“So I wake up in Hawaii, naked, and without my passport.”
“You don’t need a passport in Hawaii, Benjy.”
“I had fallen asleep in London.”
“Oh, then you should have your passport. Wait, how long were you unconscious?”
“Not unconscious.”
…
“Benjy, is Billy murdering you again?”
“Not again.”
“He never stopped, did he?”
“No.”
“Oh, Benj. That’s not right. You’re so busy with Reed Mathis’ new project, Electric Beethoven, which made its world debut at Terrapin Crossroads the other night.”
“Thank you for the plug, Trix.”
“Trixie. Trix is a cereal, Benj.”
“Benjy. Benj is a cereal.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Anyway, why did Billy kidnap you?”
“Sequel to the book.”
“About what? Every single one of Billy’s stories is in the first one. I should know: I’ve heard all of them numerous times.”
“Well, this one is more specific. Topical. About the Dead & Company tour and the past few months.”
…
“Is that what the ‘Summer of Skank’ is all about?”
“Oh, you heard about that?”
“I hear everything.”
“It’s getting weird. He’s doing a lot of Jimmy Durantes.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Like a speedball, but with coke and Viagra.”
“That’s horrifying.”
“Don’t knock it til you try it.”
“I am not going to try that. What’s he going to do when the tour’s over?”
“I’m not supposed to tell you.”
“Tell me now, Benjy.”
“Okay. We’re stealing the Earthroamer–”
“Again?”
“–and doing a cross-country road trip. Fifty States of Skank.”
“Ew?”
“Me and Billy driving across this great nation, stopping in bars and laundromats and OTB’s, plowing skank and making memories.”
“I rescind my question mark. Ew.”
“Billy likes to cruise by the waiting room of the ER at four in the morning. That is a hotbed of freaky skank right there.”
“Benjy.”
“You know halfway houses? Turns out there’s halfway strip clubs for strippers who just got out of stripper jail. Nothing halfway about the skank, though.”
“Benjy.”
“And EDM festivals, obviously. The only reasons those places exist is skank.”
…
“Billy calls them Venus Skank Traps.”
“So you’ll be driving a lunatic with a boner around the country in a stolen RV, watching him bang skank.”
“Plow. Billy told me he was done banging. All about plowing the skank now.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Probably something to him.”
“And he’s going to be murdering you occasionally along the way?”
“I hope it’ll be occasionally.”
“How often does he do it now?”
“Regularly.”
“Benjy, why don’t you quit?”
“What? And leave show business?”
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