The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death - Charlie Huston [37]
No, it fucking doesn't.
Especially if you're Chev.
It might have mattered. It might all have made a big difference.
If L.L. could have kept his mouth shut and never gotten shitfaced one night and, in a classic bit of L.L. theater, decided it was time we knew the true face of God, and revealed to us that he should never have been driving that night. After years of lies.
Still, it might not have mattered, at nearly twenty years of age by then, Chev might have had enough perspective to see why L.L. had lied, and he might have had a big huggy moment with his crazy father figure.
Might have happened.
If L.L. hadn't also revealed that he was having an affair with Chev's mom and that, at the moment of the accident, Chev's dad had been passed out in the jumpseat, and her mouth had been in L.L.'s lap.
See, as was often the case with L.L., it wasn't so much the fucked up shit he did, as the fact that he had to talk about the fucked up shit he did.
So I understand Chev getting pissed at me for having L.L.'s money in my pocket. Cuz we're not supposed to take his money. Ever. For anything. It was an oath we swore. Nineteen, Chev dropped out of college because he didn't want anything to do with the trust L.L. had set up for him; didn't want his money, and didn't want the education L.L. had told him his mom and dad would want him to have. Didn't want anything to do with anything L.L. touched, said, or thought. And I joined him. Skipped out on UCLA and enrolled at LACC. Having kind of figured out by then that if push came to shove, I'd be better off with Chev in my corner than with L.L. My rare moment of wisdom, recognizing that blood is not in fact thicker than water.
That oath may have kind of been broken by not stuffing L.L.'s money down the garbage disposal the minute Dot showed it to me. But I was too busy being a dick to her to be bothered with that.
Crap.
So I thought about that kind of stuff, the kind of stuff where your dad is kind of responsible for the deaths of your best friend's parents, while I stood next to the payphone at the gas station on the corner of La Brea and Melrose waiting for Po Sin to come and pick me up.
Again, crap.
AS NORMAL AS IT GETS
—Motherfucker!
—So is this covered by workmen's comp?
—Motherfucker!
—I mean, if I get beat to crap by the competition, are my medical expenses taken care of? Missed wages? All that shit?
Po Sin drove one-handed, hammering his fist against the roof of the van.
—Mother! Fucker!
He pulled the van into the lot of a two-story strip mall, put it in park, got out and walked into a liquor store stationed between a nail salon and a Pilates studio, just under an auto insurance office. I watched him through the glass as he walked to the snack rack and started grabbing things, his lips ceaselessly moving.
Motherfucker! Motherfucker! Motherfucker!
He came out a moment later, got in the van, dropped a sack full of junk food between our seats, ripped open a bag of puffy Cheetos, put it in his lap and started shoving them in his mouth as we pulled back onto Santa Monica Boulevard.
—Moferfuther!
Orange crumbs sprayed the inside of the windshield.
—Mofufer!
I poked a finger in the sack of chips and beef sticks and snack cakes.
—Feeling a little anxious, Po Sin?
He wiped orange dust from his finger onto his pants.
—Fuck you, Web. And, yes, I am. I am a stress eater, OK. When I am stressed I lose composure and self-control and I eat compulsively. That's what happens. You've seen me, right? You see how fucking fat I am, right? You think this shit just happens? It doesn't.