“It’s not spice,” Diana said. “Now shut up and dunk.”

“What if I changed my opinion of dunking?”

“Are you going blonde or aren’t you?”

“You expect me to dunk in that bucket of spice juice?”

“Then pay me back for all these lemons. Plus labor. Plus a metro card.”

“For eff’s sake, Di, then dunk me already.”

Diana grabbed KJ by the rat tail and dunked his head in the bucket. The lemon juice washed the cut where her scissors had slipped, and the cut-up skin sizzled. Coming up, KJ spat the half lemon on Diana’s tank top.

“You want to be a hipster? Here’s the cost,” she said.

“That’s some spicy shit!”

“Oh, you’re a little bitch.”

“You’re a slob-whore-bitch. I don’t know why I let you dunk me in the first place. You sure you know hipster shit?”

“I know I lived in New York two years more than you!”

“I know you get eff-ed more than me.”

KJ ripped the towel off his neck. He slicked back his juice-wet bangs. Next he took the bucket of lemon juice and dumped it down the toilet. Leaving the bathroom, he slammed the door, and stuffed the empty bucket down under the futon.

In route to the window, KJ eyed his sister. Again with the crying. Noiselessly the salty globs balled up, bursting on her stained tank. Squeezing a bent up Lark from the pack by the window, he took in Avenue C: trend restaurants warring with bodegas, slumming I-bankers and Spanish, everywhere Spanish.

“You’re no whore,” he muttered. “I was mad from being sizzled.”

Softly Diana said, “Only hipsters tend bar at The Hanger and if you want this job you need hipster style. Sometimes it means being sizzled.”

“I allowed the Mohawk, did I not?”

“Glamour has its minuses. There is a cost to every good style.”

“Well, what good is your style?”

Gulp. Sniffle.

“Aw, Eff. Don’t weep. I did it- didn’t I? ”

KJ tore out his wallet, a second hand Velcro contraption. Seeing it was empty, he tore through the futon cushions, coming up with a five dollar bill. He balled the five up and pitched it at Diana.

“For the fruit,” he said. “Now I’m gearing up.”

“Gear up,” Diana said.

She unfolded the bill, refolding it in the shape of a frog, got up and put the five-frog by the window, on top of the Larks. KJ let out a short deep laugh, wrapping an arm around Diana.

“Ribbit, you teary bitch.”
 

At seven-thirty, KJ left the projects. Under his right arm, curled up, he carried a beach towel. Over his left shoulder, a backpack with a Hoosiers pin. Crossing C, he took Third Street, and then made a right on A, staying straight until Tompkins Square. Wading through the pigeon shit, past the drummers drumming, he spread the blanket out, and, with swelling pride and stretched legs, let the sun turn his hair.

Laying back, KJ thought: So, this is how it happens. Glamour. Glamour minus glamour. The Becoming. Eff...a little sizzle never murdered a person.