Kim is on his way to school one morning, skipping happily along the sidewalk carpeted with brown leaves as crisp as potato chips, looking up at the huge skeleton fingers that dropped them, when suddenly, without any warning, he runs smack into Jesus Ramirez, the terror of the neighborhood and one of his two best friends.
"Hey man, look where the fuck you going!" says Jesus whipping out and snapping open a seven-inch switchblade knife.
"Far fucking out!" says Moonglow, Kim's other best friend, whose mother was once a prodigal child of capitalism but now feasts on the fatted calf; for the tips are generous at the upscale restaurant where she waits tables. (Forever shrouded in hallucinogenic haze remains her memory of that period in her life when Moonglow was conceived-a phase mercifully brief-for since becoming a Christian Scientist, she has lived without the aid of false drugs like LSD and penicillin.)
"Where the fuck did you get that blade?" Kim asks in genuine admiration.
"My brother gave it to me," Jesus says.
"Which one?" Kim asks. Jesus has seven brothers.
"Jaime," says Jesus proudly.
Kim whistles in awe, for Jaime is a mean motherfucker.
"Can I hold it?" Kim asks. "Just for a second."
Jesus reluctantly surrenders the knife to Kim who handles it with the reverence due Excalibur itself.
"The last time Jaime was downtown," Jesus says, "he used that knife in a rumble."
"No shit?" says Kim.
"No shit," affirms Jesus. "He wasted this fucking spade. Spiked him right in the gut. That spade went down like a fucking tree."
"Far fucking out," says Moonglow, who rarely says anything else.
"What are we going to do after school today?" Kim asks as he returns the knife.
"Want to go over to my house," Moonglow says, "and watch another movie on cable."
"We did that yesterday," Jesus says, pausing to re-tape the knife to the calf of his leg, just below the knee. "Let's do something different today."
"Remember when that guy shot the other guy's hand off," says Moonglow. "His whole fucking hand."
"Yeah, Dickbrain, it was really cool," Kim says. "The way the blood squirted out and all."
Since Moonglow is such a stupid name, Kim and Jesus call him Dickbrain instead.
"Yeah, it was really cool," agrees Jesus, running to catch up, "but let's do something different today."
"His whole fucking hand!" Moonglow says inanely.
"Hey, how about if we just go find a couple of whores and rape them," Jesus suggests.
"You're so full of bullshit," says Kim. "You wouldn't know how to rape a whore if you tried."
The youngest son in a large family, Jesus is always imitating his older brothers, trying to talk-if not act-as tough as they do. Like Jaime, all are gang members, and one is serving a ten year stretch in the Huntsville State Penitentiary. Unlike Jesus, when they say "Well then, why don't we rob a bank?" they really mean it.
"Rob a bank!" scoffs Kim. How the hell are we going to do that? Shit, we're only ten years old. Get serious, Jesus."
"I am serious, man. We can use my switchblade knife."
"You can't rob a bank with a knife. You got to have a gun."
"Not if we take Dickbrain along. We can pretend like he's a hostage, and I'll say I'm going to cut his fucking throat unless they give us the fucking money."
"Far fucking out," says Moonglow, always glad to be included. (Moonglow has never been too bright.)
"No, man, it's too dangerous," Kim says. "We'd just end up in jail."
"All right then, what do you want to do?" asks Jesus, obviously peeved.
"I don't know," Kim says. "Why don't we just shoplift some beer from the Seven Eleven and get drunk out behind the baseball diamond?"
* * *
Six years later, on a Friday afternoon in early September, Kim finds himself hitchhiking along Santa Monica Blvd. in the L.A. Basin where beneath an inversion layer of sea breeze the hot dry Santa Ana winds have trapped a stifling soup of smog so dense and acrid you can barely breathe it and so opaque you can't even see the hills-the only visible evidence of their existence is the Hollywood Sign whose white block letters seem to float in the yellow sky, immobile behind a veil of glare like the image in a fogged photograph. The first car to stop and pick him up is a stretch limousine with polarized windows and a crescent-shaped car-phone antenna on the trunk.
"Just go to the nearest freeway and start driving," the man in the backseat tells the driver.
"Yes sir," the driver's voice says over the intercom.
"Can I fix you a drink?" says the man.
"No thanks," says Kim.
"Well, I'm going to have one," he says. "I've already had a couple, but I'm still not drunk enough to do this."
* * *
The limousine pulls up in front of a Pizza Hut back on Santa Monica Blvd., and Kim gets out with a hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket. Even though he is not all that hungry, he goes inside and orders a small pizza because they will not let you use the restroom unless you are a paying customer. Some guy is standing at one of the urinals, so Kim locks himself in a stall and uses the water in the toilet bowl to wash the shit off his dick. When he comes out he plays a game of Asteroids and is still on he same quarter when his order is announced. Whetted by the salty smell of cheese and garlic, his appetite returns, and he sits by the window devouring one red and yellow triangle after another.
