Rico slid back in, the door groaning. “They were out of the tall boys. Had to get the quarts.”
“Both.”
“This is the test,” Likwit said from the passenger seat, tapping the dashboard to the beat of “Only When I’m Drunk.” “If you can’t party to this, you got no pulse.” Tha Alkaholiks 21 And Over Rar
“The bass or the buzz?”
Decades later, Tash would clean out a closet and find the original cassette. The label was gone, the tape itself wrinkled in one spot where the deck had tried to eat “Turn Tha Party Out.” He didn’t have anything to play it on anymore. But he held it to his chest for a second, and the bassline still kicked somewhere in his ribs. Rico slid back in, the door groaning
Tash twisted the volume knob until the subwoofer rattled the license plate. The cassette deck chewed up the first second of “Make Room” before spitting it out again. J-Ro passed a forty back over the seat without looking. The label was gone, the tape itself wrinkled
“Still counts,” Tash said, and pressed play again.