplied us with the cabbage.

She'd found Hand--I don't know how--but Hand was more prompt, more eager and more prolific than the dealer she'd had before. (It had been some jock with whom she had scraggled in high spool--he never thought Big.) I don't know. The shit the jock had supplied was some good easy grin-wide shit. Hand's poison was like a trip.

Thus, the blurriness.

Seth was talking to me.

"...and the pig, man, the fucking pig."

Seth had always--for as long as I had known him--hated the police. He called them "pigs"--sure--but he'd also had an almost-preternatural gift to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was his gift; it was his curse. Arrested four times before he hit twenty-five. Sucks to be Seth.

"What about the pig, Seth?" I said. My eyelids were feeling heavy. They felt as though Wile E. Coyote had sandbagged a couple of three-ton Acme weights on them. "Wha abou the pizz, Se'h?"

"You're not even listening, you asshole," he said.

I gestured at the TV screen. "Play sah Maddah, mang." My ass rested comfortably in the leather armchair and my smoke was ergonomically-sitcheeated. "Doan brodder me no mo'e with yoah tales, doo."

"Fuck you, Ethan," he said. "How long we been friends?"

My eyes slid shut and I shrugged in slow-motion. "I dunno. Fi'teen thousand years?"

I heard the clatter of beer cans as he gained his feet. "Yeah," he said, "that's right. Fucker. It's been too long for me, too." He paused and I could feel his gaze tearing through my brow. "You know, cock? I feel really shitty about this fucking blur that I'm getting. I could be overdosing--"

"On weed?" I mumbled.

"Prick. Yeah, on weed. Yes, on fucking weed! What the fuck! We both know that Hand splices his cabbage with bullshit!"

"If ya know," I said, "why--why?--keep on smokin it? Y'slow learner, man?" Seth had been a worrywort since second grade. I couldn't keep holding his hand. "Just fuckin...ride it out, man."

"You're a dick, Eet," he said, as he walked out the front door for the last time.

"Yeah," I said to the slam of the door. "So I been tole, doo."

***

Later that morning, when I got the call from Jezelle, I was half--no, three-quarters--asleep.

"Ethan," she said, her voice slippery with incredulousness.

"Jezzie," I said.

"Have you heard about Seth?"

"Seff? Who?"

"Seth. Your best friend since second-fucking-grade?"

"Yah," I said. "Seth. That fucking pussy. What's he up to, now?"

There was silence from the other end of the line.

"Jezz?"

"Ethan," she said. "Seth's dead."

My eyes shot open. "Fuck you," I said.

"Fuck you, too. Seth is dead."

"April Fool's?" I grinned.

"Seth?" said she.

"Yes?" said I.

"Died."

"Um."

"He had some kind of...I don't know...neurologically-induced meltdown of his organs. I really don't know--the fucking doctors aren't letting me in. But, yeah--fucking shit--the Sethster passed away, Ethan."

I sat up in bed and dragged a palm over my head. I rubbed my neck; a knot was forming. "Come on, you kidder. This is an April Fool's joke, right?"

From the other end of the line came, "No. It is August 27th, Eet."

My stomach flipped. "What the fuck happened?!" I asked. "Did he just maybe feel sick and puke and shit and pull a Jimi and suffocate on his own vomit? What? Did he step into the path of a fucking Mack truck? What happened? Bull-fucking-shit. This is really a fucked-up joke, Jezzie. You should be ashamed of yourself."

"No." She paused. "No joke. You saw him last, Eet. Did he seem sick, or something?"

Blood pounding in my ears and a red flush traversing my cheekbones, I said, "Fuck you, you dimwitted bitch," and I hung up the phone. And pulled the cord from the jack.

And then I cried and shuddered and shuddered and cried for the next three days.

***

On the fourth day, I was combing the streets for Hand. I was jonesing for some cabbage. And? Truth be told, some Smack.

Smack me, Mama, I be bad.