Page 85 of Romeo & Antoinette

“The plan? You know the plan.” Marco chugged the beer, drinking half of it in one big swallow. “We’re gonna get us some payback.” Then he ripped a long, loud burp. “Come here. Check this out.”

Marco popped the trunk. Inside was a cardboard box filled with a half dozen cans of spray paint. “An eye for an eye,” he said.

“A knuckle for a knuckle,” added Benny, showing Romeo his ripped up fingers.

“Yeah! You got that right,” laughed Marco, high-fiving Benny for the effort.

“You guys sure you really want to go through with this?”

He already knew the answer.

“Hell yeah,” said Marco.

“Hell yeah,” said Benny.

A couple of cars drove by. They all looked up.

“Come on guys, what do you say we skip this and head on over to the Rail. I’m buying. ”

“No freakin’ way,” said Marco, shattering that fourth beer on the ground.

“I think Stacey is working,” Romeo added, trying to entice him.

That got Marco interested. “That’s great. We’ll head over after. Come on. Let’s go.”

Romeo weighed his options. He knew that with Marco this hell bent on going he wouldn’t be able to stop him. Not without the two of them ending up in a fight. No. His best course of action was still plan A. Tag along and try to keep the peace. A minute later they were on their way.

Over at Cap’s all was quiet. Tyler and Gary Green Shirt were sitting in Tyler’s car drinking beers and growing more surly by the minute. The ragged and frayed top was up and they were hunched down in the front seat like two disgruntled detectives on an all night stakeout. The back quickly filling up with crushed cans of Coors. The front filling up with the funk of two dudes sweating, belching and beefing for hours on end.

Tyler crushed another can, tough guy style, and tossed it behind him. “Man this sucks,” he said for the eighteenth time.

“Yeah.”

“These guys are never gonna show up, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We oughta just leave.”

“Yeah.”

But they didn’t. They didn’t because Tyler was afraid of Cap. With good reason. Instead they hunkered down. They hunkered down and waited.

“Man this sucks!” Tyler whined again, a moment later. Slapping his hand on the dash for emphasis.

“Yeah.”

Then Tyler saw Marco, Romeo and Benny coming around the corner.

“What the?” he started. “No effin way. No ef-fin way” he said with self-satisfied glee. “Look.”

“No way.”

Tyler jumped out of the car. “Oh it’s on. It is on like Donkey Shlong.”

The two groups converged outside of Cap’s.

“Yo! What up losers? Whatcha doin’ here?”

---