– Cops impounded my car, vato.
– Fuck do I care about your fucking car. Ain’t your fucking vato, neither.
Fernando raises his hands above his head.
– Hey, no shit you ain’t my vato. Don’t worry about not being my vato. Worry about the cops having my car. Worry about when I finally get it back and it still has that hole you put in the window.
– Send me a bill.
– A bill. Ese, I give a shit about the bill. I care about you broke my rear windshield.
He pulls Hector’s chain out of his pocket.
– A fucking chain you threw at my car. My car. Fuck you and the bill, you broke my glass.
He lashes Hector’s face with the chain.
Hector folds in half, hands over his face, face between his knees, eyes squeezed shut, mouth closed tight around the shriek that comes up his throat. He opens his eyes and watches the blood that runs out of his face and between his fingers and trickles down to pool on the warped hardwood floor between his feet while Fernando whips his shoulders with the chain, the Levi’s jacket on his back the only thing that keeps his skin from being ribboned.
– Save a little for me, big brother.
Fernando stops beating Hector and looks at Ramon coming in the front door.
– What’s up?
Ramon knocks the door closed with his crutch.
– Cheney got away.
– Got away? Get Timo and go find him. What if he calls the cops?
– Kid’s got a half kilo of meth. Ain’t calling the cops.
Fernando drops the chain on the floor.
– Hope he don’t, little bro, fucking hope he don’t.
Ramon leans against the wall.
– You hope he don’t, man, I been in prison. Shit don’t touch me. I can do that shit I have to. Worry ’bout how you handle a little real time. Where’s Timo?
– Yo, ese.
Timo comes down the hall, joint between his lips, trailing smoke.
Ramon lays out his palm and they trade skin, Timo slipping him the joint.
He takes a toke.
– Thanks, bro. What’s up?
– Whelan and his kid bro are out cold.
– Want to wake those bitches?
– Let’s do it.
Fernando holds up a hand.
– Don’t wake shit. I say to wake shit?
Ramon holds out the joint.
– Bro, take a hit, chill out. Ain’t nothing. Just gonna wake them up. Ask some questions. Find out where the shit is.
– Nobody asking questions. Nobody asking questions till the man gets here.
Ramon and Timo bug their eyes at each other.
Timo smiles big at his big brother.
– Get all jefe on us, ese? What’s with that? This your thing all a sudden? We all not in the same shit? We all not takin’ the same bust?
Fernando takes two steps and pops Timo in the nose he broke two days ago in their last fight.
Timo screams and goes down.
Ramon cocks his fist, but Fernando has him by the neck. Ramon unclenches his fist.
Fernando nods.
– That’s right, bro, relax that shit.
Ramon points at Timo.
– What the fuck?
Fernando lets him go.
– Little shit talking about we all got the same bust. He’s a fucking minor. No priors. Nothing. Bust means shit to him. He’s talking jailhouse tough shit he gets from you. And you? Acting like it’s a fucking joke? Joint don’t mean nothing to you, bro? That your story now? What I remember when I went up there to visit, I remember I seen what you look like comin’ down that hall, sittin’ on the other side of that window. I remember you so lonely you were crying. Remember what I said that day?
Ramon touches the bandage around his thigh where the cops put a bullet in him.
– Yeah.
– Say it.
– Said. Said it was no good me being inside. Being away from my brothers. Said not to forget how it felt, not being with blood. Said outside we had each other. Inside we got nobody.
– That’s right. Inside we’re alone. And we’re not going inside. Not you, not any of us. You want to go against those charges with a public defender? Some whitey from the county gonna get you off that shit? The man is gonna get us off that shit. We do his thing, he’s gonna get us a real lawyer. That’s what I want. Till we got that settled, you’re right, I am the jefe. We all work together, but I am the boss and you gotta listen to me. Gotta follow what I say. Do that, stay together, stay on the outside. Stay family. Blood?
Ramon puts out his hand.
– Blood.
Fernando takes his brother’s hand.
– Blood.
Timo sits up, fingering his nose.
– Thit’s brothen again, futhcker.
Fernando helps him to his feet.
– Come on, blood, let’s clean that shit up.
He takes his brother back down the hall to the bathroom.
Ramon watches their backs.
– Jefe.
He smiles, takes a few steps and, leaning on his crutch, bends and picks up the snake of bloody chain. He looks at Hector, still folded and holding his face.
– Check you out, ese, you’re all fucked up. How’s shit like that happen, holmes? How’d you get into this shit?
He takes a seat on the couch, leaning forward to take the hacksaw from his belt and tuck it next to the armrest. He stretches his wounded leg.
– I don’t want to fuck with you while you’re down, but you gotta be told, you ain’t got it so bad.
He taps his thigh.
– This shit, taking a.38 in the leg? That hurts. No lie. Know what the bullet did? Skipped off the bone. Check that out. Doc said it could just as easily shattered the motherfucker. ’Stead, it skipped off the bone and went right out my leg. Told him I wanted to keep that bullet, good luck charm there ever was one. Said they can’t give it to me. Said it’s evidence. Evidence in the resisting arrest part of the case. Cops got a case against us, it’s so big it’s got fucking parts. Makes my head hurt as bad as my leg. Take it from me, little man, you ain’t got it so bad.
He leans back.
– Still, this shit is all fucked up. This brown on brown thing? Know what I’m talking about, holmes? Yeah you do. This ain’t right. Mean, here you are, three white dudes and one Chicano. And, whoa, stop the presses, who’s in here getting fucked up? Two white dudes in the back room sleeping it off, other white dude ditched this shit. Cue up the same sorryass story.
He wiggles the chain.
– And us, here we are, three brothers, hermanos, the real deal lowrider vatos. Who we waiting on? That’s right. White dude. In the meantime, how we spending our siesta? Beating on a fellow Chicano. That seem right? There something wrong with this picture? Know there is. Blanco Nortinos steal all of California from us, right? That’s how this shit started, that’s how far back. Still there’s places like this, towns where we got the numbers. Still we can’t seem to do shit any different than before. Ain’t right, ese. All us Chicos here and hardly any Mr. Browns in sight, and we’re still fucking each other up instead of taking it to them.
He levers himself up with the crutch.
– That’s some prison education for you. Lessons direct from the school of hard knocks. Santa Rita social studies.
He looks at Hector, still bent over, bleeding face still in his hands.
He looks at the chain, watches a drop of Hector’s blood slowly creep from link to link.
– Anyway, whatever. Let’s see how this shit works.
And he puts the chain to use.
– Andy. Andy.
– Leave me alone.
– Andy.
– I hurt. Leave me alone.
– Let me see your face.
– I donwanna.
– C’mon, man, just let me take a look.
– No. No.
– Andy, stop being a fag and let me see your face.
– Fuck you. Fuck you.
But he turns his head, letting his brother see his face.
– Shit, oh shit, little brother, oh shit.
Andy looks down.
– Your legs are bleeding.
– It’s OK, it’s just scrapes. How’s the inside of your mouth, did you bite your tongue?
Andy sticks his tongue out.
– I thon thing tho.
– It looks OK.
– Thor hed ith bleeing.
– Put your tongue back in your mouth.
Andy puts his tongue back in his mouth.
– Your head is bleeding.
– They hit me with something.
– Who did?
– I don’t know. I don’t remember too good. Fernando or Ramon, I think.
– You tore my favorite shirt.
– That was Paul, OK? It was Paul. I told him to stop and he just. Fuck! Andy, your eye?
– What?
– Can you see out of it?
Andy blinks.
– Which one?
– The left one, your left eye. It’s like, it looks like it’s full of blood, like there’s blood inside of it.
– Oh.
He closes his right eye.
– Yeah, I can see out of it.
– Good. OK.
– George?
– Yeah, bro?
– My stomach feels funny.
He tilts, eyes open, until he’s lying on his side, shivering, and then still.
Paul stops running.
He looks around to see where he is. Somewhere on Locust. Turning, he can see the swimming pools at May Nissen Park a few blocks away. He’s covered in sweat. Even with the sun down it’s still like eighty. He gets out a Marlboro and lights it. He starts to walk, heading toward the pools.
Too bad they close at dark. Be nice to jump in the water and cool off. If they didn’t have those security lights he could just hop the fence. Could do it anyway. Get over the fence and do a couple quick laps and get out. Still be plenty of time to meet up with the guys. They were lagging so hard, didn’t see any of them behind him when he took off. Fucking laggers. Gonna give them all kinds of shit when they catch up. Trouble starts, you gotta jet right away.
He crosses Rincon and walks up to the fence and stands there looking at the pools on the other side.
Lameass Andy fucking up inside the house. Getting George in there with him. Well, George’ll get them both out. Hector must have split around the other side of the house. Probably got his bike. Man, getting his bike back is gonna be a bitch. Maybe go back there right now and take a grab at it. No, that’s lame. Guys’ll be catching up soon. Gonna have to deal with those bikes together.
He hooks his fingers in the chainlink, closes his eyes.
And sees again his best friend’s legs, cut and bleeding, being pulled through the window. And hears the screams.
He opens his eyes.
– Fuck me.
– Where are they?
– There’s one right there, man.
– Yeah, I see him. What’s wrong with him?
– He’s the puta bitch that fucked up my car.
– OK. So what’s wrong with him?
– I hit him a couple times.
Geezer tilts his head to get a better look at Hector’s face.
– Kid’s got, what, cuts on his face? What’re those?
– Cuts.
– From what?
– Piece of chain.
Geezer looks where Fernando is pointing. Uses the grabber to pick up the bloody chain from the floor.
– You hit him a couple times with this?
– Once, just once.
– Kid’s been hit a lot of a fuck more than once. Kid’s missing teeth. He’s been…word? When you get attacked by a wild animal, a bear, what it does to you?
– Como?
– What’s the word for that?
– I don’t fucking know, man.
Ramon shifts on his crutch.
– Maul. You get mauled by a bear.
Geezer drops the chain.
– That’s it, kid’s been mauled.
He looks at Fernando.
– You hit him once and mauled him like this? Remind me never to let you hit me.
Ramon pokes Hector with the rubber tip of his crutch.
– I mauled him.
Geezer pulls at the brim of his black and yellow Caterpillar hat.
– What’d he do?
– Screamed a little. Cried a lot.
– No, what’d he do that you mauled him?
Ramon pivots on his crutch and hobbles to the couch.
– Nothing. Just wanted to see what that chain’d do to his face.
Geezer watches him lower himself to the couch and stretch out his gun shot leg.
He points at Hector.
– Well, guess we know now what happens you whip some kid’s face with a piece of chain. He gets all fucked up. Might want to call a medical journal or some shit, make a report, get yourself nominated for the fucking Pulitzer.
Ramon smiles.
– Nobel.
– What?
– Nobel Prize. Pulitzer, they only give that for writing stuff.
– Well, when they start giving a Nobel Prize for fucking kids up with chains you’ll be a pioneer in the field, won’t you?
Ramon stares.
Geezer pushes up the brim of his hat, looks at Fernando.
– ’Nando, your little brother vying for top psycho in the room honors? He trying to freak me out, put me off my game?
Fernando puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
– He’s cool, Geezer. Just likes to show off a little.
– Got some macho in him, eh?
– Sure, like all of us, right?
Geezer smiles.
– Never met a Mexican worth a damn who didn’t have some macho to him.
– Sure, that’s just how we are.
He looks at Ramon.
– Right, little brother?
Ramon leans back.
– Sure, ese, just me and my macho showing off.
Geezer nods at Fernando, chins waggling.
– Good enough. Where’s the other ones?
Fernando points at the hallway.
– Bathroom.
– El baño, eh?
– Right. The bathroom.
– Show me.
Fernando walks around Geezer and down the hall, ignoring the slit-eyed wink Ramon throws him from the couch.
Geezer follows him into the master bedroom, waving the grabber at Timo on the floor.
– Jesus, everybody in this place take a beating?
Timo stays on his back, pinching his nostrils gently, trying to stop the blood that keeps dripping from his swollen nose.
– I dinn’t tate no beadin’ froh nodbody.
Fernando puts his hand on the bathroom doorknob.
– He fell down.
Geezer laughs.
– Fell down on a pile of fists it looks like.
Timo looks away.
– I fell ond duh grounb libe ebberbody dubs.
– Sure, sure thing, amigo. Whatever you say.
He faces the door.
– Alright, ’Nando, open up.
Fernando opens the bathroom door.
George looks up at them, his little brother’s head in his lap.
– My brother. My brother. He’s hurt. I think he’s hurt real bad. Help my brother. Please help my brother.
Geezer fills the doorway and peers down at Andy’s bruised face and turned up eyes.
– Damn, now that’s comatose if I ever saw it.
– Whas the matter? Whas that?
– Nothing.
– Whas that thm?
– Yeah.
– Whut time’s’t?
– It’s late. Go back to sleep.
– Where?
– I’m gonna go give them a little talk.
– Done be too hrd. Th’r hum. L’thm go t’bed.
– Don’t worry.
– Talk in the muhrn’n ’bou’t.
– Don’t worry. Go back to sleep.
– Hokay.
Bob Whelan watches his wife tuck her face back into her pillow and close her eyes and drop back to sleep. Still naked, he grabs his jeans from the foot of the bed. He uses the toilet in the hall instead of the one in their room, not wanting to wake her again.
She’s tired. Up first thing in the morning, on her feet all day behind that cash register at the Safeway, back here to straighten up the house and get things ready for dinner.
She tried to stay up when they finished screwing around and realized the boys hadn’t come home, made it till a little after midnight, but couldn’t hang in there. Even after she conked out she was restless as hell. Well, she’ll sleep OK now.
He flushes and puts on his jeans and goes to the front door and out onto the porch. Whatever the sound was, it wasn’t the boys. But he knew that already. He knows exactly what they sound like sneaking in and out of the house. He walks to the foot of the driveway and stands there and looks up and down the street.
Goddamn kids.
