After Party – Short Story

-“I tell ya, everyone was off the fucking charts!”

-“Oh, shut the fuck up. It was another night at Brick’s, that’s all...”

-“My ass! It’s one for the books!”

-“You say that because somebody brought a firecracker to the premises and blew it right there!”

-“Oh, fuck off!”

It was 3 in the morning when Craig and Lucas walked back home. It wasn’t fancy like anybody else’s (after all, it’s the fucking ghetto), but they lived happily in it, even if it meant dealing with crazy bastards some days.

-“Why the fuck did you wear that suit?”- Asked Lucas in annoyance.

-“Bitch, I gotta look good when you go to the party.”

Lucas smirked and chuckled at the response. –“Man, you’ll never get any bitch with them clothes.”

-“The fuck you mean I won’t? I just got five girls looking at me when I entered the club!”

-“Oh really?”- Lucas stopped and placed his hands on his hips like a disappointed parent. –“Did any of them dance with you?”

-“Fuckin’ A, my dude!”- Said Craig. –“Two of them asked for my number too!”

-“Bullshit! They didn’t.”

-“Yes in-the-fuck they did!”- Said Craig with the biggest smile one could have.

Lucas laughed. –“You got the receipt?”

-“Oh baby! You’ll love them, check this out!”

Craig pulled out his phone and immediately went for the gallery. Lucas looked in anticipation and the build-up didn’t disappoint.

-“Damn! Look at that one in the blue dress!”- Exclaimed Lucas as he saw the first picture. –“She got a bakery in them legs!”

-“Double-fuckin’ A, my boy!”- Craig nodded. –“Now, that one in red? That one’s a beauty.”

-“My man…”- whispered Lucas. –“You got her name?”

-“What?”

-“I asked if you got her name, ya daft cu—”

-“Hell yeah, I do. It’s Molly.”

Lucas cocked an eyebrow and squinted his eyes in confusion. –“The fuck?”- He whispered.

-“What?”

-“There’s no way in hell her name is Molly.”

-“Well, it is. Get over it.”

-“I mean… it’s not a shitty name. I heard worse, trust me on that,”- said Lucas. –“But Molly? That wouldn’t be the first choice name for my daughter.”

-“Only one problem, though,”- said Craig.

-“What?”

-“You don’t have a daughter.”

-“Of course not. I’m not cut for parenthood, yet.”

-“Focus on that when you get married, bruv. We’ve got bigger things to worry about than the future.”

-“No argument there…”- whispered Lucas. –“Can I ask you something?”

-“What?”

-“Back there, in the club… was that G.G.? The one on the chair that blew up?”- Lucas asked.

-“Yeah,”- said Craig. –“What of it?”

-“I mean, what happened? Did somebody prank him or what?”

-“Wait, you didn’t see it?”

-“See what?”

-“When G.G. roasted poor Bill,”- Craig smirked.

-“Huh? Billy was there?”

-“Yup,”- said Craig. –“Matter of fact—he didn’t expect G.G. to be there until he and his girlfriend arrived.”

-“Nah… no way in hell he got another girl on his lap.”

-“No, wait, you need to hear this story,”- said Craig as both men stopped. –“So you know that Mr. Frank kicked Billy out for being a jackass, right?”

-“Yeah.”

-“Well, he goes to work in Detroit right in Zug Island, and like always, he makes friends with everyone, including his manager,”- he explained. –“And then he gets another girlfriend, who just happened to be the daughter of his manager—”

-“What the—what?!”

-“—Conveniently!”- Craig laughed. –“And… well, how can I say this? You never met the girl, right?”- He asked.

-“Nah, I didn’t.”

-“Well… I mean… O, Lord, you- I- she’s well developed, to be kind with her.”

-“Is she tall?”

-“Nah, dude. Billy weighs how much? A hundred-forty-seven? Forty-eight, maybe? She weighed around… four hundred pounds or something.”

-“Ey, what the fuck!?”- Lucas cackled in surprise. Craig laughed too at the memory of seeing the girl. –“What, so did he develop a new fetish or something?”

-“I don’t know! She looked like Nia Jax or some shit and I couldn’t believe my eyes!”- Craig chuckled between breaths. –“So, one day, she goes, ‘let’s go to Chicago, I heard the clubs are nice!’

-“But he didn’t want to go, did he?”

-“No, he didn’t!”- Craig chuckled. –“But he relented. So, they go to his aunt’s house, and it’s chaos in there. She sees the couple coming… and she backs away! I actually came by her lawn to check on Louie, and she’s all like, ‘Get this dumbass out of the city!’ She said. ‘They’ll burn him alive!’

Both men laughed. –“But, wait, wait… it gets better, hold on…”- said Craig as he tried to regain his breath and senses. –“So, he goes to his cousins, the Tyler brothers, and Jaime says, ‘Hey dude! You need anything?’ And poor Billy is all worried, as if he pissed the bed. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘She wants to go to the club, but frankly, I don’t want to get roashted in front of her.’

