}}}Carey. 2012. Los Angeles, California. West L.A.}}}}}}}}}
This rat and me—we’re thick as thieves. That’s how that saying goes, right? What does that even mean? How are thieves thick? Like fat?
“You fat fuckin’ thief!” I yell at the rat. Used to scurry away when I yelled at it. Now it just kinda looks at me like I’m the crazy one.
“You’re the one that eats garbage,” I tell it. “You fat garbage-eatin’ thief.”
I think about throwing my bottle at it. But it might take that personal. Might not come back. Don’t want that. Don’t wanna be alone.
Besides, the bottle’s not totally empty. I mean, it’s empty, yeah. But if you leave it alone for a while a few drips flow down the walls and pool at the bottom. Then you tip it upside down, wait for the trickle of rotgut, and repeat. This bottle’s on life support. I’ll stay with it ’til the end.
My sleeping bag smells like piss and I can’t tell if that’s because I pissed in it or if that’s just how it smells. It’s hot, and I don’t wash it a lot. Costs quarters. Then you gotta buy those little fun-size boxes of detergent.
“That’s how they get you,” I tell the rat.
My head is heavy. Keeps falling down.
“I should give you a name,” I say. The rat looks intrigued. Probably. Who can tell with a rat?
“Rat … well. Ratwell Rattington the Eighth,” I try. I scowl. “Too pretentious. Pretentious bullshit!”
I laugh. Get little flashes of somebody I used to know. Don’t want that. That’s no good. I tip the bottle again. Fewer drops every time.
“Pat,” I try again. “Pat the fat rat. Patty Boy!”
I raise my empty bottle to him. He glares at me. Probably.
I throw the bottle. He runs.
Good job, man. Now you got nobody to talk to.
“Ah, well,” I say, struggling to my feet. “Gotta yell at somebody, and they’re not coming to me.”
I forget what I’m doing. I guess I’m out in the street now? That’s weird. I was just laying down with a bottle a little bit ago. Figured I was done for the night. But now I’m out here, so I roll with it.
Had to move the ol’ bag and bottle collection a while back. Koreatown didn’t like me anymore. Got so the shopkeepers knew my name. Knew how to deal with me. Hustled me away before I could get a word in edgewise. But the great thing about L.A. is, it’s real big and nobody talks to each other. When somebody gets wise to your shit, you just walk a few miles and start slingin’ shit again.
I’m crashing in West L.A. these days. Over by the 405. It’s nice without being too nice. Pretty girls here with short-shorts and titties that still bounce. Haven’t gotten the implants yet. Still trying to make enough money to get ’em. The implants are inevitable. Pretty dudes here, too—not that I’m into that (unless I’m high, and they’re buying)—but they still got visible tattoos. Haven’t had to scrub them off yet. For a role, they all say. Gotta do it for a role. Gotta become blank slates to project characters on because they ain’t got—
“Personalities of your own!” I scream, right at a pair of ’em walking past me.
The assholes jump and hustle up a bit. Looking back at me. Laughing. Probably. Who can tell with an asshole?
“Go ahead,” I say to nobody. “Laugh. I’m fuckin’ hilarious!”
There’s this taco truck in the parking lot of a Rite Aid. If I get there late enough, just before they close up, they’ll give me leftovers. Good folks. Good food. The best food’s out of a truck. Used to be it was just the Mexicans and us güeros that knew the score. Then everybody caught on. Some dick-burn in a knit scarf probably put up a review on the internet, and now my taco truck is always crowded. Mostly white people. Young. Kinda drunk. Happy.
Assholes.
What a bunch of holes in asses. Filthy, unwashed, puckered up old—
“Hey,” one of the assholes says. “Come on, man.”
“What?” I say.
“What do you mean, what?” he says. Good-lookin’ skinny white kid. Got one of those wooden disks in his lip that used to be cool. Even I know they aren’t anymore. Guess it’s ironic now.
Lip Disk turns to his friends for confirmation, like he can’t believe this is happening. Gotta run it by the experts first.
“Why you screaming in our faces, bro? Calling us assholes?” Lip Disk says. “We don’t even know you. We’re just waiting for our tacos de pollo.”
This bastard’s whiter than my bare ass and he’s sittin’ there faking the accent, talking about his tacos like he was born in the barrio and his crib was an old washtub.
That’s it. That’s all I can take.
I step back to send a vicious dropkick his way—make him eat that stupid lip disk—but I guess I went back too far because now I’m on the ground. It’s funny, so I laugh.
“You okay?” a girl’s voice says. It’s nice. It’s a nice sound.
“Mmm?” I say. My eyes wanna stick together. I force ’em open.
“I don’t think you can sleep here,” she says. Blond girl. Yellow tank top and blue shorts. Not my type. Got broad shoulders and calves like she could kick through steel. But I can see up her shorts a little from my position, so hell, maybe I can change my type.
“Not sleepin’” I say, but I look around and I guess I was. I’m sprawled across the whole sidewalk. Taco truck is closed. Means it’s real late, or real early. The L.A. light pollution makes it impossible to tell.
“Okay,” she says. “Just checking to make sure you weren’t dead.”
What a god damn sweetheart.
I hold out my hand for her to help me up. She does not look happy about it.
Can’t blame her.
But she takes it anyway. How about that?
Been a while since I touched anybody. In a friendly way, at least. Skin is nice. Clean and warm. You don’t realize you miss it ’til you have it and then it’s like you’ve been drowning and just caught a lungful of air.
There’s something off about her grip—familiar, but off—and it takes me a while to place it. I turn my hand so hers is facing up. There it is.
Sixth finger on the left hand. A little thing—not fully formed. Like an extra pinky. She sees me looking and pulls back real quick.
“Take care,” she says, and jogs away.
Guess that makes it early, then. Pretty white girls don’t jog in the middle of the night. I feel like shit that’s been scraped off the bottom of a shoe. But at least I’m not on the shoe anymore. I slept through the worst of the hangover. I feel around in my socks for my emergency booze money, but it’s gone. Maybe I got rolled, or maybe I just spent it while blackout drunk.
This is bad.
Already I’m having thoughts.
What are the odds you meet another six-fingered girl while passed out on the sidewalk?
There’s gotta be a reason for it.
The universe is telling you something.
You can’t waste the opportunity.
It’s probably nothing, anyway. The extra digit doesn’t always mean she’s special.
But maybe she is. Such a sweetheart, too. Could be in danger.
They could be watching her.
Maybe you should be watching her, too.
Not to use her. Not to teach her. Not like Meryll and Rosa—
Don’t. Don’t think their names.
This isn’t like that. It’s not about that.
You’re only following her—
Crap. I am following her.
You’re only following her because you need booze money, and it just so happens that her jogging route runs up a street where it’s garbage day. Everybody’s got their cans of free money out for you.
That’s all this is.
Just another garbage day.