“The fuck are you laughing at?”
My head snaps back in S’ direction, as if a glare alone will pull him out of this atrocious break.
Yeah, man, why don’t you share with the class? What is it that’s so amusing? What is so fucking funny? Tell us, ‘cause I’m having a hard time locating humor in the middle of my sale being ruined. It damn well isn’t me. Better not be me, you drunken buffoon.
I thought you understood.
The total fold in his expression suggests that the lack was only a momentary lapse. S’ eyes become wide and all attentive, darting frantically between me and this guy in search of a way to simmer us down and salvage our sale…
It doesn’t surprise me how soon he finds it, I’m sure he’s seen it so often that it’s easy to adapt and morph into his role. His smile isn’t as wild and frenzied as mine, its tethered tense in an even more unsettling way as moves his jaw and he gnashes his teeth—that same little motion that they’re so numb and twitchy to be able to do. It’s too accurate.
Good God…your eyes look so weird like that.
S repeats their favorite lie to him too: nothing. That’s what it always is…nothing can ever be wrong, if, by their delusional definition, nothing is happening. This time it’s actually not too much of a stretch from the truth, since nothing sinister is, anyway. We aren’t here to settle the score, we’re trying to get him to score and, in that, we are brewing something. Something he’ll like...
Just let yourself buy it.