2Dekshoo || Radio Radio
JP
I really have to piss.
“Ace!” I shout, to where he’s walking ahead of me with his arm around Stéphanie. “I really have to piss!”
He looks back over his shoulder, tilting his head down so he can glare at me over the top of his Ray-Bans. I too am wearing Ray-Bans, only Ace’s came from the Ray-Ban store, and I got mine out of a bargain bin at a thrift shop. That’s also where I got the muscle shirt I’m wearing, which has a picture of some eight pack abs printed on the front.
When I walked into the park today, Ace said I was an embarrassment to the human race. I, on the other hand, like to think that the human race is lucky to have me, and this stylish and hilarious shirt is just one of the many reasons why.
Perspective, my friends. It’s all in the perspective.
“How is that relevant to my life right now?” Ace calls back to me.
I stop and think about that for a moment, then shout, “Stéphanie! I really have to piss!”
She stops walking, forcing Ace to stop too. When she turns around, she’s laughing and shaking her head. I have that effect on most women.
“Is that relevant tomylife, JP?” she asks, beaming at me.
She beams at most things. She’s like a human flashlight, this girl. The last person any of us expected Ace to get it on with was a smiley blonde ballet teacher with a thing for meditation, but almost a year has passed now, and the moody son of a bitch is still prancing around after her like she’s the reason the sun shines.
“Ouais,” I answer her. “Est-ce que je peux utiliser votre toilette, Madame?”
Stéphanie is Québécois like me, but even though Ace can understand us perfectly—fuck, his French grammar is better than mine—she still answers my request to use her bathroom in English. We’re only a block away from her apartment building now.
“Of course. Just don’t break anything, okay?”
I put a hand to my chest. “Madame! Are you saying you don’t trust me?”
Ace throws me some more shade over his sunglasses. “You broke Youssef’s showerhead at his birthday party last week when you decided to present him with the gift of a ‘sexy shower show’ at two in the morning.” He looks at Stéphanie and whispers, “Don’t let him in.”
I mean, the shower showwaspretty fucking sexy.
“You have permission to use the toilet and sink,” Stéphanie tells me. “The shower is off limits.”
“Fair enough.” I glance up the street to where Stéphanie’s building is now in view. “Vraiment, though, I have to piss like a motherfucker. You mind if I run ahead? It’s apartment twenty-four, right?”
Stéphanie nods, and I hear Ace ask, “What does ‘piss like a motherfucker’ even mean?” as I take off sprinting up the street.
Running does not help with the Needing-To-Piss situation. We met up with some of Stéphanie’s dance friends in the park, and one of them brought a six pack to go along with the pizza we picked up. Gotta love the Montreal Picnic Law, which states that you can drink alcohol ‘consumed in a park with a meal.’ Since Stéphanie and Ace don’t drink, I had to do my gentlemanly duty and down two beers to save the poor girl from having to lug the bottles back home. After that, I had to down a litre of water to save me from dehydrating in the heat.
That’s what needing to ‘piss like a motherfucker’ means.
“Esti,” I swear, as I pull the door to the building’s lobby open. I still have to make it up a flight of stairs.
Even by Montreal standards, the place is shabby and cramped. The ‘lobby’ is the size of a walk-in closet and has just enough room for a wall of mailboxes before it leads to the sloping staircase with worn-out carpeting that I’m now climbing two steps at a time.
I make it down the creepy hallway where someone’s blasting death metal behind one of the doors. I recognize the Amon Amarth song and throw up some devil horns in respect as I pull open the door across the hall and step into apartment twenty-four.
The only time I’ve been in here was to help carry up a couch Stéphanie bought. I head to the first room on my left, hoping it will turn out to be the bathroom.
“Let’s see what’s behind Door Number One...” I mutter. If it isn’t something I can take a leak in, I’m in trouble.
It turns out that behind Door Number One there is a bed with a half-naked girl on it, lying on her stomach with her tank top riding up and her only-half-covered-by-her-underwear ass facing my way. In any other situation, this would be a very good thing. Right now, this is a very bad thing.
The chick whips her head around at the sound of the door opening. Her eyes go wide and her mouth drops open, but she doesn’t make any noise. I wave at her.