Got no problem with them running around and getting in a little trouble. Learn more about life that way than by sitting around inside watching TV like so many other kids. Get in a few fights, that’s how you learn to stick up for yourself. Get the crap beat out of you, that’s how you learn what sticking up for yourself can cost you. Do a little drinking and smoking, that’s how you learn how much you can handle. Take a ride in the back of a police car, that’s how you learn the consequences of trying to get away with too much.
And that’s probably how they’ll be coming home. If he’s lucky the cops will drive them right up to the door. If he’s not lucky he’ll be getting a call from the jail on North L telling him to come get his boys that got picked up at some house party where the parents are out of town and their kids got their hands on a keg and a few bottles of Cuervo or something.
The more things change.
If it was just him, he’d wait for the call and let them stay the whole night in jail, pick them up tomorrow afternoon after the yard is rototilled, bring them home and put them to work on the rock pile right away. That’s how his pop would have handled it. Hell, that’s how he did handle it.
He scratches his stomach, his index finger running along the ridge of scar at the bottom of his rib cage. Truth be told, his pop handled it a hell of a lot harder.
Paul, he knows about that kind of thing. Seen those cigarette burns on his stomach. Only one place you get marks like those.
He takes a few steps into the street, looks down the block at the dark front of the Cheney house. Man, sometimes, see that little prick out there watering his lawn, like to stroll over and give him a good one. See how he likes it. Don’t even say anything, just walk up to him and put him on his ass.
A kid gets knocked around a little by his dad? Well, shit like that happens, nobody ever said life was fair. But cigarette burns? No way to explain that. Just that Kyle Cheney is a little prick. Probably ran his wife off by being a little prick. Now he probably blames his kid for her smashing up her car and dying, takes it out on him.
Prick.
Just one good punch right on the button. Might straighten him out.
No. Can’t do that kind of thing. That pecker brings assault charges, a whole can of worms gets reopened. Rules broken, rules he made for himself. Promises he made his wife. That’s not the way to handle it. That’s not the way he handles things. Not anymore. Not for a long time.
Ain’t none of his business, anyway. How a man raises his kids, that’s just nobody else’s business. And Paul’s gonna come out of it OK. Tough little fucker. They’re gonna love him in the Army. And he spends half his time down here anyway. No need to make a big scene out of helping the kid, just give him a place to go every now and then, that’s help enough.
He walks over to the 4×4 and boosts himself up on the fender. He leans forward and a roll of his stomach pushes over the waist of his jeans. He looks at it. Still don’t know where the hell that came from. Woke up one morning and there it was. Crap. Nobody stays young. But crap.
He freezes.
That the phone ringing inside? Nope.
If it was just him, he’d be asleep right now. But Cindy would worry. Got to put on a show for her. Make her think they’re home safe and sound. Damn them. Worrying their mother, messing with his wife’s sleep. And then she’ll be bitchy in the morning and he’ll be grouchy and they’ll end up bickering tomorrow. Damn them. George should be old enough by now to get himself out of trouble. And Andy is smart enough he shouldn’t be in it in the first place. Or he should be smart enough. Some days the kid seems like he’s not so much smart as he’s just from Mars. At least he hasn’t gotten as weird as Hector. Yet.
He slides off the fender and walks back up to the porch.
Not doing any good standing here. Go back inside. If Cindy wakes up tell her the boys are in bed. Doesn’t do anyone any good standing here getting worked up and worn out. The boys are fine. Probably in the police station right now. Getting the shit scared out of them. Do all four of them a load of good.
He sits on the edge of the porch.
Anyway, it’s warm and it’s quiet. Might as well wait a little longer.
– Where’s the other one?
– Other one?
– There’s four of them, right?
– Yeah.
– So, you got the Nobel Prize winning science project in the livingroom, you got that one comatose, and you got his brother here. Unless Ramon learned a different way of counting in the joint, that’s three.
Fernando pulls the front of his hairnet, shifts it slightly lower on his forehead.
– He ran away, man.
– He got out of the house?
– No, man, he was never in it.
Geezer takes off his hat, runs his hand over his head, and wipes the sweat on his thigh.
– And how, why was the kid outside when he ran? How did he know you were in here?
– He saw us.
– How? No. The point. This was a trap, right? I set up a trap. I saw some jewelry that should be in your possession and I did some pretty fucking clever reasoning and plotting. Impressed the fuck out of myself, to be honest. The point of it being to let them all get in the house before you did anything. Grab their asses in the house. It’s quiet, there’s no witnesses, it’s easy.
– Yeah, man, but they couldn’t break in.
– What do you?
– They were taking forever to break in. We.
– Why would they?
– They don’t know how to pick a lock or anything.
– What the? Why was it locked? We wanted them in the house. Why the fuck would you lock the doors?
– I thought you wanted. Well, you know, man, to make it, real. So they wouldn’t know it was a trap.
Geezer slaps his hat on the side of the bed.
– They’re kids, ’Nando, how the fuck would they? OK. Just. Never mind.
He puts on his hat and holds out his hand, slick with sweat from the top of his head. Fernando takes it and hauls him to his feet.
Geezer makes for the livingroom.
– Just bring the one that’s awake.
Fernando goes to the bathroom.
– Get up.
George looks at him.
– Hey. Hey, man. Fernando.
– Get the fuck up.
George puts his hands under Andy’s head and lowers it to the floor and stands up.
– Hey, whatever, whatever we fucked up, my brother is really hurt. No more fucking around here, man. This is no joke. We got to call, we got to get him some help.
– Get out here.
– Seriously, man. This shit between us, we can’t mess around, you know, whatever, take it out on me, but Andy’s. Look at him, man.
Fernando reaches out and swats the side of his head.
– Whelan, fuck you. Fuck Hector. Fuck fucking Cheney. And fuck your fucking brother. Get in the fucking livingroom and shut the fuck up.
George holds the side of his head, covering the bloody lump where Fernando hit him with the minibat while he was stuck in the window screaming. He looks down at his brother.
– I’ll be back, Andy.
But Andy doesn’t say anything and George steps out of the bathroom, following Fernando.
Still on the floor, Timo flips him off.
– Dode fudking loob ad me, bidch. Youd gob fudking enoudgh trubdle.
– You’re a shucking cockshucker, Ramon.
– Me? No, man, never. Had mine sucked a few times in the joint. Know what, Hector? Man’s mouth feels just like a woman’s. Yours, with those teeth knocked out, it might feel pretty good.
– Shuck you and you mosher and you grandmosher, puta Shucking cockshucker.
– That’s a long to do list you’re making for yourself, joven.
– Shee ish I’m a lishle boy when I shuv that chain down your shucking shroash.
Ramon leans forward on the couch and prods Hector with the end of his crutch.
– Hey, hey, what do you think this would feel like in your ass?
Geezer comes in and points at the floor next to Hector.
– Put him over there.
Fernando shoves George and George joins his friend, his back against the wall.
– Fuck, Hector, your face is all fucked up.
– Doesh ish look punk?
– It looks fucked up.
Geezer stands in front of Ramon.
– Want to scoot over and make some room?
Ramon scoots, shifting his hacksaw.
Geezer works his way down on the couch, the thin and threadbare cushions flattening beneath him. He swipes the back of his hand under his chins.
– Why’s this place got no AC?
Ramon picks at the edge of the bandage on his thigh.
– You know us wetbacks, jefe, we like it hot.
Geezer looks at the tiny spot of red that’s oozed through the bandage.
– Uh huh. How’s the leg feeling?
– Hurts when it’s cold.
– Uh huh.
Geezer looks at him, looks away.
– You, you kids, faces front over here.
Hector and George look at him.
He shrugs.
– This is pretty messed up, huh?
Nothing.
– I said, this is pretty messed up, huh?
George nods.
– Yeah, yeah, it’s messed up. Hey, look, man, we, you know, we, whatever we fucked up, you know, that was, it was wrong, but, I told Fernando, you know, my little brother, he’s, man, he, you saw him.
– He’s comatose is what he is, kid.
– He needs a doctor, man, sir. Just, whatever we can, like, whatever, I’ll do it, but he’s really hurt.
– Uh huh, uh huh. OK, good, you…What’s your name?
– George.
– George. You got a good head on your shoulders over there. You’re getting the situation exactly. Your brother is really hurt bad. He needs a doctor. And you guys, you need to do whatever you need to do to help him. That’s a great…the word? For when there’s a lot to say and someone puts it all together in one piece. Wraps it up?
Fernando looks at his feet.
– We get it.
– You get it, but what’s the word? The word, the exact word is what I want to get. I give a fuck if you get it.
Ramon raises his hand.
– Call on me, call on me.
Geezer wipes more sweat from the back of his neck, looks at him.
– You got something to say, Ramon, say it.
– Just trying to keep my place, jefe.
– The word?
– Summation.
Geezer waves his hat at Fernando.
– You got a pen or a pencil, something to write with? Some paper?
Fernando goes into the kitchen.
Geezer faces the boys again.
– Summation. That was a great summation of your situation, George.
George looks at Hector, looks back at the fat man.
– Cool, cool. Thanks. So, you’re gonna call 911?
Fernando comes back in with a yellow pencil and an old envelope.
– Here you go, Geezer.
Geezer takes them with the grabber and puts them on the arm of the couch.
– Your brother opens up his vocabulary again, I want to be able to write shit down so I don’t forget it. OK. OK. George. I’m gonna do whatever I can for your little brother. I’m gonna get him whatever help we can get for him.
– Cool. OK. OK.
– I’m gonna do that just as soon as you tell me where my meth is.
– Sure. I. Your? What? I don’t?
– George.
– I don’t.
– George, cool it for a second. Before you say another thing, shut up and tell me the first word you just said.
– Word?
– What was the first word, when I asked you where my meth is, my half kilo of crystal methamphetamine, what was the first word out of your mouth?
– I. Fuck, man, sir, I have no.
– Sure. You said, sure. Like telling me where it is would be no problem at all. So don’t go back on that, that was the way to handle this, that was the way to get some help for your brother. Tell me, just tell me where my meth is.
George looks at a mass of dusty cobwebs clogging one of the high corners of the room.
– Mister, I have, really, man, sir, I have no idea. I. Sure just came out of my mouth.
He looks the fat man in the eye, looks back at the spiderwebs.
– I don’t know. I just want to help my brother, I just want to get out of here and help my brother and go home and.
He stops talking and starts crying, burying his face in his arms.
Geezer looks at Hector.
– What about you, muchacho, gonna tell me where my meth is?
Hector pokes his shattered front teeth with his tongue, stops staring at Ramon and flicks his eyes at Geezer.
– I don’sh know.
– Uh huh. OK. Think you can maintain for a few more questions, or you a crybaby like your friend?
Hector shakes his head. It hurts.
– I ain’sh no crybaby.
Ramon laughs.
– Shuck yoush, Ramosh. Gonna shucking kill yoush.
Ramon laughs harder.
Geezer looks at him.
– What?
– Hey, nothing, jefe, just you should have heard him before. He cried plenty before. Lost his…the word? Lost his composure. Know that one, jefe?
Geezer wheezes out a laugh and picks up the pencil.
– OK, you got me, that was funny. Composure. Gonna put that one down.
He licks the tip of the pencil and grips it like a dagger and slams the sharp lead down on the spot of blood that shows through the bandage on Ramon’s thigh, ripping through the gauze and the stitches below.
– How about trauma, shitheelfuckface!?! Know that word!?! Know that word, you fuckingspicfucker!?!
Ramon grabs Geezer’s hand, trying to peel his fat fingers off the pencil, unable to get a grip on the greasy, sweaty skin.
– Stop moving, spic, fucking be still and take it.
Fernando is coming across the room.
Geezer takes his chrome.32 derringer out of the pocket of his sweat suit and presses it against Ramon’s nose.
– Fernando, get back over there. Fucking brother asked for it, he’s getting it now. You gonna take his medicine for him? Yes? No?
Fernando shakes his head.
– Good. Get back over there.
He cocks the derringer.
– Ramon, you stop whining and wiggling right now or I’m gonna shoot your nose off. No shit, jailbird. Go back in the joint with no nose, know what’s gonna happen? Someone’s gonna fuck you in your nose hole and cum in your lungs.
Ramon stops moving.
Geezer keeps the derringer where it is.
– OK. Got everybody’s attention? You boys. George, you there?
– Yes, sir.
– Little amigo?
– Yeah.
– Good, I want your attention here because this is…fuck…the word? When something is important to someone, when it applies to their situation? Ramon? You gonna help me out here?
Ramon stares at the pencil in his leg, licks his lips.
– Relevant?
– Relevant! Got it again. Damn, did you swallow a dictionary in there? OK, boys, got that? This is relevant to your situation.
Geezer’s eyes circle the room, going from face to face, making sure they’re paying attention. And once he’s certain, he flattens his empty hand and slaps it down on the pencil, driving it into the bullet hole in Ramon’s leg until just the pink eraser is visible, quickly turning red.
Ramon shakes, opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue, shakes, and passes out.
Fernando turns his face away, closes his eyes.
George takes Hector’s hand.
Geezer wipes his hand on Ramon’s plaid shirt.
– So, now that we’re all clear, now that the situation has a summation and we know what is relevant here, we can all take half a second to regain our composure. And now you can tell me where the one fucking bag of meth the cops did not get is. Is it at your home?
George shakes his head.
– No, sir.
– Did you sell it already?
– No, sir.
– Did you give it to cunt Amy Whelan to sell for you? Cuz that’s what I’m thinking. That is the, here’s another one for you, the essence, of why I’m here. Because I have a feeling that cunt has you shits fucking around in my business.
– No, sir. No, sir, that’s not true.
Geezer points the derringer at the nub of bloody pencil.
– You see this?
– Yes, sir.
– What is up with Amy and where’s my meth?
The doorbell rings.
Geezer points his tiny gun at the door.
– The fuck? Who the fuck is that?
Fernando opens his eyes. Looks at Ramon, sees his chest rising and falling, looks at Geezer.
– I don’t know.
– Well go check.
Fernando goes to the door, peels back the corner of the filthy curtain that covers the window, drops it, and opens the door and stands back to let Paul in.
– I got your meth, dick.
– Bob? What’re you?
He pulls on his other sneaker.
