Chump Change (5 page)

I
T WAS STILL DARK WHEN
I
OPENED MY EYES AGAIN.
L
OOKING
at the lighted digital clock on the nightstand, I could see that over three hours had passed. Down the hall, I heard the water in the shower running and I knew Fabrizio was awake too.

I dressed in the blackened bedroom, not wanting to see myself in the mirror, fumbling into my clothes. In the smogless, clear Malibu night, the light from a big, powerful full moon surprised me with its brightness and caused me to walk to the window.

Outside, I saw Rocco once again near the back porch steps. He was where I had left him hours before, still facing the door with the gopher body between his forelegs, waiting for the approval of a master who would never return.

After taking a piss, I made my way down the hall toward the kitchen. The door to my father’s study was closed. I paused. Nobody ever entered except with the old man’s
permission. Swinging the door to the dark room open, I waited for his demons to leap on me. None did, so I hit the lightswitch and let the incandescent light from his desk lamp assault the walls.

The room was unchanged from the last time I’d entered it to talk with the old man—seven years before. The furniture was old, sturdy office stuff. Heavy dark oak and mahogany with fat, solid legs. Each piece had been picked from one of the used furniture stores on Western Avenue.

On the far wall above a bookcase was a large, grainy, old framed photo of H. L. Mencken, his hair parted severely down the middle and his shirt collar heavily starched. The great iconoclast was scowling.

The books on the shelf behind his writing table were the important ones. The sacred stuff. Unlike the other novels in the room, they never moved, except to get reread. There was all of Knut Hamsun, all of Sherwood Anderson, all of Jack London. In Dante’s house, only great literature, art, and great writers got talked about. Men of accomplishment, like himself. Men to be feared and reckoned with. Other discussions were unimportant.

The rest of the books in the room that weren’t on shelves were in stacks on the floor. Most of them were by good writers, but Dante never actually read them. He was a skimmer, completely impatient, always unimpressed—he’d read a whole book that way—a few paragraphs at a time. He’d read the first sentence of each paragraph, then move on.

From the bookcase behind his writing table, I pulled down a copy of
Hunger
by Knut Hamsun. This book, my father used to say, caused him to become a writer. I held it in my hand
and flipped through the old pages. Somewhere in the middle, I discovered a sheet of typing bond that had been folded in quarters. It looked to have been used as a bookmark. It was yellow from age at the top where it had been exposed to the air.

I unfolded the make-shift bookmark and immediately recognized the handwriting as my father’s. But over and over, the signature written was Knut Hamsun. Knut Hamsun. Knut Hamsun. A paper was filled to the bottom of the page. The eccentricity jolted me because I’d done the same thing a hundred times, filling legal tablets with E. E. Cummings’ signatures. The old man and I had things in common after all.

I refolded the paper and stuck it in my pocket, then put the book away. Leaving the room, I flipped the wall switch and returned everything to darkness.

At around eight a.m., I sat on the back porch steps after more cups of coffee that were mostly scotch. I got an idea. Rocco was still guarding his rodent in the morning light when the thought fully formed; the dog had the right to say goodbye to Dante in the hospital. My father had been his master his whole life. Now his time had run out too. I was sorry for the Rocco’s situation. From now on, his life would only get worse.

I walked to where he sat on the grass with his stiff gopher. Kneeling, I tentatively petted his head once or twice. He didn’t respond. I noticed that a few of the old dog’s teeth were gone or broken, and he’d developed a bald spot near the tail where his short white hair had fallen out. Happy fleas and ticks had been rollicking unmolested there for a decade. This animal had no friends left and he didn’t seem to want any. He reminded me of his master.

When I went back into the kitchen and told Fab that I had decided to bring Rocco to the hospital to say goodbye to Dante, he rejected the idea. No animals were allowed in his station wagon or the hospital. Fab’s mood was ugly because of his hangover. He gave me another sermon, as if he were informed about the hospital rules regarding pets; although I knew he was making it all up. This only annoyed me and served to further strengthen my resolve.

When I suggested that Rocco’s presence in the room might bring on a further change in the old man’s condition, Fabrizio sneered at the absurdity of the idea. To him, it would have no effect whatever.

As he talked, I began to be disgusted at his condescending, officious tone, and his narrow, self-satisfied CPA mouth. I felt myself filled with spite for the situation, and for my brother.

