the fricken store. Don't pull my
dick."

"Just askin'. Whyfor the solvent? Anything illegal?"

"Just a project, Stude. Nothing to worry."

"What kinda project?"

"Art project. Fun-fricken-tastic. You'll love it."

"'Cause you know, they tag the shit with buckyballs now, one molecule in a
million with a serial number and a checksum. You do something stupid, I get
chopped."

I hadn't known. Didn't matter, my parents' house was legally mine, while they
were up confabbing with their alien buds on the mothaship. "No worries."

"That'll be, uh, sixty-eight cents."

"Thirty."

"Sixty, firm."

"Fifty-four."

"Fifty-eight."

"Take it in trade?"

"Fricken Maxes! Tradesies? You're wastin' my time, lookin' for bootleg solvent,
looking for trade and no cash? Get fucked, Maxes."

He starts to haw-up Tilly and I go, "Wait-wait-wait, I got some good stuff.
Everything must go, moving sale, you know?"

He looks really pissed and I know it hard now, I'm gonna get *taken*. I hand him
up my bag, and he does a fast-paw through the junk. "What's this?" he asks.

"Old video game. Atari. Shoot up the space aliens. Really, really antisocial.
Needs a display, but I don't got it anymore." I'd sold it the month before on a
bored day, and used the eight cents to buy good seats behind home plate at the
Skydome and thus killed an entire afternoon before Judgment Day.

There are some of the artyfarty "freestyle" kitchen utensils Mum used to sell
for real cash until Dad founded his Process for Lasting Happiness and she found
herself able to pursue "real art." There are paper books and pictures and
assorted other crap.

Stude clucks and shakes his head. "If I just gave you the monofil and the
fix-bath for this shit, it'd be a favour. Look, I can *get* real money for
solvent. I *pay* real money for solvent. This just don't cut it."

"I'll get more, just hang a sec."

He haws-up Tilly but reigns her in slow, and I dash back to my place and fill a
duffel with anything I lay hands to, and run out, dragging it behind me,
catching the cart before it turns the corner. "Here, here, take this too."

Stude dumps it out in front of him and kicks at the pile. "This is just crap,
Maxes. There's lots of it, sure, but it's still crap."

"I need it, Stude, I really need some solvent. You already *got* all my good
stuff."

He shakes his head, sad, and says, "Go ask Tilly."

"Ask?"

"Tilly. Ask her."

Stude likes to humiliate you a littl