– Just putting my shoes on, babe.
Cindy rubs her eyes and sits up.
– What? Where are you? What’s the?
– The boys aren’t back yet.
– Not. What time?
She picks up the clock from the nightstand.
– It’s after four. Bob, it’s after four. How long?
– It’s cool. They’re fine. I’m just gonna take a little drive around.
Her fingers whiten around the clock.
– But. What about? You said you heard them come in.
He gets an old sleeveless sweatshirt from the laundry basket on the floor.
– I was wrong.
She pulls the covers off.
– That was hours ago. Where are?
He walks into the bathroom and turns on the faucet.
– They weren’t home, Cin. OK? I got up in the middle of the Goddamn night and they weren’t home, OK?
– Did you call anyone? Did you call the?
– Hey, can I? You want me to tell you what happened or what?
She walks to the open door of the bathroom and stands looking at him.
He splashes some water on his face, turns the faucet off and lets the water drip off his chin.
– OK. I got up, they weren’t home. I knew they weren’t home, but there’s no use both of us being up worrying.
– Did you call Paul’s or Hector’s parents?
He takes a hand towel from the bar on the back of the door and wipes his face.
– What for? So they can worry? The boys aren’t gonna sneak out of here just to sneak into Paul or Hector’s house.
She grabs the hem of her T, Bob’s old Texaco shirt from when he worked at the gas station. She balls the fabric and twists it.
– And the police?
He throws the towel on the floor.
– No, I haven’t called the cops. If they’re there, they’re there.
– Bob.
– It’s not that big a deal you know. Whatever kind of trouble they got themselves into, I’m not my dad. Not like I’m gonna do anything if they got picked up or had a few beers.
– Bob.
– What? What? What am I doing now? What am I doing wrong now?
She brings up her little hands, slaps his chest.
– I don’t care if they’re in fucking jail, you asshole! What if they’re not, Bob? What if they’re not? I want to know where my sons are! Right now! I want to know where my sons are, you son of a bitch. Where are my sons?
He has to take her by the wrists to keep her from slapping his face. By the time she stops he has her wrapped up tight, pressed to his chest, rocking her back and forth.
– It’s OK, babe. They’re OK. They probably just got picked up. Got picked up after curfew and they don’t want to give the cops their name because they don’t want to get in trouble or something. If they’re not, listen, if they’re not at the police station when I call, I’m gonna go out and get them. I’m gonna go find them. It’s cool. Shhh. You’re gonna stay here, OK? Stay here. I’m gonna run around like a chicken with my head cut off and make an ass of myself showing up at all the places they hang at and you’re gonna stay here and be here when they come home with their tails between their legs. OK? They’re just at someone’s house. Some kid threw a house party last night and they all got loaded and passed out on the floor. They’re gonna wake up sick as dogs and when they come home you’re gonna get to nurse them and take care of them and I promise I won’t give them any shit till they’re feeling better. OK? OK, babe?
She pulls herself away from him.
– I’ll call the cops.
He puts a hand on her shoulder.
– I’ll call them, babe.
She slips under his hand.
– No, I’ll call them. You should have called them when you got up, Bob. I’ll call them.
He stays in the bathroom, and is standing with his toothbrush in one hand and a tube of toothpaste in the other when she makes the call and the police tell her they don’t have her sons in custody.
Geezer’s place is still dark. Just the porch light on, illuminating the spread of patio furniture and the scattered kiddy stuff.
Jeff stands in the middle of the gravel drive, staring at the Big Wheel and Hippity Hop and the big rainbow swirled rubber ball and the miniature croquet set with plastic mallets. His pupils are huge, gathering the bright colors bouncing off the toys.
Damn, those whites are intense. Not your run of the mill speed. This shit is, woof, is gonna make for an all night thing. Bad call taking it for a test run. Got the morning shift tomorrow. Today. In a few hours.
Fuck.
Where’s Geezer?
Need to talk to him. Have a quick word about Amy and that crank thing.
That was a choke. Double choke. Bringing it up with Geezer was a choke. Bringing it up with Amy was a double. She chilled eventually, but it took some talking. I mean, of course he didn’t go over there looking to set her up. Just that Geezer put the idea in his head that she might be moving some crank and a little of that sounded good. Should have kept his mouth shut. First Geezer’s all freaked about Amy, and now Amy’s all freaked about Geezer. And here he is in the middle.
Well.
It’ll be cool. Just need to have a word with Geezer and put it straight. And it won’t hurt to do a solid for Amy. Sure he kind of fucked up a little, but if he can put it right she’s gonna be feeling pretty warm toward him. Felt good just stroking her back when she started crying. Woman has kept herself in damn good shape.
Yeah, it’ll all be cool with Amy.
And the kids.
It’ll be cool with them, too. Just as soon as they get their asses back here it’ll be cool. Should have been here by now, drop off whatever they grabbed from the house so he can take it to Geezer. But they’re not.
Smartasses are somewhere fucking around.
Probably better that the fat man’s not home. If he was home, if he was waiting for the guys to show up with the score from that house, he’d be ready to blow, man. Ready to teach those smartasses a lesson.
Not that he’d really hurt them. Geezer’s a tough nut, but he’s got limits. He’d never go heavy on some kids. Just scare them straight like the kids in that program in the prisons. He wouldn’t fuck them up. Shit, he likes kids. Keeps all these toys and shit around for the little kids in the trailer park to mess with. Parents come over here to score some meth or whatever, they can leave their kids out front to play. Don’t have to take them inside where they’ll see all that shit. That’s good looking out for the kids on Geezer’s part. Yeah, it’ll be fine.
He grinds his teeth.
Just, where are those smartasses?
Getting Bob’s kids mixed up in Geezer’s shit. What was that? Was that the lamest move in history, or what? What was he thinking? That hard up for a couple bucks? That big a loser?
Damn it to fuck.
He kicks the Hippity Hop again, sending it up onto Geezer’s porch, ricocheting off the door.
Loser.
He turns and heads back to his own trailer, where the lights burn bright and “Taking Care of Business” comes out the front door. He takes his seat on the milk crate and gets back to work on the almost completed carburetor rebuild.
Get it done and take a little ride to make sure the bike’s running smooth. Cruise around, check out some of the smartasses’ hangouts. Get this shit sorted out before it gets complicated.
Maybe roll past that house.
– So where is it?
– Let me and my friends go and I’ll bring it here.
– No.
– Yes.
– No.
– Yes.
– No.
– Yes.
Geezer runs his index finger over the derringer in his pocket, tracing the swirls engraved on the stubby barrel.
– What’s your name?
Paul flips him off.
– None of your fucking business.
Geezer closes his eyes, snaps the grabber open and closed a couple times, and opens his eyes.
– Kid, let me tell you, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be going through all this just to get my hands on one measly half kilo of meth. Under normal circumstances, someone steals from me, I’d just have them knocked unconscious and dragged out by the quarry and their legs or an arm laid across the train tracks and to hell with the half kilo.
He sighs.
– But these are not normal circumstances. In these circumstances, you shits got my lab busted. In these circumstances, the new lab these muchachos were supposed to have up and running here is not up and running. In these circumstances, I now have a serious fucking problem as far as what kind of cash I have on hand to pay people over in Oakland who want to be paid when they want to be paid and don’t give fuck all what my circumstances are.
He takes out the derringer.
– All of which is a long way of saying if you want to keep your arms and legs attached to your body you better tell me where my meth is.
Paul puts a hand under his shirt, touches the cigarette burns, thinks about why he puts those burns there, remembers what every single one stands for.
And finds that he isn’t afraid at all.
He points at the derringer.
– That your dick in your hands there, fatass?
George slaps Paul’s calf with the back of his hand.
– Cool it, man.
– You cool it, man, I got this.
– No you don’t, no you don’t, just tell him.
– I’m not telling him shit.
He points at George’s head, points at Hector.
– He fucked you guys up, I’m not telling him shit.
George stands.
– Yeah we’re fucked up, so stop being a dick and tell him where it is!
Paul sticks his face in George’s.
– I’m not being a dick. These guys are the dicks!
– You’re being a dick!
– Fuck you!
– Fuck you, dick.
– Paul! Paul!
Paul looks at Hector.
– What?
– George itsh righsh, you’re being a dick.
– No, I’m fucking not!
George shoves him.
– Andy’s fucked up! My brother is all fucked up and he needs help and he, he, and you fucked up! I told you to leave that shit alone! Now stop being a dick! Give them the meth! Tell them where it is! Tell them, you dick! Tell them!
Something jumps in Paul’s face. Something under the skin.
He looks at the fat guy.
– You hurt Andy?
Geezer looks at Fernando.
– Andy?
– The little kid.
Geezer looks at Paul.
– Yeah, we hurt him.
– You.
Paul looks at the floor. The thing under his skin jumps a couple times, stops. The pressure builds behind his eyes. He holds it in, waits for the spike, but it doesn’t come.
He looks up.
– Man, I am so pissed at you.
Geezer nods.
– Then I guess we can start talking now.
Her connection in the pharmacy leaves the door unlocked when he takes his break, and Amy goes in like she belongs there. She walks among the shelves with a clipboard, fills a doctor’s order for erythromycin, then heads out of the antibiotics and around the steel shelves to the opiates.
She takes the huge family size bulk shopping bottle of Vicodin from the shelf, shakes ten into her palm, and replaces the bottle. She drops the pills into a Ziploc bag she pulls from her bra. Seals the bag, lifts her skirt and tucks it inside her panties. She does the same with the codeine, taking twenty instead of just ten. She looks at the Percocet and Percodan.
Percs are getting way popular. Used to be all Valium and Quaaludes and Dexedrine. Nobody wanted anything else because nobody knew about anything else. Now pretty much anyone who’s had their wisdom teeth out or gone on a diet or had a few stitches just whines and the doctor writes them a script for some new pharm. It’s all good for business, but damn it’s a pain keeping everything in stock.
She gets down the bottle of Percocet and shakes thirty into her last baggie. The pills nest in the crotch of the big white granny undies, and she walks straight out of the pharmacy and into the nearest ladies’ room. In a stall, she fiddles with a seat cover dispenser, tugging down the tops of the tissue doughnuts. Then she pulls the baggies one by one from her underwear and shoves them behind the covers and smoothes them back into place. The top one is all wrinkled and bunched. She pulls it out along with three or four more and flushes them away. Now the dispenser looks perfect. The pills will be safe until she comes back for them at the end of her shift. Fuck of a lot better than walking around with panties full of contraband. And with all the times the lockers in the nurses’ changing room get broken into, there’s no way she’s leaving them in there. Ladies’ can is the best place by far.
She washes her hands and exits.
She drops the erythromycin at the nurses’ station on her floor, tells them she’s taking her break, and rides the elevator to the basement cafeteria. She gets a cup of coffee, looks at a doughnut, remembers having to cover her tummy in front of Jeff and grabs a banana instead.
The cafeteria’s almost empty. Just a few graveyarders like her, and a handful of family members doing all night death watches on their loved ones.
Whole hospital is depressing as hell.
At least she got out of pediatrics.
Seemed like a good idea. Thought being around the kids would make the day go quicker. Doesn’t have any of her own, but she really digs kids. And they are fun to be around when it’s just a checkup or something.
But kids that are sick? Really sick?
That’s the worst.
Some mommy getting word that little Brianna has advanced stage lymphoma and is gonna die in about two months if they start chemo right away? Watching a scene like that, having some doctor expect her to pick up the pieces after he’s dropped the news and gone on to his next patient? That is not life affirming at all. That is not what she had in mind.
Head trauma is a walk in the park after that.
In head trauma you see what’s coming from a mile away. Pediatrics was like getting a fresh lesson in the fuckedupness of God on an hourly basis.
The fuckedupness of God. Defined in her own life as Geezer thinking she’s dealing crank. She puts her elbows on the table and her head in her hands.
Jeff may or may not be able to convince Geezer she’s cool. If he can’t, he’ll be worthless. Nice guy, cute, but not tough. Not tough enough for Geezer. Couple of her old men would be up for it. But calling any of them means opening the door to all kinds of shit. Call one of those guys to take care of something like this and they’re gonna be expecting a lot back. End up playing house with one of those Neanderthals, riding bitch on the back of his hog, handing over the cash from her business. No fucking way.
Should get a gun.
A gun. Shit.
If only. If only Bob wasn’t such a dick. She could call him. He’d take care of it. One way or another, he’d make sure she was safe.
Or maybe not. There was a time he’d have dealt with it in no uncertain terms at all. But that was a while back. And even if he hadn’t put all that away, he still might not help her. Not after the crap with George.
When he found out George was hanging around her place all the time, he flipped. I know what’s going on here, Amy. I know what your business is. Can’t go into the Rodeo for a beer without someone asking me to get them hooked up with you. I know you’re dealing. I don’t know what it is, I don’t care what it is. But I can’t believe, I cannot believe that you’d let children, your nephews, be around that crap. They’re kids, they don’t know any better unless they’re told. I tell them, I tell them to stay away, that’s just gonna make them come around more. So you tell them. Tell them they are not welcome. Do it. You don’t do it, I hear they’re coming around, and I will drop a dime on you, Amy. Sister or not, my kids are more important to me than you are. Make them go away. Do it tomorrow.
Nothing to do at that point but run George off. Start a fight with the kid and piss him off.
Jesus, if Bob had known the kid was running her shit around for her.
Would have disowned her for sure. Christ, would have pulled one of their dad’s moves and beaten the crap out of her.
– Amy.
She looks up.
– Hey, Bob.
The car’s still not there.
Paul tries to remember the last time he saw it.
This morning? No, it’s almost morning now. Not this morning, yesterday morning, when they went down to Galaxy? Was it there? No. Shit. OK, think. Was it there when they snuck out of George’s bedroom window and got the bikes and rode over to the house?
He thinks about the house.
Hector and George all beat to hell. That fat bastard sitting on the couch, too fat to even get up, just sitting there sweating. Fernando staying on the other side of the room, not speaking unless spoken to. Ramon. Fucking badass Ramon. Out cold. All that blood.
Andy.