To cut through the shit and get my way, I decided to shift to insanity. I screamed at him and called him a yuppy-cheezedick-fuck. Selfish pink-pussies like him were why people like me got suicidal and locked up and tied down in detox. Then I hurled my whiskey-filled coffee cup at the wall where it smashed into a thousand pieces. After that, Fab backed off and agreed to take Rocco with us to the hospital. He insisted, though, that the dog be kept in the back cargo area of his station wagon.

It wasn’t easy for me to persuade the dog to do anything. Rocco was unresponsive to everybody except Dante himself and currently devoted only to his dead gopher. He had no collar or leash that I knew of, so I couldn’t think of any way to get him to do what I wanted. I tried calling, whistling, and
clapping, but nothing helped. When I attempted to pick him up bodily, he showed me his teeth.

Finally, I realized that the key to igniting his participation was the stinking gopher, so I returned to the house and brought back several hunks of cheddar cheese and, using them to distract him for a second, I made a quick grab and snatched the gopher up by the tail.

It turned out to be the right move. Once I had the carcass in my hand, he followed me around the lawn and down the walkway to the carport. Then, dangling the body a foot from his face, I led him to the rear gate of Fab’s station wagon and he hopped right in. I put an extra pint of Jack and some hunks of cheese from the house in a plastic bag and stuffed them under the front seat for later.

With the dog in the cargo area, I closed the rear door of the wagon and rolled the tailgate window down all the way. I got in the passenger seat and honked the horn for Fab to come out. I made sure to keep the interior lights of the car out so that my fastidious brother would be unable to see the rotting body in Rocco’s mouth.

When Fab got in, he was too hungover and too busy making calculations about timing the ride to the hospital to notice anything about Rocco’s rat. Even his own bad mood was a secondary issue. What was critical, again, was our ETA to the IC unit.

We backed out of the carport, with Fab resetting the car’s trip odometer and changed his digital watch to the “seconds” mode. He looked back at Rocco, mumbled something, but kept his attention on the task at hand.

My brother hit the “go” button on the stopwatch part of
his “G-Shock” chronometer and peeled out simultaneously. As we took off, I snuck a glance back at Rocco in the dark cargo area. All I could see was the top of his head. No gopher.

When the air current changed, I could smell the odor of decomposing flesh so, to counter it, I cranked down the passenger window, even though it was chilly. Fab wanted cold air for his nausea, so he kept his window down too.

My brother refused my offer of a drink or a cigarette. This run to the hospital was requiring all of his concentration.

We were wheeling it pretty good around the corners on Point Dume on our way to pick up the Coast Highway, when Fab put his hand to his nose. “Bruno,” he said. “What’s that stink? Did that dog roll in something dead?”

I tried a diversion. “Forget that. Who’s feeding him now that the old man’s not around? Not you?”

“Maybe Mom is,” he said. “Not me.”

“Then whaddoyou care if the fucking dog stinks? He’s not your dog.”

“He’s filthy. I’m making a recommendation to Mom about Rocco. As you know, she’s asked me to help her in dealing with these kinds of issues now.”

“I’m only a little terrorized by that idea. Want a drink?”

“No.”

“Like dogs?”

“No.”

“Then fuck you,” I said.

In just over seven minutes, we reached Cross Creek Road on the Coast Highway. Fabrizio couldn’t be angry at me because he was preoccupied with his ETA. We were over a
minute-and-a-half ahead of his personal best. He celebrated by gunning the big 460 Ford V8 as we approached the changing yellow light, and shouting, “yes!” when it turned to red and we blasted through anyway.

When I said I needed to stop and take a leak, the blood went out of his knuckles.

“Can’t you wait, for God’s sake?” he snarled, looking at his stopwatch. “Do we have to do this every time?”

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s not a personal attack. Just pull over anywhere here, and I can piss by the side of the car.”

He hated me again.

A quarter mile up the highway, after we passed the Malibu Pier, there was a Colonel Sanders fast-food fried chicken store on the left. Fabrizio slowed down to pull in and chirped his stopwatch to the “pause” position. Then he hung a left into the lot. As he jolted us into a parking space he announced, “You’ve got sixty seconds, mister.”

