At first they thought about going undercover in skinny jeans and ironic t-shirts and whatnot but that would have required purchasing clothes and actually shopping for those clothes, which could have been accomplished at Villages des Valleurs but laziness took hold of all of them so they just showed up in their regular gear of whatever crap their mom usually bought them at Zellers. The plan was elaborately laid out and involved code names and stuff but Jay knew they wouldn’t actually follow through with any of the cloak and dagger stuff. In the end they just followed Jojo to his next activist club meeting.
It was just a classroom, not even a lounge or anything and the assembled group was much smaller than Jay had anticipated and not nearly as hipster as he’d hoped. He could tell by Vani’s sad expression, Karl’s eyebrow raise and Willy’s burp that they too were let down. Other than Cavity there were just three other people in the room. One was a tall guy with some bad facial hair, so he qualified as hipster even though his clothes were deceptively preppy. Another was a white girl with dreadlocks and the third was an angry looking dude in a trench coat. Hey, they should have all come in trench coats, that would have been hilar.
Cavity waved them over and they sat down. They went around the room introducing themselves and then the facial hair guy said that they’d been discussing deforestation.
“That’s where they cut down trees, right?” asked Vani earnestly.
“Who cares about trees?!” snapped the trench coat guy, whose name Jay had already forgotten. “Trees are everywhere! Didn’t you see Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!? Plants can’t be trusted!”
Jay and the guys all laughed, even Jojo, but facial hair guy was annoyed and sighed heavily while shooting eye daggers at trench coat guy like he’d long ago grown tired of trench coat guy’s antics. Trench coat guy was potentially awesome.
Cerise hated going to Clyde ’s. It reminded her of that first disastrous date she’d had with Terry where he’d played pool with his stupid friends and ignored her all night while she’d been forced to listen to Christina Penna drunkenly complain about her life. Her reticence to enter the establishment once more was immediately justified when Andrew fucking Lester accosted them pretty much as soon as they entered the door. Terry seemed pleased as punch to see his old douchbag buddy and sure enough, before Cerise knew it, Terry and Douchey McDoucherson were playing a round. Cerise almost considered taking up drinking just so she could suppress her rage.
“How many of us actually went to that protest?” asked the girl who wasn’t Cavity.
“I went,” said facial hair guy all smugly.
Trench coat guy scoffed audibly. “That was like, years ago! We were all in high school, sucking our thumbs! How were we supposed to even know about that protest?”
“Well I went,” said other girl.
“You don’t shave your legs, do you?” asked trench coat guy.
Willy snickered and both Cavity and other girl looked appalled.
“Anyway…” other girl sighed heavily. “I’m just saying that most people here have never even been to a protest! We don’t even know what we’re doing. We have to get organized.”
“If you wanna get organized you have to first of all, weed out the weak.” Trench coat guy said with authority. “So first we have to get rid of all the girls.”
“What?” asked Cavity as Jay and the guys tried to keep straight faces.
“Uh excuse me, girls aren’t weak,” other girl sneered.
“You know the expression ‘you’ve got balls’? Well you don’t have any. Ok so then you have to stop being a bunch of whiney do-nothings. If you wanna get organized you have to model yourselves after a group that was efficient. Like the nazis for instance.”
This remark was met with silence. Trench coat guy was so obviously trolling that Jay couldn’t believe the genuine activists were falling for it.
“Are you like, a fascist or something?” asked facial hair guy.
“So what? There’s something wrong with being a fascist now? I thought you guys didn’t discriminate!”
“What is wrong with you?” asked other girl.
“Oh sure, it’s all fun and games when we’re saving the Africans crawling with AIDS but as soon as I mention skinheads you get all antsy. You’re just a bunch of hypocrites!”
“You’re not even making sense,” said Cavity with a bemused smirk, as though she was starting to catch on to what was going on.
“Aren’t I? Aren’t I? Or am I making so much sense that you can’t even handle it?”
Finally facial hair guy and other girl had had enough and they suggested he leave, an idea which was met with protest. Trench coat claimed they had no authority over him and facial hair actually kicked his chair back and rolled up his sleeves like he was Chuck Norris or something. It was so incredibly awesome that Jay was actually grateful for Jojo and his stupid film geekitude ‘cause he was recording the whole thing.
“Where’s your love of peace now you hypocrites?” screeched trench coat as facial hair physically pushed him out of the room. “You think you’re God or something? Well ask God how many shots of bourbon he had before he cut me open!”
All the boys cracked up so crazily that they soon got kicked out of the room as well. But it was totally worth it. Who would have thought so many people would infiltrate an activist group in one day?
“So you’re still with Cherry?” asked Andrew with an amused smirk.
“Her name’s Cerise,” said Terry, trying not to display his annoyance. Why couldn’t Andrew just be chill? No wonder they hadn’t hung out all summer. Maybe he was really just as bad as Erica and Terry had never been able to see it because… because Andrew was a guy or something and Terry was just as much of an asshole or something.
