March 14, 2015

Jerome:

"Is this one green?"

"No." Dammit. I really liked that one, too. I hook the t-shirt back on the shirt rack and keep looking, watching Mitch creep around the clothing section at Target in his red and black Benja hoodie, blue and yellow banana pajamas he stole from me, and squishy armadillo slippers while a lady and her three kids all try to look like they're not staring at him. I don't think he even notices people gawking at him anymore and if he does, he does shit like this just for the oogles. After not passing as a guy in public school and becoming Internet Famous and just being his weird fucking self all the time, it's kinda hard to give two shits about what some stuck-up housewife shuffling through Target with her little trolls in tow thinks of you. Although I guess us modeling ugly ass clothes and making slurping noises at each other doesn't help. I rattle through the clothing rack a little more until I find another small with long sleeves and a hood. This one might be about right. Still can't really tell but that's why I don't go clothes shopping alone.

"Is this one green?" He turns away from the rack of shorts he's trolling through and he looks up at the shirt and over at me and back over at the shirt with an incredulous look on his face.

"... No." I squint at it again to see if he's fucking with me, but I really can't tell. Sometimes I hate St. Patrick's Day. At least I can get away with being colorblind at Christmastime 'cause everything's red and green and nothing ever matches. I frown and walk back over to the line-up of weird button-up hoodie-shirt things and snag one that's got stripes on it that're two different shades of yellowy-not-yellow and drag it over to him. The lady with the stork neck has moved a couple racks over and she's found something else to stare at. But one of her slimy rugrats is still staring at us with its peanut buttery mouth open while it screams and kicks its feet in the little plastic cart seat. I make a stink face at it and it turns around and pretends it wasn't looking at us. Creepers be creepin' today.

"Is this one green?"

"No. Jerome, none of those are green." He walks past the rack of good shirts and starts going through the line of stupid five dollar St. Patty's t-shirts no one actually wants. I wouldn't wear that shit in the Irish pub next to Vons, let alone in actual Ireland. "This one is green, and this one is green, and this one is green. All of these are green."

"Yeah, but all of those're fugly. Are you sure this one isn't green?"

"Dood, that shirt is orange. I think I know what green looks like."

"Are you sure? 'Cause you don't seem to know what 'not ugly' looks like." He smirks and takes the apparently-not-green shirt and hangs it back on the rack before he goes back to whatever he was looking at over by Soccer Mom.

"You do realize that sometimes you have to wear things that don't have 'Posh Life' printed on them, right?"

"That's not what Ryan said, Mitch. You want me to get kicked outta Troll Pack already?"

"You are a Troll Pack, dood." I look over and catch the gap-toothed little rugrat staring at us again and it immediately turns back around. Looks like we're teaching parents and kids manners today. Fan-tastic.

"No, that's a Troll Pack," I mutter as I nod in Storkneck's direction after she awkwardly spins around to look at us again with a tie in her hands. I can't stand when people stare at us. Maybe it's because of bad memories from when we were kids and people were assholes to us because we were different. Things've changed and now we're top dog but little things like that still piss me off. It's the worst part of doing YouTube – whenever you leave your house, all the eyes instantly zero in on you and you feel like you're in some shitty government conspiracy movie. Someone always knows your name.

Mitch glances over in the kid's direction and raises an eyebrow, then he does his not-so-casual creep march over towards it while he pretends to look at shirts. Nothing good can come outta this – he fucking hates little kids. All these years later, I still feel bad for his little brother. "Goddammit, Benj. You're gonna get us kicked outta this store, too," I whisper but he doesn't listen. As usual.

"Hey, don't blame me for that. That was Lachlan's idea."

"And you're supposed to be the responsible one!"

"Can't I live a little every now and then, Dad?"

"Nuh-uh! You're not startin' that 'Daddy' shit with me. That's where I draw the line."

"Are we playing Draw My Thing now, Jerome? I thought we were playing the Hunger Deens."

