In truth, Mitch couldn’t help feeling Doug was right but he wasn’t willing to let go of the idea that he would one day own a house. He just knew he would, one day. He wasn’t sure how but just over the next hill there were good things waiting to happen. He was certain of it. Sure, the credit system was fucked, the credit score just a number that indicated how willing you were to participate in a rigged game, but that was no reason not to try.
So maybe Doug wasn’t worried about bills but for some reason he was finally taking some responsibility and joining up for the Ferrari mission. It seemed ironic that the first time in months that Mitch had felt respect for Doug was when the guy decided to commit a felony. Maybe Doug was changing, turning into a different person right in front of them. Maybe he was finally joining them on Planet Earth.
Good things were waiting to happen. Soon, with the proceeds from the Ferrari, he could clean up his credit, maybe even apply for a gold card. Then on to other good things. Maybe one day he would even get a nice suit and perhaps get a Ferrari legally and drive it up to his house, which he owned. He and Doug would both own houses and they would live near each other and go over to each other’s houses and smoke pot all day and play beer pong and not have to worry about anything because they were such efficient and excellent car thieves that they never needed to work crappy jobs. But they would, of course, occasionally help Kevin with his dog-walking business. Dogs were cool and how else would they explain all their money to the IRS?
The door opened and Doug peered out. He looked better, less moody, less beaten by life, as if he had had a good cry. “Hey man, you wanna play beer pong?”
Mitch got up from the worn couch and tossed his cigarette into the snow. “Sure, dude. I’m gonna kick your ass.”
CHAPTER 6
THE ROAD TO Eden, Kevin’s hometown, was beautiful, snowy, and desolate. The roads were icy and Mitch and Doug were getting anxious about Kevin’s lead-footed driving, as they were both crammed into the death seat of Kevin’s pickup and unable to fasten the seatbelt.
“Dude, you could maybe slow down?” asked Doug, hoping not to cause offense. He found it hard to make eye contact with Kevin but he didn’t think sleeping with someone’s wife gave them the right to kill you in an auto accident. Mitch, who Doug had thought was too high to care, mumbled something in agreement.
But Kevin was lost in thought. Seeing the roads he grew up on had made him gloomy and thoughtful and he would occasionally point out random things along the way, things which had some long-lost personal meaning for him, making him the world’s most boring tour guide.
“Me and Willie Wright used to play down there,” he said, seeming wistful, as he pointed out a drainage ditch. Mitch looked down into the ditch, trying hard, for Kevin’s sake, to find something interesting in there. He felt he should ask a question but the moment passed as his dope-soaked brain searched for the right one. A block farther on, Kevin pointed out a tree. “That’s where Katie Feld broke her arm.”
Instead of asking about the details of her injury, Mitch asked the first question that occurred to him. “Was she hot?”
“She was six years old, you asshole,” Kevin said. Mitch burst into a fit of giggles, which caused Doug to start giggling, and they both went into convulsions of laughter on the bench seat of the pickup as Kevin snorted with disgust.
“You guys are morons,” he said. “You’d better get your shit together because we’re almost there.”
They pulled off onto a gravel road in the thick of the woods and Mitch wondered what type of a high-end restaurant would be in such a location, apparently in the middle of a forest. Kevin seemed to anticipate the thought, because he said, “This place is really cool. It’s a remodeled farm-house. We should go to dinner here one night.”
Which was pure fantasy, they all knew. It was an hour from Wilton and a trip to McDonald’s usually had all three of them checking their wallets. Eating out had become a luxury that they just read about and saw on TV. And besides, if you stole a Ferrari from a restaurant’s parking lot, it might not be a great idea to use the proceeds eating there, since that would increase the likelihood of being seen by a busboy or valet parking attendant who might have noticed you lurking around in the woods prior to the theft.
So much of their lives were made up of that kind of fantasy, Mitch thought, so much time wasted with comments like that one. We should go to dinner here. Yes, we really should. It would be awfully nice, wouldn’t it? Perhaps we should have our butlers make reservations for seven-ish. It was all part of the same brainwashing-him obsessing about paying his credit cards on time so he could one day buy a house and Kevin suggesting a dining-out experience at the priciest restaurant in their part of the state. They had eaten it up, all the shit they had been fed about having a future. Their future was to work or starve, and the work was getting harder to come by.
Kevin pulled into the parking lot, which, despite the freshness of the snowfall, had already been plowed and most likely would be again before the restaurant opened at four o’clock. They looked at the ornate woodwork on the porch, the sign with a layer of snow neatly balanced along its narrow edge. A Mexican man wearing an apron emerged from a basement door and began shoveling the snow off the steps, paying no attention to the pickup truck idling in the otherwise empty parking lot.
“That’s Jorge,” said Kevin, full of awe. “He’s the dishwasher. Jesus, I can’t believe he still works here.”
“Where else would he go?” asked Mitch, looking around at the woods and motioning toward the dying town they had driven through to get there. Kevin was still staring at the dishwasher, lost in a reverie of nostalgia. He snapped himself out of it and looked across the parking lot.
“See back there? All the way back against the tree line?” He pointed to the far end of the lot. “What we gotta do is hide in those trees over there, as far as we can from the front of the restaurant. On busy nights, they park the cars all the way back against the trees.”
“How can we be sure they’ll park the Ferrari back there?” asked Mitch.
“We can’t.”
“How do we know what nights the Ferrari will be here?” asked Doug.
“We don’t.”
There was silence. “Look, guys,” Kevin said patiently. “We’re gonna make over six grand apiece, OK? We gotta put a little bit of work in.”
“Like what? Whaddya mean, work? You mean we gotta hide in those trees in the middle of winter until a Ferrari shows up?” Mitch was getting annoyed now. He’d just spent an hour in the cramped pickup with Doug’s leg crammed against his, putting his foot to sleep, and he had the good seat. He could only imagine how uncomfortable Doug must have been, straddled over the stick shift, and now it was starting to look like the plan involved coming out here on a nightly basis for god knows how long, and lying in a snowy bush all night. He didn’t mind stealing cars. That was the fun part. But he hadn’t signed up for night after night of freezing his balls off in a forest.
“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” said Kevin, as if he were talking to his six-year-old daughter.
“Dude, let’s just steal the first car we see. This is fucked up.”
“I don’t mind,” said Doug quickly.
“That’s the spirit,” said Kevin. “Dude, there are like three guys who come here all the time who drive Ferraris. Seriously.”
“That was ten fucking years ago,” snapped Mitch. “They could all be dead by now.”
“OK, there’s more,” said Kevin, talking only to Doug now. “We have to wear business suits.”
“Business suits? What the fuck are you thinking?” said Mitch.