Homeboy

Character reference art generated with AI.

Aliases: none Status: Main

Homeboy is Chino’s roommate, best friend, and constant generator of bad ideas. He cannot hold onto his own house key. “Fuck, I forgot my key again” opens nearly every story, with him pounding on Chino’s door. He never learns. He draws VA money like Chino does; where Chino’s goes to food and weed, Homeboy hands his over for rent. His default setting is enthusiasm running a half-step ahead of judgment: any bad idea gets a full-throated yes, any slight reads as a fight waiting to happen. He’s ready to “fuck that dude up” within his first minute on-page, over a stranger he’s never met, on behalf of a heartbreak he barely understands.

That quickness turns dangerous more than once. Cornered by a swordsman in There Can Be Only One, one panicked step forward drives the blade into the man’s chest, and his instant, horrified “Oh shit, dude! I’m sorry!” is as far as his conscience gets before the situation escalates past him. A Kush Fairy gets in his face in Mrs. Dealer and the Edibles Factory and pure hood reflex puts her on the floor, which starts a fairy-on-Homeboy war. He acts fast, and he pays for it all volume.

Homeboy blurts the raw idea (“If we knew where there was a party, we could drink and smoke for free”); Chino turns it into the actual plan. He’s also the one willing to ask the room’s biggest question out loud instead of dancing around it: he asks Lucy point-blank whether she’s the Devil, and gets a straight answer.

The other Homeboy

Uncle Rob’s cursed joint transforms him into a woman for most of The Cursed Joint of Bayankala, and he goes by Homegirl for the run of that story. Same person, different form, covered in her own dossier. In Uncle Rob’s Time Portal he briefly meets his own day-earlier duplicate, Homeboy Alpha (“Dude!” “Dude!”); the text calls the original Homeboy Prime.

Voice & running gags

His vocabulary runs “Dude!”, “Orale!”, “Simón!” He announces plans the way other people announce engagements. The forgotten key opens nearly every story. His Spanish is enthusiastic and approximate (“Orale, computadora, habre la pinche puerta.” “No seas guey! That’s Spanish, not Alien, fucker”). His nose does real work: it bloodhounds beer and weed in The Last Blunt and smells the LSD on the Colosseum shipment in El Cucuy and the Nightmares.

Role in Volume 01

• Uncle Rob’s Time Portal: Locked out, hollering through the door, instantly ready to fight Sarah’s “other man.” Volunteers for the time portal (dinosaurs, per his pitch), jumps back to yesterday, steals the stash, leaves the IOU. Confronts Chad (“heard you were fucking my boy’s girl”), bear-hugs Sarah Yazzie off her feet, and meets Homeboy Alpha, his fresher-faced duplicate, in the mirror-scene “Dude!”/“Dude!” orgy. Returns as Homeboy Prime.
• Uncle Rob and the Aliens: “Simón! Put it in his culo first! He’s already used to it!” Alien weed turns him invisible; he goes full gremlin: nakey, knocking things from aliens’ hands, jabbing fingers in ears, then parks in the bridge’s unattended chair and presses all the buttons. Gets grabbed by the balls by Uncle Rob, helps stuff plastic bags of bud down pants (then up asses, per Rob’s security logic), and survives the airlock. “I think I peed myself.”
• The Last Blunt: Takes the last drag that starts the story. Nine ninety-nine, the party brainstorm, the bloodhound act, the garage smoking circle (kissing the sticky floor “like some street pope”), the Mary Jane makeout (“I told you to score some Mary Jane, not score with Mary Jane”), the “Scavengers!” rout, the penny kick, and the triumphant jig out of Mr. Dealer’s with ten fucking bucks.
• Nature Sucks: Arrives with the worst comfort available (“she must really love him — you hurt the ones you love the most”) and the crumpled twenty that saves the day. Identifies fresh Watermelon Zkittles by sniff-lick-bite, goes full Arnold in mud camouflage (“they’re rednecks, not the Predator”), and trance-navigates the forest by nose to the dispensary’s neon sign.
• The Cursed Joint of Bayankala: Smokes the blue-cherry joint and becomes Homegirl: the makeover, the King Taco scene, the “Juanita” alias, the night with Chris, the mirror, the window escape. Reverts mid-hookup.
• Mary Jane’s Four Dimensional Adventure: Training montage, Chuy as coach, and the olfactory ID of Mary Jane’s abandoned clothes. Six hours of Monopoly.
• Mrs. Dealer and the Edibles Factory: Announces his fuck-buddy status with Mary Jane “with the quiet dignity of a man announcing an engagement.” Hydroponics station, the fairy punch, the feral rampage, the edible de-escalation (“I blacked out”), and HR’s mercy: packing and shipping.
• There Can Be Only One: His hand on the sword, his prints on the hilt, his panicked step through a man’s chest. He digs the grave, haggles his thousand dollars (“That’s racist! He is not an it!”), and rides in the trunk.
• Lucy’s Box: Handed Lucy his actual key so she could sneak in and wake Chino up right. He asks the Devil question point-blank, then rear-naked-chokeholds Dos Santos in the limo and verifies unconsciousness is total.
• Count Dragula: Lured into the Tri-Lamb house (“Psst… you like herbs?”), roofied, fang-tasted (“like a skunk that fell into a gasoline tank”), and roped to a bed in a room full of fruit. Works his feet loose picking grapes with his toes (“be one with the monkey”). Rescued, he joins the victory blunt: “more for us.”
• Big Trouble in Chinatown: Mistakes a stranger’s bathroom suffering for Chino’s and counsels him through the stall door. Delivers the Psycho Crusher pen to Chuy, storms General Pain’s hideout shouting “Let them go!”, and sums up the night: “It was a shit ton of fun.”
• El Cucuy and the Nightmares: His nose knows the product is wrong before anyone else does. Holds up the PTSDream tin, watches the band burn the horror out of the sky, and ends the night alone on the steps, staring into the empty tin with his head in his hands.
• Night School: “No one’s home!” “Attention on deck!” Perfect score, zero notes (“we smoked a lot of weed before class”). The Jedi Mind Trick latrine sessions, Olivia in the janitorial closet (“Oh, Homeboy!”), her number, five three oh nine, punched into his phone, the “Cheese it! It’s la chota!” sprint, and an accidental trip to orbit ending in an Amazonian day spa.

