Trashed and Scattered

One by one, Zach’s friends began to rally up within his home. Brian was the latest, as he usually was. Zach attributed this to far too much time spent in the bathroom fixing up his princess hair. When he finally graced his best friends with his presence, he headed straight to the kitchen to crack one of Zach’s beers.
“So what are we doing?” Brian asked flatly, tossing the beer cap into the sink.
Zach grumbled, snatching the waste from his stainless steel sink and tossed it into the garbage can, throwing Brian a pointed look.
“We’re having a tattoo party, man!” Jimmy beamed, perched atop the counter where the ends met and split.
“Yeah, I got that,” Brian muttered. “But what the fuck does that mean?”
“It means you’re going to stop your bitching and let a stranger stab you with a needle,” Matt chirped in from his place at the round dining table.
Jimmy laughed, dangling his legs and thumping his heels rhythmically against the cupboards.
“Beer me!” Johnny called to Brian from his place across from Matt, gesturing with both hands to make with the goods.
“Get off your ass and use those stubby legs to get it yourself,” Brian grinned, snatching a fresh bottle from the refrigerator.
Zach smirked, “It’ll take too long to make the short shit walk. I’ll call my grandma and have her come over to deliver it. We’ll save so much time!”
“Fuck you both,” Johnny chuckled, snatching the beer from Brian’s extended hand and sulking back to his original spot.
“So who is this girl anyway?” Brian asked curiously after taking a deep swig of his beer.
Zach shrugged, “She’s a tattoo artist.”
“Right,” Brian groaned with a roll of his brown eyes. “But who is she?”
“Oh, her name’s—” Zach paused, searching every inch of his brain for some semblance of a name
Had he really not asked her the most basic question about her identity? Brian was not pleased with the lack of information but Jimmy cackled loudly, shaking his head at the green eyed lefty.
“So, she’s a stranger then,” Matt concluded cheerfully.
“You invited a total stranger to your house,” Brian stated flatly. “And didn’t even catch her name?”
Zach furrowed his brows, shrugging his entire body, “I was busy being in pain, man. She’s from New York. She runs this cool fucking shop there; I can show you the website if you want.”
“Let me see your new tat again,” Brian instructed skeptically.
Zach obliged him but soon all of the others were crowded around his skin. They all nodded approvingly, unable to argue the sheer quality of the new art. They were no strangers to sampling new artists, they’d all had their fair share. But Brian had woken up on the wrong side of the bed and was feeling particularly defensive.
Jimmy swung an arm around the guitarist’s shoulders, reassuring him that it would be fine and that he probably wouldn’t catch some heinous disease.
“That you don’t already have,” Jimmy added cheekily.
Brian swatted at his friend, slinking out from beneath his long arm, “Off.”
“You’re pleasant today,” Johnny noted with a grin. “The poor girl’s going to just love you.”
“I don’t care about that,” Brian mumbled, sinking into the chair next to Matt and downing another quarter of his beer in one go.
“Nooner beers,” Matt smiled. “Nothing better.”
“To the contrary,” Brian noted with a tilt of his bottle, “Nooner beers and after-beer smokes. Nothing better.”
“I have a question,” Johnny announced.
Zach laughed, “Of course you do. You’re a fucking idiot.”
Johnny laughed softly, “Thanks, man. My question, though, is: where’s she going to work?”
“What do you mean?” Brian asked confusedly.
“You’ve been in a tattoo shop, haven’t you, Syn?” Johnny retorted. “They’re usually…oh, I don’t know…Sanitary?”
The boys glanced around Zach’s humble abode. While it wasn’t necessarily ridden with filth, Johnny seemingly had a point.
“Where are we going to sit and shit?” Johnny added curiously.
The guys exchanged problematic glances. Each one fell into a shrug like some lazy form of human dominos.
“I know!” Jimmy screeched, abandoning his beer and racing out from the kitchen.
“This isn’t going to end well,” Zach grumbled, slowly chasing after his lanky friend out of fear of what he might to do to his home.
He was stunned to find the drummer pulling a mattress down the stairs. It thudded and slid as it sunk passed each step. As Jimmy navigated the bottom few stairs, he took out the table positioned neatly at the bottom. It fell to the floor with a crash, Jimmy didn’t even seem to notice.
“Dude!” Zach barked with a laugh. “Watch where you’re going!”
“It’ll probably be less damage if you help,” Jimmy grinned over his shoulder.
Zach saved the questions until the mattress was laying smack dab in the middle of his living room floor.
“I don’t get it,” he stated then.
Jimmy cackled, “You’re dumb.”
“Yeah, but I still don’t get it.”
The other filed slowly in to see the scene of all the commotion. Johnny was elated with Jimmy’s ingenious idea; the others were about as confused as Zach. Brian tilted his head, hoping the newfound angle might offer a better perspective.
“We need the frame,” Johnny said to Jim. “It’s too low to the floor like that.”
