I feel the car shake to life. The big V-8 under the hood rumbles awake and the steel body trembles like it’s actually afraid of all that power. I’m not really a fan of muscle cars; the gas mileage is terrible, the cost of insurance is ridiculous, but they do look cool and it’s fun to cruise around with the top down at night.
I’m also not really a fan of the monster bass tube sub-woofer he had installed in the trunk. My back was pressed up against it when it kicked in and it felt like Naldo’s boots had somehow reached through the trunk to paste my kidneys a few more times. The fucking rivets are buzzing and popping, trying to escape the metal with each thump of the kick drum and snap of the bass. It sounds like a beehive of pissed-off steel. What the fuck is Cleto listening to? Oh shit. I know this song. It’s “Frijolero” by Molotov.
Naldo once translated this song for me. It’s roughly, “Don’t call me beaner, you fucking racist asshole.”
Is he playing the song for my benefit? I think he is, and this kind of hurts my feelings. I don’t deserve that. I’m not a racist and I never called him a beaner or anything else like that.
I thought Cleto was my friend.
I didn’t start out as a day trader. I didn’t even know what a day trader was. I came to Los Angeles to be a screenwriter. Well, honestly, I came to Los Angeles to be a director. But the easiest way to becoming a director is to be a screenwriter first. That’s the way it works. You write a couple of hit movies that someone else directs — some guy with a ponytail who wears jeans and drives a Porsche — and then it’s your turn. Pretty soon you don’t have to write the scripts, you sit in your Hollywood Hills home and give the writer notes over the phone while some aspiring actress gives you a blowjob, then you hike up your jeans and get in your Porsche.
Of course, now that I say it, now that I know better, it sounds hopelessly naïve. But what did I know? Nothing. I was fresh off the bus. Now I understand how it works. I’ve wised up. I have learned the one important truth, the most absolute vodka-clear truth about Hollywood. I’ll share this with you, but honestly, I hate to sound like one of them, you know, the wannabes that never quite made it. So try not to think of me as bitter. I’m not.
The big stinking truth with a capital T is that no one in this town — and I mean not one single living person — gives a flying fuckadoodle-do about you, your script, and whatever talent you think you might have. They don’t. Deal with it.
But I didn’t know that when I came to town. I figured it might take a few years, but one day I’d have the jeans, the ponytail, the Porsche, and a three-picture deal. I was clueless and hopeful and staked with a small inheritance I got when my grandpa died.
I didn’t really know my grandpa that well. When I was little he used to take me fishing for catfish. You know, where you glob that bait on the hook — the bait that looks and smells exactly like fresh dog poo — and throw the line in the river with a big sinker on it. Then you wait for the catfish to swim up to your big stinky piece of shit in the murky bottom of the river and eat it. Then you just reel ’em in. It’s about as exciting as taking out the trash.
My grandpa would fry the catfish when we got home, but I couldn’t eat anything that liked to eat shit. Sorry. Just not for me.
After I went to high school I kinda lost touch with him, and after college I didn’t even get a Christmas card. But then he was dead and he gave me over a hundred thousand dollars in his will. That cash was my screenwriting fund. I could stay in my apartment and just work. Like a real writer. No day job to distract me.
In fact, the only real distraction I found was this website by Mandy LaFrance. She was a Tulane University co-ed who liked to cruise the French Quarter for guys to blow. Mandy was awesome. She didn’t even take the guys into the bathroom. She’d just drop to her knees in a crowd and go to it, then she’d post the pictures and a kind of play-by-play description of these fellatio sorties on her website. I was in love with her. Not like really “in love.” She had a boyfriend; he was the guy who took all the photos of her sucking cock. When I say I was in love with her, it’s more that I admired and respected her audacity, her gumption, her take-no-prisoners attitude. She was like the opposite of a catfish. A barracuda, maybe. Plus, I liked to look at the pictures and beat off.
There. I said it.
But who could blame me? As a busy screenwriter, I didn’t have time to go out on dates or maintain girlfriends — there would be time for that after I was famous, then I’d be out at the Tropicana or the Skybar, all those kinds of places. But in the beginning I needed to stay in and work.
I did this for about a year, hardly spending any of my money, but eventually I realized that it was dwindling, it might actually run out before I got an agent and a six-figure paycheck. So I took a weekend workshop called the “Millionaire’s Club.” It was supposed to teach me how to make my money work for me. Like it was an employee.
I don’t think I got much out of the seminar. Really. I didn’t want to get all tied up in real estate and evicting old people and bidding on probate cases. That had bad karma written all over it. But I was intrigued by this day trading idea. You know what I mean? Like, how hard could it be? You buy a stock at a certain price, wait for it to go up, and then sell it. Buy low, sell high. A monkey could do it.
I didn’t know much about investing. I still don’t. I know nothing about the market capitalization of companies, their enterprise value, or the P&E trailing. I mean, really? What the fuck is P&E trailing? I can’t read a five-year historical EPS growth rate. I don’t even know if you’re supposed to. But it didn’t matter. I was making money. Lots of it. And I didn’t have to shave, get dressed, or leave the apartment. It was a lot like screenwriting.
Cleto stopped the car. Thank God he stopped the music; my fucking ears were bleeding. I don’t know how long we’ve been driving. I think I kind of blacked out for a minute or two
I can feel the bruises on my legs and ribs and back and face and arms. They’re big and hot and fuck do they hurt. I need to pack my body in ice, man.
I can hear them talking outside. I hope they know that I’ve learned my lesson. I have. Totally. It’s ingrained. I will never take my eye off the market again. Ever. That’s the lesson I learned. You look away for a heartbeat — Mandy had met some guys from a fraternity at the University of Texas and she was flashing the “hook ’em horns!” sign while she serviced them — and the market will fuck you right up the
It occurs to me that I still have my cell phone. I can call Cleto. Maybe that’s the best way to do this. Not face-to-face where tempers flare and misunderstandings turn to violence, but detached — calm and cool — like businessmen. I dig it out of my pocket, thank God I got one of those flip phones and it didn’t get smashed, and open it up. I’ve got Cleto on speed dial.
It’s ringing.
I get his voice mail.
I’m still having trouble talking, my lips have ballooned up like the Michelin Man, I try very hard to enunciate.
“Dude, it’s Russell. Look. Sorry, man. Let’s talk. Okay? I’ll make it up to you, man. C’mon. I need to go to the hospital. Let me outta the trunk.”