-Well how the f.u.c.k "bout that. Ain"t that a b.i.t.c.h?
He pawed in his pockets and found the twenty I"d just given him in order to persuade him to let me into the room.
-Need to go hit the store. Back in a sec.
He stood with the great care and instability of the tragically inebriated. I watched him take a step and place his foot squarely on a couple empty bottles that rolled from beneath him, and let gravity take it from there.
-Ow! f.u.c.k! That hurts.
I got off the bed and walked over and held out a hand.
-C"mon.
He took my hand and I pulled him halfway up and let go and watched Newtonian physics at work again.
-Ow! f.u.c.k!
-Sorry. My bad.
I stuck out my hand. He took it. I pulled and let go.
With antic.i.p.ated results.
-Ow!
-Whoops.
I stuck out my hand. He eyed it. And decided, I imagine, that based on a model of the universe drawn from the Hollywood catalogue, no one could be so cruel as to intentionally abuse a poor drunk in such a manner.
I proved him wrong.
-Ow!
I held out my hand.
He slapped at it. Missed.
-f.u.c.k you. f.u.c.kin".
He got to all fours, crawled to his chair and climbed back aboard, where he knew he"d be safe.
-Cut you bad, motherf.u.c.ker.
I bent over and picked up the knife that had fallen from his back pocket.
-You might want this.
I tossed it on his lap.
He looked at it.
-Right. Thanks.
He picked up the plastic bag from the floor and stuck his hand inside.
-How the f.u.c.k "bout that.
He dropped the empty bag.
-f.u.c.kin" tragedy that is.
He pushed himself up, the knife falling to the floor.
-Gonna go hit the store.
I put a finger in his chest and pushed and he dropped back in the chair.
-Jaime, that guy you cut. Talbot.
-Yeah, weaka.s.s Talbot, cut him bad.
-What did you steal from Talbot and his friend?
He squinted.
-f.u.c.k you talking "bout? Didn"t steal s.h.i.t. "M a producer. I facilitate the vision of the talent. Bring it together with the money.
I kicked some bottles aside and picked up something from the floor and held between my thumb and forefinger and showed it to him.
-What about this?
He looked at it, looked hard.
-f.u.c.kin" almond.
-Right the first time. What can you tell me about it?
He grinned, winked.
-"Sa nut.
I nodded.
-Yeah. Dead on. But a little outside the point. What I"m getting at here, Jaime, is why would someone kidnap your sister and, just out of pique as far as I can gather, kill Talbot over some nuts?
-I didn"t kill Talbot. Jus" cut his a.s.s up.
-Sure, cut him bad. Cut him like he was a Turkish prisoner in Midnight Express. Midnight Express. But his buddy or boss or whatever, the guy who looks like Sam Elliot without the moustache, he killed him. But his buddy or boss or whatever, the guy who looks like Sam Elliot without the moustache, he killed him.
His eyes flicked back and forth a couple times, looking for connections between things that seemed impossible to unite.
-Killed him? Harris killed Talbot?
-Is Harris a tall cowboy with a big gun?
-Yeah.
-Then I"m going to go out on a limb and say that yes, he is the one who killed Talbot.
He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand.
-d.a.m.n. That"s. d.a.m.n. That"s f.u.c.ked up.
-Yeah. Especially when you take into account that he beat him to death with my telephone.
His face scrunched, he opened and closed his mouth a few times, he stuck out his tongue.
I recognized certain signs I"d seen many times in college, and took a big step back as he bent over the side of the chair and heaved a half gallon of Malibu rum onto the floor.
I edged from the puddle.
-Think it"s bad to think about, you should have seen it.
He shook his head.
-No, no, man, ain"t that bothers me. Just.
He spat.
-It"s just that Harris is Talbot"s uncle that"s so f.u.c.ked up.
He flopped back in the chair, wiped pinkish vomit from his chin, and threw up in his lap.