“Yeah!” Jimmy agreed loudly, pointing a long finger at his friend. “Good call, Christ!”
The two bombed up the stairs, stomping their feet as they made their way.
“Zach!” Jimmy called from upstairs. “Where are your tools?”
“You don’t need tools!” Zach called back with a groan.
There was a small pause before Jimmy shrieked back, “No problem! I’ll use my teeth!”
“Please go get him tools,” Brian laughed nervously.
“Remember last time he had to go to the dentist?” Matt agreed with horror in his eyes.
Zach’s eyes widened to match, “Oh my god and they gave him the gas?”
Matt and Brian nodded.
“I’m coming!” Zach shouted to his lanky friend. “Don’t you use your teeth!”
“Too late!” Jimmy laughed loudly. “I’m a fang deep in this footboard!”
Zach sped off up the stairs; some shouting ensued but eventually all three men descended with a piece of the spare room bed in tow. They worked together to reassemble the furniture as Brian and Matt hung back on the couch, acting as supervisors no doubt.
“You know what we need?” Jimmy thought aloud, admiring his creation as the bed sat perfectly in the center of the living room.
“Sane friends?” Zach muttered under his breath.
Jimmy smirked, “We need that plastic shit. You know, that stuff you wrap your furniture in. It’s sanitary.”
“It isn’t once you’ve put your fucking fingers all over it,” Johnny noted.
“Someone go buy some,” Jimmy insisted. “I’m telling you; we need it!”
The boys rock, paper, scissored about the new quest. Johnny lost, earning himself a round of teasing.
“Fine,” he said from the doorway. “But I’m taking Brian’s car. Peace out, fuckers!”
Before Brian could stop him, Johnny had disappeared and Brian’s black car had backed its way out of the driveway.
“What time’s she coming?” Matt asked, completely uncaring about the act of theft that had just occurred.
“I told her two,” Zach replied slowly. “But…Who knows if she’ll actually show up.”
“Course she will,” Brian grinned, reaching out to pinch at Zach’s cheeks. “Who could resist this face?”
“Wait until you see her, man,” Zach told his comrade. “She’s maybe the hottest girl I’ve ever seen.”
“Hotter than that dancer in Vegas?” Matt asked seriously.
Zach nodded gravely, “Oh yeah. Ten times hotter, easily.”
“Jesus,” they all muttered together.
“Extension cords,” Jimmy blurted out.
The other three exchanged confused glances, giving each of their heads a subtle shake as Jimmy disappeared out the back.
“Where is he going?” Zach breathed.
Brian laughed softly, “Probably to find an extension cord.”
Sure enough, Jimmy returned with a coiled orange cord hanging from his bony shoulder. He dug around behind Zach’s couch, searching for a free outlet.
“This all needs to move,” Jimmy told Zach from behind the couch.
There was no argument. The boys worked together to push each and every piece of Zach’s furniture out of the way and against the furthest wall. The loveseat made its way into the kitchen, which annoyed Zach to no end but he wasn’t about to fight Brian about its location.
They fanned out, bringing back pieces of furniture that they thought might aid in the mystery artist coming to cut up their skin. They did their best to be accommodating, unsure of what she might need. None of them had ever been to a “tattoo party”. Leave it to Zach to invent an occasion in hopes of luring out an attractive female.
“Genius, huh?” Zach laughed when Brian commended his efforts. “Came to me in a dream.”
“You guys are being pervy,” Matt informed them as he slinked away into the kitchen to grab a fresh round of brews.
“I’m going to smoke,” Brian declared, “I don’t want to get tied into this pervy shit.”
Zach rolled his green eyes, “No one’s being pervy. It’s a legitimate cause. We all want tattoos; she does tattoos. It’s just an added bonus that she looks like she’s fallen from heaven and landed in a pool of sexy.”
Jimmy laughed, “You could have asked that last guy to be our guest.”
“That guy didn’t fall into a pool of sexy, Rev,” Zach retorted.
“Are we good here?” Matt asked, passing out beers to each of his friends; Brian snatched his as he passed on his way through the kitchen.
“I think so,” Zach nodded.
The three men examined the workspace they’d created. It looked sketchy as all hell and could easily be mistaken for some strange deviant chamber. But all in all, they were fairly certain it would provide the bare bones for what the artist would need.
“Good,” Matt nodded. “Let’s go smoke.”
“Right behind you, man!” Jimmy beamed, towering over his friend as they strolled away from the ridiculous scene they’d labored to create.
Zach smiled to himself, feeling smug in his invention of a tattoo party. It had been a bit of a struggle to have the guys agree to it—except Jimmy. He was always up for anything; a character perk that Zach was always grateful for. He’d left it to Jim to get Brian on board—and though he was in a particularly foul mood, he’d participated in their shenanigans all the same. Zach figured it would work out to be a pretty good day. They’d get some new ink out of the deal at the very least.
He just hoped she showed up.

Notes

Only a few more to go before mystery man is revealed.

Is the suspense killing you? It's killing me; I just want to get to it already.

xx