Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned Read Online Free PDF Page B

know Fox and Clyde a bit better, I realized that I needn't have been concerned. They needed no artificial stimulation of any kind. They always had a little buzz going.
    I paid the much-harassed bartender with the designated bill, received the change, and took the drinks back to the table.
    "My name is Walter," I said as I placed the drinks in front of them. "I'll be your server this evening."
    "Out of the mouths of babes," said Clyde.
    "Great job, Walter," said Fox. "Phase one is now complete."
    "What's phase two?" I asked.
    Fox took a healthy sip from his glass. "Phase two is we drink the scotch," he said.
    Clyde's face had softened and now she looked at me warmly. Her eyes were still impossible to read, but at least she seemed to be acknowledging what I believed to be a growing friendship between us.
    "Phase two is my favorite part," she said, sipping the scotch. "Except for phase three, of course. It just keeps getting better."
    "That's the whole point of living," said Fox.
    "I liked the way you handled yourself, Sunshine," she said. "You could be really good someday."
    "At what?" I asked, still fairly mystified about the whole scenario.
    "Ah," said Fox. "That's the question."
    If that was the question, apparently there was not going to be any immediate answer. Fox and Clyde each bummed a cigarette and the three of us smoked and drank in silence for a time. All around us moved a rolling ocean of gray, oblivious, practically interchangeable mortal units that I did not know and that I did not really want to know. Whatever native sensitivity I had told me in no uncertain terms that I was with two of the most colorful, exciting, soulful people in the world that night and that this was only the beginning of my journey. I do not think I was wrong in my assessment of the situation. If I made a mistake, it was to err on the side of being human. And, as Fox often pointed out, to err on the side of being human is never a mistake.
    "This is so nice," said Clyde. "I haven't felt this close to anybody in such a peaceful way since I was a little girl under the comforter in my mother's bed during a terrible thunderstorm with my older brother John and my dog Toulouse. It felt so safe and warm and right. Through all the storms and travels and adventures when I was a kid—and I'm still a kid—I was always thinking back to that moment and I knew I was at home base."
    "Home plate," said Fox, not unkindly.
    "I was a girl," said Clyde. "To me it was home base."
    "Where was your mother during the storm?" I asked.
    "My mother was a hooker, Walter," said Clyde. "But she provided for John, Toulouse, and me. John died on a hill in Vietnam. Toulouse died in a kitchen in Miami after he licked the floor following a visit by the exterminator. I don't know where my mother died. Probably in a thousand cheap motel rooms. That's why everybody needs a home base."
    Clyde killed her cigarette and stared empty eyed into some middle distance. I looked down at my scotch and didn't say a thing. Fox, quite out of tune with the rather somber moment, began to dance wildly around the little table.
    "But you're here now!" he shouted amidst the din. "And Waller's here now! And I'm here now! I want to be part of it! New York, New York! I want to live! I want to paint!"
    "Hush," said Clyde, grabbing his arm and yanking him back to his place at the table. "You'll blow phase three."
    "Sorry," said Fox meekly.
    "Fox gets carried away sometimes," Clyde explained. "Sometimes they carry him away."
    I nodded my head and took it all in as if it made sense. And in a sense, I suppose, it did. We live in a crazy world, and if you want to get through it with your body and soul even a little bit intact, you might as well be crazy yourself. It couldn't hurt. And it just might help.
    "Okay," said Fox, his eyes suddenly shining like two lighthouses. "It's time for the ol' switcheroo. Are you ready, Ms. Potts?"
    "I've been ready all my life," she said.
    I sensed a rekindled spirit in