Page 76 of His Hungry Wolf

“Sorry, something important came up,” I told him, putting my phone away.

“Was it about whether or not they’re gonna fire you?”

“No. And I don’t think they are. Think about it. How can you fire the gay guy after he calls you out for making derogatory comments in front of others? That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. I might now have more job security than Papa does,” I said with a chuckle.

Claude laughed. “You’re right. You might. So what was it?” He asked, referring to me being on my phone.

“Nothing,” I told him. “It was just something personal.”

“Oh. Okay,” he replied, seeming a little hurt.

Yeah, whatever. He brought this on himself. He would rue the day he made fun of me for farting in my sleep. And that day was coming soon.

After practice and dinner, I snuck off while he was taking his evening shower. Rushing to the auto parts store, I picked up a bottle of the defogger you put on windshields.

“Where were you?” He asked from the couch when I got back.

“Doing drugs,” I told him in a panic.

“Cultivating a new addiction?”

“People have been raving about heroin. I thought I would give it a shot.”

“What did you think?” He asked, returning to his book.

“It’s fine. But you meet the most interesting people at the opium dens,” I said, headed to the bathroom.

“I didn’t know they had opium dens in Pensacola.”

“Are you kidding? The opium dens here are world-class. You come for the heroin, you stay for the addictive appetizers.”

“I see,” he said, having lost interest in our conversation.

With the bathroom door closed, I pulled out the bottle and my phone. I was going to have to figure out how to draw this.

“You okay in there?” he asked after what turned out to be thirty minutes.

“Yeah. It’s just the heroin.”

“It really clogs you up, huh?”

“Exactly. I’ll be out in a minute.”

He had to know something was up, didn’t he? He had to. Luckily, I was almost done.

Part of the problem was that I didn’t have a misty mirror to draw in. I had to look at the smears I was making at weird angles to know what it looked like. Then when I screwed up, I had to start over.

After all of this work, he better appreciate the masterpiece I created. You could never find a better illustration of a man with his head up his ass drawn on a mirror using defogger fluid if you tried.

“Done,” I told him when I left the bathroom. Closing the door behind me—hoping he wouldn’t see it until after his morning run—I said, “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”

“I’m not sure heroin agrees with you.”

“It doesn’t. But you never know until you try, right?”

“I guess. Are we going to bed?”

“Sure,” I told him, positive that I was too excited to sleep.

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