Lucas let out a small wheeze as he heard Craig mimic Billy’s tone of voice. It sounded like a fat pig with tendencies of a nerd… just like Billy’s. It was well-known within the community that Billy’s voice was something you wouldn’t expect. The guy was big, not tall, but big. But that voice was the deal-breaker. Nobody could take him seriously as long as he spoke. It’s one of the many reasons he punches people first!

-“‘So where do we go?’ Jaime asked. ‘I thought about it,’ said Billy. ‘We all know that we can’t go to Shpybar, too many fuckersh over there. That bastard G.G. goesh to Xavier’sh and ten yearsh later he’ll never shtop with hish bullshit. Rooshter’sh ain’t good enough either… let’sh go to Brick’sh! Nobody’ll find ush there!’ So they all go to Brick’s—Billy, his girl, and the Tyler brother’s… the whole gang was there. Everybody. Nobody was missing.”

Craig took a deep breath for a moment. The glee in his eyes was crystal clear, and Lucas saw it. -“Don’t tell me,”- he wheezed; the realization fell like an anvil to his head.

-“The first one to greet them was G.G.!”- Craig squeaked out.

They laughed like maniacs; Lucas was coughing as he kneeled, and Craig bent over while his face grew red and tears came out.

-“G.G. was all like, ‘Good God… what have you brought?’ He asked. ‘Couldn’t you bring anything better than this?’ But he was talking to her!”

-“And Billy thought it was aimed at him!”- Lucas finished it and laughed once again. –“Jesus Christ!”- He panted. –“He boiled him alive!”

-“He fucking finished him!”- Nodded Craig in agreement between chuckles. –“I was there when it happened—fucking hell, the Tyler’s couldn’t even speak to G.G., that fucker went, ‘And you fuckers, what are you doing? Dis-enchant her, dammit!’

-“Oh, man…”- said Lucas. –“I don’t think I could deal with that amount of embarrassment.”

-“I came to him and tried to calm him down, ‘Hey dude! You look down. Here’s a cig.’ I said. ‘Thanksh, that bashtard G.G. got me again.’ Then he removes the filter and the tobacco, and keeps only the paper. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked. ‘Payback time, motherfucker.’ Imagine the look on my face when he pulls out a fucking firecracker!”

-“No!”- Said Lucas in shock. –“That was him!?”

Craig nodded. –“He got rid of the fuse and replaced it with the paper, turning the damned thing into a time bomb. He sneaked behind G.G. and placed it right in the chair he sat in. In fact, you came right when Billy came back after planting the bomb.”

-“Oh, fuck yeah,”- said Lucas. –“I think I heard you say something about a poor bastard when I sat in the table.”

-“Yeah, I did,”- Craig nodded. –“So I was looking at G.G., he stands up and I’m like, ‘Oh well, too much for payback then.’ Then he sat back on that chair And look, as God is my witness, when that firecracker blew up. I mean- Jesus! It lifted him off his chair!

They laughed again.

-“I heard him scream like a girl, dude! And the chair! The fucking chair! It was turned to dust!”- Craig laughed. –“G.G. gets up and sees the Tyler brothers and goes, ‘You fuckers did this!’ And they go, ‘What are you on about? We didn’t do fucking shit!’

-“You know… you know what?”- Said Lucas as he panted. –“I take it back—it is a night to remember!”

-“Heh! I knew you would like it!”

Lucas chuckled in response. And how could he not? The night took an unexpected turn thanks to Craig's tale. Sure, he wasn’t there in person during the build-up and climax of it. But hearing it was enough for him to imagine what happened that night at Brick’s.

-“Jesus,”- said Craig. –“One thing’s for sure—the weather sure is a whore.”

-“Man, you don’t need to tell me that.”

-“Well, it’s not that I have to. But somebody has to start a conversation with shit like this.”

Lucas nodded. He remembered days that were colder than this, but he had to give reason to Craig: the weather indeed was a whore of high caliber. It didn’t make it any easier since he didn’t have access to hot water, forcing him to buy one of those immersion rods to heat water. Now, he could buy one of those electric showerheads, but he was afraid of those since electric was in the fucking name.

-“Well, this is it,”- said Craig as they arrived at West Monroe Street. –“I catch you later, aight?”

-“Aight, see you soon,”- Lucas replied as he fist-bumped Craig. –“You know what we’ll do tomorrow at one, right?”

-“Yeah, I got a memo on that,”- said Craig. –“Night bruv.”

-“Catch ya, bruv.”

With that, Lucas went home with a content sigh. It was just another night in Chicago, after all…

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Pub: 22 Jan 2025 04:41 UTC

Edit: 22 Jan 2025 04:42 UTC

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