They got the giggles so bad that the animals around the bar started giving them looks. Alfonzo huffed and hummed to calm down.

By now it was fully dark outside. The bar had come to life as waves of animals crowded in post-work. There was no room to move. The bartender had gotten fresh assistance in the form of two crow servers who carried wooden trays on cords around their necks. They hopped back and forth across the bar, distributing glasses, returning with empties. The demand was constant. No sooner had they alighted than the bartender was loading up their trays with fresh drinks. She garnished cocktails with sprigs of grass or splashed them with tuna juice; she opened bottles of Dogs Head beer and poured glasses of Yellow Tail at a dizzying pace.

In pausing, it hit Alfonzo how far they were from home and how drunk they were. His head spun.

Mitchell leaned over. “There was something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

“Unless it has to do with getting home or eating pizza, I don’t think I’m in any state to process.”

“Okay, another time.”

“You want to spring for a taxi?”

“What are we, Rockefellers?”

They stumbled into the night and toward the subway.

15.

At home, headachy after the half-drunk hysterical euphoria, Alfonzo riffled through his bag in search of ibuprofen. He couldn’t locate the pills, but he did find a mysterious little blue book.

He recognized the name from that afternoon, Borrowed Times, written above the logo of a striped fish. It must have come from the cats’ apartment. Sprawling on the floor, he leafed through it. It was a crude publication without pictures or much information as to who produced it. It had only a cryptic text on the back inside cover.

Produced by Friends of SERF (Sea Equality Revolutionary Front). F-SERF is a society of land creatures dedicated to furthering the cause of sea liberation by any and all means.

The printing was a little blurry, and the pamphlet reminded him of the hard-core zines of his youth. He liked documents like this: subcultural, self-produced work. It felt a little dangerous or at least a swerve away from adulthood.

He started at the beginning.