Part 21 (1/2)

GREG.

I think, uh . . . I mean, some scientists think that everyone's actually a little bit of both. h.o.m.o and hetero.

EARL.

Naw. That don't make any d.a.m.n sense at all. You tellin me right now, you can look at some t.i.tties, get a hard-on, look at some dude's funky d.i.c.k, get another hard-on. You gonna tell me that for real.

GREG.

I guess I can't say that, no.

EARL.

determinedly Dog taking a dump: hard-on. Wendy's double cheeseburger: hard-on. Computer virus that destroy all your s.h.i.+t: hard-on.

GREG.

Business section of the Wall Street Journal.

EARL.

Big-a.s.s hard-on for that s.h.i.+t.

Contemplative silence.

EARL.

Yo, I got a line for you. You wanna get with that girl, with the big-a.s.s t.i.tties?

GREG.

Yeah, give me a line.

EARL.

You walk up to her, say, Girl, you might not a known this about me, but I'm a tris.e.xual.

GREG.

uncertainly OK.

EARL.

Girl's like, What the f.u.c.k?

GREG.

Yeah.

EARL.

You like, Yeah, tris.e.xual.

GREG.

OK.

EARL.

She like, Whaaaaaat. You with me?

GREG.

I'm with you.

EARL.

Awright, she all confused. Then you drop the bomb, you're like: tris.e.xual, girl. Cuz I'ma try to have s.e.x with you.

GREG.

Ohhhhhh!

EARL.

Try-s.e.xual.

GREG.

I'll definitely use that.

EARL.

Mack.

All right. Now we're reaching the part where my life really started accelerating toward the edge of a cliff. And actually, this part wasn't even Mom's fault! It was Madison's. It's definitely messed up that they played similar roles in my life. I'm trying not to think about this too hard, lest I never get a b.o.n.e.r ever again.

It was the beginning of November, and I was in the part of the hall where they had tacked up a bunch of vaguely terrifying pilgrim-and-turkey paintings by the ninth graders, when Madison appeared out of nowhere and grabbed my arm. Our skin was actually touching, specifically in the hand-to-arm format.

Suddenly, I became terrified that I was going to belch.

”Greg,” she said. ”I have a favor to ask you.”

It wasn't like I felt a belch forming in my stomach. It was just that, in my mind's eye, I could foresee myself belching at Madison. I saw this extremely vividly. Maybe there would be a small amount of barf in there.

”So I promise I haven't seen any of your movies,” she said, sort of a little impatiently, ”but Rachel has, obviously, and she really likes them. And I just had this idea-you should make a movie for her.”