"Fausto wake up! Wake up!", yells Alora.
Fausto slowly opens up his eyes like a lizard and looks at Alora with panic in her eyes but him, being at the throes of a gnarly hangover, turns away from her to try to sleep away the pain. Alora turns Fausto towards her and yells at him, "Get up you damn drunk, the tsunami siren went off! We have to get to the nearest shelter!"
Fausto cries out a, "A Tsunami! What time is it!?"
Alora yells at him, "What time is it!? You dumbass! A giant wall of water is coming our way, we have to get out of here!" Fausto replies, " You calling me a dumbass! I have to go to work today! Fuck, I hope I'm not late."
"You idiot! Didn't you hear me a huge freaking wave is coming!", Alora says as she grabs him by his shirt collar and pulls him out of her couch. "Easy! East! I might throw up", cries out Fausto. Alora doesn't even care at this point, her goal is to get the hell out of there with Fausto's inebriated ass. She marches to her front door and they hear the siren sound off again as they open the door. However, they don't see a wave or any hint of a high tide.
"A tsunami? Maybe it's some kid messing around with the siren. Now, please let me sleep. My head is killing. Ah shit nevermind I have work", says Fausto.
Alora says, " No... there is no way!"
"No way! There's nothing", mocks Fausto.
Alora is left confused and in shock, "B-B-But I swear!" Fausto asks annoyed, "You Swear what?"
"The siren was going off a-and there was all this screaming coming from outside", whispers Alora. "But listen..." Fausto look around and each corner. He says," What I am listening for?"
"Just how quiet it is. I swear to you Faust, I thought an actual Tsunami or some sort of disaster was coming", desperately says Alora.
"So you heard it too?", an elderly woman and her army of cats call out from the next door. "Oh my, no wonder I heard so many voices last night. I didn't know you were like that with Alora, Mr. Merlo."
"What?! What gives you that idea, Mrs. Wilkins?!", yells out Fausto. She points at his lower body and Fausto looks down to see that he is just wearing his boxers. "uhhh...", Fausto lets out. "That's why Mr. Merlo", Mrs. Wilkins says.
"When did you take off your clothes?", asks Alora. "When did I take off my clothes? More like when did YOU take them off of ME?!", cries out Fausto. Alora disgusted said, "Eww, I would never do that to you, who would want to see your body? You're built like an eighth grader."
Mrs. Wilkins butts in, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause a lover's spat." Both Alora and Fausto tell Mrs. Wilkins, "We aren't lovers!"
"Look you two, I know you both are just trying to scare me but I really need to get going... I need to get to work and I'm pretty sure I left my keys there. And I kind of need my keys", says Fausto.
"I'm sorry for teasing Mr. Merlo but we aren't joking about what we hear, honest to god", Mrs. Wilkins says softly. "Yeah we aren't playing around Faust, we really heard that Siren go off", continues Alora.
"Real or not, I told you. It could've been just some punks messing with the siren to scare people because I haven't heard it go off or I don't see any impending doom heading our way. As far as I see, it just another day", tells Fausto.
Alora with fear in her face holds Fausto by his shirt's sleeve. "Don't worry, I'll be ok", softly tells Fausto. "Not let go of me, I'm already late!", yells Fausto. Fausto breaks free from Alora's grip and runs down their apartment complex stairs.
"Mr. Merlo! Your pants?!", screams out Mrs. Wilkins and her cats. "Oh shit, you're right!", Fausto yells out as he runs back up the stairs and into Alora's apartment. He makes a dash for were he fell asleep and quickly finds his pants. He throws them on and starts running down the stairs. Alora and Mrs. Wilkins watch as he runs to work.
"Was it really ok for us to let him go?" Alora asks Mrs. Wilkins.
On a quick dash to his job at the docks, Fausto stops dead in his tracks. He blankly stares ahead at the morning fog and puts his hands over his mouth with frantic speed. Fausto then begins to vomit but for some reason, he thought it was a good idea to catch his puke in his hands instead of letting it just all fly out. After catching it in hands and realizing how putrid it reeked he vomits even more, only this time he just post up next to a house's gate and lets it all out. He crouches down to let a stream of brown and gold liquid come pouring out his mouth.
