Zodiac Brothers

CW: swearing, brief mention of Nazism

I personally think Zodiacs are BS, and whoever uses them, like the stars they read, are full of hot air. With that said, however… I do believe in fate, that the story of how our lives unfold is written in the cosmos somewhere, and while we can do as much as we like to set our own course, who we are causes us to eventually find who we were meant to find. Most people might prefer to weaponize this power to set themselves up with a Park Jimin or an Eva Longoria, but I in all my powerlessness found a brother for life in Quentin Pinkman, so I think I’m good. Both of us know we’re straight, but if we were into men, we’d be the first one each other called. We say that jokingly, but we’re also not, considering we’d have to comb the world three times over to find anyone we like nearly as much as each other.

“You son of a bitch!” he called, in that joking way that guys can (as far as I know).

“Wazzup,” I returned as we dapped each other up, “glad you could put down your Dr. Pepper and cartoon porn long enough to hang out!”

“It’s called hentai, and it’s art.”

“Yeah, sure. You’re just lucky you’re a cool guy to hang around or I wouldn’t fuckin’ put up with ya!” I said as I skipped down the street, my fingers fondling the lint nestled cozily in my sweater’s front pocket.

“Says the guy that forgets his dignity every time a 5 or above talks to him.”

“If a five is all it takes, what does that make you?” 

“Did I ever say I was above a five? I know I’m an ugly piece of shit!”

“Nooo, babe, don’t say that. You’re beautiful.” I cooed mockingly.

“That’s like that meme where the guy is laying in bed and the caption says ‘haha noo, don’t kill yourself, you’re so sexy.’”

“Well, at least you’ve got a good personality.”

“Fuck you.” Quentin said in his best McLovin voice. We understood each other’s humor and the intent behind our words, the references that buoyed our conversations, but the people we passed looked at us like we were a married couple about to get in a domestic dispute. If it was worth it, I woulda turned around and told them, ‘Guys, it’s not that serious.’ They probably wouldn’t have listened to me, though. They’d find a way to rationalize why I was either the abuser or the victim because that was what they thought initially. If you’ve never had a friendship like Quentin Pinkman and Owen Radcliffe, one where the only thing that mattered was both people knew what neither person said was serious, it was impossible to get a full understanding of our humor.

Ribbing our boys (pause) is just part of our relationship. Key word: ours. We knew just how to press each other’s buttons so that we neither walked on eggshells nor said something we couldn’t take back. And on the off chance that we ever said something over the line, we had our methods of letting bygones be bygones. Fortunately, we knew somewhere there was nobody to judge us, nobody to take our actions out of context or sideye us for our long-standing traditions (except maybe security guards). 

Drumroll please. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr– The roof of a parking garage!

“Here we, are! Our own slice of Heaven!” I declared at the top of the steps.

“Yeah. Our own. Except I’m literally watching a family of three get out of their car as we speak.

“Just because we’re in the same place doesn’t mean we’re in the same…place… Okay, that sounds dumb, but you get my point. To them, it’s a parking garage. To us, it’s an escape hatch! Our own little block party away from the rest of the world! By the way, guess what rhymes with hatch.”

“Snatch?” Quentin guessed immaturely. As almost a punishment for his response, he was a half second late to receive the earbud that I tossed his way. I like to think of that as karma more than anything, though he ended up picking it up a second later.

“Catch,” I said once the answer already revealed itself.

“You’d better make up for that by playing some good shit on the aux.”

“Don’t worry, I know what you like. How bout some 2 Chainz

“Yahhhhhhhh!” Quentin said almost as if I’d pressed a button at Build-A-Buddy.

“Aight, lemme throw something on.” Thumbing through my rap playlist, the hardest choice was what Tity Boi song we’d put on first. 

“Sorry, I mispronounced his name: Twoooo Chainzzzzzz!”

“Tell ‘em!” 

It’s amazing how much mileage we could get off of rattling off ad libs. It almost felt illegal to have this much fun for not a dollar. The vibes were immaculate and we hadn’t even started yet. I guess if you know someone for long enough, you don’t need to prepare to hang out with them, you just pick up where you left off dozens of hundreds of times. Stay ready, you aint gotta get ready. 

