Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [67]
I didn’t want to destroy the moment, but there was a question I had to ask. “Where the hell did you get that delicious dog?” I said. “I want to thank his master.”
Brother Lee answered me, lighting a joint and passing it. “We get our meat from two sources. There’s a guy who runs a bait store down by the pier. He traps dogs and sells them to his cousin, who has a taco stand in T.J. The cheapest, juiciest, meatiest tacos in Baja. All perro meat. We trade him a bag of weed for two juicy hounds. Sometimes we find dead dogs south of here off a bend in the Coast Road. Cars squash them. Wham. Lots of times we have to ignore them, though. Their ribs get all smashed up and embedded in their skin. Too dangerous to eat.”
“I toast all of you,” I said. “Truly you are the survivors of both capitalism and the rapacious, fanatic counter-culture it spawned. When I said earlier that I envied you your freedom, I was bullshitting. I thought you were just another cadre of dumb hippies. But I was wrong to condescend. I apologize. In a small way, you have life by the ass and I salute you.” They didn’t quite know how to react. The joint was passed to me and I inhaled deeply. I was expecting more applause or laughter. Instead, through the blazing fire I got warm smiles and puzzled looks.
“What do you do back in L.A., man?” Brother Randy asked.
I gave it some thought. Another joint came my way and I hit again. This time even deeper. It was good shit. I hadn’t been blown away on weed since my Hollywood Vice days, but I was getting there now; drifting into a shadow world of fantasy. I considered Brother Randy’s question for a second, then answered: “I do my best to survive. Most of the time it’s easy, but lately it’s been tough. Mostly I repossess cars. I hope you people dig property rights enough to realize that repo men are necessary. We keep the credit racket in line, and keep America from going insane and bringing back the days of debtor’s prison. People like you, the so-called counter-culture, can exist only in places where capitalism is strong. I used to be a cop, but I gave it up. I saw too much stuff I couldn’t tolerate.”
I stopped and took a blow off the pipe that was handed to me, became full-out zonked and surveyed my rapt audience. The women looked very beautiful. When I returned to my story, I took off on a rhapsody of poetic lies: “The corruption, the racism, the violence, I couldn’t handle it. Dealing with so many lost people, most of whom were wearing blue uniforms, the young people trying to live differently, more honestly than their parents, and how the cops reviled them for their lifestyle. The blacks in the ghettos, the winos, the homeless derelicts of Skid Row. There was a gentle side to me I couldn’t express, so in the end I quit. What I really wanted to do was learn to play the violin. But I didn’t have the patience or the drive to pursue it.” It had started out to be rhapsodic bullshit, but on finishing I felt that the whole fabric of lies contained some intrinsic truth that I couldn’t put my finger on. I was floating so high on weed and dog meat that everything seemed within my reach, but this eluded me.
“So you came to Baja looking for something, right, Fritz?” This was from Sister Carol.
I laughed. “You could say that.”
“Do you think you’ll find it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How old are you?” my favorite, Sister Kallie, asked. Warm antennas or tendrils seemed to drift toward me from her direction. Her head seemed to be enclosed in a halo.
“Thirty-three.”
“That’s not too old to change your life,” she said. “You’ve been through some heavy shit. Pain causes growth. You could still be a great violin player. I learned the guitar when I was twenty-four.”
“Thanks. Maybe you’re right.”
The party started to break up. Everyone except the sullen Brother Bob wished