I was part-way out the door before my brain remembered that I would be leaving my brother alone with the dog and the rotting gopher. I realized that the stink would become much stronger with the car not moving and no air circulation. I could already sense the odor. Reversing my actions, I swung my leg back in and closed the car door.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Where?” responded Fab.

“Away from here.” I made my tone sound hasty, anxious. “I can’t piss here.”

“What’s the problem now, Bruno?”

“It’s political. I can feel myself getting upset.”

“What’s political about taking a piss?”

“Colonel Sanders.”

“What about Colonel Sanders? Since when do you give a crap about Colonel Sanders?”

“He’s Iraqi. That’s why you never see him talking in the TV ads anymore. I won’t use a bathroom in a place of business that supports a genocidal dictatorship. Our boys died over there. American boys.”

“That’s crap, Bruno! He’s been dead for twenty years.”

“That’s the assumption we’ve been made to swallow. At the treatment facility, I was shown photocopies of published documents that reveal a contrary view. He’s now in hiding. They’ve discovered a link to Lee Harvey Oswald. The man whom we refer to as Colonel Sanders has used his fortune to help fund the research that eventually led to the development of the SCUD Missile.”

“Okay, Bruno, cut the shit!”

“I’m proud of my heritage and the fighting men who have defended our country. That’s all. I won’t piss here. I’m taking a stand. I’ll wait until we get to the hospital.”

Fab didn’t want to waste any more time arguing. He slammed the gearshift into “R” and screeched backward out of the parking space. Then he chirped his stopwatch back to the “on” position, pounded the gearshift lever back into “D,” and squealed rubber across the Coast Highway. We were quickly up to the speed of the cars headed south.

The force of the car’s acceleration had caused Rocco to tumble backwards in the cargo area a couple of times and bounce with a thud against the inside of the rear tailgate. I pushed myself up in the passenger seat so I could look in the back. Somehow the dog had managed to keep his jaws locked
around the gopher cadaver with the car in motion. The clean Malibu air was once again blowing the stink away.

When we exited the Santa Monica Freeway at La Cienega, we were ahead of schedule, but Fabrizio wanted insurance. He flew past a guy on the right, and used a turn lane to get the jump on the cars at the next signal. When the light changed to green, he stomped on the gas pedal, and veered left around a parked car in order to cut off the other motorists that had the right of way. “Yes!”

We lost a little time at the next two lights when they were off synchronized, but Fab didn’t look concerned. He knew the route well enough to anticipate the delays and take them in his stride.

Since this was a good run, my brother’s conviction was building. We were significantly ahead of his other faster times. With each vanishing block, he was more eager and confident, and so preoccupied that he forgot about the smell coming from the rear of his station wagon.

Our major challenge came at Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega. For some reason, there were seven or eight cars backed up in our left turn lane, controlled by a signal arrow. This made Fabrizio nervous.

When our lane finally did get its green arrow to go, only one vehicle made it through before the arrow turned yellow, then red almost immediately. The light was way off sync and out of whack. We were now buried at the end of the line.

What made it worse was that we were in a six-way intersection. Fab became very antsy, looking at his “G-Shock” watch over and over, seeing his best run tick away down the shitter.
He started pounding the wheel with his palms. He snarled out loud that the ninety-second light sequence would change at least six more times before we’d be able to make a left. There were now only two minutes left, and a block and a half still to go to beat his record.

Fab’s lips formed the numbers of a countdown. Eighty-eight, eighty-seven, eighty-six. In front of us was a Jaguar convertible and behind us a yellow minivan. Then, unable to stop himself, he began blowing his horn, wildly motioning to the lady behind us driving the minivan, to back up.

It took her a few seconds to understand and reverse her vehicle a few feet. Fab slammed our wagon into “R” and skidded back, making solid contact with her bumper. Then, using the opening, he banged the station wagon’s tranny into “D” again and made a wild right turn across all lanes of traffic to the far right turn lane where there were no cars stopped. I knew what was coming. It was a favorite maneuver of New York cabbies. They do it all the time. When our light turned green, he edged his way forward into the middle of the intersection and waited for all the cars headed in our direction to go on through the intersection. Then, when the signal had changed to yellow and there was no more traffic coming, Fabrizio swung his illegal left from the far right traffic lane…“Yes!” he yelled, and punched the accelerator.