Blackheads

by Ashley Bradley

  "Um," An, the Asian, was like, looking to Francine to do something.

  Francine just shrugged, "It'll be over soon."

  "What if she kills her?"

  Francine bugged her eyes out and shrugged more, which An nodded a "Right" to.

  After Chamomile finished almost but not quite murdering L'Iago, Francine decided to break the tense moment by clapping her sweaty hands together and looking directly in the eyes of near-dead L'Iago to say, "The plan, Jan, is that we're going to go across the street to that Walgreens over there because the CVS I was initially planning on us robbing is actually a place my family shops at quite frequently and I don't...like, I just don't want to make it weird at a place where my dad gets his erectile dysfunction pills from. Or, like," she paused to laugh lightly, "any weirder, at least."

  Everyone nodded.

  Francine continued, "So the plan is we will go to that Walgreens over there which has all the stuff CVS has, but better lighting."

  "But more Indians," Chamomile interjected. Then she looked to An, "No offense."

  An shook her head, "We don't include them."

  Everyone nodded.

  Chamomile continued, "The last time I was in a Walgreens some dot head snatched me up accusing me of stealing Vicks VapoRub, like binch, whom stealing VapoRub? I could just take meth while suckin' on a mint, like."

  "Ehh," An was like, "honestly it seems just based off your appearance and demeanor that you were, indeed, probably trying to steal VapoRub."

  Everyone nodded, including Chamomile.

  "Okay, true," she said, confirming An's hunch. "It's just...you on't know I was tryna steal. You just assumed."

  "They probably saw you?" An guessed.

  "True, true," Chamomile nodded, cupping her big hands together. She looked like Shaquille O'Neal but if he was a teen mom. Or, just like a slightly shorter Shaquille O'Neal.

  An gave an Asian Side-Eye to Francine, who locked it into the computer in her brain and transmitted from her brain computer to An's brain computer, "Girl, I know, but just bear with me, okay?". From An's brain computer she sent over a sigh and nod.

  "So yeah," Francine the leader was like, "there are way more Indians. And all of us except maybe An are gonna be watched extra-careful by them. Especially," and she pointed shocker fingers at Chamomile and L'Iago, "Y'all two."

  They nodded.

  "So let's lean into that and make you two the distractions. L'Iago, you can be running around the store being a baby triceratops or some shit, and Cham, you can...just be you. Just be walking around looking like the suspicious seventeen year old lineback of the football team at an innercity 'special school' like how you usually look."

  Chamomile nodded at her assignment, but L'Iago had some adjustment requests. She raised her hand, "What if I was a Pteranodon? And then I had wings?"

  "Uh," Francine was saying, shaking her head and trying to dampen the disgust fighting to scream out of her face, "I guess? Though it might be too overwrought. We don't want it to be obvious you guys are the distractions. You running around a Walgreens flapping your dinosaur wings and screeching is a bit on the nose, no?"

  "I think she can pull it off seamlessly," An deduced. "First of all look at her appearance." She flipped her hand at the brillo pad nest on L'Iago's head. "This looks like it hasn't been combed since Christmas '95."

  "I wasn't born then," L'Iago said sadly, "but yes."

  An nodded, "Also, I remember in third grade when the firemen came to show us their truck and they let us climb on it and stuff and L'Iago went out of bounds and climbed to the top, then did her ptera shriek and flew off onto the cement of the parking lot we were at, falling, and shattering," she looked to L'Iago to answer how many bones she shattered.

  "All of them, all of my bones," she nodded.

  "Every bone in her shitty, weird little body." An looked to Francine like she should agree that was very impressive. Then she turned back to L'Iago, "I'm surprised you are not paralyzed, or in a wheelchair. In my opinion, you've got the juice."

  L'Iago smiled at the praise, "I have to poop in a colostomy bag for the rest of my life."

  They all golf-clapped.

  Thus, it was decided L'Iago could enter the Walgreens acting as a pteranodon, flying imaginary flesh flings and screeching like Fran Drescher down the magazine aisle. Chamomile would simply just be walking around being herself. It was Francine and An, the least suspicious-seeming, who'd head toward the skin shit aisle to burglar salicylic acid filled goods.

  "I so don't even really care about having zits," An was like, as they perused the offerings, trying to decide what they were going to stuff in her Hannah Montana backpack. "Like, I feel they go with my, like, sarcastic dead-inside sort of aesthetic."

