It was true.
There was a door on the side. He knocked. It opened out. A face.
It was him.
The boy with the public radio mom he’d fucked on coke five years ago. He’d be seventeen but he looked like a man. Forty. His head grown gigantic. A bristly blonde beard with no mustache and where his hand gripped the aluminum doorknob his knuckles looked like bags of molars. His ring finger was missing. His black T shirt had death metal calligraphy you couldn’t read. A succubus. The boy squinted for a second. Holy shit, he said.
You recognize me?
I think you fucked my mom.
I did, I’m sorry–
Hate to break it to you bro– you weren’t the first. You’re the guy from Philippines?
I guess.
Come on in.
Inside, the trailer was trimmed in fake pine veneer and the floor was stacked with filthy copper pipes. Coils of old wires only shiny where the bolt cutters clipped. How you been man, said the boy.
What the fuck happened to you–
I ran away. Don’t tell my mom you saw me.
We haven’t spoken.
And here I thought you were a gentleman. Do you have it?
He took the thumb drive out of his pocket. Passed it to the boy, who hit the space bar on an old black Dell laptop that booted up to Windows XP. Next to it a big silver cordless phone with a fat black antenna. Toothpaste green lights stammered behind the number pad. The boy plugged in the USB. Upside down at first. Flipped it. The computer burbled. Sounds like an old ball joint creaking on a washed out dirt road. It’ll take a minute to see if it takes, said the boy. You want a Monster? Fridge works.
No thanks. Dude how are you living like this–
Why, do you think it’s your fault?
Kind of.
There were a hundred of you.
Well I’m still sorry–
It wasn’t any of that. I left because I hated school.
I hear you.
Whole day sitting some place I didn’t want to be. My mom fucked but she was a good mother. She made me do homework. If she’d been a bum like you think I would have stayed.
She posts about you on Facebook all the time. She says you’re on the autism spectrum–
Yeah I saw that. Maybe she thought it’d make people care. I got tested for it once and she talked about it nonstop after. I think she thought it meant I’d be rich. It just makes girls not want to fuck me.
She’s worried about you man.
Yeah well she married some guy and he moved in and just… there’s one bathroom. I’d have to go in after him. The smell of a forty year old man’s shit– no offense. The toilet seat was still warm with one of his old ass pubes on it. First thing in the morning. And then after that, fucking school, and after that fucking homework, and dinner with them asking how’s school how’s homework. Nothing else.
She cares about you.
She fucking called my science teacher about how I might do better in class. I don’t even care about science. But she thought I had to. Because she had this thing about me being autistic. The teacher tried to fuck her. Anyway I bailed.
Been a while now.
Two years. I moved out and went down the street and then just kind of kept getting farther away. I ended up slinging pills with the Juggalos for a while in Hollywood. The FBI scattered that scene and I was living with a couple trannies who had me jerkin off on cams for rent. People got sick of my videos when I hit puberty so they kicked me out. I was trying to make Arizona but I got caught up in the meth scene down here. They needed a whiteboy to take the shit up to Hollywood. I told them I was German. They call me Four Finger Fritz–
He held up the hand with the stump. The end still swollen, crawling with red veins that looked warm.
How did you lose it–
Fritz laughed. Punching a guy off a moped.
You hit him that hard?
No but I took the moped and must have crashed it. I was blacked out. Some guy found the finger but it was rotten.
Fuck.
I was doing great with the 13’s down here, easy money. Had a nice Mexicali girl too. But then shit went down with the Somalians.
I didn’t know we had those–
Yeah they come from Maine, the government brings them there. They speak English like the Pepperidge Farm guy but they’re mean as shit man. They had this shotcaller Abdullah, he was a fuckin hardcase. Came out of the military. They started moving in on 13 territory by LAX. They were beefing but then check this out– he fell in love with a 13 woman–
Wait how do you even know about the Pepperidge Farm guy–
It’s on Family Guy. You must be old enough to know the originals–
They’re a client.
A client of what? What is it you do exactly, anyway?
It’s complicated. It has to do with marketing.
Like what
We gather information to help… brand elevation. Purchase intent– for brands, like, Verizon–
What does that even mean, said Fritz.
We provide data driven solutions for market leading brands– and suddenly Fritz was laughing.
What?
That’s fucked, said Fritz.
Abdullah fell in love with Xochitl Sanchez who was fifteen years old and the sister of the 13 shot caller. The Somalis and the Salvadorans went to war. It was, Fritz said, exactly like Romeo and Juliet. Julio the 13 shot caller ultimately told Xochitclass="underline" stay away from that fuckin Captain Phillips lookin ass nigga. At some point she obeyed. It broke Abdullah’s heart. He made peace with the 13s, which was how Fritz came to do business with him. But inside he’d gone nuts. Got into some hard shit, said Fritz. Organized shit. Do you know what Al Shabaab is?
No–
The guys you’re down with, Abu Sayyaf, it’s the African version.
I’m not down with them.
They work together. The Somalis are down with dudes in Pakistan. They got guys in the ports, they work with Filipinos on the ships. Which must answer a question you had.
Is this ISIS?
Kind of. ISIS doesn’t mean anything. Mostly it’s a bunch of commercial operations. Abdullah said it’s just a name for the believers to work under–
… a brand.
I guess, said Fritz. How’d you get into this shit anyway?
Into what?
Blowing up the world.
I’m just giving information.
But you know what they’re gonna do with it, right?
I assume get money. They have some utopian project–
They want nukes man. Your company has credit card records of every big general. Every other government big shot– they’re gonna find a couple who fuck kids like the guy from Subway. It’ll probably be the first two they look at. They’re gonna get the targeting system. The codes. Data driven solutions for the market leading brand.
No way–
Yes way man. These guys know how it works. Abdullah was in the Air Force. He was an officer in the Missile Command.
They gotta be bullshitting you–
Nah man. These guys are on bath salts all day. It reminds of them of this leaf they chew back home. They got loose lips.
The phone made a sound. Then the computer. Fritz was typing suddenly. It worked, he said.
OK–
I’m gonna get fifty grand for this. Go down to Venezuela. Stay out of the cities man, they’re only gonna hit where the “abominations” live. What are you getting–
Not fifty grand.
A girl huh.
… yeah
Must be some good pussy–
Hey man, are you serious about this shit?
Fritz stood up. Slid a giant rough hand on his shoulder. The ring finger stump hot on his clavicle. Don’t feel bad man, he said. This is coming one way or another.
Jesus Christ. Why did you tell me?