“And that’s why round pizzas come in square boxes”, a cracking voice said.

“Well, thanks for the interview, Chancellor. We still down for hopscotch at 5?” I asked.

“Ofcourse, man, I wouldn’t miss it for the world”

“Alright then, goodbye, Chancellor”, I said, hanging up the phone too early for him to respond. It had been a long day at the office, and I was looking forward to a good long nap, but then the phone rang again.

“Who is it and what do you want?”

“It’s your boss, the guy who pays you, fool. Listen, I’ve got a lead on a story in downtown Chattanooga. You’re heading there now”

The phone went dead, and I sighed, muttering some Farsi curses under my breath. But I knew better than to argue with the boss, so after saying goodbye to Mjir and giving Wopps my last Chocolate Z-Bar(fully knowing it would go uneaten), I headed off to Chattanooga.

When I stepped onto the platform inside the Hot Pot Joint, I was immediately taken aback. There were barely any folks milling around, and definitely no suspicious black jacketed persons squatting at the corners of the station. Man, quarantine really sucked the life out of this city.

My contact was waiting for me at a bright yellow bench, the same one that supposedly was sat upon by a famous gangsta gangsta, but I knew too well than to believe such legends. I approached him and held out my hand, but he jumped up and shuffled backwards.

“What do you think you’re doin homie, that isn’t six foot!”

“Don’t worry man, I’ve already downed 2 tide pods, spaced 12 hours apart, I don’t got the virus man”.

Refusing to come any closer, my contact sat himself on another bench, exactly six feet away, and asked me to start the interview.

“Allright, my name’s Banana The Human, representing Hecrenews, yadda yadda yadda. What’s your name and what do you gotta tell us about this here situation?”

“Yo yo yo, my name is Baby Joe”

“Uh huh, and what’s going on Baby Joe”

“You see, Banana, I belong to a gangsta gang. Mind you, not a gangsta gangsta gang, they haven’t been seen in quite some time, but just a regular gangsta gang. And in this gang, we do shady dealings quite often, but due to this darned virus, we aren’t able to meet each other in back alleys in close proximity and conduct such dealings.”

I nodded my head, pretending to listen, but I was already distracted by the feral cat behind him, staring at me with a murderous look in its eyes. While this intense mental battle was occurring, Baby Joe was rambling about his first time doing a shady deal, but since I was too focused on the cat to write it down, I’m just gonna give you, the reader(who we thank and stuff), the general gist of it.

Baby Joe mentioned something about the backside of some Central Bar, the name was hard to catch for me since it sounded like he was just sneezing. He nostalgically reminisced about how he remembered a shuffling of hands and the delight of eating the Twinkies after the deal, and all the while I was jerking my head back and forth to provide some semblance of paying attention, my full focus still on the cat.

“And that brings me to what we gangstas have been doing to keep the tradition alive, Banana. Banana?. You listening? HELLOOO”

I had almost finished off the cat, but this fool broke my attention for just enough time for it to safely get away. I angrily turned back to him, ready to get this over with.

“Yeah yeah, tell me what you have been doing, I’m sure its novel and laudable”

“So, you see, since we can’t come into physical contact anymore, we decided to leave the goods in a place were we could all take turns coming too. We thought about it a lot, and we decided the Chattanooga Jail would be perfect. All we do is get arrested, go to the jail, and the goods are waiting for us right there!” Isn’t it genius?”

This was shaping up to be quite the interview. “Genius? I think that’s downleft brilliant! Tell me, what do you do to get arrested”

“My mom would be so proud of me, you know, if she knew I had been arrested 43 times for attempted theft of a potted plant.

“So how many houses have you tried stealing from?”

“Just the one, my mom’s house. She has this one jocose plant on her windowsill, and I break the windows every time to get in, but right before I can escape with the plant, I always get distracted by my old stuffed Snaxii and play with it. In that time, the po-po show up and arrest me. I’ll get that plant some day”.

Before I could continue grilling him, my phone started vibrating profusely in my pocket. When I answered the call, a familiar voice tickled my eardrums.

“Well, fool, looks like you’re job is done. Come back to the office fast. It looks like that Z-Bar you left is still on the table, and we are gonna need you to throw it away. We don’t want another Bosco Sticks incident, do we now?”

And, as usual, he hung the call before I could respond. I said my goodbyes to Baby Joe, who was quite confused as to why I was leaving so fast, but accepted it nevertheless. We traded pager numbers and I told him to buzz me when he finally got that plant. I looked around for that cat one last time, and then stepped on the hyperloop to head back to the office. Those Z-Bars weren’t going to cause a plague themselves.