Wouldn’t let him see Andy. George is scared bad. Fuck kind of shape is Andy in if he’s so worried about him? Hurting Andy? Who? What the fuck? What do you get out of hurting a little kid?
What do you get out of touching a kid?
– Comb on, Cheney. Whud duh fug?
He shrugs Timo’s hand off his shoulder.
– Don’t touch me.
– I’lb touge youd id I wad.
Paul looks at Timo’s swollen nose, the bloody clogs of toilet paper sticking out of his nostrils. Don’t even have to hit the thing, just slap it and he’ll go down on his knees.
He turns back to his house, the mystery of the missing car.
– Just keep your hands to yourself.
Timo stuffs one of the TP plugs deeper into his nose.
– Jud ged uz in duh house.
– Shut up and I’ll get us in.
– Id’z righd dere, led’z juz wog in.
– I’m trying to figure out where my dad is, OK?
– Your dab? Fug hib. Led’z go.
Paul closes his eyes, tries not to think about hurting Timo. When did he see the car?
This is Saturday morning. No car. Last night when they snuck out? No car. Yesterday afternoon when they went to Galaxy, came back, went to the bowling alley, back for dinner? No. No. No. No. Thursday night when they snuck out to case the sketchy house? No. When they snuck back in? No. That afternoon, after they went to Jeff’s with the jewelry? No. Before they went to Jeff’s? Before?
Yes.
He looked down the street when they came out of Marinovic’s house. The car was there.
So where’s the car now? Where’s his dad?
– Enub uv dis shid, led’z go.
Paul thinks about the car in a ditch, his dad’s chest crushed by the steering column. The car flipping down the middle of an empty highway, his dad being tossed around the interior.
Like mom. Mom. Just like mom.
Leaving him alone. To live however he wants.
No.
The world doesn’t work like that. You don’t get the things you most want. The car’s in a garage with a dead battery his dad’s too lame to replace by himself. His dad’s in the house asleep.
Life just like it’s always been.
– Cub on, adshole.
Cuz that’s what life is like. Life’s not ever gonna suck any less than it does. Shit like this never stops happening.
– OK, come on, but keep your fucking mouth shut so we don’t wake him up.
– He wades ub dads hids problub.
He rides the elevator with her, back up to the trauma ward.
She leans into the corner farthest from him, her arms crossed.
– How long? Since when?
– They took off after dinner. Haven’t come home. Cindy’s worried. Told her I’d look around. Probably nothing.
– The cops?
– No. She called, but no.
– What about?
– Amy, look, I know I told you I’d. I know I told you what I’d do if I found out they were at your place. But. If that’s it. Cindy’s really worried. So. Look, if they’re at your place, I’m not gonna do anything. I just need to know. For my wife.
The elevator stops, the doors slide open and Amy walks out, shaking her head.
– Bob. Jesus.
She goes past the nurses’ station, holding up five fingers when Trudy stands and starts to collect her things. Trudy rolls her eyes, but sits back down.
Amy stops at the end of the hall and looks out the window down at the cars in the lot. Bob’s reflection appears in the glass. She doesn’t bother turning to face him.
– You are. Man. Bob, you are a piece, man, a real piece of work.
– Are they at your place or not?
She turns.
– No, Bob, they are not at my place. I told you I’d keep them away. And I have. Christ, man. And even if I hadn’t, even if they were there right now shooting smack and fucking hookers, you think, you really think you could have said two words about them missing and I wouldn’t have told you where they were? You think I would do that, put you through that? You are a piece of work.
– OK.
– And, OK, fuck you, but Cindy? You think I’d let Cindy worry like that? I like Cindy. We were friends. If you weren’t such a tightass we’d still be friends.
– OK, Amy.
– You think I’d scare the mother of my nephews like that?
– Cool it, Amy. OK? I got it. They’re not at your place. Sorry I asked.
She bites her lip, kicks the toe of her white shoe against the wall a couple times.
– It’s cool. Sorry I lost it. I’m uptight about some other shit.
– No problem.
He looks out the window. At four stories the hospital is the tallest building in town. To the north, streetlights show him the sprawl of housing tracts and apartment complexes broken by undeveloped lots peppered with For Sale signs. Headlights on the freeway in the distance. False dawn on the horizon.
She taps the glass with a nail.
– You know they’re just at someone’s house. Some party.
– I know.
– Right now they’re getting their stories straight.
– Sure.
– Gonna come home and say just enough of the truth so it sounds good. You remember.
– Yep. I do.
– George will do the talking. Just like you used to.
– Uh huh.
– He’s gonna tell you just enough. Sorry, Dad, we had some drinks. I know that’s not cool. Andy got sick and couldn’t ride his bike and me and the guys didn’t want to leave him there and everyone else was too drunk to drive us home. Right?
– Yeah, that’ll be it.
– We should have called. Andy was sick and told me not to call because he was scared of how mad you’d be. And we just ended up, you know, passing out. Sorry, Dad. Just like me and you, right? Except we got the belt.
– That was the price of a good time.
– If you say so, Bob. I just think it was fucked up.
He crosses his arms.
– Can’t change it now.
She pokes some loose hair behind her ear.
– No, can’t change anything now.
– Nope. Sorry to bother you at work.
– It’s cool.
They head back to the elevator. She pushes the button for him and puts her hands in her pockets and takes them out and looks at him.
– So. Look. So you know they hang out at Jeff’s place, right?
He blinks.
– Loller’s?
– Uh huh. Used to anyway. I think Paul’s over there a lot. Maybe Hector. George and Andy were going around to see Paul there. Mess with Jeff’s old wrecks. That kind of thing.
– Since when?
– I don’t know. Just heard George talk about it a couple times.
– Christ.
– But, you know, he’s cool. He’s just…Jeff. Just the same as he always was.
– Same as he always was. Great.
She puts a hand on his shoulder, touching her brother for the first time in a year
– Bob, it’s Jeff. He wouldn’t let them get into any kind of trouble. He knows better. He knows better.
The elevator opens; a tired woman inside, large white teddy bear under one arm, looking at the floor.
Bob shakes his head.
– OK. OK. I’ll go to see him.
– He might know where the party was last night.
– Yeah. I’ll go.
– Look, Bob. I.
He puts his hand between the closing doors and they bounce open.
– Yeah?
– I. Just I got this thing going on. And.
– What?
– Nothing.
He glances at the woman, she doesn’t look up.
– Something you need help with?
– Just my own problems. You got enough right now.
The doors try to close again and he blocks them.
– Ames. You need help, you call me.
– Yeah?
– Yeah. Just, just right now I got to deal with the boys. But you call tomorrow.
– OK, yeah, maybe I will. OK.
He pulls his arm back.
– Yeah, call. Whatever you need, we’ll figure it out.
The doors close.
Amy walks back to the station, waves at Trudy.
– Sorry. Take an hour. I’ll be fine.
Trudy scoops up her purse.
– That your old man?
– Brother.
– No kidding? Married?
– Yeah.
– Too bad. I love that hardcase cowboy thing.
Amy drops into her chair.
– Help yourself. I’ve had enough to last a lifetime.
Jeff rolls the Harley to the QuickStop lot. The teenage son of the owner is out front. He nods at Jeff then goes back to wiping down the gas pumps with a soapy rag.
Jeff straddles the bike, pulls in the clutch, twists the throttle a couple times, then jumps off the seat and brings his weight down on the kickstart. The bike pops once.
The kid looks up from the pumps and watches as Jeff adjusts a screw on the side of the carburetor, brings the clutch in again, and comes back down on the kick. He has to hammer the bitch about a half dozen times before it catches. The kid gives him a double thumbs up as Jeff twists the throttle and the Sportster roars.
He brings it back down to an idle, leans the bike on its kickstand, and walks inside the store with the kid following him. He waits at the counter while the kid circles around and grabs a pack of Camels from the rack and hands it to him. Jeff passes him a couple bucks, peels off the cellophane, lights a smoke and walks out. The kid dumps the change in the loan a cent.
Outside, Jeff swings his leg over the seat and tucks his ponytail down the back of his T. He left his goggles in the trailer, but there’s a pair of geeky safety glasses in the little tool kit on the bike. He slips them on. Finds the packet of whites in his pocket and crunches one between his teeth.
He guns the throttle out of the lot, taking the Harley around the long curve of the entrance ramp that dumps him on the 580 West. The bike runs smooth and he opens it up, the cherry getting blown off the cigarette between his lips. Within a quarter mile the sweat that’s been caking him all day and all night is drying. The early morning air is almost cool.
Take it up the road and back a couple times. Let the bitch clear her throat. Then hit the street and find the damn kids.
See what the fucking problem is.
Geezer is playing with the pencil, drawing it out of Ramon’s thigh and wiggling it back in, stirring it around, watching the kids across the room try to keep from looking, try to keep from puking.
– You need to leave my brother alone, Geezer.
– What?
Fernando holds up a finger.
– He gets out of line, talks a lot of shit like he learned in the joint, I get it. Pendejo motherfucker drives me crazy. But you got to stop now with that shit.
Geezer leaves the tip of his index finger on the end of the pencil.
– You were gonna take care of it, ’Nando? Your brother was mouthing off to me, getting all macho in front of a room of people I’m trying to make an impression on, were you gonna shut him up for me?
Fernando’s eyes are on his brother’s face; the waxy, sweaty skin, the lids that flutter open from time to time, revealing glassy eyes.
– Sure, sure, man, some things you have to take care of, OK. But you gotta stop with the, with that thing you’re doing with the pencil. You can’t do that kind of shit in front of me and expect me. Family, you know? There’s things, a way things have to be taken care of. Something like that, you can’t do that and expect me to. I have responsibilities. So, please, I’m asking you. Please stop that.
Geezer shifts on the couch, moving his arms to pull the material of his sweat soaked sweat suit from his skin.
– That was, that must have been hard. To ask me that. Say please to me. Humble yourself like that. I know that flies right in the face of the way you people are raised. Want you to know I appreciate that. So.
He pulls the bloody pencil out of Ramon’s leg and drops it on the man’s lap.
– There you go.
He pats Ramon’s shoulder.
– That make you happy?
Fernando’s looking at the pencil covered in his brother’s blood.
– Sure, Geezer, sure.
– Got something to say?
– No, I’m done.
– No, I mean something you ought to say? A little gracias maybe?
Fernando looks from the pencil to Geezer’s sweaty face.
– Si, Geez. Gracias, man. Muchas gracias, man.
We have to talk.
That’s what the note says. We have to talk. Like something from an After School Special or some public service Just Say No commercial. Found a pound of crystal meth in the toilet and he leaves a fucking note. Some dad. Some man.
Paul puts the lid back on top of the tank.
– Whud wuz dat?
– A note.
– Frub hoob?
– My dad.
– So wherdz da meth?
– My dad did something with it.
– Whud? Lide da cobz? He tabe id do da fugging cobz?
– Mellow out, man. Be quiet.
– Whyd da fug shud I bellow oud man? Da methz nod hered!
– Because my dad’s passed out on the livingroom floor.
Timo points at the bathroom window they shimmied through to get into the house.
– Howd da fug do youd dow whered hed idz?
– Cuz the bathroom smells like brandy and puke.
He bangs his fist against his forehead. What the fuck! Leaving the drugs in the toilet. Know dad’s a weakass, can’t flush a toilet right. Know he’s always poking around in there.
Retard! Goddamn retard! Leaving it in there!
Timo grabs the doorknob.
– Ledz wagge hib ub.
Paul pushes the door closed.
– No way, man. You stay in here, stay in here. I’ll wake him up. He wants. He wants to talk to me. He.
– Whad da fug, Cheney, youd fugging crying?
– Fuck you.
– Fug me? Fug youd, youd crying fugging poozzy!
He puts his hand in Paul’s chest, shoving him against the door.
– Fugging poozy. Alld youd guyz itz fugging poozzies!
Paul thinks about how Hector holds his fire until the last possible second, how he wears that blank peon look hicks expect from a Chicano, then unloads on their skulls. He thinks about George’s mellow, how deep it is, how the only thing that can make George lose his cool is someone telling him what to do. He thinks about Andy, that faraway place he goes to inside, the way his eyes just blank out and you can’t get a rise out of him no matter how much you fuck with him. He thinks about how they’re depending on him, leaning on him not to fuck up, to just come over here and get the meth and get back as fast as he can. How they need him to keep his shit together.
Timo shoves him.
– Ged da fug oud ov da way, poozzy!
He pushes Timo back into the wall, the towel bar snapping in two as they slam into it.
– Isaiddon’ttouchmeyoufaggotspicmotherfuckersonofabitchfuckingshitfucker!
Timo bounces off the wall, grunts, blows one of the TP wads from his nose and forces Paul back into the hollow core door.
– Fugging poozie! Fugging pendejo, mudderfugger!
The latch pops and the jamb is peeled from the frame and the door splinters open as Timo slams Paul into it again and they both fall into the hallway.
Paul hits the floor hard, Timo landing on top of him. The wind is smashed from his lungs and he gasps.
Timo is crawling on top of him, trying to pin his arms to the floor with his knees.
– Poozies, fugging up ourd shid! Fugged up all ourd shid!
Paul brings his arms up and crosses them over his face. Timo grabs his wrists and twists and brings them to the floor and gets his knees planted on his elbows and pops a fist into Paul’s neck.
– Fug you ub, fugger!
Paul twists, tries to squirm loose, tries to open his lungs, but Timo is planted on his chest, unmoving.
Timo cocks his fist.
– See howd you lide a broden nodez, poozy!
The empty half gallon brandy bottle smashes against the back of Timo’s head and he goes limp, flopping forward, blood dripping from his open nostril onto Paul’s shirt.
– Leave my son alone!
His dad still has a grip on the bottle’s handle, a jagged rim of glass attached to it.
– Get off my son!
Shrieking, kicking Timo.
Paul pulls himself from under Timo’s weight, crawling down the hall, back toward the livingroom, toward the front door.
Behind him, his dad throws the handle at Timo and kicks his inert body.
– He’s my son! You can’t have him! He’s my son! He’s mine!
