Volume 01, Story 13
Homeboy tracks down the school they dropped out of and talks his way into a deal: finish the missing credits at a local night school and the old diploma still counts. He signs the two of them up for exactly one class, Astrophysics and Cosmology, and shows up to the first session grinning like he’s already got the degree framed. The instructor limps in, drops a textbook heavy enough to leave a dent on the desk, and turns out to be Uncle Rob, Tourette’s, cane, foul mouth and all, now moonlighting as the guy standing between a room full of adults and a physics degree. If you’re offended, you can fucking leave. I have Tourette’s… I have medication, and if you file a complaint, it isn’t going to fucking go anywhere.
What follows is a semester built entirely on faith: Chino and Homeboy claim the front row and sleep through every lecture, week after week, blank sheets untouched, while the rest of the class thins out around them under the weight of cosmic microwave background radiation and Uncle Rob’s contempt. Karen, blonde, short hair, tank top over a sports bra, UGG boots, permanently unimpressed, is the one clear-eyed survivor left watching them do it, and she’s the one who asks out loud whether anybody should bother waking them up. When the grades come back, the two unconscious geniuses have somehow posted perfect scores, two of them, and Uncle Rob doesn’t have an explanation better than “fuck if I know.” Chino’s theory: Passive Osmotic Learning. Homeboy’s: they smoked a lot of weed before class.
The reward for surviving the class is a field trip to Vandenberg Air Force Base for an honest-to-god rocket launch, first privately manufactured rocket system, first micro-satellites, and Chino and Homeboy ride the bus out there with a vape pen Homeboy definitely didn’t lift off Uncle Rob, freshly rebranded: Jedi Mind Trick. Uncle Rob’s rules for the base are simple: don’t fucking touch anything, and if you need to piss, ask him for permission to hold your own dick. Inside Mission Control, the tour guide turns out to be Lieutenant Mitchell, red hair, sharp uniform, a handshake that could end wars, and Chino falls for her on sight. Psst… I’m in love. Pues, then I’m your Goose. I feel the need… the need… for weed! Uncle Rob, meanwhile, is running his own operation while the class tours: he’s seeding the base with tiny black pill-bots: one slipped into the server room (one down, two to go), a handful floated up a vent and into the satellites themselves (that’s two), two more into the astronaut helmets (that’s three). He watches it all through the heads-up display in his glasses while he murmurs what’re you up to, Uncle Sam?
In the latrine, the Jedi Mind Trick gets its field test: Blue team go! Blue team go! Red team go! Red team go! The verdict, after they step out and immediately lock eyes with Airmen Cindy and Olivia, is that it might just be Jedi Beer Goggles, because the Air Force women look like recruitment-poster models while the classmates look exactly the same. Karen watches the ogling and hits her limit: Ugh. I liked you guys better when you were asleep. Pigs. Chino’s counter, that’s transphobic! What if we identify as non-gender pigs!, earns them both the middle finger, which Chino finds hot. The Jedi Mind Trick itself proves useless on demand: Karen answers you want to date my friend Homeboy with as if, and Lieutenant Mitchell, asked the same about Chino, laughs it off: I’m sorry, but I’m married. Tell him I’m flattered, though. But Cindy and Olivia, approached straight up at the commissary, agree to a date on one condition (sit down and have a conversation, and it better be a good conversation), and “you girls like Star Wars?” turns out to be exactly good enough. Karen watches them leave hand in hand and goes full snitch, first to Uncle Rob (I suggest you stop being a snitch) and then to Lieutenant Mitchell, who explains that with a military escort it’s fine, which is how Karen learns the girls ARE the escort. The janitor, meanwhile, is having the worst shift of his life: passion sounds from the janitorial closet (Oh, Homeboy!), passion sounds from the officers’ latrine (Oh! Chino!), both doors locked, his cart turned around twice. Damn Airmen. Goddamn Airmen. Olivia gives Homeboy her number, five three oh nine, and then Chino comes tearing around the corner screaming cheese it! It’s la chota!
Cornered, the boys Jedi-mind-trick a spacesuit-room engineer (we do belong here, you do belong here; we’re the astronauts you’re looking for, you are the astronauts I’ve been looking for) and get suited up and walked to the rocket, fully expecting someone to stop the launch when they realize; nobody does. When do you think they’re going to notice? Any minute. Ask me again in five minutes. In Mission Control, Karen points an accusing finger at Uncle Rob (cunt, he sighs, tapping a countdown into his phone), and security hauls him off to interrogation, where Agent Darren, Ethan Hawke with a badge, lays it out: Robert Powell, if that’s your real name… it’s as if you were born five years ago. The phone self-destructed, Mission-Impossible-style. What was on that phone? All my selfies. Uncle Rob walks out untouched: before I walk out of this building, you’re going to be ordered to forget I ever existed. Up above, the cockpit goes dark, the hatch slides open, and tall, imposing Amazonian women drag Chino and Homeboy out onto the deck of an unknown ship and bring them before the Amazonian Queen herself. The volume ends with the two of them on chaise lounges in a luxury day spa, Amazons fanning them with palm leaves and feeding them grapes, passing the Jedi Mind Trick back and forth. Man… if this is torture, chain me to the wall, man! To be continued….
Featuring Chino, Homeboy, Uncle Rob, Karen, Lieutenant Mitchell, Cindy, Olivia, Amazonian Queen, Agent Darren, Amazonians, Vandenberg.
Read the full story in The Adventures of Chino & Homeboy, Volume 01