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"If the shoe fitsch. Shwear it. If not.. don't."

"I swear, I'm about to lose my professional edge, and hit this guy, right in the family jewels."

"D'you really think that'd affect him at this point? I mean, c'mon; we've taken all sorts of lil' bits off the bastard. He's too fuckin' high." Bill looks at me with disdain, pointing a nicotine-stained index finger at my face.

"Now, see here, Bill. For my own welfare, I have to hit this guy: just once, get it out of my system, you know?" Travis glares at me, prepping his fist. He socks me one, to the nose. I see stars, and giggle at the sheer cartoony irony. "We have to make this guy talk. It's going to fuck with me, if we don't succeed."

"If y'say so. I'm thinkin' we're gunna have to wait out these Daisies motherfuckers. They're ruining this, pure and simple."

"How long do you figure that'll take? He was still loopy a couple of days after taking the first batch; what's to say he'll come down this week, let alone any time soon? We fed him 4, didn't we? On the ride here? I sure as hell think he's double-fucked from here to eternity, as far as our needs are concerned."
 
"I ain't goin' terr hell, yer bastuuuurds..."

"I'mma gunna stick icepicks in your eyes, you fuck. Shut it." Bill flips open his pack of cheap smokes. Players, maybe. Studio Reds. Something cheap as sin. I can smell them, even in my daze. It's comforting to smell a smoke I'd buy, but intimidating since I quit 2 years ago. Don't know why. Nothing makes complete sense just now.

"Can yer? I canna get up n' do it myshelf."

Bill rolls his eye, and cocks his fist back behind his head. Travis leans over on his swivel chair, settling Bill back on his bar stool. "It's not worth it; look at what a pickle we're in because we kept trying to take it out on him. He's just too high to play ball."

Bill sighs, lowering his fist begrudgingly. "The fuck do we do? I say 'batter's up'. We can't wait all month f'Sir Shithead to sober the fuck up. We don't have much time before..."

In one of my more lucid states, I catch the gist of this conversation. Booming pain aside, I'm feeling dull and hollow. Something bubbles up from my mental murk, sparking a real coherent thought. It comes out involuntarily, surprising the whole room: "You guysh owe that monhay to shomeone elsh?"

"You got it, buttfuck. Congrats, Sherlock Shitfaced."

"One-up!"

All together now: "Shut the fuck up."

"Chorus, bore us!"

"Apparently, that's all she wrote; he's getting all high again. Damn, I thought we had him, for a sec.." Travis leans back in his chair, taking Bill's smoke for a drag. He hands it back, with a strange grace. His knuckles had been broken often enough to leave his index and middle finger curiously cocked. It looks gentle, from my  angle, but I know better.

"Aw, fuck..."

"Fuck a duck-truck!" I loll around in the chair, giggling at my own inane catchphrase.

"What are you, 5?" Travis snorts, the smoke leaking out his nose -- for a moment, he turns in to a dragon, exhaling a little sulfur breath. Trippy shit.

"5, and I'm alive!!"

"Not for long, you're not," Bill mutters to me. Louder, to Travis, he says, "This is almost as painful as my girl makin' me watch that chickflick about Swayze and Blade bein' drag queens."

"Hell, I bet that was a royal good time, compared to this shit. I'd rather watch Swayze, stately and faux-femme, rather than sit here and deal with this horse hockey. I'm sick of him rambling about trout. It's driving me nuts, since I didn't get to fish at all this season."

"Not me, man. This is the worst. It's fuckin' shit."

"Do you think any of our usual tricks will sober this fucker up? I've never had to wait this long before."

"It's yer own doin'," I add.

Bill ignores me. Rightfully so. "What about that meth-addict we did, last August? D'you remember what we did with that one, 'cuz I don't, not just now."

"This August? Wasn't it last August?"

"Whatever; August. Some year. We did do a meth-addict,, what'd we end up doin' with that one?"

Travis muses, stealing Bill's smoke, and gesturing to the probably-awesome-rum bottle. Bill pours him a new glass, ignoring the one on the wet bar. "We put his head in a jar, I think. Because we couldn't get shit out of him, and we thought his preggo-girlfriend would cough some intel up."

"You sure we didn't get shit outta him? Did we sober him up, or was he still speedin' his titties off when we hacked his mug off?"

Travis strokes his immaculate facial hair.  I suddenly have a great wish to rub at my 5 o'clock shadow in the same fashion. I bet mine feels greasy, what with all this gore and sweat. "You know what, I think he ended up a lot like this guy, hacked to bits because we were impatient. High and all, that pissant motherfucker. That one, now I recall, was not fun.. at all."