Wahoo Begum is currently in mourning and has been for the past three days. It's a little excessive, to say the least.
"Good mornin', sad clown," Spot says, opening the door with her hip and juggling a bag of groceries in each arm. Wahoo lets Spot know that he's alive by grunting into his pillow and offering her a half-assed wave before slumping back into the depths of his couch and loneliness.
Spot remains oblivious to his state of depression and asks, "How are we feeling today?" as she unceremoniously drops the bags onto the kitchen table along with a stack of mail. "If it helps at all, Taco Bell has a two tacos for ninety-nine cents deal going on. And you got someone's Delia catalog. We could make fun of how wide the pant legs are now, that's always a good time."
This time, Wahoo is able to muster up enough energy to pull himself away from his pillow, only to immediately gag and mumble, "I'm so hungover. I think I'm dying."
"So hungover that you can't help put the groceries away?" Spot asks, even though she already knows that even a sober Wahoo would never be bothered to do so. It's no surprise to her when he nods and then groans akin to a man who's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
"Spot, why do the worst things always happen to the best people?" Wahoo asks, slowing rolling over and adjusting one of the many leopard print blankets he has.
Spot suppresses the urge to laugh, pawing through the grocery bags and asking, "What do you mean?"
Wahoo's eyebrows furrow together as he stares at the ceiling lights so hard that bits of light become engrained in his vision. He closes his eyes tightly and rubs his face in a feeble attempt to get rid of them, but when it fails, he simply keeps his eyes closed and appreciates the phenomena as he tells Spot, "Look at me. My girlfriend moved to Switzerland, I probably have incurable depression, I'm dying of alcohol poisoning. . . this isn't how I want them to find my body, Spot. I've already embarrassed myself enough in life, I can't have it carry on to death too."
"So how about you get up and help me put away the quinoa? So at least if you die, which you won't, it'll be doing something useful," Spot suggests.
"Mmm, I'm good."
"I think that'd be a nice last memory to have. Officer, he was always such a help. Just before he passed he was helping me put the groceries away instead of making noises on the couch and being a general bane of the world's existence, I'd say." When Wahoo fails to come up with a witty enough retort Spot rolls her eyes and gives up on trying to figure out which cabinet the Chef Boyardee goes in, deciding that at least if she leaves them on the countertop, it'll be easier for him to find later.
"And by the way, Snoopy isn't your girlfriend. Just an F-Y-I. Whatever the polar opposite of a girlfriend is, she's more like that." She fishes through the second bag and produces a bottle of sports drink from it.
"But hey, look! I remembered your Gatorade, so your life can't be all that bad."
Wahoo thinks about this and nods. "That's true." He sighs afterward, sending a fresh round of dust and mold particles from his pillow into the air. "What flavor?"
"Shit, I dunno." Spot studies the bottle so hard it strains her vision until she finds what she's looking for. "Whatever Cool Blue tastes like." The fact that she doesn't know exactly what flavor it is comes off as suspicious to Wahoo, but after realizing that he has no clue either he graciously accepts it and attempts to down half of it while laying down.
"Oh my god," Spot sneers, her heels clicking against the floor as she rushes back to get paper towels. "Wahoo, what the fuck made you think that would work?"
He slowly pushes himself up into a sitting position and begins to blot the stains on his shirt with his hand, which Spot pushes away once she's returned with an entire roll of paper towels. "Tastes like chalk," he says.
"You stupid motherfucker," Spot mutters as she trots back to the kitchen, a wad of sopping wet paper towels dripping in her hand.
"I'm sssssorry," he slurs, pushing his hair back. "I just feel really. . ." he snaps his fingers together as Spot shifts her attention to cleaning up the mess that congregated on the floor. "My life is just..." Unable to remember the word sad, Wahoo sighs and grabs a pen from the coffee table, drawing
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on a piece of notepad paper before shoving it in Spot's face. "That's it, I feel really--" he points to the paper with his pen.
Spot can't say she doesn't blame him for feeling a little sad. Once you need to start relying on your friends to help you remember if you showered, it becomes a little hard to bounce back from that.
He squints intensely as his vision blurs before softening. "Hey, when did you start wearing black?" he asks, breaking out into an impish smile immediately after. "Are you copying me?"
In short, that's exactly what she's doing, because what better way to help a friend cope with his star-crossed lover moving away than to act like she died? She can't remember the bright asshole who used every inch of their brainpower to come up with such a brilliant idea but sighs and nods her head as she continues to sop up the remaining radioactive-colored Gatorade. "If I say yes, will you get up and help me clean?"
His smile somehow becomes even bigger as he rolls onto his back and throws his hands over his head. "Aww, you guys are the best."
Contrary to popular belief, Wahoo refuses to fulfill his end of the deal and only succeeds in patting Spot's hair down with syrupy Gatorade. "That's awful sweet of you," she says with hints of disappointment in her voice. "Have you sold any art?"
He finally pries away from her and furrows his eyebrows together. Spot can practically see the two remaining working neurons in his brain sparking together in an effort to kickstart his thoughts, but all he manages to produce is a squeaky, "Any what?"