"Mitch, don't you do it. Mitch. Mitchell. Mitchell Fucking Hughes. Get your ass outta there." He looks at me as he inches closer and closer to the little rugrat, daring me to stop him. He's only like three feet away from it now and he's still clicking through the shirts like he gives a shit. I walk behind the ugly St. Patty's Day shirt rack and prepare to duck and cover. He rifles through the shirts and slowly, slowly turns to lock eyes with the kid sitting in the cart. They stare and they stare and they stare, deeper and deeper into each other's souls... Then the kid bursts out bawling. Must've seen some horrifying hunger in his eyes or something. Mitch turns and pretends to be looking at the sizes on the shirts and the mom looks him up and down twice before he turns to look at her like he just noticed she was there. She drags the cart holding the screaming kid around the side of the clothing rack where it can't see him anymore. Problem solved. He looks pointedly over at me and comes over and hands me a maybe-yellow-maybe-green pullover shirt with zigzags on it before he pats me on the shoulder and walks past me back to our crap-filled cart. Why do I like this asshole again?

"Are you coming, Biggums, or did you get google-itis, too?" I double-check the size on the shirt before I follow after him, watching the ears on his armadillos flop around as he walks. He scans around us real quick before he turns to look at me with a toothy grin. "We've got us a Counter-UAV at two o'clock. That didn't take long." I stop and flip over the price tag on a Miami Dolphins snapback and peer through the racks to see the security guard pretending to be rearranging clothes while he stalks us. It's the same fucking mustachioed guy every time we come in here and we don't even do anything that bad. You'd think he wants our autograph or some shit.

"Yeah. They deployed when we joined the lobby. Musta smelled your hacks." I toss the shirt in the cart and we slowly walk past the fascinating rack of blue baby onesies the security guy's been fiddling with for who knows how long now and I see him turn to check us out as we walk by. Like we'd try to steal anything when we each make twice as much as him in a year. I fucking hate profiling. Just because we're twenty-something-year-old guys in a store at seven on a Wednesday night doesn't mean we're gonna steal shit.

"Ten out of ten, mate."

"Would rate. Wanna nuke 'em? See who's on a scorestreak?" He nods and pulls out his phone to look like he's checking a list. We know the poor sap can hear us now and I just wish I could see his face. There's nothing quite like grocery shopping with Mitch.

"Yeah, dood. Little Lachy said he wanted three boxes of the cherry flavored ones with the ridges. If you go grab those, I'll head over to the grocery section and get the chocolate whipped cream, the Patron, and the chili powder. Sound good, friendarino?" He's pretty confident if he's taking the grocery list with him, thinking he can speed shop in peace. I'm gonna laugh if he ends up with our little shadow following him down the frozen pizza aisle like we can't see him. That's what happens when he doesn't trust me to pick out food.

"Sounds fantastic, Mitch. Meet ya in fifteen?"

"That sounds just peachy. Don't forget: cherry."

"Cherry. Got it." And with that we split up, with Mitch leaning all over the cart with that deadpan solemn face he always uses when he's trying not to burst out laughing and me putting my hat on backwards so I can see my prey easier. Mustache Guy's like an Enderman – I can't look directly at him but I hafta see what he does. Who's he gonna go for: me or Mitch? I see him turn to look after each of us, then he slowly starts creepin' after me. Goddammit. How am I the more suspicious one? Is it 'cause I'm wearing a hat or is it the black hoodie that spooked him? Mitch is dressed like he just smoked a gallon bag of weed and he keeps taking his phone in and out of his pocket while he saunters around like a fucking king, but the security guy comes after me? I bet Mitch's laughing his ass off right now in his stupid armadillo slippers. Let's go for a little walk, shall we?

I bet this guy thinks he's fucking Paul Blart Mall Cop with his freshly ironed shirt and his shiny silver name tag. Must think he's a real hero, stalking innocent civilians through the store and basically pushin' 'em out the front door. The guy's fucking creepy, the way he ducks in and out of aisles and around corners when I stop to look at something. I'm surprised he doesn't have a tape recorder out so he can take notes while I walk. I'm half tempted to turn back and pretend to need something down the Tonka trucks and Legos aisle just to see how quickly he can dive down the preschool aisle. But I don't wanna get thrown out today. It's not at the top of my to-do list. Unlike Lachlan, I kinda need to come back to this place every now and then for food and shit.

