Volume 01, Story 4
Chino’s back on the couch, gutted, because his guerita broke up with him. Homeboy turns up locked out again and offers the only comfort he’s got, she must really love him, on account of you hurt the ones you love the most, and then pivots to the actual fix, which is to smoke out. The stash box has nothing in it but a note in their own handwriting: “We owe you one stash of weed. Signed, Chino and Homeboy.” “Chale!” They gut the couch for emergency funding and come up with lint, an expired condom, a broken lighter, three bottle caps, and one dusty peanut. What actually saves the afternoon is the crumpled twenty in Homeboy’s pocket, which he’d been holding for food right up until he realizes food is negotiable. “Dude! Chino! We can buy weed with the twenty instead of food!” Only problem is neither of them can remember where Mr. Dealer’s new dispensary went, so they walk to his house on the theory that the wifey knows, and Mrs. Dealer answers the door in a satin robe tied just barely at the waist, short-circuits both of them on contact (“Marry me.” “She’s already married, pendejo.”), and confirms the shop’s on the other side of town.
Chino knows a shortcut. It’s an ominous stretch of trees, and his entire pitch to a visibly unconvinced Homeboy is “just remember your training.” They were in a Marine sniper unit, allegedly (“what training?” “No seas, guey. What training.”). What the woods actually provide is mosquitoes and a public health seminar in which Chino establishes that Malawi is a country, that most of these diseases would kill you, and that Zika specifically turns you into a zombie because of the Z. Homeboy’s review of the great outdoors is two words long and gives the story its title. Then he spots something at the edge of a clearing, picks it up, sniffs it, licks it, bites off a piece, chews, and calls it: fresh Watermelon Zkittles, Berkeley hybrid. Which means there’s a plant around here somewhere. There is considerably more than a plant. They shove through the brush and the trees open onto an entire field of full-grown, harvest-ready weed, and Chino drops to his knees and kisses the dirt.
They spark up in the middle of the crop, and somewhere in a very stoned negotiation about whether it’s still acceptable to juggle chainsaws on an elephant’s back, Homeboy says no, we live in a different time, we respect the animals, Chino counter-offers Bigfoot’s shoulders. Which is the exact moment a shadow lands on them and Bigfoot walks out of the weed field. The intimidating roar doesn’t survive its own second attempt; his voice cracks partway through and comes out pubescent, and Chino settles the remaining question of who’s in charge by dropping his pants. “Check that shit out, vato.” “That’s right, cabrón. I AM the donkey show.” Before long the Sasquatch is wedged between the two of them on the ground getting taught to inhale properly (“You gotta get that shit into your pulmones” … “Take it easy, vato. It’s your first time. Don’t be in a rush. You gotta be gentle, like with a woman.”), then puff, puff, pass, then doing a flawless Chewbacca noise on request. Then comes automatic gunfire. A crew of rednecks comes out of the trees with Confederate flag belt buckles and AR-15s, and the Sasquatch, sublimely unbothered by any of it, does the Chewbacca noise again, which is what earns him the name Chino sticks on him on the spot: “You tell ‘em, Chuy!” One of the rednecks then clocks the creature as “that Chewbacca fella from that Star Trek movie,” a statement that triggers a full Star Trek / Star Wars / Mork / ALF taxonomy dispute conducted entirely at gunpoint (“That’s Alf! And he was from the planet Melmac!” “Well, I’m willing to bet a five-point-five-six round that I’m right.”). Chino sets him straight anyway: “that’s Mr. Sasquatch to you, puto.” The fat one has stopped listening. He’s decided Chuy would look good stuffed in his den, and he’s already raising the rifle.
Chuy’s fist comes forward and takes the fat redneck’s head clean off his shoulders, and the Ominous Forest erupts: gunfire, screaming, Sasquatch rampage, while Chino and Homeboy do the sensible thing and sprint for their lives. Guilt catches them at the tree line (“we gotta go back and help Bigfoot” … “we ain’t got no guns” … “maybe we can snag one from the dead putos?”), so they war-paint up instead: red bandanas, Chino’s camo face paint from a compact mirror, Homeboy’s full-body mud (“I’m camouflaging myself.” “But they’re rednecks, not the Predator.” “I thought we were just going full Arnold Schwarzenegger. You were doing John Matrix in Commando. I wanted to be Dutch.”). They march back in to find Chuy standing over the carnage with an AR-15 in each hand, roaring: “we shouldn’t have run and left you here by yourself to waste all those fools, but we got scared, eh. It’s been a while since we’ve been in a shootout” / “we’re still high as fuck” / “Too bad you wasted all those fools. They knew how to make some good-ass weed.” / “Bigfoot lives matter.” The three seal it with a group hug in the middle of the battlefield.
Then comes the part nobody planned for: they’re lost. (“You said you knew a shortcut!” “I did!“) What saves them is Homeboy’s nose, a floating, glassy-eyed, finger-extended trance, “like some possessed horror movie child,” that leads them straight out of the trees to a buzzing neon sign: Mr. Dealer’s Dispensary. (“Allahu akbar.“) Chuy carries the catatonic Homeboy across the street “like a weary warrior carrying his wounded brother from the battlefield” and up to the intercom, where Mr. Dealer wants to know how the fuck they found him (“Your smokin’ hot wifey told us.” “Don’t you fucking talk about my hot-ass wife like that! …cocksucker?!”), mocks “Homoboy,” threatens the LGBTQ-protestor treatment right back, and, via security camera, flips Chuy the bird for flipping his. The crumpled twenty gets them buzzed in. Inside it’s part old-world library, part mad-scientist lab, jars of labeled strains and glass bongs like artifacts, and Chuy’s war with a human-sized chair ends with the arms snapped clean off. Mr. Dealer snatches the weed back: “That chair was my grandmother’s!” “Fuck you and fuck your friends. No weed for you.” Then Chino plays the card. “Chuy killed a shit ton of racist rednecks to get us here.” “Say again?” “Chuy killed a shit ton of racist rednecks to get us here.” The about-face is total: joints back on the counter, a mason jar full of joints, and the twenty returned: “Take it… before I change my mind.” “Why?” “For taking care of my competition.” (“And take that fucking broken chair with you.” Thumbs up.) Back home, the three sprawl on the couch: joint in one hand, beer in the other, the jar on the coffee table like a prized artifact of a successful heist. It had been a good fucking day.
Featuring Chino, Homeboy, Chuy, Mrs. Dealer, Mr. Dealer, Redneck Militia.
Read the full story in The Adventures of Chino & Homeboy, Volume 01