Thumbing through YouTube, I found an old classic: Birthday Song, responsible for the line “she got a big booty so I call her big booty (skrr skrr)!” No hate to anyone, but I find it so funny that Rap Critic called him uncreative when one of his biggest things is that he makes old cliches palatable. He (2 Chainz) is a living embodiment that how you say something is more important than what you say:

‘Make that ass clap, standing ovation!” - 2 Chainz, Bandz A Make Her Dance

“My chain had another chain like it was pregnant!” - 2 Chainz, G.O.O.D. Morning

“Givenchy, {man} God bless you.” 2 Chainz, Feds Watching

“Chainz gotta be a GOAT, man. He’s deadass one of the funniest dudes in rap.” Quentin said. No argument from over here. With how many quotables he and Ye Who Shall Not Be Named have in Birthday Song alone, I kinda feel bad for the people who stopped at the line about the voluptuous promiscuous individual.

“You the realest {brother} breathing if I hold my breath.” we said because we couldn’t say the word that actually went there, “referee with a whistle (brr) hold this tech! Extendo roll, when your girl leave me she need a hair salon!”

“You know that doesn’t rhyme. I refuse to believe you, 2 Chainz, are so stupid that you believe roll rhymes with salon.” I laughed as I paused the song. He knew that I was referencing the (aptly named) Rap Critic review of this song.

“Who brought this constant perpetuation of the same rap stereotypes into the forefront?! Who’s responsible for this complete vaccum of artistic talent?” Quentin said at the end of the first verse.

“Ahhhh, Yeezy Yeezy, how you doin, haaa!”

“He made Graduation, he made Graduation, he made Graduation!” I repeated.

“I miss the old Kanye.”

“Chop up the soul Kanye.”

“Set on his goals Kanye.” Quentin said, finishing the back and forth fourfold volley of references to Ye memes on the internet. 

“It’s your birthday, you deserve a menage. ‘Specially if you put the BMW in the garage, ‘specially if you make a couple payments on her mama crib. Went to her niece’s graduation, man I hate those kids, haaaaa!” we said in unison, momentarily encasing in carbonite that ‘old Kanye’ we missed so much. Though, even then our memory was apparently imperfect. We put that Yin-Yang-Twins-ass ad lib in there because it’d become so ingrained by Ye’s use of it over multiple songs. Even where it didn’t belong, it kinda Mandela Effected itself into spots it technically didn’t belong.. 

“I’m joking, I’m just serious. Don’t be acting like no actress. If we preaching then we practice. Don’t be reaching, don’t be touching shit. We in Kanye West Benz, cuz I will turn you back to a pedestrian, haaa!” There we go.

“Dog, this shit is a vibe every time I listen to it.” Quentin said.

“Got a vibe that make an Asian want hibachi.” I said. Picking up where this was going, he followed along for the next line:

“Got a vibe that make an Italian want Versace.”

“Damn!” I responded in truuuuuuu 2 Chainz fashion.

We listened to multiple different songs/videos in kind that gave us that same joy.  Dead End Hip Hop’s video on Big Sean Vs. Lil Wayne, compilations of terrible rap lyrics that didn’t make any sense (hearing Lil Yachty say ‘she blow that dick like a cello’ always makes my night), Matlok’s fake rap lyric videos, etc. We had a treasure trove of entertainment at our fingertips, years upon decades of hilarious lines. I know I said it before, but having this much fun for not even a dollar was one of those things that felt illegal even though it wasn’t.

If it was up to us, we woulda spent the entire night messing around on the roof reciting rap lyrics. I guess some snitch hates fun, though, cuz after about an hour or two, we were kicked off the roof by campus security. Literal actual fun police. 

“Hey Q, that cop aside, tonight was a ton of fun.”

“Hell yeah it was! I’ll tell ya, if we had unlimited battery power and nobody to bother us, we could keep ourselves entertained through the goddamn apocalypse. Not that I’m trying to tempt fate, but still.”

“I hear ya. You got any homework to do?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a chem due tomorrow.”

“Oh shit, are you almost finished?”

“Haven’t even started.”

“Quentin!” I said in a disapproving but sarcastic tone. 

“I’ll worry about that in a minute. I’ve been hella stressed the past week. I needed a session like this to decompress. Now, I have eight hours to cobble something together.Get some sleep and we’ll meet back up again tomorrow. If we’re celebrating, it’ll be rap. If I’m trying to forget something, we’ll go out drinking.”

“Either way, it’ll be a hell of a time!”