Click Baiter

"Why are you holding your face in your hands?" Justron asked me.

I had just gotten off the phone with my mom. She'd told me she was using a bag of dog food to hold down the faucet handle on her kitchen sink, lest it explode. It wasn't clear if the bag of dog food would explode or the sink.

"For my mom," I moaned through my fingers, "the Great Depression didn't end with the joyous slaughter of the Second World War Two. No, it continues. And continues."

"Did you say joyous?" Justron said, tenderly befuddled. His eyes narrowed.

"What's going on?" Jonah said. "Are you perplexing my good friend, Justron, again??"

"It's hard not to. Actually, apropos, I've been thinking of ways to increase my SEO sales revenue for this blog. You know, get some clickbaity stuff going. Like, your jaw will fuckin' explode when you see what William Conrad looks like now. That sort of thing."

"Hmm," Jonah said. "How about... Click here to get yer Collected Works of Hegel at a discounted price?"

"No!" Justron said rapturously. "The works of Mary Oliver!"

"Er, thanks, fellas. But I was thinking more along the lines of these witty bullet points:

• Your 5 Senses: Get all of them fucking today
• 2 plus 2 equals 4--But is it really true 4 you??
• 10 ways to count backwards, when pulled over by the coppers and before you go to jail
• Lucky number Slevin: Is this a great movie, or what??
• 3-in-1 Oil: The number 1 lubricant favored by Catholic priests!..."

"What are you dorks up to?" Justkidding said. "Haven't you been fired yet?"

"We're working on it," I said seriously.

"Are we playing chess tonight for the Ruby Creek chess club? I want to play! Wait, I have to look up the rules first..."

"Now who's the dork?" Jonah said puckishly, fingering his Mao beard.

We set up boards in the community area, which kept most of the public out of the community area. Justkidding sat across from me, grinning maniacally.

"Okay," she said, impaling a horsie with her Cruella nails. "How does this thing move again? Is this the hat?"

"This isn't Monopoly," I said adverbially. "Now, here, the shoe can move in any direction. Unless it lands on Free Parking."

"Okay, I'll move this. No. I'll move this one. Should I move this one? How do the little ones move again?"

"Actually, it's my turn. White moves first."

"Of course it does! I'm black, at least. Well, half-white, too. But I don't count that part." Justkidding nearly swiped Justron--who was doefully watching us--with a wave of her Krueger nails.

"Help," Justron breathed.

I made my move and cleared my throat professorially. "This is a black and white world, chess is. Backward formation, I like speak to."

"You are garbage. I'm mostly kidding."

"Mostly, eh. Maybe I have your name wrong?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

Jonah came over, synthetically excited. "Just the cure for our blues! Jeff is here with Cuban contraband!"

"Oh, good," I said. "Wait. What?"

Jeff was grinning at the circ counter. He had brought two boxes of Cuban cigars, fresh from his trip to Cuba and with a lame story as to why in the world they let him into their country.

"First the Purple mattress and now cigars!" Jonah crowed. "Maybe this job doesn't suck after all?"

"I'm in flavor country--dialectically speaking."

Jonah and Justron each lit up a Castro stogie, as they're not known.

Puffs of fragrant smoke filled the library. Alarms went off and we ran around in a panic, as the emergency manual recommends. I carried the chess game out into the night and finished off Justkidding with a sick fork-skewer-zugzwang maneuver.

"Checkmate," I sniffed.

"Racist!" Justmostlykidding said.

"Good God," I said, looking over the position. "You're right!"