I went for towels, a.s.suming we"d have to shoot this again.
-Almonds, Jaime.
He swallowed the last of the water from the gla.s.s I"d gotten for him, and held out the empty.
-They stole "em.
I took the gla.s.s and pa.s.sed him a damp towel. The only towel left in the room that wasn"t draped over the huge pool of rum puke.
-Stole what?
-Almonds, a.s.shole. That"s what you"re asking, right?
I sat back on the bed, at as safe a distance from the stink of his vomit as I could manage. I"d contemplated cleaning it up, but decided I"d reached my limits on cleaning other people"s messes for the day. In theory, after all, I was here to clean my own mess. Or exert some kind of influence over my own life. Or some s.h.i.t like that. I thought it best to keep that in mind.
So, by focusing relentlessly on the idea that I may may have been responsible for the grinding inertia that was carrying me away from anyone and anything I"d ever cared about, I was able to reverse my usual view of things, which made it appear as though I were standing still, resolutely my own man, unchangeable, inured and immune to the blows of life, while the rest of the world went on without me, unable to support the idea that it could not live up to my standards. have been responsible for the grinding inertia that was carrying me away from anyone and anything I"d ever cared about, I was able to reverse my usual view of things, which made it appear as though I were standing still, resolutely my own man, unchangeable, inured and immune to the blows of life, while the rest of the world went on without me, unable to support the idea that it could not live up to my standards.
But it wasn"t easy to maintain that focus, especially when I was having to fight off a series of fantasies wherein I was capable in matters of fisticuffs and gave Jaime the proper thrashing he so clearly deserved.
I coughed into my hand.
-Yes, allowing that I am indeed an a.s.shole, it is what I was asking. I"m sure, now that you"ve had a moment to clear your head, and, you know, upchuck on yourself, that you"ll understand how I might be confused about the notion of almond thieves. almond thieves.
He rubbed the towel over his bared teeth, scrubbing away a film of bile.
-a.s.shole, they stole like a can of them.
-Sure, I got that part. See, Harris, before he murdered his nephew, was very clear that he wanted his can can back. So I"d managed to put together can and almonds and come up with can full of almonds, but I"m still not connecting that to kidnapping and killing. I"m dim on matters of criminal enterprise. You seem to have this kind of behavior all locked up. Care to enlighten me as to how a can of almonds is worth all the bother? back. So I"d managed to put together can and almonds and come up with can full of almonds, but I"m still not connecting that to kidnapping and killing. I"m dim on matters of criminal enterprise. You seem to have this kind of behavior all locked up. Care to enlighten me as to how a can of almonds is worth all the bother?
He stared.
-You are such a huge a.s.shole. You always talk like that?
-Mostly it"s only when I"m stressed. Or when I"m not so subtly making fun of someone I think is an idiot. In this case, I"m engaged in both endeavors.
-a.s.shole.
-Yeah, takes one to know one.
-See, that that I get. I get.
-Almonds. Can. I mean, are there diamonds hidden below the almonds or something?
He threw the towel on the floor, got up and pulled off his pukey shirt.
-a.s.shole, a can can is a cargo container. is a cargo container.
-You buy any almonds lately?
-No.
-Well you should. They"re like full of good cholesterol.
I watched as he dug clean socks from his backpack.
-Did I mention they kidnapped your sister?
He sat on the bed and pulled the socks on.
-See, because they"re so high in HDL, people are crazy for almonds right now. Put them out on the crafts table and the talent eats them by the handful. Can of almonds is like eight bucks. Like a regular size can, I mean.
He rose and tucked the tails of his clean Ed Hardy shirt into his equally clean Ed Hardy jeans, both garments covered in commodified Ed Hardy tattoo tigers.
-Cali produces so many f.u.c.king almonds, like a billion f.u.c.king pounds a year or something, business is booming. It"s like we export nothing but airplanes and produce. And movies, man.