I'm taking him for his daily walk around the whole perimeter of the store when I find the sweetest thing this Earth's ever seen: giant fluffy Pikachu blankets. And they're on clearance. This's our lucky day. Without a second's hesitation, I grab all five of 'em and stack 'em up in my arms and keep walking around the edge of the world border. Rover's gonna need a water break by the time we're at the checkout. For a guy his size, he's keeping up with me pretty well. I bring him around town over by the pharmacy and I take my sweet time looking through all the boxes of condoms, looking at the diagrams on the back of every box, hoping to make both his and Lachlan's lives just that much more miserable by the end of the night. They don't have just cherry flavor like Mitch requested, but they do have a nice big multiflavor pack that looks like the kinda shit you'd buy at a rave. That'll work. The cashier's gonna love us, too. I stack the plastic-wrapped box of rubbers on top of my blocky pile and head out to find Mitch. He's parked in front of the jewelry case lookin' like a mighty fine, grade A fuckin' creep with his phone out, and he turns and takes a selfie with me in the background when he sees me coming. How does he not have the CIA flyin' down on his head when I get stalked around the store for wearing a baseball cap? It has to be the beard. Or the nose. I bet it's the nose, isn't it?

"Meeetch!"

"Jerome... What the fuck are those?"

"Don't question it." I walk right up to his cart of overpriced groceries and drop the mound of furry Pikachu blankets in, both of us watching as the black box of condoms bounces off the top blanket and down on the floor. I bend over and toss 'em back in the cart and pat the top fuzzy blanket while he blinks at me. "I got us a big stack of dick covers. And some condoms."

"Dood... Lachlan is never going to go home now."

"Sounds good, Mitch." I turn to walk towards the nearest cashier, dragging the cart and Mitch behind me. His armadillos nod in approval.

"No, it doesn't sound good. I'm tired of finding his tadpoles dried all over the beach towels. If we don't get rid of him soon, we're going to have frogs in the fucking pool."

"I mean... We've already got everything else in there so I guess frogs'd be the new meta. That or fish, fish, fish." I dig my stack of blankets out, making sure to set them and the rubbers aside on the floor for the end. Can't have all the fun when we aren't there to see it. We start stacking all the groceries up on the belt while the old man ahead of us chatters away at the poor girl running the register. Mitch's trying to sort everything based on cold and cans and boxes and all kinds of fancy shit, but I ain't got time for that. I just throw it on the belt as fast as I can. We stack the blankets at the end with the neon bright condoms perched right on top of the last one for all to see, ready for the final phase of our mission. Time to see if we can get the St. Grannysburg achievement and unlock the bonus round. "Come here, Biggums. Give your main Bac some sugar." He just looks at me for a second, trying to make up his mind. But when another old fart and his wife walk up and start putting their stuff on the belt behind ours, he gives in.

He walks up behind me and locks his arms around my waist and rests his head on my shoulder, his eagle eyes trained on the register screen while we lean against each other in front of the debit card machine. The old people behind us get awful quiet and still. The cashier doesn't even bother to say hi when she starts ringing up our crap. She just stands there with an awkward little grimace for a smile while I watch the little line of food and grown-up stuff slide over the top of the shiny silver scanner and Mitch squints at the screen to see how much money we wasted this time. We were doing pretty good until she got to my end of the pile. But ninety bucks ain't bad for five blankets, a shirt, and a party pack of flavored rubbers. Woulda been worse if Lachy'd got his ass outta bed to come with us.

"Two hundred thirty-five dollars and seventy-four cents." No 'please', no 'thank you', not even a complete sentence. I'll admit Mitch and me are pretty fucked up in a lotta different ways, but we aren't homophobic assholes. We got that much going for us, at least. As much fun as it is to screw with people and watch their reactions, it's fucking sad how people aren't over this shit yet. Mitch pulls away to dig out his wallet and I guess it'd be a good idea for me to find mine, too. Random crap doesn't buy itself.