"Hey you, asshole! Go do that somewhere else!", an older man yells out him as he comes out of the house's front door. Fausto takes a look at the man and the first thing he notices is that he has a horrible scar running down his forehead and jaggedly across his eye. Then, the realization hit him, that frumpy, wide man that has his forehead practically missing is his job's manager.
Fausto quickly stands up and apologizes, "I'm so sorry, Mr-". Unfortunately, Fausto can not continue his sentence because the urge to expel his stomach returns. "What's wrong Fausto?", his manager asks him. "Did you eat something bad?"
Fausto crouches over and begins to vomit again. "Oh no, not all over my wife's flower!", yells out Fausto's manager. " Im SO sorry, Johnny. I didn't expect so much to come out of me", cries out Fausto as more vomit come out. John just looks at him with a worried look on his face and says," I honestly didn't know one man can hold so much liquid in them. Did you go out drinking again last night?"
Fausto finishes puking and looks up at John with a scared look on his face but no words come out of his mouth. "Well at least you're not coming to work drunk, just hungover... that's better than nothing", John says disappointed. "Now get up before I have to explain to my wife why there is vomit all over her petunias or whatever the hell they are called."
"I'm sorry... you have a nice house by the way", sheepishly says Fausto.
John looks at him and smiles," It's not my house, it's my in-law's."
Even though John is smiling, Fausto can't help but to feel like that smile isn't real. Fausto ponders this to himself while he walks with John to their work. He thinks to himself why would anyone want to live with their significant other's parent's home. Especially a person John's age. Beyond that, who still wants to live with their parent's like his wife does? He thought about this but he doesn't find the courage to ask John directly because he felt that it was too personal for an employee to ask an employer.
John is an alright guy, he tells a lot of jokes, some don't land but he is much more of a man of quantity over quality. With that kind of thinking, maybe a joke or two will land in his barrage of jokes he'll throw in a matter of minutes but being his boss, however, Fausto has to laugh at all of them.
"Before my mom passed away, god rest her soul," John says while praying to himself, "We took her to the Smiling Oyster, you know that Comedy club by the sea?"
"Yeah I know that one", answers Fausto.
"Well anyway, we took her to that one and they were having a Dean Martin Special. They had this guy dressed up as him and telling his jokes, singing his songs, the whole shebang. The only thing was, since my mom was really old, she had lost her vision", says John.
Fausto interrupts, "Why would you take a blind person to "see" an impersonator."
"She really wanted to catch a glimpse", John continues, " So since she was blind, she had become fearless, what do you have to be afraid of when you can't see the danger in front of you? Well anyway, the impersonating sings, my mother sings along. You can see it on his face that he was slightly annoyed. He stops in between his songs to tell some jokes and this is where it got worse. My mom knew all of those joke. So before "Dean Martin" can deliver the punchline, My mom would scream it out before he can finish and then proceed to laugh."
"So your mom was heckling the guy?"
"Yeah", answers John.
"So what happened?"
"My mom was a mean chain-smoker all her life so her voice degraded. So when Dean Martin finally had enough. He asked who kept on interrupting. Of course the people behind us said it was us because they were annoyed of us too. They shined a spotlight on us and they were trying to say it was me because my mom's voice sounded like a dudes", tells John.
"Oh no", remarks Fausto.
"Right? So when Dean Martin told me to get up on stage since I wanted to be a comedian, my mom stepped in and said it was her telling the jokes. Then..."
"Then?"
"She proceeded to tell all of the jokes and made everyone laugh", happily said John. Fausto stays dumbfounded. He asks," So what happened after that?"
"Well the club owners thought she was pretty good and they made her an offer. To be their Dean Martin in drag. She took the offer because apparently she always wanted to be a Comic. She went on to play 3 more shows then she passed away. I went to go see all of them...", says John with a small crack in his voice.