  "I don't know," Francine I don't knowed, "all famous iconic sarcastic dead-inside teens I can think of all had porcelain clear, skin."

  "What are you talking about - some weak, gluestick bitches on TV? I don't care about fucking Daria or some shit, bitch, this is real life. Real life dead inside teen aesthetic is way more interesting than any shit you can find on MTV or The Noggin or whatever."

  "Damn, chill," Francine said, lowkey embarrassed. Also, An was gettin' kinda hype in that Walgreens just now. Also, whom was she talking to?

  "Nah, you chill. Like I'm tired of having to live up to these ugly white bitches on TV. Did you just say porcelain skin at me? Girl, pull yourself to fucking gether."

  Francine was feelin' some type of way about getting dragged to death by an Asian and she wasn't even one of the main ones. Also her eyebrows looked like bugs? Whom was she? Whom? Was she?? "Okay, like, I was just saying."

  "Yeah, that's the problem," An said while looking really hard at a bottle of Sea Breeze astringent, "you saying shit. You talking. To eradicate the issue, keep them chapped lips shut." Then she reached over and put her cold Asian fingers on Francine's lips and clamped them shut. It was very erotic accidentally, and Francine felt some weird stuff in her vagina. Like it twitched? Like that time that spider had gotten up there once and laid a bunch of eggs. Most of the spider babies died, which had Francine feeling some type of way about her pussy.

  "Hey, do you want to be girlfriends? I just realized I'm attracted to you even though you're Asian and not one of the recognized ones."

  An scoffed, "I am not Indian."

  "No," Francine shook her head, "not one of the recognized ones of the recognized ones. You know what I mean."

  An nodded, "Accepted."

  "So you'll go out with me?"

  An winced, then did a cringe face, "Uhhh?"

  Francine deflated, "Never mind." She'd never asked anyone out before. Not because she didn't think she could ask people out, but because 1. she didn't care and 2. she had never been attracted to anyone before. Or at least no one had ever clamped her lips closed with cold, clammy fingers such as her own. Did she wanna befriend this ho or hug her a really long time at the mall?

  "No, uh. Um. I don't know. I thought maybe I was asexual, or at the very least aromantic. Never thought about having a...partner." She considered for a moment. "Maybe? You have a pretty fat ass. Never thought I cared about that until two years ago in fifth grade when you knocked my diorama of Christopher Columbus murdering all those Indians with smallpox blankets off my desk. I got a B minus for that and I'm sure it's because your ginormous anus fucked up my teepee full of screaming Natives. I think about that every night before I go to sleep. I guess you owe me, so yeah, we can be lesbians. I want you to kiss my neck in front of old people at the library, and then buy me a soft pretzel from Auntie Anne's."

  Francine smiled, then nodded. "It's a date."

  An squinted, "I wonder if the controversy of us interracial dating will be diluted by how much of a fucking dweeb you are. We are basically just two Unspecified Asian Lesbians buying a home in Calabasas together. No one's gonna care." She looked sad. "No one will beat us with sticks."

  "Don't look despondent," Francine said to her new lesbian gir
lfriend, petting her wiry hair, "I'll buy you--Steal you a bag of peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets. And I'll do it right in front of that Indian cashier so she manhandles me while her Indian manager calls the police. And then they will come here and kill me, and people will say in the news Black Woman Caught Stealing Peanut Butter Filled Pretzel Things For Asian Girlfriend Who Is Bringing Shame To Her Family, and they'll show a pic of you crying and it will be the hottest interracial news for at least two days mainstream, and forever in like Wisconsin."

  An was happy again and smiled.

  "Don't do that anymore," Francine issued, "you look like a turned inside out Steve Buscemi."

  "Okay, and?!"

  L'Iago screeched by their aisle with her pteranodon wings flapping wildly as one of the Indian employees attempted to catch her in an actual net. At the front door, Chamomile was being carted away politely by police. She was holding seventeen bags of Swedish Fish, like a Home Ec baby in her arms.

  "This is the best day of my life," Francine said, a tear falling down her cheek.

  "That's really sad," An decided, putting down a tub of Stridex pads, which her lasagna faced ass should be picking the fuck up!

  Francine in her head planned to get a really long hug out of her at the mall, then break up with her in front of all her Unspecified Asian Friends tomorrow, right before she has band. That will be the best day of her life. Who's sad now?! Oh, still Francine...