The dogs start barking before I get to the gate despite the fact they are in the backyard and it doesn’t appear that anything is back there to get them to make all this god forsaken noise. My guess is they heard me shut the door to my El Camino and mistook me for someone that was going to play with their stinky, mangy asses. Before I untwist the wire that holds the gate shut and keeps the mutts on the inside of the fence, Slobber and Stupid come galloping like goddamn racehorses around the dead rosebushes on the side of Mike’s doublewide.

“Slobber, Stupid! Get the fuck out of here!!” I yell at them. But the dumb beasts won’t listen. It’s like I’m speaking to them in Mexican or some damn thing. So I act like I throw something to the backyard. Stupid chases after it, but Slobber just stands in the middle of the sidewalk. A ball of drool forms on the tongue hanging out the left side of his mouth and begins to fall toward the ground. It extends about dick length before it can no longer support its own weight, snaps in two, and forms into a ball before making its dark spot on the concrete.

As if the ball of slobber hit the doorbell, Mike throws open the screen door and bounces onto the unstable deck attached to his mansion on wheels just in time for the door to slam against the siding. He’s wearing what used to be white Fruit of the Loom briefs, a wife beater tank top, and his worn out Red Wing work boots. Looks like the same clothes he’s had on the last three times I’ve been here.. Or am I just imagining that?

“Hey fuck face, how many times do I have to tell you that the big one is named Brutus and the little one is named Rocky?” he asks in the same irritated-as-shit tone of voice he did the last time he asked that question. The big one, Slobber or Brutus if you will, is a bull mastiff who has seen better days and the better part of two decades. The little one, Stupid or Rocky if you must, is a pain in my ass beagle.

“I’ll call them whatever the fuck you want so long as you keep ‘em from jumping on my ass as soon as I walk through this gate,” I say convincingly enough, although I can never remember their “real names” when I come over. Even though that is most days. It’s just easy to call them what they are.

“I’m glad you see things my way you no good son of a bitch,” he says en route to catch the filthy mutts. As soon as he has them both by the collar some five minutes later by my calculations of the movements of the sun, I finish unwinding the wire, walk through the gate, and wire it back shut before going into the house and letting the screen door slam shut. After what seems like an eternity passes, Mike follows me in.

“Well, what can I do ya for today, son?” Mike asks me while simultaneously scratching the his right shoulder blade with his left hand and his left ass cheek with his right.

“Well, I have $33 cash and $7 in lottery tickets,” I tell him, making sure to leave out the last part of what I was going to say, because I like to bust his balls.

“That sounds like two twenties to me,” Mike shoots back like I’m some kind of dingleberry wasting his precious time. Like this prick has something better to do at 10:30 on a Wednesday morning.

“I also have this coupon,” I say, pulling out the contents of my pockets. “If I can find the damn thing.”

He stops scratching.

“Coupon? What do you think this is, the fucking grocery store?”

“It’s for 10% off any purchase of $300 or more at Sears,” I say knowing full well that this coupon will be honored in this living room.

The look in his eye tells me he is going to stop busting my balls. It also lets me know if I play my cards right I just might leave here with enough to last me a couple days. Or at least until I can make it out to Junior’s. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Why don’t you just have a seat there son,” Mike coos as he picks up a 15-piece metric socket set and a 12-volt cordless drill still in the original packaging from the couch. He moves them to a clean spot on the floor next to a professional-grade soldering gun and a 12-inch miter saw, also still in the original packaging.

With all the extra time and energy you get from using our drug of choice, hobbies, habits, and eccentricities turn into outright obsessions. People who like to drink, they drink for three days straight. I’ve seen some guys pound through four cases of beer in a matter of seventy-two hours and never blink an eye. People who like to clean have spotless houses and empty cupboards. People who always had sex on the mind before collect huge libraries of videos, magazines, and sex toys. People who like to build things, they end up like Mike here. They have a garage, shed, and house full of nothing but tools and a dozen and a half unfinished projects. I have access to Mike’s second addiction. I have Mike by the short and curlies.

Amidst the haggling, Mike’s ol’ lady Missy struts her former stripper self in. She’s wearing a pair of flower print panties that came either from the Wal-Mart in the city or the Dollar General down the way and one of Mike’s old football t-shirts.

“When are you coming back to bed honey? I’m getting lonely back here,” she says as seductively as she can muster at this time, with an emphasis on the lonely. Guess what Missy’s thing is.