“So she’s not a cherry anymore?” Andrew snickered.
“Just take your shot, man,” Terry said evenly.
Andrew was sort of kicking Terry’s ass at this game. It was kind of embarrassing. But maybe that’s just ‘cause Terry had better things to do now than play pool all the time, what with having a girlfriend and everything. A couple of chicks walked by and Andrew referred to them as fresh meat. They were pretty cute and Terry watched them go and then realized he didn’t even know where Cerise was. He looked around, trying not to be frantic about it and saw her sprawled out in a chair, reading her script for that play she was doing. She must be bored to tears.
Terry absentmindedly laughed at Andrew’s joke about hooking up with those chicks in like, five seconds and replied that it would only take him two. Which was probably true, those chicks were totally checking him out. Maybe having a girlfriend wasn’t so great after all. Terry had to admit to himself that he missed the days of being able to hook up with random chicks whenever he wanted. When was the last time he’d gotten laid? But it was better with Cerise because she gave him blowjobs all the time, like almost every day, which was way better than occasionally getting laid by some chick he didn’t even like. But he wouldn’t mind having a girlfriend who liked doing the stuff he liked doing. Was she seriously reading a book in a bar? How lame was that? Why couldn’t she be more like Karine, more of a party girl? Of course, her idiosyncrasies were exactly what he liked about Cerise but still, would it kill her to pick up a pool cue and join him? He sure as hell spent enough time hanging out with her nerd friends talking about Star Trek and whatever the fuck.
“That was hilarious!” chortled Vani as they stumbled out of the activist club room.
“No shit, did you see that girl’s face?” laughed Willy. “She was going totally spasmodic!”
“They’re such hypocrites,” sniffed trench coat. “What a bunch of pinkos. They’re all for democracy but as soon as someone steps out of line they become total commies.”
“Yeah, where’s McArthur when you need him, eh?” smiled Jay.
The trench coat guy nodded in agreement and Vani asked him what his name was. He first evaded the question, blabbering about them wanting to turn him into the thought police or whatever but finally he said his name was Lee and they all reintroduced themselves. It was pretty priceless when they got to Willy.
“Your name’s penis?”
“William,” Willy scowled.
“Penis?”
Willy could do nothing but sigh as the others cackled with glee.
“What a retarded name, Penis.” Lee shook his head in bemusement.
Terry and Andrew the asshole joined Cerise at her table and she put away her script so she’d at least appear to be paying attention to their inane conversation. It was pretty insane how Terry’s IQ seemed to drop by several points whenever Andrew was around. They talked about the most boring stuff in the world, like sports and beer and stuff. Andrew was talking about how he was going to Marianopolis with Erica and Christina and something about how Terry should start hanging out with them again because they both gave good head. It was enough to make Cerise sick.
Finally when Andrew stumbled off to go to the washroom, Cerise angrily informed Terry was she was experiencing serious flashbacks to Halloween.
“What do you mean?” he asked, proving himself to be so oblivious that Cerise’s rage went into overdrive.
“Hello?! Fucking Halloween last year! This exact bar, that exact fucking tool you’ve been playing pool with in the exact same, totally ignoring me way!”
“Ok, you’re pissed,” he frowned.
“Damn fucking straight I’m pissed! I didn’t come here so you could hang out with Andrew fucking Lester and like, completely ignore me all night. And don’t think I didn’t notice when you went outside to ostensibly get some air. I know you smoked a cigarette, you fucking reek of it!”
Terry flushed a little and looked guilty but then squared his jaw in petulance. “You’re the one who hasn’t said anything all night. You just walked away when Andrew showed up. What am I supposed to do, totally ignore my friend? You just sat down and started reading your book, making it pretty fucking clear you don’t wanna be here. You agreed to come here so like, you know, I figured we’d actually hang out, you know how I hang out with your fucking friends all the fucking time! Why can’t you ever return the fucking favour!?”
“Because you become totally different when you’re with that jackhole. You become just as much of an asshole as him!”
“You don’t even fucking know him! And if you don’t like him then maybe you don’t like me!”
“You’re right, Terry,” Cerise sighed, her limbs trembling. It made her sick to her stomach whenever she and Terry fought. “I don’t like you when you’re being like this. That’s why I was so afraid to come here tonight. I knew you’d be like this.”
He chuckled bitterly. “You’re just like accusing me of doing exactly what you’re doing. You’re being you know, the way I don’t like. The bitchy Cerise. Everytime I try to just chill and have fun you freak out. Like if I can’t always be exactly how you want me to be then you don’t want me at all.”
Damn him for making a valid point. Cerise said nothing and sat there pouting as Andrew drunkenly walked back to the table and yammered on about some hot chicks and their hot pussies and other offensive bullshit that Cerise couldn’t believe her so-called boyfriend could tolerate.
“I’m sorry, Terry, I can’t do this,” she said, getting up and walking away.
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