Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned Read Online Free

best-seller by Walter Snow!" she said.
    "I'll drink to that," I said.
    "You'll write it, too," said Clyde.
    What happened next is a little difficult to remember. Tres tequilas will do that to you. And we didn't stop at three. Fox Harris came whirling into the place with an entrance quite theatrical, carrying a large cardboard box very delicately, dressed in a flowing blue robe, and strutting past the stares, both cold and curious, of the assembled patrons like a proud and handsome king, which in many ways he was. Or maybe I should say queen. I wasn't sure then and I'm not entirely certain now. I'm not even sure that it makes any difference.
    As Fox approached our table, with his long, unkempt locks of hair flowing in every possible direction, he began singing quite loudly to the bemusement or studied indifference of the other customers and to the perfect joy of Clyde.
    " 'MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark, all that sweet green icing oozing down,'" he paraphrased as he discarded the box on the floor, revealing a beautiful chocolate cake that he danced around displaying to the patrons, many of whom appeared as if they'd been hit by a hammer. Now he sang louder and more emotionally, playing to his audience like a torch singer.

    "Someone left the cake out in the rain,
    I don't know if I can make it,
    It took so long to bake it,
    And I'll never have that recipe again!''

    He came over to our table then, placed the cake precariously atop a small platform of the six empty tequila glasses, and gave Clyde a long hug, which at moments seemed brotherly, at others seemed motherly, and still at others seemed loverly. I was mildly surprised to notice a small but definite streak of jealousy manifesting itself in my heart. I hardly knew these people, I recall thinking at the time. I realize now, of course, that I hardly knew myself.
    "Welcome to the caravan, Walter," he said at last, winking broadly at Clyde. "I've heard a lot about you."
    He extended a firm hand from somewhere within the bountiful folds of his royal blue robe. I shook hands with the man Clyde had called the king of the Gypsies and, indeed, his eyes seemed to sparkle with life and love and destiny like the slow-moving spokes of a Gypsy wagon. He gazed down at the table and his face suddenly registered great shock.
    "Don't tell me," he shouted, "that you both have had tres tequilas without me!"
    "You were late, Fox," said Clyde. "You're always late."
    "That's an occupational hazard," he said, "of a homeless man without subway fare. Thank God Walter's here. Bartender! Nine more tequilas! What do you two think of the cake?"
    "Looks yummy," said Clyde.
    "Baked it myself. German chocolate. Do you know the recipe, Walter, for German chocolate cake?"
    "I'm afraid I don't," I said.
    "Well, the first step is, you occupy the kitchen."
    This drew a mild guffaw from the large, rather portly waiter who proceeded to deposit nine more tequilas on the table. Clyde, Fox, and I proceeded to kill the first round and I thought for a while that I could actually keep up with them. Clyde clearly could drink like a fish, and I don't mean the one that smelled up the bank. Fox's basic demeanor was so ebullient and mercurial it had been hard to tell if he was drunk or sober from the moment he'd walked into the place. Maybe he was dead drunk. Maybe he merely seemed to appear increasingly more dignified. Maybe, as Fox contended later, there was very little difference between those two states of human behavior.
    By the fifth round of tequila, I was having a little trouble focusing my eyes but I could make out Fox Harris jumping around like a spinning ghost and striking a kitchen match on his jeans.
    "Make a wish," he shouted, lighting the single huge candle on the cake, which he later confided he'd stolen from the Church of the Latter Day Felcher. Clyde closed her eyes, and with a particularly dreamy expression on her face, made a wish.
    "What'd you wish for?" asked Fox.
    "I'm not telling," said