Volume 01, Story 1
Chino’s parked on the couch in his boxers and a tank top that’s only white the way fog is clear, staring down a blank TV screen like it owes him money, marinating in the misery of catching his guerita with another dude. He’s not moving, just rotting. Then the pounding starts: Homeboy, locked out of his own apartment again, hollering through the door until Chino drags himself up to let him in. “Fuck, I forgot my key again.” Within thirty seconds Homeboy’s ready to go stomp whoever needs stomping, but Chino’s too depressed to fight anybody, so they do what self-respecting degenerates do and go for the weed stash. Except the stash is gone, and in its place is a note in their own handwriting: “We owe you, one stash of weed. Signed, Chino and Homeboy.” They stole from themselves. They’re broke besides: Homeboy gave his VA money to Chino for rent, Chino spent his on food and weed. So they land on the only plan that ever works, courtesy of Uncle Rob’s philosophy that there isn’t a problem in the world you can’t find the solution to at the bottom of a bottle: go drink at Uncle Rob’s.
Scene illustration generated with AI.
Uncle Rob’s living room is doing its usual business: a couch full of guys he picked up God-knows-where, beers all around, a cane he doesn’t need till he does, and a prison story so filthy it should come with its own warrant (soap on a rope, a shower, a man who was eyeballing him, “then I turned him over and made him my bitch,” followed immediately by “Who wants another beer?”). On the other couch, three Mexicans drink in quiet witness. Chino asks where they came from. “Home Depot. Where else are you supposed to get them?” Cut to that morning: Rob cruising town for drinking buddies: a crackhead too far gone to accept, kids outside the liquor store who yelled for help, then the Home Depot crew, who climbed into the truck for beer without a moment’s pause. Back home, a UPS package waited on the porch, and Rob knew immediately what it was: a Flux Capacitor. No instructions, no manual, just potential and danger rolled into one small, absurdly powerful device.
Because the real horror show is in the garage, where Rob and the Mexicans have built something out of beer cans, beer can boxes, duct tape, and a deep, unwavering sense of “fuck it.” “What does it do?” Chino asks. What follows is the Rosetta Stone of slacker cinema, and after dismissing every other time-travel vehicle as lame, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure lands and both of them light up: “Wyld Stallyns rule!” Air guitar is performed. The test subject was supposed to be the stray cat in the rusting cage, but the boys volunteer, and after the obligatory debate (dinosaurs, per Homeboy; going back to fuck a high-school bully’s mom, per Chino), they settle on the only responsible use for an untested reality-ripping machine: go back to yesterday morning, around eight, when they had weed. The portal hums blue and ominous. “Are you sure this is safe?” “Don’t know. I’m kind of hoping to see if you guys get torn apart.” “How are we supposed to get back?” “Fuck if I know. But I’m sure I can figure it out! And bring back some weed. Including the seeds and stems.” “Don’t fuck with anything!” In they jump.
The portal spits them back out like a cat rejecting bad tuna, and the boys walk to the apartment like nothing happened, Homeboy forgetting his key again (“You forgot to lock the door behind you again, puto”), grabbing the stash, and leaving the IOU note for themselves, closing the loop. Meanwhile Uncle Rob storms his own garage with a sawed-off shotgun in one hand and his cane in the other: “What the fuck is this happy horse shit?” Broke, starving, and freshly returned from the space-time continuum, the boys get bailed out at King Taco, where a security guard gives them the two-finger “I’m watching you” the moment Homeboy suggests robbing somebody (“we don’t do that anymore, ‘member?”). Then salvation struts through the door: Mr. Dealer and Mrs. Dealer. He’s a wiry man with thick glasses and the permanent sneer of a guy who made Wall Street money and left because the sharks started looking like goldfish; she’s a Brick House of curves and confidence who hugs their heads into her bountiful chest and covers a heroic order, carne asada burritos, tacos, a sopé, tamarindo, horchata, without blinking. “We haven’t eaten anything since tomorrow morning.” “It’s a time travel joke.”
Bellies full, Chino spots him across the street: Chad, tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, all muscles and swagger, “like he owned the block,” the motherfucker Chino’s dead certain his guerita is fucking. Homeboy’s confrontation (“heard you were fucking my boy’s girl”) dies on contact: Chad’s gay, and he was on his way to give Sarah Yazzie a birthday present. “Bullshit! Prove it. Suck my dick,” goes nowhere in public, and the math finally lands: “Her birthday was yesterday?” “Today is yesterday.” At Sarah’s door, Homeboy bear-hugs the birthday girl clean off her feet while Chino slides inside and shuts the door in Chad’s face; Sarah laughs the whole accusation into confetti (“He is gay” … “You two are ridiculous”), takes Chino’s hand into the bedroom to a gleeful “WOO!,” and the phone call goes out to Mary Jane: “We’re having a party here.” What walks through the door next is Homeboy Alpha, a fresher-faced duplicate, flanked by Mary Jane, Shanita, and Anita: “What’s up, vato?! Heard you were gay. Sorry I didn’t bring dick for you, but I brought the ladies. Where’s the weed?” “Dude!” “Dude!” “Another Homeboy!” “Another Homeboy!” “Orgy time!!!” All the while, a jealous Chino Alpha watches from across the street, then through the bedroom window.
Hours later, Chino wakes a naked Homeboy Alpha tangled up with Mary Jane and Anita on the couch, while Homeboy Prime spoons Chad, Shanita curled around him, and drags him back to Uncle Rob’s garage, where the portal is dying in a storm of wind and flying beer cans. They leap in; the portal sucks the caged cat into the void (“Holy shit!”), spits the boys back out on top of Uncle Rob (“Get the fuck off me!”), and collapses into nothing: no trace, not even a whisper of blue light. “How’d you get us back?” “Maaaaagic…” “Like Criss Angel?” “Mindfreak, dude.” Gone only seconds. “You guys didn’t fuck with anything while you were over there, did you?” “Nope.” “Not at all.” The weed bag comes back holding nothing but seeds and stems, “We smoked it all in an orgy,” and Uncle Rob just nods: “I can work with this.” “Where is the cat?” “It got sucked into the portal just before you two fuckers came crashing in.” “So where did it go?” “Yesterday, as far as I know.” Then, from the living room: “Hey! The Mexicans found your cat.” Uncle Rob closes his eyes. “Oh shit.”
Featuring Chino, Homeboy, Uncle Rob, Mary Jane, Mr. Dealer, Mrs. Dealer, Chad, Homeboy Alpha, Sarah Yazzie, Miguel, Pedro, Jaime, Shanita, Anita, Chino Alpha, Stray Cat.
Read the full story in The Adventures of Chino & Homeboy, Volume 01