Hella Nation - Evan Wright [156]
Josiah was an industrious petty criminal, but also an unlucky one. He was in and out of various youth facilities until the age of eighteen, when the state of California sent him to prison. After his release, seven months earlier, he began smoking meth again, fell in with his old homeys, and was arrested and charged with possession of stolen checks. He is out now on bail, pending trial. If convicted, he could face another four years in prison.
Josiah claims he is a changed man since going to rehab and meeting Dollard. “I fucking take responsibility for my actions,” he says. “They want to throw me back in prison, so be it, eh? But if I stay out, I’ve got a new life now. I’m fucking clean, eh? I work for Pat fucking Dollard. I’m a movie assistant.”
Dollard gazes affectionately at Josiah. “For the first time in probably six, eight years, Josiah’s clean and sober. He’s working for me and flourishing at Hamburger Hamlet. He’s leading a really good, squared-away life. I trust Josiah completely.”
There’s no more compelling evidence of his trust than the large sums of cash piled on the coffee table where Josiah is sorting laundry. Owing to Dollard’s pronounced fear of banks, he prefers to keep his money in liquid form. One-hundred-dollar bills are bundled in ten-thousand-dollar bricks, which Josiah delicately brushes aside as he stacks the socks.
Josiah says when he met Dollard—whom the staff nicknamed “Saddam Manson” because of his crazed appearance and wild talk of Iraq—he “had no idea Pat was a rich Hollywood agent.”
Dollard checked himself out of Impact ahead of Josiah. The day Josiah left, Dollard picked him up and drove him to his father’s house. “I told Josiah’s father I was adopting him,” Dollard says. “He turned Josiah over to me.” Though Dollard’s claim has no legal standing whatsoever, Josiah enthusiastically nods.
Dollard himself had no money or place to go. He and Josiah spent a weekend sleeping at Dollard’s mother’s house, then split up. But the two have kept tabs on each other ever since. In the wake of Dollard’s recent scare over using drugs, both feel it’s prudent to live together.
For Josiah, the move comes at a convenient time. As he explains it, owing to his incredible good looks, charm and sexual prowess, he has been experiencing female trouble. Until a couple of days ago he had been living with a girlfriend. But, according to Josiah, she had recently grown unreasonable. “Dumb bitch didn’t want me seeing other bitches,” Josiah says. Their contretemps grew to a head. The other morning Josiah awakened to find himself being held prisoner. “Bitch took all my clothes, told me I couldn’t leave,” Josiah says. “I don’t hit bitches. But I said, ‘You don’t give me my clothes, I’m gonna kick the shit out of you, bitch.’”
“Tell him about the bitch you fucked up in seventh grade,” Dollard says, egging him on.
“It only happened one time,” Josiah says. “In elementary school there was this bitch, she was so big she used to fuck up the dudes.”
Although he was the smallest boy in his grade, Josiah stood up to the giant bully girl, telling her he wasn’t afraid. “Bam!” Josiah says. “Bitch hit me in the face. Tore off my shark-tooth necklace.”
Josiah reenacts the fight, throwing kicks and punches to demonstrate how he felled her. “I got that big bitch down and whaled on her, eh?” Josiah straddles an imaginary human on the floor and pummels. “Boom, boom, boom,” he says. “Bitch was all lumped up and drooling.”
Warmed up by the fight tale, Josiah dances across the room, recounting his years of being the littlest guy in youth camps, county jail, and then prison, but who was always ready to throw chingasos with the big vatos. He drops onto a couch, seemingly exhausted. “I been fighting my whole life.”
Josiah points to Dollard. “But thanks to this dick, for the first time I got a reason to stay clean.” Josiah’s mouth wobbles. He chokes back tears, thumping his chest to regain