Ship It Holla Ballas! by Jonathan Grotenstein

Author:Jonathan Grotenstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

28

Someone on Two Plus Two was like, “Where are the chicks? You guys are losers. You’re not hanging out with any girls.”

—Inyaface

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA (June 2006)

With the exception of Inyaface, none of the Ballas are enrolled in college anymore. They would never complain about the loss of their academic lives, but there are certain rites of passage built into the collegiate experience they can’t help but yearn for. One of them is Spring Break.

This is their Spring Break.

If you’ve ever rented a vacation house with a large group of friends, then you’re no doubt familiar with the ritual that is the first trip to the grocery store. Loading up on food for the week is more than an act of self-sufficiency; it’s the symbolic start to an adventure, a celebration of freedom (“Let’s buy ten boxes of Fruity Pebbles and eat them for dinner!”) and a warm-up exercise in group dynamics (“Who, besides you, is going to eat that?”)

They drive directly from the Rio to a twenty-four-hour Food 4 Less. This time it’s Good2cu’s turn to ride in the trunk, and he emerges with a full head of steam. His rowdiness is contagious. They blow through the store like a hurricane, twelve hands transferring whatever strikes their fancy from the shelves to their shopping carts.

It’s after midnight, so the store’s manager can’t help but notice six extremely loud kids running down the aisles, spewing profanities, using their carts as bumper cars. He confronts them, wondering aloud if they actually intend to buy any of this stuff. Two of the carts contain nothing but liquor and beer. Another has been reserved exclusively for fireworks.

“Don’t worry,” Good2cu assures him. “We’re rich.”

The manager moves to another part of the store, but Inyaface is willing to concede that he might have a point. “Do we really need all this shit?” He points to the cart filled with smoke bombs and bottle rockets. “Why don’t we make a ‘Stupid Pile’ for the stuff that’s not essential.”

After some debate, the Ballas admit they might have gotten carried away in the healthy-eating department and move a single carton of strawberries, the lone fruit or vegetable to make it into their carts, into the Stupid Pile.

There’s no line at the checkout counter, but it still takes the cashier almost twenty minutes to ring them up. “A hundred bucks says it’s over fifteen hundred,” says Good2cu.

“I’ll take the under,” Jman replies.

“Book it!”

The receipt is four feet long. Good2cu wins by a comfortable margin.

“How do you want to pay?” asks the cashier.

“Shot not!” yells TheUsher, raising a finger to his nose.

The others quickly follow suit, but Unarmed is the slowest. He hands the cashier his credit card. They cram the groceries into their trunks, all except for the fireworks, and race home down Flamingo Road, shooting bottle rockets and lobbing smoke bombs from one car to the other, laughing the entire way.

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