Paul stops, mouth stretched, trying to find some air.
– Paul? Paul? Are you OK, son? Did he hurt you?
He tries to stand up. Can’t. Crawls again.
His dad is coming down the hall.
– It’s OK now, Paul, you don’t have to run, I’m here, it’s OK. You’re safe.
His lungs start to work again, he breathes, puts his hand on the wall, starts to get his feet under him.
– Don’t get up, son. It’s OK, I’ve got you.
He’s almost up. Get up and get out, that’s all he has to do.
He dad puts his hand on his back.
The spike drives up from under his lip. Up, scraping the roots of his teeth, through his nose and his sinuses, splits the space between his eyes, buries itself in his brain.
– I’m here now.
Paul throws up. Falls back to his knees. Makes a noise that hurts the inside of his head. Pants. Curls up in a ball.
– I got you, son. I got you.
His dad sits on the floor, strokes his back.
– Just us here, no one to hurt you. Just you and me, son.
He lifts Paul’s head and scoots so it rests on his lap.
– There you are, there you are. Look at you. Look at you. Who could hurt you like that? Who would do that? Look at you. You’re just a little boy. Who could hurt you like that?
He wipes at the tears on his son’s face.
– Here we are. Just like we used to be, huh? Here we are. Close again, close again.
He rubs his son’s chest.
– Here we are.
Paul makes a sound, knowing it will hurt.
– No, Daddy.
What the hell is Geezer’s car doing here?
Jeff takes the Harley past the house, easy on the throttle so he doesn’t rattle any windows.
Looks just like it did last night. Streetlamp’s still dark from that pellet George put through it. Dart’s still in the driveway. Only real difference is a big one. Geezer’s car at the damn curb.
He turns the corner and cruises around the block.
Thinking.
Paul wanting to talk to him on the side about some kind of drug deal. Geezer getting uptight when he saw the jewelry the guys had. Getting even more uptight when Jeff mentioned there might be a side deal to be done. Geezer getting pissed about Amy, thinking she’s stepped into his crank market. Setting up a soft gig for the guys. A cherry house waiting to be hit. Waiting to be hit because his go to gang of house breakers, the Arroyos, just took a heavy bust. Paper said it was a drug bust.
Crank lab.
– Awww shiiiiiiiiit, maaaaaan!
Jeff’s not home.
Bob kicks through the weeds at the back of the trailer, squeezing past the rusted fenders, old tires, and cases of empty beer bottles Jeff’s yet to redeem. He stands on a rain warped industrial cable spool and looks through the window into the livingroom. Nothing but mess. He hops down and goes back to the front and bangs on the door again. Still no answer.
Almost five in the AM and Jeff Loller not at home. Doesn’t mean anything. Could be with a chick somewhere. Could be finishing up a graveyard shift at whatever crap job he’s holding down these days.
He looks at the cars in front of the porch.
Man’s still got the same taste in cars. Cheap.
He looks around the trailer park, doesn’t see any early rising retirees peeking from their kitchen windows. He jiggles the door, feels the give it has within the frame. Slam his shoulder into it and the lock will pop right open.
Breaking and entering.
That alone could be enough to bring him a world of shit.
He turns and walks off the porch and gets in his truck.
Too early for the Rodeo to be open, but someone should be there mopping up. Wouldn’t be the first time Jeff slept on the pool table.
He drives out of the park, heading downtown.
– Where you think your friend is?
– I don’t know.
– I know that. I know that, sitting there on the floor, you don’t know where he is. I’m asking where you think he is. Because I don’t expect you to be psychic, a mind reader, right?
George keeps his eyes on the carpet, locked on the spot between his feet.
– I don’t know. Getting your stuff.
– Better be.
– Can I see my brother?
– No.
George looks up. No one’s moving much.
Geezer just sits on the couch sweating and wiping and drinking glasses of water and bitching about how hot the house is.
Fernando watches his unconscious brother and fetches the water for Geezer, going back and forth from the kitchen.
Hector’s sitting there. Just sitting and staring at Ramon and wincing when he swallows his own blood.
Ramon breathes and that’s about it.
On TV, when they say someone’s in shock, they usually sit there with their eyes open and mumble shit about how they can’t believe what happened or how it wasn’t their fault or some shit. But this is probably what it’s really like. Just sitting there all pale and bleeding and sweating and shivering.
Kinda like how Andy looked. But that was hours ago.
– What are you staring at?
George realizes he’s staring at Geezer. He looks back at the carpet.
– Nothing.
– Uh huh.
They sit there.
– Hey. George.
– Yeah?
– Amy ever tell you about the time I went over there?
– Huh?
– The cunt who caused all this trouble, she ever tell you what I told her? When she was fucking up your life by getting you to steal my meth, she ever tell you what you were getting into?
George looks up again.
– Amy?
– Kid’s a genius. Yeah, her. She ever?
– She? Tell us what?
– I take it back, kid’s a retard.
– She didn’t. I haven’t. I don’t even talk to my aunt anymore.
Geezer looks at his watch.
He looks back at the kid.
– What?
– I don’t talk to my aunt.
– What?
– We had a fight. I don’t talk to her.
Geezer shifts so he can scratch his butt.
– What was that, kid? George? What was that?
– Said I don’t talk to my aunt. We had a fight.
Geezer leans forward, sweat rolling all over him.
– ’Nando, help me up.
Fernando comes over and Geezer grabs his hand and pulls himself off the couch.
– Don’t talk to your aunt?
– No. I. She got mad at me.
– Amy Whelan is your aunt?
– What?
He steps closer, huge and sweaty, his face red in a way that a face shouldn’t be.
– Are you telling me that cunt is your aunt?
– She.
– Your name, what’s your goddamn name?
– George.
Geezer lurches at George, squeezing the grabber’s handle, the claw snapping open and closed in front of his eyes.
– Your last fucking name! Your dad’s fucking name!
George flinches from the grasping plastic finger in his face.
– Whelan. Like my aunt. Whelan. My dad’s name is Bob Whelan.
The grabber goes limp in Geezer’s hand.
– Fuck me. Jesus, fuck me hard.
Bob Whelan pushes through the swinging doors of the Rodeo Club and looks at the empty pool table.
Someone stands up from behind the bar, a case of Hamms in his hands.
– Closed. Closed till eight AM.
– Don’t need a drink.
– Pisser’s for customers. Come back in a couple hours.
Bob walks toward the bar.
– Don’t need the pisser, Crawford.
The bartender squints.
– Bob?
– Hey.
Crawford puts the case of beer on the bar, wipes his hands on his shirtfront.
– Since when you a morning drinker?
Bob leans against the bar.
– Since about never.
Crawford takes a Tiparillo from a box on the register and clamps the white stem between his teeth.
– Good thing. Lose the license if I served ya at this hour.
– Like I said, not a problem.
Crawford lights the thin cigar and blows smoke.
– How you been?
– Can’t complain.
– Nobody’d listen if you did.
Bob fingers a mark on the bar, initials carved deep in the wood: PWW.
– No reason they should.
Crawford points at the initials.
– Your old man, right?
– Yeah.
– Yours are around here someplace, yeah?
Bob points down the bar.
– Over there.
Crawford smokes.
– Know what, I think I could use a little hair of the dog. Care to join me? As my guest?
Bob looks over his shoulder at the near darkness beyond the windows. He thinks about the last time he had a drink at this hour.
– I’d drink a beer.
Crawford pulls two cans of Hamm’s from the case, cracks them open and sets one in front of Bob.
– Mud in your eye.
They drink.
– So, Bob Whelan, what’s on your mind?
– Jeff Loller still come by?
– Hell yeah.
– Last night? This morning maybe?
Crawford adjusts the class ring on his left hand. The year on the ring the same as on the one Whelan is wearing.
– Bob, when’s the last time I saw you in here?
– While back.
– Jeff’s here about every night.
– OK.
– All I’m saying, man, whatever your business is these days, it’s not mine. And I don’t want it to be. Times have changed and I don’t mess in nobody else’s business ever.
– Not asking you to, just asking if you’ve seen him last night or this morning.
– And I’m giving you your answer.
Bob nods.
– OK.
Crawford tilts his can of beer to his lips and drains it.
– Anything else?
Bob is drifting down the bar, he stops and looks at some more recent marks in the rail.
– Say, you remember that time?
Crawford crushes his can and frowns.
Bob knocks on the bar with his class ring.
– You remember. That guy who tried to take your head off with the pool cue? The one who’d played guard for Amador High. He was trying to set up shop in here, wanted to peddle his stuff out of your john. You didn’t want him around. Always felt bad about coming at him from behind. Seemed the only thing to do. Way everyone was sitting around watching him beat on you. But you ended up coming out of it OK. After I took care of him. Remember that?
Crawford wipes a spot on the bar that doesn’t need to be wiped.
– Jeff ain’t been in.
Bob sets his mostly full can on the bar.
– Thanks. Tell him I’m looking if he stops by.
Crawford talks to his back as he heads for the door.
– That wasn’t right of you, Bob, bringing up ancient history. I paid my dues already.
– Yeah. I know.
He goes out into the morning and leans against the side of his truck and tries to spit the taste of warm beer out of his mouth.
Inside, Crawford picks up Bob’s abandoned beer and finishes it, looking at the triple initials carved in the oak: BW/JL/G.
He thinks about calling Geezer to tell him that Bob Whelan’s poking around for Jeff Loller, but decides he’s better off minding his own fucking business than getting messed up with those three madmen again.
Geezer looks at Fernando.
– Bob Whelan’s kids? You got your shit, you got my shit mixed up with Bob Whelan’s kids?
Fernando shrugs.
– Their dad’s a construction worker or something, so what?
Geezer spits.
– You fucking retard. You retarded spic.
He looks at George.
– Spic thinks your dad is a construction worker.
George wipes his nose.
– He is.
Geezer points at him with the grabber.
– Yeah, that’s right, loser Goddamn construction worker. Could have been a winner. Could have, Jesus, gives me…word? When your heart beats too fast? Palpitations. Gives me palpitations thinking about it, what we could have had.
A thick throbbing vein splits his forehead in two.
– Could have had it all. ’Stead I got spic retards doing business for me and most of the money flying away over the hill into Oakland.
He jabs the grabber in George’s direction.
– Your dad had kept his shit together, we could have had the whole fucking town.
– Geezer!
Geezer stops. Looks at Fernando. Points at Jeff, standing by the open front door.
– Thought you said the door was locked.
Jeff takes a step into the room, leaving the door open.
– What the hell are you doing, man?
– The hell are you doing, Jeff?
– I was cruising past. I saw your car.
Geezer lowers the grabber.
– And you just ask yourself in?
Jeff points at George and Hector.
– Jesus, Geezer.
– Close the door. Lock the door.
Jeff shakes his head.
– No. I. No way, man.
Geezer squints.
– What?
– No way, man. I’m.
He points.
– Those are kids, man. Kids. I mean, to hell with them being Bob’s kids. They’re kids period. You can’t.
Geezer nods.
– Jeff, close the door, man. Yeah, they’re kids. You think I did this shit to them? You’ve seen my place. Who loves kids? Who loves kids? I love kids. This shit? Who else is in the room, Jeff?
He points at Fernando.
– You see who else is in the room and, seeing him in here, you assume, you make the assumption that I would do this?
– Man, don’t.
– Wait. You wait. I’ve been accused, of hurting kids I’ve been accused. What other…the word? Shit. The word when you have no other choice, it’s the only path you have?
– Recourse?
Geezer scratches his calf with the grabber.
– That’s it. Recourse. Being accused, I have no recourse but to defend myself. Fernando, close the door, will you.
Fernando takes a step toward the door, toward Jeff.
Jeff shows him the ten inch crescent wrench he took from the Harley’s tool kit.
– Stay over there, Fernando.
Fernando stays put.
– Don’t want to be waving a wrench at me, Loller, not unless you got a gun in your other hand.
– I ain’t a kid, man. I was skinning knuckles on motherfuckers’ teeth when you were flunking kindergarten.
– Hey, makes two of us.
– Just stay over there.
– Whatever you say, pendejo.
– Yeah, fuck your mother.
Geezer grunts.
– Jeff.
– Don’t talk, Geezer. Seriously, man. I mean, all the respect in the world, but just, you know, shut up.
– Jeff.
– No, I mean it. Telling these kids ’bout that shit. Beating on kids. That’s fucked up. So just can it. I don’t want to hear.
– Kids! Kids! Kids! We were barely older than they are. Being a kid matters what kind of shit you get up to? And these kids are just the tip of the iceberg.
– They’re thieves, Geezer! They’re punkass thieves. They. You know, I’m not a, whatever, a scientist or something, but I figured out what you’re thinking. And there’s no one moving in on you, you paranoid son of a bitch. Man, Amy Whelan isn’t running some game on you. She’s not into your business. She’s doesn’t want anything to do with Oakland. So, look. I’m taking the kids out of here. I got to. I’m like a friend of the family, sort of. I’ve. That kid, that’s Bob’s oldest, man, I remember when that kid was a baby, man.
– Jeff, my man, you think you know what you’re talking about, but you don’t. Alright, you don’t know shit about the deal, I believe that, you’ve never had a clue. But you expect me to think it’s coincidence? My lab gets busted? Just as I’m trying to set up a new lab, increase the profitability of the venture here, have a little something on the side that Oakland doesn’t know about, just as I’m doing that, some kids stumble in and screw things up? Oh, and hey, the kids just happen to be Amy Whelan’s nephews? Just happen to be Bob Whelan’s kids? I’m gonna believe that shit? Let me tell you, I never, I never believed for a second he was out of it for good. I always knew he’d come back around. Pounding nails when he could be pounding skulls? Bob Whelan? That was never gonna last. Scratching out whatever he makes when he could have the fat of the land? No, uh uh, I am an obese, foul mouthed and racist motherfucker, I am white trash to my Tony Lamas, but I am not that stupid. You, look, close the door and let me explain a few things to you about profit and loss and the kind of money we’re talking about. The kind of money we’re talking about, kids don’t just stumble in and screw things up. It’s common sense. It’s counter…the word?
