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concerned.”
    â€œYou believe all that, and you still slept there?” I watched Carey executing his morning wake-up routine: A series of stretches, like hobo yoga, seemingly designed to get the kinks out after sleeping a night on rough, flat ground. It was punctuated by occasional coughing fits and some gagging.
    â€œâ€˜Slept’ is a stretch. I passed out here. And sweetheart, I have passed out on far worse. I once passed out on top of a sick horse, when I woke up there was this black spray ev—”
    â€œGod! No! I do not want to hear any of that!” I threw the pillow I’d been clutching between my knees at his head.
    He was far too slow to duck it. He laughed after it hit him, then you could practically see the room swim behind his eyes, and he crawled desperately toward the bathroom. He bumped Jackie’s leg as he crawled over her. She stirred.
    â€œNoooo,” she groaned. “Just noooo.”
    â€œWake up, sleeping beauty,” I said. “You’ve probably got super-lice from sleeping on that floor.”
    â€œWhat? Dammit!” Jackie jumped to her feet and fell facefirst on the bed. “Why did you let me sleep on the floor?”
    â€œLet you?”
    We both tried to ignore Carey dry-heaving in the other room.
    â€œIf it was you, I would have dragged you up onto the bed,” Jackie said. She tried to slap at me, but was unwilling to open her eyes. She missed by a mile.
    â€œNo you wouldn’t.” I’d had the TV on so long I stopped noticing the sounds it made. It was playing cartoons now. Maybe it was Saturday.
    â€œI would too,” Jackie protested. “I would have tucked you in and brought you water and bacon, a cool compress for your fevered forehead…”
    â€œA nice tall glass of straight vodka,” I filled in for her, and she groaned. “Some cottage cheese, maybe a side of raw salmon…”
    I started bouncing in place on the bed.
    â€œGod damn you,” Jackie spat, and stumbled wildly into the bathroom. There was a commotion as she and Carey fought for the toilet. I turned the TV up. I didn’t need to hear the details. It was playing some crazy anime thing. All children screaming and rapid flashing—something about collecting a bunch of Super-Tongpus to defeat the Octopus Who Lives at the End of Time or other such nonsense.
    I shouldn’t have taunted Jackie like that. She wouldn’t be mad at me or anything—she does worse to me all the time—but I needed her in good shape this morning. I needed both of them as clear as possible. I’d had nothing to do all night but listen to the pair of them snore, and think. I came to some conclusions. Serious ones, and we needed to talk about them as soon as possible. I couldn’t do that if she and Carey spent all morning fighting for toilet space and yelling for me to go get them increasingly stupid hangover cures.
    â€œKate,” Carey yelled, as if on cue, “run down to the corner store and buy us a loaf of plain white bread.”
    â€œNo,” Jackie slumped backwards against the bathroom door and made a valiant effort to look in my general direction. It was a failed effort, but she made it. “No bread. Meat. Get beef jerky and, like, the biggest thing of water. Do they sell barrels? Buy me a barrel of water.”
    â€œMake it two barrels,” Carey added, “and the bread. And a tallboy of PBR.”
    â€œI’m not going to the store,” I said, and they both instantly started whining like children being denied a snow day. “But I’ll tell you what: If you get yourselves together enough to move, I’ll buy you both breakfast at that shitty diner across the street.”
    â€œOof. Moving,” Jackie said.
    â€œThey’ll have bacon,” I told her, then to Carey: “And bread, and unlimited tap water. Sweet, sweet tap water.”
    *   *   *
    The Bearly There Diner