He unscrewed the flimsy top and dipped his dropper into the liquid, squeezing a small amount into its narrow cylindrical tube. Carefully, he moved the dropper above a microscope slide, let one drop fall onto the clear glass, and placed the slide under the microscope sitting on the motel room's small table.
"Jesus H. Christ, Fogman. Hurry the fuck up," the other assistant to the green-eyed woman said -- the assistant who insisted on being called L-Pain and who had flapped his stupid mouth about a rumor of a rumor about the water in Long Beach, resulting in Foghorn having to take a road-trip down the I-5 with him, enduring a Long Beach home game against a terrible Heartland team, and spending the night in Long Beach's finest hotel -- the Greenleaf.
"Just go without me. I need to get this shit done for the doc."
"I ain't walkin' to Roscoe's by myself. I ain't no bitch, but have you seen this neighborhood? I ain't no fool."
Foghorn peered into the microscope and slowly adjusted the lens. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the water. Surprisingly, there wasn't any bacteria swimming around either. He was certain that hellhole of a stadium was crawling with the stuff.
He increased the magnification and still didn't see anything of note. Shrugging his shoulders, he said, "Fuck it. Let's eat. The chicken and waffles better be worth it."
***
The next morning, halfway into their long drive back to Sacramento, Foghorn watched as L-Pain grabbed the jug of water they had gathered the previous evening at the stadium, twist off the top, and take a giant swig.
"What the fuck you doing?"
L-Pain wiped his chin with the collar of his shirt. "I'm thirsty."
"But we still gotta run tests on that shit."
"Who the fuck cares? You and I both know this shit here is normal ass drinking water. All that shit I told that green-eyed cunt was complete garbage. Proud of some of the shit I came up with. She fuckin' swallowed all that shit whole."
Thirty miles farther up the I-5, L-Pain was dead.
@Lane
[Note: All references to place names or people are completely coincidental. I'm sure the neighborhood around Lime Avenue is a great place to visit.]
