I’d just got off the Hound there, the main terminal, right, ’n I’m walking out the big glass doors ’n there’s this cop I know. ‘Dalton,’ he says, ‘now what the hell are you doing?’ ‘Doing,’ I say, ‘whatta you mean? I’m just getting off the bus.’ ‘No, Dalton,’ he says, ‘not the bus. See that car over there?’ ‘What car?’ I go. ’N he points to some car parked across the street. ‘That car,’ he says, ‘that blue one there; now that car is hot and I’m gonna have to run you in.’ ‘Hell, Brownie,’ I say, ‘I’m just getting outa the can so why would I do a jackass thing like that?’ Well, I’m a little slow, see, real fuckin’ slow, ’cause he’s already been yakking into his collar mike calling a Black ’n White, an’ I’m standing there twisting around with my thumb up my ass watching it roll up, rollers flashing, sirens chirping, doors opening, the whole fuckin’ bit, right? But I finally get it together, I mean you got to, right? So’s, ‘Hey, Brownie,’ I go, ‘how would it be if I just turned around and got back on that Oxnard-Ventura bus right now?’ ‘Why sure, Dalton;’ he goes, ‘you do that; that’d be just the ticket…’
Do you remember you telling me I’d made your heart so glad by giving you the most beautiful gift a man could give a woman, our beautiful baby girl, Dawnie Gwen? I love you, Jackie. I’ll always love you. I want to grow old with you. You will always be beautiful to me. Can you tell me everything there is about you all over again, but slowly, ever so slowly, so very slowly so that it takes a very, very long time with your sweet smile and thoughtful ways spreading joy on me, looking me in the eye, telling me what I need to hear, making me more than I am. You know I’ve always said when you meet the right person you know it. I’ve always known it. I can still see the light in your eyes. Is it still there? Just a little? A little little?
Slow-like, you know, like really, really taking her time. So lying there, there wasn’t no hurry, and she was rubbing my neck, my shoulders, my back, and I guess she was done ’cause she wasn’t moving, and I looked at her over my shoulder-like, and she was sitting back on her knees looking at me, just looking, you know, and she just sat like that for some time, and it felt right, too, you know, like, uh, she was jus’ seeing what was there, ’cause later, man, later, we’re, uh, we’re really into it, and there’s this kinda break where she’s up on her hands and knees, like not together, you know, ’cause we’re shifting positions so’s we’re not touching, an’ I just sit back and look at her, and we’re looking at each other, her at me back over her shoulder and, man, I see it, that’s when I see it, that she’s just as wild as me, that she’ll just get into it as far as me, and that just blows me away, it does, ’cause I’ll go all the way, and looking at her I see there’ll be some places she’ll go first, she’ll take me into, ’cause I can see that, too, man, I can, I see that in her right fucking there, and like, Jesus, I can’t wait!
Hey! Wow, man! Your timing’s just unbelievable! This is just fuckin’ great! Wow, put ’er there, Bro! Gimme five! This is so unbelievable! I mean I just now got over a big, big fuckin’ problem ’n then here you are! Yeah! Jesus! Goddamn! Gimme a hug! Remember this ol’ Jimmy? How long I been at this cocksucker, more ’n a year, right? Two years? Yeah, well, what did it, I finally put a new starter button in. Just broke down and did it. Tore the old bastard out and put in a new four-wire button. Somethin’ I shoulda done a long time ago. Haven’t even tried it yet, but I can just feel it. The whole frickin’ attitude of the truck’s just changed, know what I mean? No fuckin’ around; just mainline it, right? That’s how to do it. Let’s go inside. I wanna get this grease off my hands. I’ve got some hand cleaner in there. Damn, Bro, it’s just great to see you, man! No shit! Well, hey, of course you can. Why the hell not? Maybe Luis, or even that ol’ San Pedro crew. A few of them assholes are still gunnin’ the drill...
