The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death (3 page)

—Shit, man, not I like don't hit you with a discount on your ink.

Po Sin tucked the money into the breast pocket of his unbuttoned Clean Team Trauma work shirt.

—True. And it's also not like I ever
beef
with you about what you charge when
I
get the bro rate.

Chev nodded his head, put out his hand.

—No, man, you're right, I was out of line.

Po Sin folded his hand around Chev's.

—It's cool, just the ways and means of business. Four bucks is just four bucks, but, then again, it's four bucks. If you get me.

Chev looked at the number on the face of his vibrating cell.

—Yeah, don't got to tell me. Small business owners of the world unite.

He hooked a thumb at me where I'd sprawled back on the couch with my magazine.

—Wish you could teach some economics to the freeloader over there.

I didn't look away from the magazine.

—Indentured servant is more like it.

He ignored me, answering the phone and flipping open the appointment book on the counter at the front of the shop.

—Yeah, what did you want?

He rolled his eyes.

—A dolphin? In the small of your back?

He stuck a finger in his open mouth.

—Yeah, no problem. How about tomorrow afternoon?

Po Sin came over and peeked at my magazine.

—That guy got toes for eyes?

—Yeah. Cool, huh?

—He a monster?

—Nah, just a guy gets all fucked up by a psycho.

—What you see in that shit, man?

—I don't know.

—Doesn't bother you, all that gore?

—Why should it?

He looked at Chev.

—Why should it?

He always been like that?

Chev put his hand over the phone.

—Actually, no. The taste for horror is kind of a new thing.

I looked up from the magazine.

—Hey is there a problem here I'm unaware of? Am I not allowed to develop new interests and tastes? So I never really got into horror before, so it's a new thing, is that supposed to
mean
something? I mean, fuck, it's just fun is all.

Po Sin grunted.

—People getting hacked up and tortured and mutilated is fun. Shit's disgusting.

I put the magazine in front of my face.

—Says the man with a van full of bloody rags and dirty needles and shit-stained sheets and used condoms and wads of tampons.

He pulled the magazine from my hands and flipped through it, looking at the pictures.

—Some nasty stuff in here.

—Doesn't bother me.

He looked at me, nodded, and kicked the side of the biohazard canister.

—Give me a hand with this. Come out and get the empty.

I rolled off the couch.

—Like I'm everyone's slave today.

Chev was scribbling in the appointment book, back on the phone.

—With a sunset behind it, yeah, sure.

I followed Po Sin out the door.

—Ask her if she wants the dolphin snagged in a gill net or drowning in an oil spill.

Chev showed me his middle finger.

Outside, Po Sin was at the back of the Clean Team van, opening the doors. I set the canister on the edge of the curb.

He waved me closer.

—Bring it here.

I picked it back up.

—Maaan.

I brought it over to him and caught a face-full of the reek pouring out of the sun-baked rear of the van.

—Holy Jesus! Motherfuck.

He took the canister from me and snugged it in with several others and snapped a bungee cord around them to keep them from shifting.

—How's that for a gross-out?

I waved a hand in front of my face.

—Dude, that's some nasty shit.

He took an empty canister from a rack and passed it to me.

—Things are supposed to be airtight.

—They're not.

—No shit.

He slammed the doors closed and leaned his back against them, the polarized lenses of his glasses darkening.

—So. Still no work.

I lifted the empty canister.

—Working plenty.

Chev came out of the shop and lit up.

—Don't listen to him, he ain't worked in over a year.

Po Sin looked up at the sky.

—Been that long?

I spat in the gutter.

—It's been awhile.

I pointed at Chev.

—And don't listen to his bullshit. I work all the time. I mean, who's been doing the laundry? Cleaning the dishes? Cooking? Who's been running all your errands and fetching lunch and taking your truck to be washed?

Chev knocked ash from his smoke.

—Yeah, and who's been paying your rent and covering the groceries and the PG&E and the cable and the water and the gas and every other little thing that comes up?

—I've been kicking in.

Chev watched a couple Korean girls in midi tank tops walk out of the French café up Melrose.

—Mean your mom's been kicking in.

—Any of your business?

The girls disappeared into a shoe store and he looked back at me.

—Only that she's not gonna carry you forever and you need to get a fucking job because the IOUs are piling up on the fridge.

—I'll get a job.

Po Sin tugged the end of his thin drooping moustache.

—Can't believe you can't get a job the way the schools need teachers.

Chev flicked his butt.

—He can get a job, they call him all the time. He could sub five days a week. He could go full-time again whenever he wants.

—Only I don't want to, asshole.

—You want to make a couple bucks, I got some work for a guy with a strong stomach for messed up shit.

I looked at Po Sin and squinted.

—What kind of work?

He looked at Chev and pointed at me.

—Know why he doesn't have a job? Because he's the kind of guy you offer him one and he asks what the work is.

He started for the cab of the van.

—He don't want to work.

I followed him around the van.

—I didn't say I don't want to work, I just asked what the job is.

Asking what the job was, that was actually a really smart idea. If I'd pursued
that line of questioning a bit further, things would have been considerably less complicated. Dug a little deeper into that line of inquiry, and I might have avoided the whole
Who's the Asshole in the Motel Room
contest that would crop up later.

But Po Sin wasn't interested in filling in blanks.

He stopped and faced me.

—It's cleaning shit up, is what it is. We got a packrat gig and one of my sets of hands is flaking on me and there's a load of shit to haul.

I squinted again.

—You mean literal shit?

—I mean stuff. Ten bucks an hour for hauling stuff. You want or not?

Chev came around the front of the van.

—He wants.

—Hey!