He has finished eating, and is sitting there by the window feeling bloated when a Latino boy comes clip-clopping down the sidewalk in wooden clogs, wearing gold lame short-shorts and a fishnet tank top. At a nearby table somebody laughs derisively, and even Kim shakes his head.
Seconds later, a second boy roller-skates into view-a black youth, balancing on his shoulder a huge battery-powered tape player, who says:
"Slow down, Miss Taco Belle. What's your hurry."
Arms akimbo on his cocked hips the Latino wheels around (so that Kim for the first time gets a good look at his face) and says:
"If you'd ditch the luggage, Miss Pullman Porter, you wouldn't always be two steps behind."
As they leave, Kim's head turns to follow them in disbelief. Is it possible? Can it be that the Latino boy is really his old friend Jesus? It's been a long time since Kim's seen him-and no doubt he's changed-but even so. Kim has to be certain so he dashes out the front door, nearly knocking down somebody else just coming in, and begins running to catch up with them.
* * *
"No, it can't be Kim can it? My God it is! She don't believe her eyes. Stand back and let your mother check you over. My dear, you look like your cake just fell. What's the matter? Don't you recognize Jesus? Only nowadays the girls all call your mother Mary but since you're so butch you can call her Maryjesus if you like nudge nudge-is this one dropping hair pins or what? This here's your mother's sister-in-law. Miss Boogaloo, will you please turn down that nigger music. Your sister can't even hear herself think. Honest to God that ghetto blaster's so loud it's drowning out the traffic. Oops, she's done it now. Just look at her go. Your mother's snapped Nefertitty's bra straps for good. DON'T GO AWAY ANGRY JUST GO AWAY. You know your mother don't like to speak ill of the dead but that dinge queen is nothing but trash. She's been reamed by so many spades, dicked by so many spics, and stuck at the bottom of so many pig piles that by now her pussy's the size of the Hollywood Tunnel. I ain't lying to you, you could get lost in there for days. Not like your mother, she's still as tight as a snare drum, she'll milk your dick with her snatch. Speaking of which is that a bobby sock you're packing in the basket of them blue jeans or is that your real equipment? Because if it is, you're sitting on a gold mine. I mean we're not talking slaughterhouse here, we're talking meat on the hoof. You could be bringing home two or three bills a day, especially with your mother here to teach you the facts of life. Honey, she knows every trick in this trade. The first thing you've got to remember is that west of La Brea's county jurisdiction while east of La Brea belongs to the city so when you're over there watch out for the Sheriff's Department but when you're over here keep a lookout for the LAPD instead and if one or the other of them hassles you just cross the border and you'll be safe for a while. Now at night this street is mobbed so you'll have to stake out your territory which won't be easy. Better carry a blade and don't never turn your back on your competition. Your mother learned that lesson while reciting a rosary for stealing a car. . . .You remember Dickbrain don't you? Well he and your mother'd been dusted for days, every time they came down they just took some more and went right back up again, so anyway to make a long story short they wrapped Miss Hotwired Cadillac around a telephone pole. Dickbrain was driving and he punched his own ticket but your mother lived to be thrown to the wolves. Oh honey, they was mean to your mother in prison. They fucked her in the showers, fucked her in the gym, fucked her in the maintenance room, some hot-to-trotter even tried to fuck her in the paddy wagon on the way home from her trial. She couldn't sit down, she couldn't stand up straight, and no matter how hungry she got she didn't dare eat for fear of having to shit later on. Honey, your mother ain't lying to you the hoosegow's hell on earth. But enough of her sob sister story, she's not the first Miss Mary Martyr to walk that trail of tears. You see that nellie little number standing on the corner over there? When she was eight her father used to fuck her. Can you imagine? That's why she's always scratching. YOU PICKING COTTON TODAY, MISS PREPARATION H, OR ARE YOUR JEANS JUST TOO TIGHT FOR YOUR ASS? If you'd like to come upstairs, your mother's got a little room right here over the All-Night Wedding Chapel. Ain't it a camp? The cot over there belongs to Butterfly McQueen so why don't you have a seat here on your mother's mattress instead, it may be a little lumpy but it's better than a dumpster that's for sure. By the way the throne's at the other end of the hall but if you go down there better watch out for the bohunk who keeps his door open all the time, your mother had that corndog for dinner one night and he came complete with cheese, speaking of which would you like a sandwich? There might be some beer in the fridge. Come on let's get out of these tits, let's party, let's smoke some of this dick-knocking weed. My dear she can't get over your show-dog dick, that's right ease her in nice and slow, the last time she saw you your balls hadn't dropped yet and your mother's no vienna sausage lover she likes unsliced salami so hold the Vaseline and spare the spit oh honey she's airtight now oh god she can't even breathe!"
Gregory Sanders was born in Texas and educated at the University of Texas. He now lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a film editor and screenwriter. A script of his is presently in active development with Chariot Seven Films. He also writes fiction and is currently working on a novel.
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