“FABULOUS” MITCHELL ALLEN. Can’t talk, J. I’m too busy not talking to you to talk to you right now.

JOSHUA GREEN ALLEN. Why you gotta hate right out the gate?

FMA. I mean I am just swamped.

JGA. Quick question and then you can get back to peeping on your neighbor.

FMA. I’m not peeping. I just don’t trust the guy she’s with. He looks like one of those guys who beats his wife on Super Bowl Sunday and doesn’t even watch the game, you know? He just does it because he’s an enthusiast.

JGA. Anyway the reason I’m calling.

FMA. God, he is so wrong for her. A thug like that doesn’t appreciate a woman who subscribes to Entertainment Weekly and has tiny freckles on her nose.

JGA. Anyway so you know how I’m working on my memoirs?

FMA. No.

JGA. Mitch. The True Chronicles of a Man of Vision, Part Two: My Wicked Education. I’ve mentioned this five times.

FMA. I’m sure I would remember something as important-sounding as this.

JGA. There is a key episode of my childhood that I’m having some trouble with, Mitchell, and I think you were there, and I need your help filling in the blanks.

FMA. It’s been, uh, professionally recommended to me that I not delve too deep into my childhood.

JGA. I know, me too, but I think this could be a real cash cow if we do it up right.

FMA. Well then lay it down, clown.

JGA. So it’s the Halloween where I dressed up as Prince.

FMA. Oh my god.

JGA. You remember this?

FMA. Josh, you could probably find the whole story on microfiche at the library. You really don’t—

JGA. I mean I remember most of it, like how I had the full-on look, how it was really complete, and I mean most kids were just wearing a plastic poncho with a picture of whoever they were supposed to be, like E.T. or The E Street Band or whatever—

FMA. You had the high heels, the frilly shirt with the fake chest hair glued on underneath, the black spandex bikini bottom with the … what did you stuff it with?

JGA. A frozen hot dog.

FMA. Right. And the wig and makeup, and the little unicorn guitar made out of papier mâché.

JGA. Yeah exactly. And I had the moves, I had the attitude, and the girls basically went to Hornytown, USA. I’m just having trouble remembering which girls and just how much action I got that night.

FMA. OK, let me help you out. The first house we went to—

JGA. What were you dressed up as? Papa Smurf?

FMA. Yes, and we go up to the first house and it’s Matt Calcagni’s dad and he takes you by your little necklace and starts punching the mascara off your head. And he says something like: The only candy a homo gets is the devil’s candy.

JGA. Huh.

FMA. And then you did what is by far the best Prince imitation I’ve ever heard. This long, high-pitched shriek.

JGA. And that’s when the girls rushed in and started kissing me?

FMA. I’m pretty sure that’s when I took off.

JGA. I specifically remember hot girl action. Like that was the night I became a man?

FMA. You were, what? Ten? You didn’t even know what a girl was.

JGA. Listen to me very carefully: I have always known what a girl is.

FMA. You seriously don’t remember going to the hospital? You got stitches, I think.

JGA. Hang on. Oh yeah. All coming back to me.

FMA. I remember it because that was the year we got exactly zero candy and I hated your fat guts.

JGA. No, see, that was when I first got my temperature taken the, the old-fashioned way.

FMA. At the hospital?

JGA. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of.

FMA. That was the night you became a man.

JGA. This memoir is going to rule.

—click—