another high-five. We pretended not to agree with him and declined.
Hugo continued to giggle to himself.
Dee arrived with a tray of teas, and we each snatched one. They
were horrible looking concoctions of regular tea with a mess of ugly
little mushrooms clinging to the side of each glass. Judging by the
looks on everyone’s faces, it probably tasted worse than it looked, so
I decided to be brave. I raised my glass in plain view and bellowed:
“I drink to my annihilation!”
The rest of the group clinked their glasses to mine we all drained
the contents in one fell swallow. Hugo puked without opening his
mouth and then swallowed again.
“Gross,” Belly said.
While waiting for the tea to take effect, Belly suggested we play
a little game. The object was to come up with an unanswerable
question. She gave us two of the most famous ones, examples from
Zen: what’s the sound of one hand clapping? and if a tree fell in the
woods with no one around to hear it, would it make a sound?
Hugo wanted to go first. He shifted his beefy legs into a cross-
legged position and placed his hands together meditatively. Then he
let out a belch and spoke in a comical Indian accent. “What is the
sound of one gland spanking?” he asked, feigning a masturbatory
motion with his right hand. Various boos and other noises of
rejection were heard.
Helena admonished him. “Just because it’s your birthday
doesn’t mean you have to be a pig.”
“What a relief!” he said.
Helena rolled her eyes. I interjected with my personal favorite:
“Where do all your socks go to when they disappear in the wash?”
That one drew a considerable amount of crowd support, as I hoped.
I had actually discovered the answer the other night on acid but
subsequently forgot what it was.
The group thought for a moment and suddenly Helen put forth
a doozy: “Why is it that men have nipples?” A real stumper. The rest
of us nodded approvingly. Hugo stroked his own nipples in
appreciation.
Noi raised his finger to signify his turn and said, “I have one.”
We all listened intently. “Why don’t you crazy white people shut up
and smoke some more ganja?”
We decided that was an excellent question, and passed around
the giant bamboo bong a few times. Returning to the game, the
BIG AMERICAN BREAKFAST
96
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