Anything for a Laugh

He leans over the table, animated and all smiles. Mina laughs at something he says. I nod my head towards them.

"What are they talking about?" I ask Cindy.

She shrugs, too focused on her spanish homework. I sit back and prepare for a long two hours.

"Let's go! AV-B room. We've got some videos to watch and a map quiz to take," Greenstein shouts over us.

We all stamped to the door, eager to be out of the classroom. Once in the AV-B room we sit in the folded chairs. The chairs are kind of like movie theater seats, they fling back up when you stand up. I wrinkle my nose as I make myself comfortable. It always smells like old people and broccoli. I don't know why.

We take the map quiz, which was terribly easy, and get ready to play walk the walls. In this game, four walls have A, B, C, and D pasted to them. On the screen will be a question with four multiple choice answers. You go to the wall that matches your answer.

On the question, "What would you rather have in a class?"

A. a C in a hard class, but learn a lot
B. a B in a slightly less hard class, and learn some
C. an A in an easy class, and learn near to nothing
D. graded on a Pass or Fail

I trot over to C and sit in the back row. Guess who sits next to me? Yup. Lenny does. I don't notice at first.

I hear him say, "Hard classes aren't even worth it if you don't learn anything. Like in Carillo's class."

I turn to him, not realizing it was him who said it, and burst out, "Oh my God! I HATE her!"

"I know, right?" He agrees. "That was the only class I got C's in! She's bringing my GPA down!"

"Agh! Mine too! My GPA has suffered so much because of her. She's a bitch," I continue angrily.

He nods. "Yeah, seriously. I fucking hate her."

And that's how it started.

The next Euro class Lenny sat in the back with us (Cindy, me, Mina, Brian, Christian).

The first thing that came out of his mouth was, "how long have you been going to TP?"

"Since freshman year. I moved out here because my mom didn't want me to go to C-bad."

"Wait, so, you just moved here?"

I shake my head. "No, I've been here for the past three years."

"Really?" he asks, surprise written across his face. "I've never seen you before."

"I know. Me either."

"You've never been in any of my classes."

"Yeah, same," I agree. What the hell are you saying, Dylan? No shit you didn't have any classes together! He just said that! my inner self bashes my outer self.

"That's so weird."

He continues to go on about this for a few minutes.

I ask him, to keep the conversation alive, "Are you half asian or something?"

"Yeah. I'm half chinese."

"Seriously? Me too!"

He laughs and says, "cool."

"We have a lot of chinese people in this class," I comment.

"Whoa, hey, hey, that's racist!" He jokes with mock seriousness.

"How is that racist? It's true," I counter, humoring him. "Look at Brian. He's half chinese. Though he doesn't look it. And Mina and Cindy. And what about Keith?"

Keith turns at the sound of his name. "Yeah?"

"You're chinese right?"

"Yeah."

"See?" I say to Lenny. Proved you wrong.

"Yeah, yeah," Lenny replies, waving me off. I smirk. Lenny: 1, Dylan: 1. It's a tie.

-x-

The Italy video blares across the screen. I get bored quickly and turn to hear what Lenny is saying. Something about the video.

I lean towards Cindy and say, "I want to go to Italy. They have amazing food, and not to mention hot Italian guys."

"Haha, REALLY hot guys."

"Ohhh yes. Gotta love Italian boys," I laugh along with her.

Lenny picks up on this real quick. He's commenting on it in less that twenty seconds. "What's that about guys? Not getting horny over here, are you?"

"Horny?" I scoff. "No, that'd be you, Lenny."

"I'm not the one talking about hot italian boys."

I shake my head at him.

"So are you for quality or quantity?"

I think for a second. "Quality of course. It's not just italian boys that are hot. Greek boys are too. Oooh and spanish guys! Dayuuum they're fine."

"So basically you go for quantity," he teases. I can see the smirk in his eyes, though he hides it well on his face.

"What? No!"

"Hey, I'm just going by what you said. Sounds like you just want to go to Italy for sex."

I gape at him. Obviously not JUST sex. I don't say this. Instead, I say, "I do not!"

"Then what else is there?" He questions, testing me.

"Well, uh, food obviously! Italians know how to live. Americans do not," I attempt to say with vindication, but fail miserably.

"Uh-huh. You would totally go just for the sex."

I roll my eyes and try not to smile. "Yeah, ok."

He winks. I look away. This dude's got a girlfriend. What the hell?

A minute later and he's leaning across Mina to talk to me again.

"You know what I had for lunch today?"

I sigh inwardly. It begins again. "No, what did you have today Lenny?"

"A sausage sandwich. A big juicy, black sausage."

I sense what he's getting at but I hold back my smile. It will only make him ten times as horny. "Yeah? Sounds good."

"You WOULD think that sounds good. Big, juicy, meaty sausages. My mom likes to make them for me. All the time," he repeats, eyes wide.

"Oh yeah?" I snigger a little and clamp my mouth shut, almost ready to lose it.

"Why are you laughing? What are you thinking about? You think I'm talking about something else other than big, juicy sausages?"

"No," I say, but my smile is too big.

"That's horny, Dylan. You shouldn't be thinking such thoughts," he chides me. His face shows no sign of laughter but I know it's in there. And it pisses me off a little. Why can he hold a straight face but I can't?

I look away, not taking the bait when he starts talking about black sausages. "Ok, Ok, Ok." I repeat over and over. Not knowing what to say.

He finally shuts up and I can relax my face. My cheeks hurt, I've been smiling too much. What the hell?

"Whoa there Brian." I hear a few minutes later.

I ignore it for a while, but it gets to me and I finally take a peek.

They're staring at Brian's crotch. ??? I look down for a second and see the point in his shorts. Holy mother of fuck. Really?

Lenny laughs at my face. "He's a little too frisky."

Brian frowns at him, but I can see the smile in his eyes. "It's just a crease in my shorts."

I hold back my laugh, but still smile. "Then flatten the damn thing down!"

We all start laughing.

I whisper to Cindy, "They are so perverted."

"That's Lenny," she whispers back.

And it is. He's loud, perverted, and teasing.

But he's entertaining as hell. No one can refute that. I can't even say anything against it.

He's a master at making me laugh.