"Art," Spot articulates. "Paintings, the ones that you make so you can sell them and make money. Legal tender, American dollars. Have you sold any?"
Upon remembering that Wahoo is, simply put, shitfaced out of his mind at the moment, she immediately retracts her statement and adds, "Actually, never mind. I already know the answer."
She considers asking him if he's paid rent, too, but the correlation between paintings sold and money earned is a straight line.
Spot met Wahoo about seven years ago through her sister and his long-lost love, Snoopy. However, as much as she considers him a brother, that relationship doesn't extend to a caregiver. Ergo, the responsibilities to make sure that Wahoo is, at the very least, breathing, have been divvied up between Spot and a few other friends. One of them knocks on the door, and when Spot opens it, waves an envelope in her face.
"What's up!" Moondoggie exclaims, breaking out into a cheeky smile. "I have the..." he stops as he eyes Wahoo lounging on the couch, but then strategically bounces back and tells Spot, "I have the resent-pay or-fay ahoo-Way."
Wahoo, contrary to what Moondoggie believes, isn't even paying them any mind. Instead, he gets up and begins pacing the kitchen. "Where's my Gatorade at?"
"Look harder, it's there," Spot says before turning her attention back to Moondoggie.
Moondoggie looks over her shoulder and furrows his eyebrows together like two giant caterpillars crawling towards each other. "Should we wait to give him these until he's, maybe, not pissed out of his mind?"
"Yeah, that's not gonna happen," Spot deadpans before snatching the envelope out of his hands. "Hey, Wahoo, come here."
"I still can't find my Gatorade," he moans.
"Fuck that, you said it tastes like chalk."
"What flavor is it?" Moondoggie asks.
"Does it matter?" Spot asks in annoyance. She then realizes that might've come off as too harsh, so she adds, "Blue."
"Blue's my favorite flavor, I want some." Addressing Wahoo, he paces around the living room and asks, "Where'd you see it last?"
Spot rolls her eyes. "Are you guys for re--Wahoo, I have a present for you!"
Wahoo's head snaps up upon hearing the word present. "For me?" he croaks.
Spot nods and holds the envelope out to him, which he snatches from her hand and tears open like a wild animal. However, he freezes before he grabs whatever resides within the envelope and asks, "Waitaminute, this isn't anything, like, boring, is it?"
"Nope."
"Like, bills--"
"Wahoo, just open--"
"Because I'm not paying--"
"Wahoo--"
"Even if he wants to, I don't think he can," Moondoggie interrupts, pawing through the stack of mail on the kitchen counter. "A lot of these are bills, though." Having finished his snooping, he turns to the fridge and helps himself to a box of leftover pizza. "He should really pay--Wahoo, you should really pay your bills."
"Maybe if he could sell some of his paintings, then we wouldn't have this problem," Spot says before realizing she's digressing. "Look, are you gonna see what's inside or not?"
"Maaaaybe," Wahoo says, but he opens it because as much as he likes annoying Spot, he likes presents even more. He then studies the contents for a minute, crinkling his nose and asking, "What is this? Spot, I told you, if they're bills I'm not--"
Spot snatches it away from him and asks, "Did you even read it?"
Wahoo purses his lips together and considers telling her yes, but even when he's impaired he knows she'll know that's a load of bullshit. He opts for the safer route instead and shakes his head. Spot unfolds it and hands it back to him. "Look at it," she instructs.
Wahoo begins reading it over, squinting to make sure that his eyes aren't just bullshitting him. Moondoggie takes it upon himself to decide that he's had enough time to read it and produces a mini confetti cannon out of his pocket, pulling the tab out and shouting, "Surprise!" as it begins to rain confetti.
It takes Wahoo a minute to recover from his mini heart attack, and then he reads over the paper again, quicker this time. "Spot, I don't think I understand--"
"I--we thought it would be nice to take you to Switzerland to spend Christmas and the New Year with Snoopy," Spot says. She begins absentmindedly wringing her hands behind her back as her face becomes three shades redder. Is this what doing a good deed feels like? If it is, she's not entirely sure she likes it.
"You're air bound, baby!" Moondoggie shouts, giving Wahoo a congratulatory slap on the back.
He can't tell if he's overwhelmed with gratitude or if his blood-alcohol level is about to send him spiraling into unconsciousness, but Wahoo's heart nearly beats out of his chest. He silently waits for Spot to do something cruel, like say it's all a joke. Or maybe he's dying and his life is flashing before his eyes, except it was so boring his brain is just fabricating more interesting events. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. He is, to date, still alive, and Spot is beaming at him like a proud, sweaty mom as Moondoggie bounces around his apartment.
"Where's the Gatorade?" he shouts. "This calls for a celebration. I need champagne glasses, too."
He suddenly breaks out into a huge smile, one that shows all of his teeth, and he rushes up to Spot and envelopes her in a hug. "Thank you," he mutters into her shoulder. It feels impersonal and lackluster but he's so taken back that he can't even think of anything to say that'd match what she just did for him.
"We love you, bud," she says.
Wahoo changes his mind about what he said to Spot earlier. At this moment, he feels really
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