I know my friend; he’d rather loosen a few of Shorty’s teeth with a right hook than participate in this kind of dumb, machismo bullshit. We have a pretense to maintain, though, and that means we have to play along. I can do it. Wren can do it. Pax is physically incapable of pretending anything. He wouldn’t be able to play-act convincingly if his life fucking depended on it. He stalks off into the crowd, abandoning us to our fate like the unconscionable bastard that he is. I film the idiots sucking on their beer cans, absently wondering if they’ve had their tetanus shots.
