Nine

Dave complied with Billy’s request.  He distributed blotter tabs to his two friends, took an additional belt off the bottle of Dos Guzanos and began to indiscriminately pull camping gear out of the Jeep.  Very quickly, he returned to the picnic table smoking a cigarette and carrying canisters of fuel for the camp stove. 

    “Hey losers! I’m gonna totally cook us up a feast. You all should set up the tent before things get crazy around here.”

    “Losers and winners, prey and predators,” Rich walked back to the Jeep.  He picked up the storage bag for the tent off the hard clay ground.  Dave had tossed it there along with the accompanying poles in his strung out search for the stove and its fuel. "Bullshit. Come on Billy, this is the fucking U.S.A., you can be anything you want here if you work hard enough.”

    “Yeah, and having the right parents and friends doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

    “What’s that supposed to mean?”

    “It means you’re a bigger loser than we are, dude.” Dave interjected.  He was distractedly trying to do two things simultaneously that safety would dictate one do separately and with one's full measure of attention – start a fire and set up the camp stove.   He was definitely the most fucked up of the three from the early goings, but still up and about, still making a contribution to the proceedings.  “You come from a family with money… winners, but you decided to try and be a rock star, sooooo... here you are”

    “Here I am?”

    “Yes,” Dave and Billy responded.

“Fuck no, mi hermanos!”  Rich worked steadily at erecting the tent.  “Nobody here is any of that shit Billy’s talking about.  We’re brothers, man.  The rest of it doesn’t matter.”

    “The rest of it never matters to winners.”  Billy had finished his cigarette but made no move to help either Dave or Rich.  “Don’t worry dude, I still think you’re cool.”

    “Yeah, we won’t make you go eat some kinda freeze dried bean curd with those two dykes over there,” Dave stood up from his work and waved a piece of firewood above his head in the direction of the neighboring couple, “right ladies?”

    “That’s a man and a woman, dude!”  Rich corrected him.

    “Could’a fooled me.  With all that stupid bicycle gear on they look alike.”

    “YEAH, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT YOU!”  Billy stood up from the picnic table and shouted at the couple.  He grabbed the bottle of mescal and nosily gulped down another swallow.  He whooped like a Sonoran bandit and shouted at the couple again, “DON’T WORRY SKIP AND MUFFY, WE DIDN’T BRING OUR GUNS!”