Jeff hefts the wrench.
– I don’t know the word, man. Just shut the fuck up before I forget myself and put this through your fat face.
Geezer shrugs and draws an invisible zipper closed across his lips.
Jeff sees Ramon.
– Fucking A.
He looks at Fernando.
– Your brother looks like hell, man.
– No shit.
– Yeah. Well. Go lay down on the floor on your face or I’ll bust your teeth out.
Fernando lies down on his face.
Jeff crosses to the boys.
– I am sorry about this, Geezer. Seriously, I will make it up to you. But you know, after you cool off, I think you’re gonna thank me. You were getting away from yourself here. Once you get a chance to sit back and think about it, you’ll know this is the way to handle this. These kids, they’re punks, smartasses, but they’re not like a part of a conspiracy kind of thing. They fucked up. They fucked up and they learned their lesson. Thing we got to do now, we got to get them home and safe and put this behind us. Make up some story ’bout how they got in a fight or something. Keep Bob out of this. That’s what we got to do now.
He squats in front of George and Hector.
– Hey, George. You OK, man? Hector, you look like, man, you look like the Hunchback, man. No, no, I didn’t mean that, you’re OK. Gonna. Jesus.
He looks over his shoulder.
– Fuck, Geezer. Kids.
Geezer keeps his lips zipped.
– Jeff.
He looks at George.
– What’s up, man, ready to split? Where’s your bro? Where’s Paul? Let’s get you guys out of here. Know who’s gonna patch you up? Your aunt. How good is that, having a nurse for your aunt when shit like this comes down? C’mon, guys, take a hand, let’s get up.
– Jeff.
– I ever tell you, me and your dad, I ever tell you the time we went toe to toe with those Angels? The real deal. Angels from the Oakland chapter, out here making trouble. Me and your pop, we came out of it looking a hell of a lot worse than you do. Those Angels though, when we were done with them, they made us look pretty.
Geezer unzips it.
– Right, tell them another one. Like you had anything to do with what those Angels looked like when that went down. Kids, listen to me, this guy, he threw a couple punches, got knocked down and stayed down.
– Fuck you, Geez.
– You, George, your old man, he wrecked those cocksuckers. Had this baseball bat he used to carry with him, the handle sawed off, wrapped in tape, had nails driven through the head of it, galvanized. Know why he used galvanized nails?
Jeff stuffs the wrench in his boot top and takes each boy by the hand.
– Shut it, Geezer.
Geezer laughs.
– Said he used galvanized nails so the blood wouldn’t rust them.
He coughs, chokes, laughs again.
– No shit, kids, that night, he laid the law down on those Angels. Ever see a guy try to talk when he’s got nail holes in his cheek? Blood just sprays all over. Funny as hell.
Jeff squeezes George’s arm.
– Don’t listen to him, he’s full of shit.
– Hey, hey, I’m just finishing the story you started. If you’d been up to finishing it, I’d have kept my mouth shut. Like Bob, if he’d been up to finishing what he started that day, none of us would be here, yeah? These spics wouldn’t be anywhere near this business if Bob had taken the bull by the horns. His kids never would have crossed paths with the Arroyos, right? And me and you, shit, we’d be working together. Working with Bob. Kids, your dad had done the right thing and stood behind the message he sent that night, if he’d gone over the hill to Oakland and finished the job on their ground, you wouldn’t need to be ripping off my crank, you’d have it running hot and cold from your taps. But he had better things to do. And don’t come on all noble about kids, Loller, you were pissed about it just as much as I was.
Jeff lets go of the boys’ arms, takes hold of the wrench again and rises.
– Shut up! It’s past! It’s over! No one else thinks about it anymore but you.
– You don’t think about it, Jeff? You telling me you don’t think about it every time you put on that Security Eye uniform?
Jeff bites his lip.
– The way it is is the way it is and.
– The way it is is the way it is. You lameass hippie loser.
– Fucking shut up, man.
– Jeff!
He looks down at George.
– What, George, what?
– He’s got a gun.
Jeff is turning his head when Geezer shoots. The bullet takes him in the jaw and blows the bottom of his face onto the wall and he falls on top of George and Hector.
Hector throws up, the vomit burning the torn flesh inside his mouth.
George blinks, trying to clear his eyes of Jeff’s blood.
Fernando gets up on his hands and knees.
– Shit, Geez.
– Shut up. Get the other one. Get the comatose kid in here. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this shit right now.
Fernando heads for the master bedroom, staring at Jeff’s ripped face, bumping into a wall on the way.
Geezer waits till he’s gone before breaking the barrel of the derringer and popping out the spent shell casing.
– You kids, you don’t know it, but you just saw a hell of a shot.
He digs an extra round from his pocket and drops it in the empty chamber and snaps the little two shot gun closed.
– Hitting someone in the head from across the room with a gun like this? That’s some shooting. That’s marksmanship.
George is pulling up the tail of his ruined concert T, wiping his face.
Hector is using his feet to push Jeff’s body away from them.
Geezer places the gun on his massive thigh and takes off his hat and wipes his head.
– Ever see a dead body before? Like that, messy and fresh? No, course you haven’t. George. I’m talking to you. You listening?-I?
George gives his face a final wipe. Opens his eyes, the lids sticking together slightly.
– I’m listening.
– Good, get attentive. ’Cause this body, if I don’t get answers to my questions, it’s going to be the first of many. You’re going to see a lifetime’s worth of corpses in no time. ’Nando! Get the fuck back in here with the kid’s brother.
George starts to get up.
– Hey, leave Andy.
– You wanted to see your brother, kid, you’re gonna see him. ’Nando!
– We don’t. It was just his bike, man. Sir, it was. They stole his bike.
– Save it. And sit the fuck down. ’Nando! There you are, what the fuck?
– He ain’t there.
Geezer picks up his gun.
– What?
– Kid’s gone.
Bob takes the long way home, covering streets he missed before. Coming around the back way, he sees Kyle Cheney’s car parked two blocks from where it should be. Man’s car maybe broke down on his way to work. After five now, could be he’s up. For that matter, could be Paul’s home. Could be Andy and George are the only ones missing
He passes his own house and parks in front of Cheney’s.
There’s no answer when he knocks.
He walks down a couple houses to Hector’s. Mrs. Sanchez will be up for sure. Getting breakfast together. Just ask her if the boys have been around. And watch her get as panicked as Cindy. No, not yet, there’s no need for that yet.
He turns and walks to his truck, stands with his hand on the door, looks down the street to his own home.
Go down there and tell Cindy.
Can’t find them. Don’t know where they are. I don’t know where our sons are.
He lets go of the door and squats, dips his head between his shoulders. God. Don’t know where the boys are. Don’t know where they are. Don’t know if they’re safe.
A nightmare of fathers.
Man’s first job, keep his family safe. No reason to be if you can’t do that.
A car turns the corner and he stands, rising quickly so he won’t be seen like this. The car goes past, a stranger at the wheel.
He wishes he’d had a real drink at the Rodeo instead of a beer.
He opens the door and climbs inside the truck and starts the motor and puts it in gear so he can drive down the block and tell his wife.
Across the street, something gleams behind a bush.
He gets out of the truck and walks over there and finds two bikes stashed behind one of the huge pampas grass bushes the new couple put in when they bought the corner house.
One bike is Paul Cheney’s Redline.
The other is George’s Mongoose.
He turns and stares at Kyle Cheney’s house.
It’s exactly like being invisible.
Being in a room of people, almost in plain sight, and none of them seeing you, that’s exactly like being invisible.
Andy clenches his teeth.
No, that’s not right, it’s not exactly like being invisible. Well, it could be, but he’s in no position to say. Never having actually been invisible. It’s more precise and accurate to say that it’s exactly as he imagines being invisible would be.
There, no one could fault him for that usage.
The fat guy stops yelling at Fernando.
Something’s happening.
He wants to look up, lift his face from where it’s tucked against his chest and take a look at the room. But he knows the movement will expose him. The trick to it, to folding up here on the floor just at the end of the couch, the trick is to be still. That’s why he hides his face, even the movement of his eyes would draw attention.
It took forever to get here.
Getting from the bathroom to the kitchen hadn’t been that hard. Using all the stuff going on in the livingroom, moving down the hall and across the edge of the room while the fat guy was arguing with Fernando, that had been pretty easy. But getting out of the kitchen and in here had been really hard.
Once Jeff showed up it happened fast. Everyone focused on Jeff. It was like a magic trick. Legerdemain. Everyone is watching one thing, while what’s important is happening somewhere else.
And once Jeff and the fat guy started talking, it was so easy to stay perfectly still, not to move at all. Just to listen to the story of their father.
When the fat guy said the thing about his dad hitting people with a baseball bat with galvanized nails in it, he knew right away why the nails were galvanized. It’s exactly the way he would do it, too. He thinks about making a bat like that. You’d also want to make sure the wood was well sealed so the blood didn’t seep in and make it swell. If that happened, it would eventually crack. That’s probably the way their dad did it, he’s good at making things.
He pictures hitting someone in the head with something like that. You’d have to be pretty strong, it’d be heavy, and the nails would get stuck in the bone and it would be hard to pull free. And, yeah, the fat guy is right, blood would spray out of those holes in your cheek if you tried to talk, the air pressure inside your mouth would make that happen.
It sure sounds like a real story, like something that really happened. And if it did, that might mean he’s not as weird as he thinks he is. Well, still plenty weird, but maybe not so scary weird. Because he’s thought about doing stuff like that, but it sounds like his dad really has done stuff like that. So maybe it’s not so bad to have those things in your head. Or, at least, maybe there’s a reason for them getting in there.
When the gun goes off he only moves a tiny bit. Just enough to look and see what’s happened to Jeff. Then he closes his eyes again. Because it’s not his brother or Hector, and he can deal with that. Plus, having his eyes closed keeps the room from spinning. Sure his head still hurts and his left eye still feels loose in its socket, but as long as the room doesn’t spin around like he’s been drinking Thunderbird all day long he can deal with it.
Now the fat guy is talking again.
– Get that loser out of here.
He opens his eyes and the room stays still. Fernando is right in front of him, pointing at Jeff’s dead body.
– I’m gonna get stuff all over me.
– There’s garbage sacks in the bag I brought. Wrap him and put him in the garage. And when you’re done, you’re going and finding Timo and the big kid and drag their asses back here.
– Geezer, maybe it’s time.
– ’Nando, I just told you what time it is. I put a bullet in that loser’s face. That told everybody what time it is. It’s time to start taking me very fucking seriously and giving my words a little…shit…a little…shit! Word? For what holds us to the ground. Totally basic word. Someone say it before I go crazy.
George whispers.
– It’s gravity.
– Yes! Give my words some gravity. Jesus. Is that so hard? What else do I have to do?
They all watch Fernando wrap Jeff in the bags.
He should move now. Too long in one place and he’ll become visible again.
So he leans slowly to the side, unfolding into the space between the back of the couch and the wall, the space he didn’t hide in because he knew they’d look there, and he worms to the other side, careful not to rub the bulge in the back of the couch that is made by the fat guy, and they’re all still watching Fernando, and he gets on all fours and crawls quickly into the front hall that spins around him and he squeezes between a big dead plant in a big pot and a couple stacked cardboard boxes and when Fernando drags the bagged body into the garage and leaves the door open he follows him and settles next to a rusted out old bathtub with claw feet and stays there until Fernando goes back in the house and closes the door and leaves him alone with all the chemicals and stuff that are just like the ones Fernando and his brothers had back in their garage and everything spins and he goes asleep again.
– Bob Whelan. Bob Goddamn Whelan.
Geezer scoots his ass around on the couch, trying to ease the rash on his sweaty buttocks. He watches Fernando tromp around the house and out to the back yard, looking for the comatose kid. He looks at the two huddled against the wall.
– If I’d been smart, smarter, I would of told the Oakland crew not to listen to him. He decided to get out of the trade, decided he didn’t want to take it any further than running the grass and acid and all that hippie shit, told the Angels the town was theirs he just wanted out; when that little negotiation took place, I should have told them not to listen, told them a head case like Bob Whelan will never leave the life, never get tired of kicking the shit out of people, should have told them to do everyone a favor and put him out on the train tracks. Now look what I got. Got his kids on my hands. His kids.
He makes the grabber into a fist and bangs it on the floor.
– Kids! Fucker. He made, you know, he made a speech? Went over the hill, made me and Jeff go with him so it’d be like an official peace conference the way those bikers like it. Made us go with him even though we didn’t want to give up the town to those fuckers, even though he knew they might just say fuck the cease fire and start breaking bottles on our heads the second we walked into their clubhouse.
He takes the grabber by its aluminum shaft, raises one butt cheek and scratches it with the claw.
– Goddamn rash. Goddamn house. Goddamn no AC. My place, I got a swamp cooler. Ever been in a trailer with a swamp cooler? You haven’t. Like a fucking ice box. I love it. Turn the thing off for maybe two months in the whole year. Meter man comes around from PG amp;E, his eyes spin around in his head. Tells me there’s an energy shortage, I should conserve. I tell him, I pay the damn bill, how I use the energy I pay for is my fucking business. Got that swamp cooler, what else I got, I got a 32 inch color Zenith with HBO and Showtime. You know anyone else got both HBO and Showtime? No. Got the Spice channel, too. All the Playboy specials and the Emmanuel movies. Got the fridge full of cold cuts and sourdough rolls and sliced Swiss cheese. Got a freezer full of frozen sausage pizzas and Häagen-Dazs. The cupboard full of pork rinds and Funions and Ding Dongs.
He raises the other cheek and scratches.
– Love my trailer. Never get a heat rash in that thing. Never break a sweat. My whole life in this town I’ve been sweating and itching till I got that trailer and that swamp cooler. And now, now it is at risk, my castle is at risk because fifteen fucking years ago I was stupid and didn’t tell the Angels not to listen to your dad’s fucking speech about how he was done forever with the business. Kids! All his crap about his three year old he doesn’t want around this shit, his new baby boy in the hospital he wants to be with. Bullshit! And here, what do we have here? Here we are finding out how much his kids mean to him. They mean he got to raise his private little gang to send to fuck me up and bust my lab and put me in the shit with Oakland! Fucker! Should have killed him myself!