The Adventures: Volume 02

• Date Night: Misreads Sarah’s “do you mind?” as an invitation and starts undoing his pants; gets shut down. Plays wingman for the double date, theorizes Sarah is an alien harvesting Chino’s “super seed,” texts “Yo, praying mantis” warnings from the mini-golf course, and holds Chino after the explosion.
• El Duende: Co-names the Duende Loki, argues with Chino over who is pack leader, and loses Loki to Chuy while the two of them bicker.
• Uncle Rob and the Edibles Factory: Co-runs the dispensary, delivers the “be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet” moto speech, and nods along as Uncle Rob gets tossed into the street.
• Mr. Bitches and the Emporium of Sex: Takes Mr. Bitches’ job-offer cash, negotiates twenty women in the Palace of Pleasure, and ends the night sore for a week. Helps carry out “Operation Sarah.”
• Uncle Hank and the Naked Pod People: Tackles the contamination-suited Hostess in the pod chamber, yanks pods open (the guards explode into goop when he does), and tackles Mr. Bitches in the final brawl.
• The Joint of Azathoth: Swaps bodies with Chino via the Azathoth OG joint, panics about Sarah Yazzie’s visit while wearing Chino’s body, and co-organizes the mall flyer campaign for the orgy.
• The Man of Iga: Fights the Man of Iga with paintballs, double-shots General Pain’s eyes, and copies Chino’s deck-drop when the demon explodes.
• Of Rednecks and Vampires: Covers himself in mud so the vampires can’t see him, gets held hostage by Nagan while Chino negotiates, and passes the time watching more Walking Dead with his captor.
• The Return of Dos Santos: Carries the unconscious Chino out of the caravan blast, drives the Gremlin escape, and cuts Sarah and Mary Jane free from Dos Santos’s grave.
• Mr. Dealer and the Intergalactic Authority: Gets fired by Mr. Dealer mid-crisis, falls in love with the quarantine suit’s comfort, and asks the question that breaks Mr. Dealer: “Where’s Mrs. Dealer?”
• Lucy Ex Machina: Picks the cell lock with bobby pins (he could have done it anytime; “No one asked me to”). Lets slip that he and Chino were with the Amazons, not aliens.
• The Emperor of the Universe: Races to the Ominous Forest, demands the Emperor of the Universe return their women in Spanish, and snaps off a crisp salute when Uncle Rob mouths “You owe me.”

Relationships

Chino is the anchor: the man whose door he pounds on, whose schemes he fuels, whose couch is his second home. Mary Jane graduates from friend-of-the-house to “officially fuck buddies” (his words, announced with dignity). Uncle Rob is supplier and professor; his experiments keep nearly killing Homeboy. Chuy goes from rescue project to roommate and coach. Then there’s Olivia (Vandenberg), Homegirl (himself, transformed), and Homeboy Alpha (himself, duplicated).

Notes

• The key gag: he forgets it in stories 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7. In story 9 he hands it to Lucy voluntarily, which Chino counts as worse.
• His moral code is consistent if unwritten: he puts the wallet back in Jimi’s pocket, disarms the pistol, leaves the powder (“dope is for dopes”), and rolls the passed-out man on his side. Take the weed, though. Always take the weed.

Military Chronicles

Record not yet declassified.

Space Adventures

Record not yet declassified.