Chicken Starbucks

Her left wrist baked limp, Kelsey Hinton passed the joint to the teddy bear gaff taped to the lamp. 

The bear had a little gap in his paw that could hold the joint.

Travis Sater hated when Kelsey gave the bear the joint. And she did it at least twice a joint, pre rolls from the Elevate Dispensary, the one so close to Burger King that the smells thumb wrestled.

“ I wanna open a Chicken Starbucks,” Kelsey said.

“ A what?” Travis asked, standing and taking the lit joint from the bear.

“Chicken Starbucks.Like a place where everyone goes, and they get your name wrong on your order, and the bathrooms are clean.”

“They have those, Kelz.Starbucks.”

“No, I know, but not coffee. Coffee is gross. Chicken.”

“Everybody sells chicken. There ain’t a restaurant in America that don’t sell some version of chicken.”

Travis handed Kelsey the joint, stared at the bear, then pulled a Jolly Rancher from the cracked glass dish on top of the Kyuss record cover on the table and shoved it in the teddy bear’s joint gap.

“I know,” Kelsey said, “but I wanna con…consolidate all the chicken into one place, and…and have everyone go there.And call them the wrong name.”

She giggled, looked at the ceiling, hit the joint.

“What would you call the place?” Travis asked.

“I told you. Chicken Starbucks.”

“Starbucks ain’t gonna let you do that.”

Kelsey turned, looked at the bear, saw the Jolly Rancher where she usually put the joint,  flicked the candy out of the little slit and onto the floor.

It was the most violent thing Travis had ever seen Kelsey do.

“Kelz, can I ask you a question?”

“That was a question Trav.”

“Can I ask you a different question?”

“You just did.”

Travis stood and blurted “if you wanted to share your weed with your teddy bear so bad, how come you cut the slit in the hand and not the mouth?”

Kelsey stared at the bear.

“Guess I didn’t want him to get brain damage.”

“Cannabis can’t give you brain damage, Kelsey.”

“ I hope not,” Kelsey said, “ but coffee does for sure because they keep spelling my name wrong.”