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It wasn’t that he was afraid of Perry. Romeo wasn’t really afraid of anyone. He just wasn’t up for hearing about it, again. Ditching him was the easiest way to avoid another annoying confrontation.
Romeo ushered them down the side street with Marco resisting and yelling over his head the whole time.
“Perry! Perry! Yo! Over here… Perry!”
But, Perry didn’t hear them. He just kept on walking.
“Yo Perry!”
Romeo managed to get them away and then back on track. He walked his friends down the street, around the corner, down that street, around another corner and eventually back up towards the festival.
“Well that was a big circle,” said Marco. Disappointed he wasn’t able to raise a ruckus.
“Stop pouting.”
“I’m not pou-.”
Marco didn’t finish. Instead he stopped and smiled. Well, not really a smile. More like an evil grin. “Hey, you know where we are?”
Romeo shrugged. “You mean specifically or in a more spiritual kind of way?”
Marco pointed. “That’s Cap’s stand.”
It was. They were back up at the street fair. They’d come up one of the side streets and landed on the back end of Cap’s set up.
Cap’s was Monty’s biggest rival. Another cheesesteak restaurant about a block and a half away. It wasn’t a clear shot, but each of them could see the other’s restaurant if they stood out in the middle of the road. The semi-open eye line and close-ish proximity undoubtedly helped to feed the feud.
Cap’s claim to fame was lower prices. Their cheesesteaks were notoriously cheaper. Whatever Monty’s charged Cap’s automatically charged at least a dollar less. It was part of their shtick. The lower price also reflected the lower quality of their product - the meat specifically. Still, plenty of people loved ‘em, all chopped into oblivion and smothered in Cheez Whiz.
“So?” said Benny, not getting the point.
“So?! So that means those two cases of onions right there probably belong to them.
Romeo got it. He just didn’t want it. “In the words of my good friend Benny here let me repeat… So?”
“So, I say we steal them onions.”
“Why?”
“Why not? Come on. It’ll be great. It’ll be fun. It’ll be…” And here Marco paused for dramatic effect and said in a throaty whisper, “Sabotage.”
“It’ll be a bad idea,” countered Romeo. “Besides, we’re late enough as it is.”
“Come on! You remember what they did that time? That thing with the hot sauce? And that thing that night at that bar? Benny couldn't walk for a week.
Then Marco got close to them both. And he said, in a softer, more annoyingly sing songy way, “Might help us win. Might help us win and teach those whiz heads a good lesson at the same time.”
“It’s a bad idea,” Romeo said again, even though he knew it was a losing battle.
Most of Marco’s ideas were about this bad, but Romeo always had a hard time saying no to him. Mostly because Marco rarely, if ever, gave up. It was a miracle he was able to keep Marco away from Perry before. He knew he wasn’t going to win this one too. And Benny, well Benny would go along with whatever they said.
“Benny, you in?”
“Sure,” said Benny.
Of course he was.
So Marco snuck forward, grabbed a case of onions and handed it to Benny. Then he picked the other one up himself. And just as they started to sneak away they heard…
