Our starting point approached, and we met and pbumed it on our way down the other stretch of the street’s artistic tent-chain. I was dying from the heat, and sweating rivulets of gooey salt which were pooling under my ample pannus. No, I’m not talking about my genitals, you perverts; look it up. It’s a medical condition, okay?

It was ridiculously hot. We both wanted food and drink, and conversation at this point was either nonexistent, or too liberally boring for me to remember, or about finding food and drink. But it was too hot to move very fast, and , of course, we had to keep pretending to appreciate the art as we walked. It took us perhaps a half an hour to reach the far end of the last of the art displays and a few booths and restaurants that looked to contain food, but either at too expensive a prices or looking not trendy-hippy-bull**** enough to enter. Obviously, neither of us could enter a bar and grill or pizza joint; he because he was genuinely pretending to be pretentious, and me because I was just pretending to be pretentious. Oh, look, that art over there. We like that one.

It was the end of the line, and I, for one, had no more energy left in me to go and look in other tents on other sides or down other roads. It just isn’t true what they say about fat being a store of energy, damnit. JB was thirsty for booze and weed or booze-flavored weed, and gay hookers, I guess, but mostly we were just desperate for any food or liquid. After frantically looking around for somewhere to pretend I’d known about all along, a near-perfect little shop arrived, dues ex machina. A coffee house. A little one. With tea and all sorts of Eurotrash-sounding coffees. And cakes. Holy ****, cakes. JB couldn’t turn this down. I mean, he wanted booze, caffeine would be good enough. As for weed and gay hookers, he could probably find that in the bathrooms.

“Let’s go in here, sound good?” I asked JB, who agreed, but needed some time to browse… shoes. No comment. Anyway, he suggested I find a seat, and he’d join me.

A half hour later or so, JB pranced into the comfy-trendy little place with three large bags hanging limply from his wrists, all full of shoes. I stared; he noticed. “Shoppiiiiiiiiing!” he exclaim-explained. I headed to the front desk to order whatever the hell I thought people at coffee houses ordered. I waved JB in front of me, so I could observe his picks.

Something called an “iced chai” was Bootyhole’s pick, and that sounded pretty gay. I was hungry, and ornery, and hot, full of pit-sweat and generally wanting to off myself after so long hanging around with the guy. Still, I hadn’t found out the mystery of MELLTD FACE’s modship yet. I couldn’t quit now. I put on the charm… hard.

In a moment, I found myself choosing from a black marker-board predictably scribbled with effeminately-written menu items. I chose the absolute most fruity thing I could find. I found myself uttering the words, “I’ll have a Spunky Monkey” to the token ethnic waitress. I figured the name and my choice of it would naturally attract JB to me, so I could get down to my detective business.

We waited, mandatorily bobbing our heads to the house “music,” for our items: me, a fudge cake and the Spunky Monkey, he, the iced chai. Eventually they came, and we sat in a cushy booth. It was time to talk. Time to get to the bottom of this all. Time to really see whether or not Jalapeno Bootyhole was responsible for yet another travesty, and maybe uncover some other dirt. All of this, over drinks.

JB sipped his “iced chai” and seemed to like it. As homosexually and pretentiously as I could, I slurped my Spunky Monkey, which turned out to be aptly named. It was the milk color and gooey consistency of jism. It could literally have been monkey jism, bumuming said monkey had eaten about ten thousand of the most over-sugared banana splits ever. I could faintly taste coffee in the thing, but mainly, it was eye-wateringly sweet. Somewhere inside my body, I heard my diabetes scream.