Opening Day

Chapter 3: Lunch

One o'clock finally made its appearance, which meant it was time for Jonesy & Max's lunch break. Jonesy went to the back room and grabbed her backpack while Max ushered some straggling customers out the door. Jonesy flicked the switch on the OPEN sign off, and hung the "OUT TO LUNCH (back at 2p)" sign in the window. Directly across from Popcorn Video in the strip mall was the Super Grasso Brothers Pizzeria, Jonesy and Max's favorite pizza place since they were kids. Not only was the pizza delicious, but there were free refills on soda, and the best part was the ancient Donkey Kong arcade that had been there since 1981. Max held the second highest score on it, behind whoever had entered the initials "STN." The two of them had spent hours and hours eating pizza, gorging themselves on garlic knots, and taking turns racking up levels on Donkey Kong.

Jonesy said hi to Fabrizio Grasso behind the counter, his brother Massimo must have had the day off, she figured, and asked for the usual.

"One large pie, half extra cheese, half extra pepperoni, garlic knots, and two large sodas. You know the drill, Ms. Jones." He handed her two large cups and gestured towards the fountain. His thick italian accent had diminished a bit since she was little, but his boisterous, husky baritone never had.

She filled one cup with Cherry Coke for Max and mixed the Orange and the Sprite together for herself. She had a seat in one of the booths next to the Donkey Kong machine and watched Max go a few rounds before the pie was ready.

Max opened the back of his van and Jonesy slid the pizza box in first, the two of them followed behind it. She had dug out her weed purse and took a nice big hit as Max grabbed slices of pizza, one pepperoni, one cheese and smooshed them on top of each other.

"Pizza-wich!" He presented it as though a work of art to Jonesy who laughed and coughed at this miraculous new invention.

"You truly are an inspired artist, Signore Swartzwelder!" She chef kissed her fingers.

For the next hour they shared pizza, and knots, and the rest of the bud Jonesy had brought, taking turns noodling on the guitar Max always had in his van.

"Hey Jonesy." Max strummed the guitar with each syllable.

"Yeah, Max?"

"Ok, so, like," He looked up at his thoughts, "If you could pick how you'd die. Like number one death. How would you wanna go?"

"Demon possession."

"Fuck! ...That's good!"

"Yeah, and I'm talking hideous deadite-style. You'd have to chop me up or blow my head off with a shotgun! But before that I'm all like munchin' on your leg or clawin' your eyes out, or like, comin' at you with a rusty knife! Haha!"

"That'd be so fucking metal!"

"Either that or an evil doppelganger. Like, it wants my life, but there's just something wrong with it, you know? Like, there's something twisted inside it. Then we're all like, strangling each other and maybe it bashes my brains in with a rock or something. Hahaha, that'd be rad as fuck."

"Holy shit, that'd rule."

"What about you?"

"Asteroid."

"Like the dinosaurs?"

"Nah, dude. Like, ok. So like, I want there to be an asteroid heading for earth, but it burns up in the atmosphere so much that it's just, like, the size of a bullet, then BLAMMO: killshot right to the brain. Fucking sniped from a billion years ago. The big bang itself hittin' me with the headshot from the beginning of time!"

"Dude, that's fucking cosmic."

"Like, that asteroid was on a collision course with my skull since the universe was born. Destiny. I wouldn't even be pissed, I'd be like, hell yeah."