So’s, so, Big-J,’ I says, ‘what makes you think anything’s been going down at all?’ ‘’Cause I know her, you stupid butthole,’ he says, ’n then just looks me off, you know, like this, like turns to the side with his goddamn hand in his goddamn pocket like he’s carrying, right? Like he’s got a goddamn piece in there, and I fuckin’-A know the fucker’s just got off the bus, no way he’s got a piece in there. He’s got a taped-up cardboard box under his arm that flat out marks him, man, like straight outa the slam, right? So’s I laugh. That’s right. I jus’ laugh. ’N he stands there, his eyes getting bigger and bigger, ’n I know he’s getting ready to come right on to it, so’s I say, ‘Hey, John, man, it’s summertime, man; can’t get pissed off in the summertime. Time to kick back, have a few brews, smoke a little zip. Things’ll change. Can’t get burned off ’bout some old shit that went down last spring, man; no point in getting all twisted off about that. All that shit’s long gone, man!’ And what’s he do? Nothing! Just stares! ‘So’s,’ I says, ‘pull it. You got it so’s you could pull it, didn’t you? So do it!’ But he didn’t, see. It was a nothing; a goddamn slide. He ain’t gonna do dick. If he was, that’s when he would a’ done it…
Well, that’s probably true ’cause Eddie doesn’t have any fucking friends – all’s he’s got is his dope. So when he starts asking about Carson, ’n what’s my take on that, I think ‘What’s this?’ ’Cause Eddie knows I won’t start wolfin’ on a guy jus’ ’cause I don’t like him. Now that’s how most people are, right, but not me – so when Eddie starts in about some old bro of his, ’n how he grew up with the guy ’n how he always stood up for the guy, an’ always tried to help him, and how this guy just turned around and fucked him, ’n then wants to know if Carson’s, ‘Well, do you trust him?’ I say, ‘Meaning how?’ ‘Business,’ he says, ‘when it comes to business?’ Well, beautiful, right? He’s just wolfed on his friend, setting it up so’s I’ll feel free to do one of mine, right? So I say, ‘Sure,’ which dodges the game. So he goes, ‘Well, let’s go back some. How’d you get to be friends with this Carson geek anyways?’ ‘Well,’ I say, ‘I didn’t. He came up and wanted to be friends with me.’ ‘Okay,’ Eds goes, ‘look, things have changed some. I used to be a not-give-a-fuck kinda guy, which I still am, but,’ he says, ‘basically,’ he says, ‘I’m pretty conservative now, I still give, but I could give more.’ ‘Sure,’ I go, ‘that’s copacetic with me,’ deciding now is not the time to bring up what’s owed me from before, like on the Ramon deal, for one, or on the Luis deal for another, ’n instead we make this new arrangement, a nickel on everything I do, ’n I’m back in business, and then the fucker starts telling me all about this pain he’s been having in his chest, which has made him cut way back on all coke ’cept for some righteous pink flake that’s been around. ‘The pains are like little, tiny burns,’ he says, ‘or bites, like little, tiny animal bites or burns in the heart.’ ‘Tiny li’l animal bites in the heart?’ I say. ‘Well, Eds,’ I go, ‘maybe you should think about quittin’ entirely, okay?’
So when I finally go over there Jac says, ‘Of course I remember that. Remember Dawnie, how she would say, ‘Oh-e, Oh-e, Oh-e,’ over an’ over when she was happy? She was two years old then. ‘Oh-e, Daddy!’ ’Member that? When we lived by the Fair Grounds and you were working over at Anderson’s Auto wrecking? You liked it down there? And we had that old blue Ford pickup you wrecked?’
Jeez, Earle, still fat as ever, huh? Maybe you oughta go back to work toting them mail sacks again, ha, ha. Jus’ funnin’ ya, Boss. Can I borrow the wagon? You still got it, or ’d you sell it? If them freeze plugs are still out I’ll get ’em fixed. Won’t cost you nothin’ neither, ’kay? Mom got the keys? Where is she, in the house? Don’t tell her I’m here. Lemme go in and surprise her, okay? How many new cats she got in there now?
Hand me that rubber hammer there - the big one. You heard anything about this Carson guy? Doin’ with ’ol Eddie now? Yeah, little white dude; yeah, the skinny fucker, wears that big ’ol fat silver crucifix like he’s in tight with the Jesus? That’s the one. Got a pair ’a brothers walled up in Soledad, right? Lifers, both of ’em. Uh-huh, ’n the blue cowboy boots, right? No, nothing bad ’bout him. Jus’ curious if you heard anything ...You wanna know why that weld din’t hold? Overheating and dirty steel. You gotta feather that heat. Grab the Bondo tub there, ’n hold on. I’ll just bust the lid off. Have to get the chisel in the slot there, see, ’n then whack the fuck outa it. Still a bunch of paste in it - more ’n enough for this, ’n then that other quarter panel on that Grand Prix. Here we go...Hold on now, ’kay?.. JESUS!...CHRIST! OH, FUCK! Did that drive into your arm? Goddamn, Bro! Sorry ’bout that! That must hurt like a bitch! Putting plastic lock-rings ’round these tubs is really, really friggin’ stupid! I’d like to run into the fucker who invented ’em - drive a fuckin’ chisel into his arm, right? You better get a rag on that. That thing’s dripping like a bitch. Good thing that tub was plastic, ’n not metal, has some soft to it...
When I was a kid I felt the only behavior that was mine was bad behavior, my mother took credit for good behavior, but bad behavior was my behavior. Now I was usually good, but regarded my life as a sort of prison term and that when I got out of school or married or eighteen I would start my own life. I didn’t nurse Dawnie. I wanted to nurse. I really did. But sometimes you can’t, even if you want to, not if you’re nervous. There’s a reflex mechanism in your head that won’t release it. I thought she was taking it. I would feel she was, but she wasn’t. I felt I was squirting it out but she wasn’t getting it. So I had to give her the bottle, which made Johnny mad. He said having a breast in your mouth was one of the best things in life and he wanted only the best things for his daughter and that ice cream was just a substitute for breast milk and that’s why vanilla ice cream was everybody’s favorite, people that had been breast-fed, that is, that people that hadn’t been breast-fed had to have all those fancy ones like Cherry Jubilee or Mint Chip or Rocky Road, which were never satisfactory.