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Although winter’s gone, the night wind still carries an icy sting. Two friends, Rodney and TJ, no last names, warm their bones in the noonday sun. They’re sitting facing one another, hunched over a cement table with an inlaid checkerboard. There are no pieces on the board, just a pint of hooch in a paper bag. Rodney takes a long puff of a hand-rolled joint, holds it in his lungs. He blows the smoke up over TJ’s head, watches it disappear and says "What the hell?”
TJ says "What?”
Rodney, still staring upward, raises his roach hand, one finger pointing, and says, “There’s a hole in the sky.”
TJ gives a knowing smile. “That must be some good shit you’re smokin’, Rod Man.”
“Look up Teej.” Rodney holds his position like a coon dog on the cover of one of them hunting magazines. Hell, he’d look like a statue if his clothes weren’t seven layers thick. “I’m telling you there’s a hole in the sky. Jus’ look up. There’s a goddamn hole in the sky.”
TJ thinks a bit, grabs the hooch and takes a swig. Like a Cheshire cat, he stretches his mouth around gritted teeth, until the fire he swallowed stops blowing back. “Now you don’t expect me to fall for that one do you? No way I’m gonna look up.”
“But you gotta, or you won’t see it.”
“I don’t have to. I believe you. If you say there’s a hole in the sky, there’s a hole in the sky. How d’ ya suppose it got there?”
Grasping his hands together like he was swinging a bat at a piñata, Rodney answers “Some guy has a long stick with a spade at the end, and the son-of-a-bitch has poked a hole right through the blue sky. White gamma rays are pouring in.”
TJ is holding back a burp, but strangely it gives him an air of a CSI detective. “What evidence do you have of this?” he asks, and then he burps.
Rodney’s voice rises above its usual rasp. “I’m looking at him. He’s right over there, behind you. Jus’ turn around.”
“Well, if he’s right there and you got a eye on him, then I don’t hafta turn around now do I?” TJ smiles a triumphant smile and takes a victory swig. Two victory swigs. “Besides,” he says, "so what if he pokes a hole in the sky?”
“So what? I’ll tell you so what.” Rodney takes another drag, and scrunches up the muscles in his face, as if thinking was real hard work and he wasn’t stalling. Must be that the magic smoke makes its transaction in his lungs and a neuron fires in his brain, ‘cause when he spits out “All the birds’ll get out,” he’s real satisfied with his answer.
“It’s worse than that,” old TJ says, as if his logic is more advanced than Rodney’s. If this guy’s punchin’ holes in the ozone layer, someone’s gotta stop him.” He pounds his fist, flesh against cement. No noise is made.
“Ya,” says Rodney. “I forgot. This here’s the Oh-zone, ain’t it, or damn close to it, and we don’t want it ruined by some idiot punchin’ holes in it.” He seems like he has found a reason for rage.
TJ is fumbling around deep in his coat pocket and says, “Maybe we should give him a little taste of Betty Lou.”
Before Rodney can make sense of what is happening, TJ’s hand sweeps out of his pocket and again pounds the cement checkerboard. All Rodney catches before the bang of metal on cement is a soft click and a flash of sunlight bouncing off six-inches of steel. A switchblade against cement makes a noise.
Rodney rolls the sleeve of his flak jacket over the blade. “Not now, TJ. Not here. We’ll get him later, like we did that bum who stole my Michael Jordan’s.”
TJ closes the blade and slides the knife back into his pocket. “Ya. You’re right.” He reaches for the bottle and takes a long drink.
Rodney notices his joint has gone out. He skewers it on a toothpick from his pocket and lights it carefully, taking several hits.
The friends remain quiet for a while, until a perplexed look comes over Rodney’s face, as if the little engine of his thoughts restarted. “What’ll we do about the hole in the sky?”
“We’ll get it fixed,” TJ says as if nothing could be more natural.
It seems to make sense to Rodney, but he asks anyway, “How’re we gonna do that?”
“Well, first thing we gotta do is what we always do. It’s the American way.” He takes another swig for dramatic pause, this time letting out a long Ahhh filling the air between the two friends with hot breath. “We’ll call the insurance company, and put in a claim.”
Rodney sees the logic in that. He also sees some guy taking a picture of the perpetrator and figures it is for the insurance company or maybe the police. He raises the toothpick and takes another drag, careful not to burn his lips on the encroaching ash—but ends his ritual half-puff. “Hey?” he asks. “Who we gonna get to fix it."
Without skipping a beat or a swig, TJ answers, "The weather man.”
Rodney seems more surprised by the answer than by the fact that TJ’s nose seems to be melting. “The weather man? How’s he gonna fix a hole in the sky?”
“Patchy clouds,” says TJ. “They do it all the time.” With that he finishes the bottle and lobs it into the adjacent trashcan, missing it by a few feet. No matter if it broke. It had nothing left to hold.
“Oh ya, patchy clouds,” Rodney says. “That’s right.” He realizes TG’s nose isn’t melting. It is turning into a butterfly.
“Damn straight,” says TJ.
The man with the kite, winds in the line and walks away unnoticed, while the two buddies just sit there—Rodney watching with wonder the transformation of TJ’s nose, TJ not looking up or behind, just fondling Betty Lou.
