Oliver Benjamin
“No, nothing happened,” I answered.
“She didn’t want you?”
“No, I didn’t have a rubber.”
“Oh, you should have done it anyway. That’s all just hype. You
ever hear about anybody straight catching it?”
I shrugged, “It’s better to be safe.”
“Yeah, you’re right. But hey, the last thing on my mind is my
safety when I get with a beautiful woman.”
I couldn’t tell Hugo that it wasn’t mysafety I was concerned
about.
He dropped it. “So are you going to try again?”
“I hope so. We’re supposed to meet them for dinner tonight.”
Hugo looked apprehensive. “We are?” he said.
“Yeah. Is that a problem? I made plans with them this morning
at the bakery.”
“No, no. No problem. I just thought we might try to catch some
fresh fish.”
I winced at his deprecation. The ego expanding to fill a vacuum.
“Well, Huge…There’s always tomorrow. And the day after that, and
the day after that…”
Hugo looked at me tiredly. “We’re going to die here, aren’t we?”
“It’s not unlikely.” I answered.
By the time the girls showed up that evening we were already pretty
drunk, having plowed through half a liter of Mekong Whisky and
sharing two joints besides. When we arrived at Noi’s place, we were
surprised to see that he now had an enormous painted sign which
read in huge letters:
NOI AND ERNA’S COSMIC COSMOPOLITAN CUISINE FEATURING
THAI, GERMAN AND HALLUCINOGENIC COOKING
“Taste it! You’ll get wasted!”
A group of tourists were complaining to Noi that the prices had risen
since the previous night, and Noi indicated that those were the
standard prices for restaurants with a big sign. Now that he had a big
sign, he had to charge more. In two weeks, he said, he was planning
on getting a television and VCR and showing bootleg American
movies during dinner. Then prices would reallygo up.
Helen told him that she and Helena both needed some pot
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