The Snake Eaters Daughter

Chapter 5 ~ What A Wonderful Wackass World We Live In?

What do I do when my love is away?
Does it worry you to be alone?
How do I feel at the end of the day?
Are you sad because you're on your own?
I tell ya I don't get sad no more.

With a Little Help From My Friends ~ Joe Cocker

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So after a couple of good laughs at Lotte's fashion expense, me and Rina finally take off. Heading over to Astro's house two communities over to beam her crazy ass up for school. So if Woodlands is the rainbow town of the San Fallcon county? Then the Sutter Creek Ranch neighborhood is the last holdout of a bye-gone era.

This place practically reeks of rust, racist old Republicans and their ancient old-ass opinions. Like the last kids that grew up here and played on these streets died back in Da Nang. I swear to Satan, every time we roll into this cemetery to snatch up Astro, I half-expect gritty Joe Crocker to start crooning about bad brown acid. Then that weird Wonder Years voiceover dude starts up, telling everyone how awesome life was before I was born.

"I'm gonna get high with my friends. Yeah, I say I'm gonna keep on getting high with a little help from my friends. Until I the day I die..." I hum softly to myself as we roll into the Sutter Creek.

"Yeah, I was completely and unconditionally in love with that stupid snooty little sloot Winnie Cooper, since I was seven? The entire time growing up, and all the way through high school. And that stingy little chicklet never put out, not even once. Especially after all those thousands of newspapers that I delivered, just to save up enough to buy some gas-station condoms. And not even one dogdamn date down to the old Lucky-Phucky drive-in?"

"Hells bells, by the time I hit college I was so unbelievably horny, I couldn't even see straight. So it was no surprise, that I got stuck for four years with the first floozy that gave me the time of day. Mary Lou from Mississauga, oh Holy Hell how I hated her! But she obviously had some pretty low standards if she was willing to mess with me, so I made do with what I had."

"Because if there was one thing I learned the hard way from Winnie it was? Sometimes in life you have to play with the hand you have, not the one you want. But if I had to do it all over again, I would have tried to be a lot more of a badass and a lot less understanding of her feelings?"

"Yeah, I'd like to think that given half a chance, that I would have totally ruined skinny little Winnie for any guy that came along after me. Or at least given it the old Animal House college try? And by old college try, I mean gotten her drunk on cheap hooch, then..."

"Goddess, please! Enough of your warped Wonder Years Winnie Cooper sick sexist scenarios." Rina sighs sadly from the driver's side.

"What? I thought you liked my wonderfully wackass Wonder Years voice overs?" I smirk back on the attack. "You know that the Wonder Years had a lot of repression and sexual tension. Especially,  between little Winnie and whatever that goofy Princess Bride kid? And don't even get me started on the whole subversive anti-warmongering theme thing they were trying to shove down peoples throats like religion."

"Okay, so not even going to touch that one." Rina shakes her head sadly. "And why the hell do you even know that TV show? You weren't even born yet when that show went off the air?"

"It was one of my mom's favorites when she was feeling sad and shit, for some strange reason? So we watched all the DVD's or whenever it rained or whatever?" I shrug this irrelevancy off. "And you cannot tell me that this place does not look exactly like that Wonders Years street?"

"Hell, every time we pull into this cemetery, I halfway expect that pervy Paul kid to bolt out between the cars and start trying to dry-hump our truck tires. Man-o-man those circa 60's suburban kids were in some desperate need of some spin the bottle action." I make the traditional bottle spinning motion of bad seventh-grade birthday parties the world over.