He throws the grabber on the floor.
– Fuck.
He waves his hand at the boys.
– George.
– Yeah.
– Come here and pick that up for me.
George gets up, stumbles, takes a couple steps and picks up the grabber and holds it out to Geezer.
– Our dad didn’t tell us to do anything. He wouldn’t do anything like that.
Geezer takes the grabber.
– Kid, you got no clue what your old man would do for money, a piece of pussy, or just to fuck someone up because he thinks it’d be fun.
He holds out his hand.
– Help me up. Maybe get some air on my ass, stop this itching.
George takes Geezer’s hand and pulls him to his feet, lets go and wipes his palms on his jeans.
Geezer plucks the seat of his sweat pants away from his ass.
– So, your friend, he gonna come back with my half key so I can salvage something here? Say he got away from Timo, he the kind gonna call the cops, knowing it’ll mean you guys are gonna be dead? He gonna call your dad?
George shakes his head.
– He won’t call my dad.
– Cops?
– No.
– Good. Now go sit down and keep your mouth shut because when I hear you I think about you and I get pissed and I can barely keep from shooting you.
George goes and sits down next to Hector and takes his hand. Hector doesn’t move, his eyes are open, looking at Ramon again, but he doesn’t move at all.
Fernando comes in from the back yard.
– He’s not out there.
– You sure?
– I went all around the house, looked under all the bushes. Timo and Cheney took a couple bikes. The other two are out there.
– Where is he then?
– I say he’s in the house.
He kicks a pile of carpet remnants.
– He’s somewhere in all this shit. We put the bathroom window back together after they got in. It’s still together. The other windows are all locked. He didn’t come through here, walk out the front door.
Geezer holds out his arms.
– OK, so?
– He’s a scrawny brat, he’s hiding under something. Behind something.
They both shut up. They look at the couch.
Geezer cocks the derringer, waves Fernando toward the couch.
Fernando looks at the floor, picks up Jeff’s wrench, runs across the room, jumps on the couch and throws the wrench into the space behind it.
– Fuck.
Geezer comes over.
– Get him?
Fernando reaches behind the couch and comes up with the wrench.
– He ain’t back there.
– Hey, hermano.
He drops the wrench, looks at Ramon.
– Ese.
Ramon sticks out his tongue.
– Got some water?
– Hang on.
He heads for the kitchen.
Ramon pokes his leg, watches blood leak out of the hole. He picks up the blood crusted pencil from his lap and looks at Geezer.
– Yo, boss, want your pencil back?
Paul looks better.
Without those torn up jeans and that bat eater’s heavy metal T shirt, he looks much better. He looks almost like a boy again. Like he did when he’d run around in his shorts all the time. Always barefoot. Never wanting to put on a shirt. Used to be so much trouble getting him properly dressed for dinner someplace out.
Kyle Cheney sits on the floor, leans his back against the front of the couch, and puts his son’s head back in his lap.
Paul coughs and gags, but he doesn’t throw up again.
Kyle pats his cheek.
– See, it’s getting better, isn’t it? I can tell. I can always tell when your migraines are getting better because you stop throwing up. Soon, you’re going to be thirsty and then hungry. That’s how it’s always been. Now we know, know we can get through it, know it will pass. But when they first started, I was so scared. And in fairness to your mother, she was scared, too. You know it’s hard for me to talk about her at all, let alone to say something nice, but it is true. She was scared. You crawled under your bed and wouldn’t come out, and when I touched you, you screamed. And then when you started throwing up, we didn’t know what to do. When we moved your bed so we could get to you, I thought you would try and run away. Your mother wrapped you in a blanket and I drove to the hospital. It took forever to get a doctor. And months before they could say what was wrong. I thought the worst, of course. That’s your father for you, thinking the worst. I thought a brain tumor. I thought I was going to lose my son forever. Migraines were a relief. And I know that’s not what you want to hear, but considering what I thought it was, migraines were a relief. Coming out of nowhere like that, never a sign until you were almost eight. And every one was a major event at first. Getting you into your bed, drawing the curtains, getting a towel and a bowl of ice water. Keeping the house as quiet as possible. Your mother, well, fair is fair and this is the truth too, she couldn’t keep at it for long. Help to get you into bed and then go somewhere else when she got tired of helping. Not that I minded. It was nice to have time alone. Have you all to myself.
He checks the cords around his son’s wrists and ankles, making sure they’re snug.
– Those still OK? Sorry. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but you would have hurt yourself, running around while having a migraine. You would have run into a wall or into the street and gotten hurt. You’re safe this way. I’ll keep you safe as long as I can. I know, I know I can’t forever, but now, now that we’re together, now that I have you to myself again, I’ll keep you safe as long as I can. Because, Paul, this is not what you want to hear, but, Paul, people wouldn’t understand. These drugs, these drugs you hid, people wouldn’t understand that boys can get confused. If they don’t have guidance, they can get confused. And I can’t, well, if this is the kind of thing you get into when I’m not around to keep an eye on you, well, then, we’ll have to handle things differently from now on. And, you are not going to like this, I know, but if a little less freedom is what it takes to keep you safe, then so be it.
Mr. Cheney reaches inside his open bathrobe and scratches his stomach and looks at his son’s sweaty face.
– You know what you need? A haircut. A real haircut. Not a trim. A good old fashioned haircut like you used to have.
He finds the scissors he used to cut the cord.
– A good old fashioned haircut like the ones you had when you were a little boy.
At first he thinks it’s an earthquake.
When he’s grabbed by his hair and the fabric of his robe and pulled from under his son and thrown across the room, he thinks it must be an earthquake. The biggest he’s ever been in, much bigger than the 7.0 that hit a few years back. Maybe it’s the Big One, finally come to tear California in half.
It’s only after Bob Whelan has crossed the room and picked him up and thrown him again that he realizes how much worse it is.
Whelan lifts him by his armpits, shaking him.
– Where are my boys? Goddamn you, you sick sonofabitch! You’re not doing this! You don’t do this! No one does this!
Slamming him against the wall with every word.
– Where! Are! My! Boys!
Forcing the back door of the house, all he could think was what a B amp;E bust would mean for him. For his family. It’s been years since his last bust, years since clearing probation, but the stories would come back, stuff George and Andy would be bound to hear about. The stories he’s kept them from hearing, about what kind of man he is. They’d never listen to him again. His crap about responsibility and hard work, they’d never listen again.
Then he stepped into the house and closed the door behind him and started for the livingroom where he could hear the sound of The Price Is Right on the TV.
Seeing the body face down in blood, seeing the bloody shards of glass, he’d almost screamed. In the darkness it could have been anyone. But it’s not George or Andy. It’s a Mexican guy. One of those Arroyo boys. Knocked out and bleeding.
And then a voice from the livingroom, too soft, almost lost in sound of the TV.
And he remembers watching Helter Skelter a few weeks ago with George and Andy. They showed it in two parts on KTVU because it was so long. He and George liked it. Andy had nightmares.
He remembers that Charles Manson is in prison in Vacaville, just a few hours away. They say he’s always trying to escape. He sees in his head words written in his sons’ blood scrawled across the livingroom walls. Crazed junkie murderers in an orgy in the livingroom. Those hippie friends Paul’s mom had around all the time.
And he has to shake his head to get the craziness out.
And coming out of the hallway, and walking past the dining room table covered in the uncorrected papers of Kyle Cheney’s students, and standing behind the couch and looking down at his neighbor cradling his bound and naked teenage son, he realizes there are things nearly as bad.
– What’s that you got, boss?
– Keep your seat, Ramon.
– Keep my seat? Boss, you tell me how to do anything else I’ll do it. Keep my seat. You hear that, ese, telling me to keep my seat? Know what it feels like, my leg?
– Just stay on the couch.
– My leg feels like nothing. No lie, ese, like nothing. Felt like all kinds of something when boss put the pencil in it. Feels like nothing now. What you think that mean, ese?
Fernando gives him the water glass.
– I don’t know, bro.
– Can’t be good, is what I think.
Geezer waves the derringer again.
– Fernando, just stay over there.
– Givin’ him some water.
– He has it, you go over there.
– Want me to look for the kid?
– Just sit over there.
Fernando goes and sits on an upended orange crate with several broken slats. The old dry wood creaks.
Ramon empties the glass in one long swallow.
– Otro vez, bartender.
Fernando starts to rise.
Geezer shakes his head.
– No. No more water.
Ramon tilts back his head, opens his mouth wide and shakes a last few drops from the glass onto his tongue.
– Ahhhhh. No problem, boss, that took care of it.
He rubs the glass against his forehead.
– It hot in here?
Geezer scratches his ass.
– Yeah, it’s hot in here. Didn’t think a beaner noticed the heat.
Ramon smiles.
– Sure, sure we do. We feel the heat. Know what you do about the heat? Got to dress light. All that sweat on you. That’s cuz you’re wearing a sweat suit. Sweat suit means sweat, boss.
– Fuck you. I’m wearing a sweat suit because I have some proper AC in my place. In my place a man could freeze without a sweat suit. I didn’t bother changing into my tropical suit because I thought this place would be further along. I thought it’d be cool at least.
Fernando shrugs.
– Hey, man, you said get another lab set up. You didn’t say it had to be climate controlled or some shit.
– Fuck sake, ’Nando, I say keep it like a swamp? Come over here, I didn’t figure I should be wearing my…word? The hats, but not called a hat, the ones explorers wear in movies. Like Livingstone? No, wait, I got it! Pith helmet. Didn’t think I needed a pith helmet to come over here.
Ramon taps the pencil against the side of the glass.
– Boss?
– What?
– Never answered my question.
– What?
– What you got there?
– It’s a gun.
– Yeah, no shit?
– No shit.
– Why you waving it all around at us? We’re your people. Employees. Got us out on bond. Things gone sour while I was asleep?
Fernando points at the blood and bone on the wall.
– He killed Loller.
– The biker security guard guy?
– Yeah.
– Maaaan, that’s too bad. He was alright.
He looks at Geezer.
– Why you do something like that, boss?
Geezer taps the grabber against his leg.
– Because he fucked with my shit.
Ramon nods.
– Yeah, man, I see that. But, hey, bro?
– Yeah?
– You saw him shoot the guy?
– Yeah.
– Whelan and Hector saw?
– Yeah.
Ramon holds out his arms.
– Shit, ese, you all are like witnesses to murder one. Know what they say in the joint about when you kill someone?
– No.
– Say, no witnesses, ever.
He raises an eyebrow at Geezer.
– That why you got that gun in your hand, boss? Thinking you got some witnesses to deal with? Once everything is sorted out here with the meth and shit, you got some other shit to sort now?
Fernando stands up.
Geezer points the grabber at him.
– Sit back down, ’Nando.
Fernando is staring at his brother.
– You know, ese, that’s some of the smartest shit I ever heard come from you.
Geezer lowers the grabber and points the gun.
– Sit down, ’Nando.
Fernando sits.
Ramon holds up the pencil.
– How about that, boss?
He taps the pencil against his chest.
– First, I got your point.
He waves the pencil at the guys and his brother.
– Now, I’m making a point of my own.
– You’re an asshole, Ramon. A jailbird asshole and you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Ramon looks at the pencil.
– Check it out, it’s a Number 2.
He taps the tip against his thigh.
– Think you filled in the bubble completely?
– A fucking beaner spic wetback asshole.
– Ooooooh, that’s a lot of racial stuff. That’s a lot of, get this one, racial epithets.
– You fuck your mother.
– Man, you ever seen my mother? You ever saw her, you wouldn’t talk like that. My mother is one mean ugly bitch.
Fernando snaps his fingers.
– Don’t talk like that, ese.
– You know what I can’t figure out, bro?
Fernando shakes his head.
– What?
Ramon holds up a hand, four fingers in the air.
– Me and you and Hector and Whelan over there, all four of us sitting and being scared of boss here, and him holding that gun that only shoots two bullets.
Geezer licks his lips, gestures with the grabber, pointing it in the air.
– OK, OK, you got a point about the witnesses thing, Ramon. And I’ll admit, all things being the same, I’d be trying to figure out how to deal with that issue. But we’re kind of beyond that now. We’re at a point of shit being so fucked up that we can just forget about what happens with the cops. Right now, getting that half kilo so we can hand it to Oakland and keep them happy is a more pressing problem. Most of all, before we worry about the cops, we got to worry about them.
He points the grabber at George and Hector.
– And what we’re gonna do when psycho Bob Whelan shows up looking for them.
Ramon shakes the pencil from side to side.
– Oakland. Whelan’s dad. These things, they sound like your problems. Bro and me, we got to worry ’bout how you’re not mentioning lawyers anymore. We got to worry ’bout getting out of town, it looks like. These kids, looks like they got to worry ’bout getting from this house alive.
He taps the pencil against his forehead.
– All of us, we got conflicting agendas, ese. ’Cept one thing. The four of us, we all got one thing in common.
He leans back and crosses his arms.
– None of us like you.
– You are so fucking dead, Ramon.
– See what I mean, guys. Ese, vato Hector, Whelan, let’s rush him, eh? Tell you what, if it means this fat pendejo cocksucker dies, I’ll go first, I’ll take one of those bullets.
The crate shatters under Fernando’s ass and Geezer jumps and the gun goes off.
George and Hector, still holding hands, squeeze, and their knuckles go white.
Fernando scrambles up, a big splinter jutting from his right buttock.
Ramon looks at the bullet hole in the plaster two feet from his head.
– I know your vocabulary sucks, boss, how’s your math?
It’s no real surprise that his dad can’t tie a knot worth shit.
Once he starts twisting his wrists back and forth, once his dad isn’t touching him and the pain stops and he can move, pulling his hands and feet free is pretty easy.
Mr. Whelan has his dad shoved into a corner, holding him by the throat.
– Youyouyouyouyoufucker! My kids! Where?