Chev put a finger in my face.

—He wants because the fridge is empty and it's his turn to fill it and I'm gonna start eating all my meals out so there's nothing for him to graze on, so if he wants to eat this week he'll take the job.

Po Sin took a notepad from his back pocket and started scribbling with a nub of pencil from behind his ear.

—Good. Here's the address.

He handed me the paper.

—Seven in the
AM
. No later.

—No problem, just swing by and pick me up.

Midway pulling himself up behind the wheel, Po Sin stopped.

—Pick you up? My ass. Drive yourself.

Chev shook his head.

—He doesn't have a car.

—I have a car.

—No, you don't.

—Yes I do. I have a great car. I have a classic nineteen-seventy-two Datsun five-ten.

—You have car parts. You do not, in fact, have a car.

—Yes I do. I have parts in sufficient quantity and variety that when assembled in their proper order they will constitute a car. I have, de facto, a car.

—You have a de facto pile of scrap in the driveway is what you have, dude.

Po Sin turned the key and the van started up.

—The bus is a buck fifty. You got a buck fifty?

I stuffed my hands in my pockets, looked somewhere else.

—I don't ride the bus.

Po Sin pointed at the number 10 stop, up at the corner.

—Public transportation is a wonderful thing. Saves money, saves the environment. Gets you to a paying job. Take the bus.

I started to open my mouth and Chev stepped in.

—He's not riding the bus, Po Sin. He doesn't like the bus.

Po Sin looked at him. Looked at me. Looked away.

—Right. My bad. Thought maybe that had changed.

He looked at his watch.

—OK, I got a guy on the job, he can pick you up on the way. Be out front at six thirty and he'll grab you.

Chev butted me with his shoulder.

—Yeah, I'll get him up and make sure he has his sack lunch and everything.

Po Sin pulled the door closed and put the van in gear.

—So, see you tomorrow. And wear your boots, there tend to be sharps all over the floor on these jobs.

The van pulled from the curb and we walked back up to the front of the shop.

Chev put his arm around my shoulders.

—Your first real job. Me and your mom are so proud.

—Fuck you, I'm not going. I'll call Po Sin later and tell him not to send the guy.

—Yes, you are going. And to celebrate, me and your mom are gonna fuck like bunnies tonight.

I shrugged his arm off.

—Don't, man, that's not cool.

—Gonna fuck and fuck and fuck all night long.

—Dude, you're grossing me out.

He stopped at the door, pumping his groin at me.

—Gonna git our fuck aaawwwnnn.

I walked past him into the shop and locked the door. He grabbed the handle and shook it.

—Let me in, dick.

On the counter, his phone began to buzz and I picked it up.

—Want me to get it?

He stuck his finger against the glass.

—Do not answer that.

I looked at the number.

—Caller unknown. Probably a customer. Let me get this for you.

—Do not pick that up.

I flipped the phone open.

—White Lightning Tattoo.

Chev jammed a hand in his pocket, going for his keys.

—Asshole!

I nodded my head, phone at my ear, backing from the door.

—A string of barbed wire? Around your biceps? Yeah, sure, we can do that.

Chev turned the key.

—Do not say another word.

I covered the mouthpiece with my hand.

—No, it's cool, I can handle this.

He pushed the door open.

—Give me the phone.

I took my hand from the mouthpiece.

—Sure, sure, we can do that wire around your arm. We can also tattoo
lameass poser wannabe
on your forehead.

Chev came at me, grabbing for the phone.

I held it over my head, screaming.

—Or how about you just get a unicorn on your hip so people will know what a real man you are!

Chev snagged my wrist.

—Asshole.

I jerked my hand free, yelling at the phone.

—Or a rainbow on your ankle!

And it flew from my hand and hit the polished cement floor and cracked open and the screen shattered into five pieces.

We stood there and looked at the phone.

I toed one of the pieces.

—So, I guess I won't be blowing off Po Sin in the morning.

Chev's mom and dad are dead.

Which is why I can't make jokes about fucking his mom when he starts making jokes about fucking mine. It's also why he's constantly in my ass about calling my mom and being nicer to her and being more responsible so she doesn't have to worry about me. Like my mom worries. Like she can retain a single coherent thought long enough to work up a good worry. Not that I want to rag on her or anything, I mean, she's my mom. But life hasn't disrupted her mellow since, like, 1968. How is anything I do or say gonna break that trend?

Chev doesn't see it that way. Which makes sense. You take someone who doesn't have something themselves, they're always gonna put more value on it than the person who does have it. So, sure, I love my mom. But Chev may love her a little more than me. Which is maybe not as fucked up as it sounds like at first.

—Hey Mom.

—Who is it?

—It's me, Mom.

—Web? Is that you?

—It's me, Mom.

—Cool. That's cool.

There was a pause. A long one. This might mean she was:

• A) Waiting for me to tell her why I was calling.
  

• or
  

• B) So stoned she had forgotten I was on the line.
  

—So, Mom.

—Who is this?

Which was pretty much a dead giveaway that the answer was B.

—It's Web, Mom.

—Heeey Web. How you doing, baby?

—I'm cool, Mom, how about you?

—Alright, alright. The blackberries are ripening nicely.

—That's cool.

—Yeah. I could send you a couple quarts. Or some pies. Should I send you some pies?

Every time I talk to Theodora Goodhue of Wild Blackberry Pie Farms, she offers to send me some of her world-famous, all organic, bush-ripened blackberries. Or some of her equally famous pies. Then she hangs up the phone and, her short-term memory impeded as it is by the intake of her far more famous Wild Blackberry Cannabis Sativa, she promptly forgets.