That Girl Is On Fire, 17

INT. SYZRGY HAMBURGER’S LIVING ROOM – NIGHT

Syzrgy and Jorge are eating hot wings out of paper boxes.

SYZRGY
Dude, she viewed my profile on MySpace. Your ex, homebagel.

JORGE
You can’t see who’s viewed you on MySpace.

SYZRGY
You can if you’re really friends with Tom.

JORGE
Bullshit.

SYZRGY
I know his cousin – he gave him this backdoor API key and passed on to me. It doesn’t work all the time, but I mean, I’m positive about Virginie.

Jorge cracks a bone in two with his teeth and spits both halves back into the box.

JORGE
But you’re so ugly. You’re – god damn it.

SYZGRY
I’m sure she just clicked on me from your Friends page. We used to talk while you were out, right? About geopolitics. US military positions in the Pacific Rim and China and shit.

JORGE
This is stressing me out. She wouldn’t have gotten into that with you unless you made her a little nervous or she was attracted to you.

SYZGRY
Same thing.

Beat.

SYZGRY (con’t)
Look, just know that I would never do anything with her. Unless it were really easy, like really, really convenient. Like she’s on rollerskates and I’m in my car. And she’s like, hey, mind if I sit here in the passenger seat while I get off these rollerskates? I don’t even know why I got them, they’re so stupid. And then I’d be like why don’t you close the door? I think my air conditioning is getting out. And she’d close the door and be like sorry! And I’d be like look, Nini, do you need a ride somewhere? And we’d go back to her house, and she’d ask me in for a drink, like oh, hey, my uncle gave me a bottle of calvados I’m trying to get rid of? And then after several hours of deal-closing I’d get back in my car and have that hazy feeling you get when you’ve just slept with a girl you’ve never been with before, and it was good, and you’re wondering if you’ll ever see her again, thinking, well, what number was she? And just feeling great that you can’t pin it down exactly, like maybe she was eleven, or maybe twelve. And I’d call you, dude, I’d totally call you and tell you what had happened. And I’d take a shower but not put on deodorant and you’d come over and hit me, in the face, give me a real – shiner – and then we’d get high and drive around and I’d silently decide never to see her again.

Beat.

JORGE
You’re dead to me.

MUSIC: Loose Joints – Is It All Over My Face?

They wrestle.