Paul gets up and goes to the dining room table and picks up one of the big hardbound computer textbooks and comes back and hits Mr. Whelan in the back of the head with it and Mr. Whelan hunches over and Paul hits him again and he falls on the floor and his dad slides to his knees coughing.
Paul drops the book.
– Sorry, Mr. Whelan. You can’t hurt my dad like that.
Mr. Whelan doesn’t move.
Paul finds his clothes in the garbage bag under the kitchen sink and puts them on, but his boots aren’t in there and he has to go back to the livingroom to find them.
– Paul.
– Yhuh huh.
– Thank you.
– Hunh uh.
He puts on his socks and his boots.
– We’re going to have to, I know this isn’t what you want to hear, son, but we’re going to have to leave town. I know that’s going to be hard for you. You have friends here, a school. But it will be hard for me, too. And sometimes a change is good for everybody.
Paul gets up and adjusts his shirt and brushes back his hair.
– Hunh uh.
Mr. Cheney pushes himself up the wall, pulling his robe closed.
– So let’s not put it off. Let’s dive in. You go start packing a bag and I’ll get some things together that we need. And, it won’t be all bad, we’ll be on the road for a bit. I can teach you to drive.
Paul looks around and sees what he wants and picks up the bag of crank.
– I know how to drive, Dad.
His father comes toward him.
– Well, I guess that doesn’t really come as a surprise. But you can always use practice. And I’d like to see your traffic safety skills before I feel comfortable about you driving on your own. Why don’t we, let’s get some things together, and we can get started. I’ll drive the first leg and then you can take over and we’ll see how you do. How’s that sound?
Paul looks at his father.
– I got to go somewhere.
Mr. Cheney reaches for him.
– No, Paul, I’m going to have to put my foot down here. I’m not letting you get in any more trouble. It is time for you to listen to your father and do what he tells you.
Paul steps away from the outstretched hand.
– I got to go, Dad, my friends are in trouble. I got to help them.
He starts for the door.
Mr. Cheney rushes around him and blocks the hall.
– No, Paul. No. I appreciate you wanting to help your friends, but this is not the time.
– Get out of my way, Dad.
– Don’t speak to me in that tone.
– Get out of the way.
– Paul.
Paul shoves his father out of the way and walks past him.
– Leave me alone.
Mr. Cheney comes after him, grabbing at the back of his shirt.
– Paul, Paul, you have to listen to me, son. There’s things. You don’t really understand things. Me. I’m your father and you don’t even understand me.
Paul turns, knocking the hands away.
– Don’t touch me. I don’t want you to touch me. I want you to leave me alone. Just leave me alone.
– I. I. Leave you. I. Paul. I. Leave you? Paul, I. I, don’t. You, can’t you try, try to understand? I. I love you. I’ve always loved you. You. You are what I. I just love you so much and I don’t understand why, why you can’t see that. Why you won’t see that? Paul, listen, I, I can make you happy, I can make you so happy. I can make you, you can love me, you can. You do. I know you do. I can feel it. I can. You just don’t know how much you love me. And I love you so much.
Paul slaps his father.
– Be quiet, Dad.
– I love you.
He slaps him again.
– Just be quiet.
– I do, I do, I love you.
– Dad, listen to me.
His dad listens, a hand on his burning cheek.
– Yes, son?
Paul spits in his face.
– I don’t love you, Dad. I never loved you. Ever.
He turns and pulls the door open.
– Go away, Dad. Run away. You’re in a lot of trouble, so run away. If you don’t, I’m gonna kill you or something when I come home.
He goes out and closes the door behind him.
Kyle Cheney grabs the doorknob, twists it, starts to pull the door open, and closes it before he can see the street outside.
He walks back to the livingroom and looks at the mess. The boy unconscious in the hall. His neighbor on the floor. He sits at the dining table and picks up an uncorrected test and a red felt tip pen and makes a few marks on the paper. Some of his son’s spit rolls down his chin and onto the table.
He gets up and goes to the bedroom and dresses in brown corduroys and a blue and pink madras shirt and blue socks and a pair of brown moccasins. From the nightstand he takes a photo of himself holding his five year old son; crouched behind him, arms around his middle, Paul squirming. He takes the picture from its frame, folds it in half and slides it in his breast pocket and gets his keys and checkbook and ID and walks past the wounded bodies and out of the house.
The sun is cracking the sky above the Altamont.
He walks around the block and finds his car and gets in and starts it and drives to the QuickStop. He doesn’t have any cash, but the man lets him write a check because he recognizes him and because he has ID. He takes his bottle and gets in his car and takes a long drink and sits and thinks for a minute.
If he closes his eyes, he can remember exactly where it was his wife’s car slipped the embankment. He can picture what the car looked like when he got the call and drove until he saw the flashing lights of the police cars and ambulance and fire truck. He can remember the elation.
He starts his car and pulls it onto the freeway and drives fast.
– Seriously, boss, why the hell you bring a gun with only two bullets?
– I got more.
Ramon laughs.
– I’m not lying, guys. I don’t think I can walk much, but I bet I can hop on one leg. After he shoots me, the rest of you got no problem.
– Shut the fuck up.
– Fernando, you promise me, you guys, too. Whelan, Hector, you all promise me you’ll kill this fatass, and I’ll get up and hop right at him and make him shoot that last bullet at me.
Ramon looks at the bullet hole in the wall again.
– Hell, I could get lucky, he might miss.
Geezer puts his back in a corner of the room, Fernando and Ramon to his right, the kids to his left.
– Gun can be reloaded, asshole.
– Yeah, how fast? Whelan, Hector, you guys in? Want to play some chicken with fatass?
George is shaking.
Hector pulls his hand free of George. He picks up the length of chain crusted with his own dry blood and stands up.
Ramon claps.
– That’s it, vato, that’s what I was talking about before, homies sticking together.
Hector stares at him, swallows more blood.
George grabs at Hector’s hand.
– Sit down, man. Sit down.
– No.
George watches the barrel of the derringer swing in his direction.
Geezer thumbs the hammer back.
– George, I promise you, these spics try to rush me, you’re gonna be the one taking the bullet.
Ramon sits up.
– Hey, I like that even better. You mean, I come at you, me and my brother and Hector come at you, you’re gonna blast Whelan? Ese, hear that?
Fernando yanks the splinter out of his butt.
– Yeah, I heard it, bro.
George is pulling on Hector’s hand.
– Sit down, man, I don’t want to get shot, sit down.
Hector edges down the wall, out of his reach, watching Ramon.
Ramon’s hand dips between the couch cushions and returns, holding the hacksaw.
– Yo, boss, look what I left lying around.
Glass shatters as Paul throws the bag of meth through the sliding door, making the hole Hector punched in it big enough to climb through.
– I got your shit, fatass, let my friends go.
Bob stands slowly, the lump on the back of his head throbbing. He goes to the phone and picks it up. He dials 9, but sees something he’d forgotten and doesn’t finish. He hangs the phone up and goes to the end of the hall and walks over the broken door, his foot punching a hole in it, and finds a glass and fills it with water and goes back to the boy on the floor in the hall and pours the water in his face and throws the glass over his shoulder and bends and takes the boy by his hair and slaps him.
– You, fuckhead, wake the fuck up, you little piece of shit, wake the fuck up. Where are my sons? What the fuck is going on and where the fuck are my boys?
The garage pitches and rolls and Andy thinks he’s going to go back to sleep, but he doesn’t.
He folds the plastic back around the parts of Jeff’s head that are still there. It’s weird, how it looks almost exactly the way it looks when he imagines shooting someone in the face.
He gags. But his stomach has been empty for awhile now and nothing comes out, but it makes his eye and his head hurt.
He stands up and pokes around in the chemicals and glassware and trash and piles of broken furniture and crap and finds a bent piece of rusted rebar with a clot of broken cement jutting from its end.
He swings it back and forth a couple times.
He sees himself standing behind the door when someone comes out to the garage as he brings the rebar down on their head and it gets lodged in there and they fall down and pull the rebar from his hand and it cuts his palm as it jerks free and he has to wiggle it back and forth to pull it loose from the hole in the skull of the dead body on the floor.
He swings it a couple more times, raising it above his head and letting gravity pull it down in an arc. He guesses at its weight and thinks about the density of bone and resiliency of flesh and figures that swinging it like that you wouldn’t have to add much force to it at all to create enough momentum to shatter bone and cause sufficient trauma to a person’s brain so that they wouldn’t get back up. Swinging it from the side like a bat will take more force. He tries it. The bar wants to slip from his hands, but it doesn’t.
He wonders how long it will be before someone realizes that he must be in the garage because they’ve eliminated everywhere in the house and then they come out to look for him.
Then he hears a gunshot.
And then breaking glass.
And then the screaming starts.
George watches as the bag of crank hits the floor and pulls Geezer’s eyes from him, the aim of the derringer drifting away, and he jumps at the fat man who is reaching for the drugs with the snapping claw of the grabber.
The bag is about the same size as a football.
Fernando sees George making a move and dives and rolls and cuts George’s feet from underneath him and tries to cover the bag with his body, but it’s snagged on the end of Geezer’s fucking grabber and is pulled away from him.
Ramon gets his crutch planted in his armpit and shoves himself forward, a stream of blood pulsing from his leg, pivoting on the rubber tip of the crutch to face Paul as he comes through the hole in the glass door, and being totally blindsided when Hector whips the chain across the side of his head, ripping his ear open.
George flies, his legs suddenly out from under his body, and plows headfirst into Geezer’s gut and Geezer grunts and jerks the grabber and the claw rips the plastic bag and it falls and he lets go of the derringer as he tries to grab the meth, but both drop to the floor, the bag spilling dirty yellow crystals.
Ramon swings the hacksaw backhand, the blade tearing through Hector’s black jeans and into the meat at the back of his knee. Hector’s leg folds and he goes down, swinging the chain, watching it wrap around Ramon’s crutch, and yanking as he hits the floor, bringing the jailbird down on top of him.
On the floor, Fernando lunges and wraps his fist around the shaft of the grabber as Geezer moves to snatch up the fallen derringer. He wrenches it free of the fat man’s sweaty hand and throws it across the room and curses all the saints as George flops on top of the gun.
Geezer looks at the floor, at the bag spilling his meth, at his favorite gun disappearing under Bob Whelan’s son, and at his grabber across the room. He doesn’t even try to bend and pick anything up. Knowing he’ll never be able to rise without help, he heads for the door.
Paul sees Geezer running. He wants to hurt him. Hurt him so bad for sending him to get the meth, for sending him home. He runs past Hector and George, struggling on the floor; going after the fat guy, crying.
George covers the derringer as Fernando comes down on him, driving his elbow into the back of his neck. George’s face goes into the floor and he feels Fernando’s hands digging under his chest, going for the gun, grabbing his thumb.
Fernando wrenches, and George’s thumb breaks.
Geezer’s hand slips off the doorknob. He screams and wipes the sweat off on his chest and twists the knob as the big kid comes charging after him. He swings his arm and catches Paul in the balls with his huge fist and the boy folds and falls and Geezer is out the door.
He chugs to his Seville, gets in, fumbles the key into the ignition and the AC comes to life with the engine. He hits the gas and the engine roars, and he almost plows head on into a 4×4 rounding the corner. He cuts down the street, thinking about money and where to get some.
Hector has one end of the chain in each hand, stretching it across Ramon’s neck as Ramon sprawls on top of him, one forearm shoved under Hector’s chin as his other hand feels for his dropped hacksaw.
George goes blind from the pain of his thumb breaking, he can feel it as Fernando grabs his other thumb, but this time he just pulls George’s hand to the side and worms his fingers around the derringer.
Curled around the pain between his legs, Paul watches as Andy comes through the door from the garage, something dangling from his hand.
Ramon has the saw. He twists his head, trying to keep Hector’s chain from biting through his throat and plants the blade on the back of Hector’s wrist. But he never draws it across the skin to shred the tendons. Instead he goes limp as something impossibly heavy hits the back of his head, and his body falls away from him.
Fernando pulls the gun from George’s hands and rolls off and flips over just in time to see the little Whelan kid put his foot in the middle of Ramon’s back and twist an iron bar and pull it from the hole in the back of his brother’s head, something heavy and red dragging at the end of it.
Andy stumbles backward as the rebar jerks free from Ramon’s skull. Everything is working pretty much the way he thought it would. He turns, but Fernando isn’t on top of his brother anymore. So that was a miscalculation. One of the risks of entering a situation that is inherently chaotic. He watches Fernando point the derringer at him. He looks at the two barrels, and watches the hammer snap down. And nothing happens. And he knows this is not random chance, remembering the sound of the gunshot he heard, he knows this is a product of order, of things working as they should. And he moves to maintain this order.
The kid is coming at him. He’s running, hefting the iron bar, raising it above his head. Fernando pulls the trigger again. But the hammer isn’t back and the gun doesn’t go off again. He pulls the hammer back as the kid gets closer and pulls the trigger and the gun still doesn’t go off. And he realizes that you must have to pull it back further to fire the second barrel. And then the kid is in front of him and the iron bar hits his hand and shatters the bones and the gun is gone and the kid is raising his bloody weapon over his head.
It looks different, which is obvious, but it also feels different, which is less obvious. When the chunk of concrete at the end of the bar crushes Fernando’s face, it both looks and feels different from when it crushed the back of Ramon’s head. Less resistance. More blood.
Coming onto the porch, dragging Timo Arroyo behind him, Bob stares through the open front door and watches as his young son brings the bar down. His strange and incomprehensible boy. The boy he changed everything for, the boy he has nothing in common with, nothing to share with, killing a man twice his size.
He watches the teenager next to him watch his brother murdered.
He takes him by the throat and squeezes, and slams him into the side of the house.
– Keep your fucking mouth shut.
He releases him.
– Run.
Timo doesn’t move.
Bob slaps him.
– Run.
Timo runs.
And Bob Whelan walks into the house and he gets the boys on their feet and makes them help Andy out to the 4×4 and he finds the Coleman fuel in the garage and he spills it over the blood and the bodies and he sets it all on fire, burning the house the boys came to rob.