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congregate and smoke in his parking lot without hassle, so they wouldn’t be encouraged to go spend it anywhere else. Happy Snack had suggested that, too.
    Whatever they wanted, Daljit Singh would sell—even the vile, godless pornography that Happy Snack made him display behind the counter. Daljit could only imagine the hell that awaited these teenage boys—like Todd Noland, standing here before him—for the blasphemies within those pages they no doubt pleasured themselves with.
    “Hey, Jimmy,” Todd began, weary yet again to be going through this awkward ritual, just to have something new to masturbate to. He was, of course, well-traveled in all the dank corners of the internet, and had an endless array of perversions available to him at the click of a mouse, but he considered himself to be something of an old school chicken-choker. Besides, he had once ejaculated all over his keyboard, and nearly died of embarrassment trying to explain the accident to his parents so they’d replace it in time to get an extra credit project done in World History.
    There was just no substitute for the slick, forbidden pages of an old-fashioned porno rag.
    He always felt that a cool, familiar tone made this transaction go down the easiest; just a coupla men of the world here, Todd’s brown-skinned friend probably just as interested as he was in this month’s fifteen-page, full-color lesbo lickathon.
    Hence: “Hey, Jimmy.”
    Daljit Singh simmered. To hell with the Happy Snack, no one should address him by that accursed name. And yet, because he was about to indulge in one of his favorite forms of amusement, he grunted back almost tolerantly.
    “Okay, so I got a Coke here, two packs of gum, a Snickers,” Todd began, seamlessly steering toward the promised land, “and I’ll take one of those Hustlers back there.”
    Daljit turned and grabbed a phallic pickle-on-a-stick. He kept the display right next to the porno rack for just this purpose.
    He forced it upon Todd and started ringing up the sale in one fluid motion.
    “No, not the pickle. Next to it.”
    Daljit blinked dimly. Todd sighed. Holy fuck , could he not find just one girl who would sleep with him and deliver him from this horror?
    “The magazine. There!”
    Daljit growled, turned again, and came back with the current Playgirl . This was his favorite part; he’d flip through the pages, find a steely, circumcised penis waving out at him, and then utter some dark native curse at the homosexual standing before him.
    “Blah blah faggot blah blah blah,” the Sikh gibberish usually went.
    Todd nearly whimpered as an old woman entered the store and headed toward the back. Now it was a race against time.
    “No, Hustler. There!! ”
    Daljit glared at Todd, once again turning to the porno rack. He finally grabbed the Hustler and tossed it—cover up—onto the counter as he rang up the sale.
    Todd quickly flipped it over, turning again toward the old lady. She was on her way.
    Daljit saw her, too. If he timed this just right, he could make an extra $3.50 off this horny boy.
    “Thirteen eighty-five.”
    Even knowing the gross mark-up of convenience store fare and pud-pulling accessories, Todd recognized that this was too high. He looked at the receipt.
    “You charged me for the pickle.”
    Whatever English Daljit knew—and the truth was, he knew a lot— seemed suddenly to have left him.
    “Eh?”
    Todd squirmed. The old lady was almost upon them.
    “There! You charged me for—Christ!”
    He threw a ten and four ones on the counter, grabbed his goods, and skulked from the store.
    Daljit was happy inside, the happiest he’d been all day.
    “Do you sell thread?” the old lady asked.
    Daljit trained lasers of hate upon her.
    “Bread. Aisle two. No squeeze.”

Birdland
    “F ive.
    “Four.
    “Three.
    “Two.
    “One.”
    “Hey! What-up? Casey Lattimer, rockin’ on through the night, being on the rammer for the third—”
    “Cut. From the top.”
    “ Whatever. . .