"We're going to put one hundred eighteen on the first card and the rest on the second one." The cashier just looks at him for a few seconds before she turns and starts telling her register what to do and I see him raise his eyebrows, waiting for her to say something. He runs his card through then steps aside to let me do mine while he puts his card away and steers the cart to the opposite door we came in. Looks like he's got another plan. I slide my credit card and sign my life away on the dotted line, half watching as he steps up on the back of the cart and rides it like a scooter past the little see-through security office, just to push their buttons. I swear, some warm, gooey part of Mat rubbed off on him.

"Thanks," I tell the snotty ass cashier, looking right into her big brown eyes as I put my card away. "Have a nice life." I grab the receipt out of the side of the register and walk away, following after Mitch on his next great adventure. He's parked in front of the little Starbucks built into the front corner of the store with his back leaning against the wall while he grins at something on his phone. I love that dorky fuckin' grin. He'd be the most adorable thing on the face of the Earth if he'd stop trying to be stone-faced and serious all the time. I grab the cart and steer it over to an empty table to wait for him to get the coffees. Everyone else in the little café turns to stare at him as he shuffles past in his mismatched clothes and his floppy animal slippers with two lattes and a little paper bag in his hands.

"I asked if they still had your caramel shit, but this late in the year, you might as well be asking if they have sriracha-flavored syrup." He puts my coffee down and turns to slide his chair out and I take the opportunity to steal the bag from him, take out the chunk of cake, and take a big bite out of it. When he finally sits down on his throne, he doesn't look impressed. Or surprised. To his credit, he doesn't gawk anymore. "Do you mind?"

"Sure thing, buddy." I pull out my phone and snap a nice little picture of his Level One Bitchface and set it as my background while he glares at me. "F-ine. You can have a bite." He snatches the cake from my hand and tears it in almost-half before he stuffs the rest of my piece in my mouth to try to shut me up. That's never stopped a Bac before. "The whole syrup thing's like the canoe, Mitch. If you say it loud enough enough times, they'll eventually give in and give it to you."

"I'm pretty sure that's not how it works."

"A little persistence never hurt no one. You can do some amazing things if you just try long enough." There's a tense silence while he takes a drink of his hazelnut latte before he raises an eyebrow and nods, looking over to our right where the security guy parked his ass against the wall by the metal detectors. Is he ever gonna give up the goddamn ghost and just let us be? We aren't even being assholes and he's still stalkin' us.

"As long as the logistics line up and nothing too crazy happens."

"Crazy's my middle name. But you know you love it, Mitch. You couldn't pull off shit like this with Melanie. Imagine going to the grocery store just to shop for groceries." He takes another sip of his coffee and I reach over and break off another piece of his cinnamon cake. I finally got him talking. For once in my life, I'm gonna have my cake and eat it, too.

"I had a good time tonight. Doing stupid crap with you never gets old." The coffee and everything else seems ten times hotter all of a sudden. So if we were dating... Would this count as a date? Or is this just grocery shopping? The whole dinner and a movie thing totally bombed, so am I gonna hafta come up with a whole new brand of romantic if I can ever talk him into going out with me? I've never dated a guy before so I don't know how this's supposed to work. Should I get tickets to a ho-

"Are you BajanCanadian?" For fuck's sake. I turn around and there're two kids standing there with their phones out and their dad standing behind 'em. I never get any alone time with this guy, between recording and traveling and Lachlan and fans. Now the moment's ruined and we're gonna hafta get our asses outta here before they start texting their friends and a trip to Target turns into a convention and we end up getting ban-hammered from the store. I tune him out as he awkwardly talks to the kids, like a mall Santa who just got hired this morning. I slurp on my coffee until I see him get up and he grabs my arm from across the table and drags me over to join 'em. The dad doesn't look too happy when Mitch puts his arm around the middle of my back and pulls me closer so we can all fit in the frame. Chill your titties, dude. So what if Merome is real? Your kids probably ship it, too.