Read Online Blues for Zoey by Robert Paul Weston - Free Book Online

best names have a Z in them.”
    â€œYou think?”
    â€œOf course,” she said. “My name’s Zoey.”

22
    The Inherent Dan ger of Placing
an Open Flame between Your Legs
    A blue angel describes the action of farting as hard as you can while trying to light your ass-gas on fir e. Just so we’re clear on this. It also explains why the “angel” in question is blue. Ass-gas has methane and hydrogen in it, so the resulting flame would resemble (theoretically, and somewhat disturbingly) something you would cook with on a gas st ove.
    I say theoretically because truly robust blue angels are rare. When we were kids, Calen an d I tried many times to light our farts on fi re. Sometimes we lied to each other for encouragement, claiming we saw a purplish flicker, a little che rubic spark, but more often than not all we succeeded in doing was singeing our fingertips when the match burned do wn.
    A twelve-inch blue angel? No, Calen and I were fairly certain that was impossible.
    To get to Topher’s room, you had to crawl under the spider’s web of masking tape, the skulls, the crossbones, the KEEP OUT s and the FUCK OFF s.
    His bedroom was a palace. Even crowded with a bunch of guys, you couldn’t miss the king-sized bed, the massive flat-screen bolted to the wall, the separate cabinets for each of the Big Three game consoles—along with a copy of every game you could think of. To top it all off, the end of the room was dominated by a huge aquarium full of monstrous tropical fish.
    When we walked in, however, we didn’t notice any of it. That’s because Topher was sitting on the edge of his bed, dead drunk and naked from the waist down. He had his legs splayed wide with his unit lumped on the covers, pink and greasy.
    â€œShit,” said Calen. “I don’t need to see that!”
    â€œHe’s really gonna do it,” I said.
    To my surprise, Becky was standing in the corner of the room.
    â€œHey, Kaz,” she said, with a slightly subdued but still perky wave.
    â€œI thought it was ‘guys only,’ ” I said.
    â€œYou can’t count Becky,” Calen reminded me. “It’s not like it’s anything she hasn’t seen before.”
    â€œA hundred bucks,” someone said.
    â€œYou sure you wanna do this?” asked somebody else.
    â€œShut up,” Topher told the room. He held up a Zippo lighter in one hand and a r uler in the other. He shut his eyes for a moment, and after a little concentration, he said, “Okay, I think I got one.”
    He lowered the ruler and the lighter between his legs and started trying to get a flame. The lighter sparked and sparked, and finally, after a bunch of tries, it lit up with a wavering yellow flame.
    â€œI wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
    The voice came from a girl, but it wasn’t Beck y. I turned around and there was Zoey.
    â€œYou’ll blow your ass off,” she said.
    Topher was so startled he dropped the lighter.
    â€œShit-shit-shit-shit!” He scrambled to cover his exposed crotch with a pillow. “ What the fuck ?! I said no girls!”
    â€œYeah, I know,” said Zoey, discreetly averting her eyes, “but I figured you wouldn’t mind if I was saving your life.”
    Topher looked at her like she was crazy. “What are you talking about?”
    â€œThink about it. If you light a fart on fire, you can be sure as shit—no pun intended—that it’ll burn faster than you can contract your ass muscles.”
    â€œWhat does that even mean?”
    â€œIt means the flame’ll sear right up your asshole and burn the shit out of you. Literally.”
    Topher sat there for a moment. “Really? Is that true?”
    Zoey laughed at him. “There’s one way to find out, but don’ t say I didn’t warn you.”
    â€œYou gonna do it or what?” someone asked him. It was the guy with the eyebrow ring, from