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“Awesome, dude.” Keith fist-bumps Balder.
“You could totally meet somebody at the Party House,” I say, trying to get Keith back on track. “And, you know, maybe she lives there and you’ll want to stay.”
Keith scratches his chin. “Yeah. Maybe. I hear Daytona’s nice. I could be a beach bum for the rest of my life. Stay by the ocean.”
“That sounds great, man. You should do that.” Ha! Take that, Dulcie, you angel of doom.
“I don’t know,” Keith says. “Daytona’s expensive, and my money for school just ran out. But I got a cousin in the army. He says they really take care of you. I was thinking of enlisting this summer.”
Balder nods. “Man is the augmentation of the dust. Great is the claw of the hawk.”
“Okay, Balder? Could you and your Norse goodness do me a solid and take a hike? I need a minute here.”
Balder bows. “As you wish, Cameron the Noble. This Twist My Brains beer is worthy. I shall have more.”
“You do that.”
Balder stops to wrap a meaty arm around my neck. You wouldn’t think a yard gnome would be so butch, but I can barely breathe. “What is your battle cry again?” Balder asks Keith. “Oh yes. I love you. Man.”
“Love you, too, B,” I squeak out.
Balder releases my thankful neck. As he stumbles off, he crumples a beer can against his skull and it sticks there. One of the logs sinks deeper into the campfire, sending out a shower of sparks that flare in the dirt and vanish. It’s getting a little chilly. I stick my hands in my pockets to warm them. Something sharp sticks me. I pull out the screw.
“What’s that?” Keith asks.
“This? It’s kind of a funny story. This old guy at a hardware store gave it to me. It’s supposed to be important. Actually, he said it was a magic screw,” I say, rolling my eyes so he doesn’t think I take that shit seriously.
“A magic screw?” Keith repeats, grabbing it from me.
“Yeah? I know. Like I said, I didn’t believe the guy. …”
Keith laughs so hard I’m afraid he’ll burst something. “Hey, guys! Guess what Bonehead here has? A magic screw!”
Everybody’s laughing now. Gonzo rouses from his stupor and makes high-pitched snorting noises.
“Hey, I didn’t say it was magic,” I argue. “Just that it’s … a necessary part. That’s what he told me. It’s a necessary part.”
“Necessary part of what?” Keith chokes out.
“I … don’t know. He was old. A little senile.”
“Dude, you totally believed him. Admit it.” It’s Gonzo. He’s forgotten that these guys wanted to give him demeaning nicknames and has practically joined their fraternity.
“Laugh it up, Stumpy,” I say.
Gonzo can’t stop laughing long enough to be insulted. All I hear from him is a high-pitched “Magic screw!”
Keith’s slapping Left Guy on the back. “Hey, baby. You wanna screw? No, it’ll be magic, I swear.” He breaks into a kind of chortling that comes out of his nose in snorts and honks. It’s the sort of contagious laughing that ripples out to everyone.
“Yeah, yeah, okay. I was joking. …”
“No, no, I’m sorry, man. Here, let me make it up to you,” Keith says, putting his arm around me and trying to get his breathing under control. There are tears streaming from his eyes. “You want a screw?”
That’s all it takes for the whole crew to fall out again like a pack of deranged hyenas, their laughing punctuated only by guttural gasps of “magic” and “screw.” I can see this will be the joke played out at my expense for the next one hundred miles.
“I’m gonna get some more firewood.”
Dulcie follows me out of the campground. “You can get mad. It’s okay. It won’t kill you to say it, Cameron.”