It’s 10:37 on a Wednesday morning, and I am quite certain by the look and smell of these two that they have been up since at least Monday. After a further bit of calculation, I decide it is just as likely that they started a 120-hour day Friday night or Saturday afternoon. At any rate, they have both been going at it for a while, and the likelihood of me leaving with a good amount of dope is getting better by the second. Pardon the rambling. At this point I can’t help it. Really.

Missy. That poor, dumb girl. She is exactly the kind of girl that ends up with a guy like Mike. At one point she was considered one of the best looking girls in this shithole we call a town. While that doesn’t necessarily put her on par with your Jenna Jamesons and Pamela Andersons, she was still way out of Mike’s league. Mike had a nickname in high school. It was Footer. He got it when he decided to tell the rest of us about the time he managed to put his size twelve in the 300 pound Mexican girl. That’s right. Size twelve in the 300 pound Mexican girl. We never let up. Where was I again?

Oh, yeah. Missy. Five foot seven. Long, dirty blonde hair. Green eyes. 120 pounds, at least eight of it pure tit. 32 C. Damn she had a rack. A real nice set. The kind of boobs you just want to stick your head between and . . . That’s another story for another day. Anyhow, she used to play volleyball. Showed a lot of promise on the court. Nothing too outrageous, but she had Division II scouts showing up to games her sophomore year. But that was before dope, and long before Mike. She started out smoking. Everyone starts out smoking. Then for a while she liked to put it up her nose. Said she liked the burn. Now she cuts out the middle man and mainlines. You’d never know by looking at her, but she’s five years younger than me.

Poor, dumb girl. I’m glad I’m not that bad. No needles for this guy. I’ll just stick to my glass dick, thank you very much. You can still see how good looking she used to be. Emphasis on the used to be. Those granny panties she has on are hanging off what used to be one fantastic ba-donka-donk. And tits? What tits? Those glorious mounds of fat and mammary glands have had the life sucked right out of them. By Mike’s business, not his mouth. Though he might try to tell you otherwise. And when she smiles, you can count her teeth on your fingers. It’s only a matter of time before she’ll have to get dentures. But that might not be such a bad thing. She has the reputation of a girl who knows how to suck a cock. I imagine a gummer would be an experience to write the folks about.

“Mike. Goddamnit listen to me! I am going to bed. I want you there in five minutes or else I’m breaking out Homer.” Homer is a 16 inch black rubber cock. How I know this is a tale for another day.

“Now, honey, let me take care of this right quick. Go back in the bedroom and put on that movie I like. I’ll be back before the midget jumps out of the weddin’ cake.” She gives him an inappropriately long kiss before teasing his balls with her left hand and strutting down the hallway to the back bedroom.

“Well, young buck, you know I don’t like stop-and-gos, but I have some bidness to tend to,” he practically whispers as he motions his head to the bedroom and hands me what looks like a little over a gram. You can hear the trailers from the classy piece of cinema Missy just put in.

“I understand Mike. You mind if I smoke a quick boat before I hit the road?”

“Just make it quick. You know the way out. I have a feeling I’ll be tied up for a while,” he says while taking the packaging off of a 30 foot length of nylon rope about as big around as my little finger.

“Mike! They’re rolling out the wedding cake!” Missy screams before the electric toothbrush sound of Homer can be heard over the noise of the TV. Mike runs out of his Red Wings on the way to the bedroom.

I make my way to the kitchen to get at the foil, stepping over circular saws, tool boxes, and drill bits. By the time I get my foil ready, I can hear the grunts, groans, and skin on skin contact emitting from the bedroom on the opposite side of the trailer. Thank God they don’t have kids, I think to myself as I take my first hit of this particular twenty-four hour period. I get a few big pulls off the little pile I put on the foil. I crumple the foil into a ball and put it carefully at the bottom of the kitchen trash. As I turn around and head for the front door, I hear one really loud skin on skin contact followed by a thud and the shaking of the trailer’s floor. I jump out the door, slam it shut and take off like an Olympic sprinter for the fence. I manage to get over it before Slobber and Stupid catch up to me.

As I breathlessly shut the door to my El Camino, I take another look at the house I just ran out of. I know I don’t want to know what happened, but I am some of that curious. Much to my bewilderment, I see Missy standing in front of the screen door stark naked. Out of my peripheral vision, I see the blinds in the bedroom flash open. And there is Mike, giving me the stink eye over a bleeding nose. I laugh, start my car, throw on some Sevendust, and ride hard for B.J.’s.