$200 and a Cadillac

IV



“The guy’s f*cking crazy, man. What’re we gonna do?”

“Will you relax? Jeez. Just mellow out.” Eli sat back on the couch and exhaled a long, slow cloud of smoke. He watched it drift through the lamplight and dissipate. Then he slouched sideways and stretched to reach over the side of the couch, passing the pipe to Eddie, who took it and continued to worry.

“How can I relax? You saw what he did. What the hell do we know about this guy anyway?” Eddie ran his fingers through his overgrown curls and then scratched at his chin. “What, he’s just some forklift driver out at Monarch? I don’t think so. There’s something scary about this guy. I mean, it didn’t seem to bother him at all.” Eddie leaned forward to look directly at Eli. “Hey man, you listening?”

“Will you stop talking for three seconds? I’m trying to f*cking think. Just shut up and smoke.” Eli rolled his head on its side and smiled at Eddie, trying to stifle a laugh and then letting it go. “Man, that’s what I always say.” He snorted, watching the tick in Eddie’s neck. Then, in a mock shriek, like a heavy metal singer, he yelled: “Just shut up and smoke, muthaf*ckah!”

“Dude, I’m serious.”

Eli moaned and sat up straight as Eddie took a long hit off the pipe, taking in a series of short breaths and holding them, letting the smoke fill his lungs and the pressure build. Eli shook his head and stared at the Metallica poster affixed to the opposite wall with yellow thumbtacks. It seemed slightly off center on the wall, crooked, the right side just a little lower. Maybe it was him.

When his attention snapped back, Eli said, “Man, I know. I’m just trying not to think about it right now. Dude scared the shit outta me last night too.”

“No shit.” Eddie spoke in the short, clipped manner of a man holding his breath. “I couldn’t believe it.” He shook his head and exhaled, setting the pipe on the coffee table among the crumpled beer cans, overflowing ashtrays, used paper plates, empty pizza boxes, cigarettes, lighters, matches, baggies of pot, and the large ceramic bong shaped like a mermaid—Eli’s one prized possession.

“Did you look at his eyes, man?” Eddie continued. “Nothing. Just blank. He’s an animal. How the hell can we deal with a guy like this?”

“We’ll come up with something.” Eli smiled and swung his arm around behind the couch, feeling low between the back of the couch and the wall, finding it, and then pulling his Fender Stratocaster up and onto his lap. “Just relax, man. We got time to figure shit out.” Eli reached out and turned the four hundred watt Marshall on and plugged the guitar in. A sonic hiss filled the room.

Eddie let out a sigh and said, “I think we gotta go to the cops.”

Eli stared at him and shook his head, flabbergasted. “Are you insane? What the hell are we gonna tell them? They’ll be poking around, asking all kinds of questions. No cops. No f*cking way.”

“But shit man, we can’t just leave that guy out there.”

“Why the hell not? Nothing we can do for him now.” Eli strummed a power chord and the room erupted with warbling, discordant sound.

“Will you put that thing away? I can’t think with that noise.”

“C’mon, it’ll relax you.” Eli sat forward on the edge of the couch and held the Fender in position, like he was really going to play. “Here, I’ve been working on something new. It’s sweet, man, check this out—”

Eli tore into a rapid fire succession of poorly fingered chords until he held on a distorted C sharp—strumming hard and fast—jugga-jugga-jugga-jugga—and then screamed again in his heavy metal shriek:

“When I,

Comb my ass hair,

I think about you!

I think about you!

And when I,

Find a nugget back there,

I think about you!

I think about you!”


He continued strumming with abandon for several seconds until feedback wailed from the speaker and threatened to shatter the windows. Eli let go of the guitar’s neck and the last chord resonated through the room like the final squawks of a dying cat.

Eli smiled. “So?”

“So?”

“The song. I mean, it’s only one verse but I think I’m onto something. It’s kind of a proto-post-punk ballad for the new millennium, you know, about the politics of love in a world gone to hell. I think it’ll speak to all the kids out there who don’t really have a chance.”

“What the f*ck are you talking about?” Eddie took a long drink from his warm beer and shook his head.

“Art, man.” Eli switched off the amp and leaned the Fender against the coffee table. “Jeez, don’t forget why we’re involved in this. We get enough cash together we’ll be able to pack our shit and get down to LA and make something happen.”

“Man, why don’t we just pack up and get out now? I mean, what the hell is Ron gonna do? He can’t run things by himself. He doesn’t know a damned thing about the oil business. Who the hell is this guy anyway?”

“Man, I don’t know.” Eli was back to running his fingers through his hair. He took a drink from his watery whiskey and Coke and said, “I’ll tell you one thing though, he ain’t no forklift operator from Houston, that’s for damned sure.”

Eddie laughed and let out a sigh. “Right, so why don’t we just take the money we got and leave? I mean, we could live for a while on what we’ve got already.”

“Where the hell would we go? And if we took the twenty-five grand, shit, Ron would sure as hell come looking for us.” Eli shook his head. “No way man, we can’t just run from this guy. Like you said, we don’t know who the hell he is.”

They both stared at the walls. After several minutes Eli picked up the pipe and took another hit. He spoke while he held the smoke deep in his lungs. “Besides, they’d find all the equipment and shit eventually and they’d trace it back to us, not Ron. I mean, dude’s totally clean.” Eli let out his breath and there was almost no smoke. “Look at that shit. Talk about the iron lung. My body absorbs cannabis clouds. It’s my super power.” He laughed and handed the pipe to Eddie, who dumped the ashes on the oil-stained carpet and picked up a baggie from the table.

“That’s just it. I mean, the guy is completely clean, no one can trace him to anything. That’s why he’s got our ass over a barrel.” Eddie smelled the sticky green weed in the baggie, plucked the end off a thick bud, and packed it into the bowl of the pipe as he spoke. “But we gotta do something.”

“We need to turn the table on him somehow, get everything square again. I mean, this a*shole didn’t do a damned thing but put up the money. We’ve done all the work.”

“Totally.” Eddie nodded and put the pipe to his mouth, sparking the lighter and inhaling with the fluid and graceful motion of a world class dope smoker.

“Hell, it was my property. You got the gear running.” Eli was getting incensed. “I mean, who the f*ck does this guy think he is, threatening us like that?” He took the pipe from Eddie and looked down at it, as though it might know the answer.

Eddie said, “I don’t know man. But he did a damned good job, that’s for sure. He got my attention anyway.”

“Yeah,” Eli mumbled at the carpet and the room went silent. The images ran through their heads: crammed in the cab of the truck speeding down the highway; Ron bitching about getting the operation moving, bitching about the lack of volume, wanting a return on his investment; the argument escalating; then Ron stopping to pick up the hitchhiker and telling him to climb in the back—poor kid, young hippie looking guy, probably only twenty years old, cruising around the country with his backpack—and then Ron turning down the dirt road; pointing his finger at them, threatening to kill them; the hitchhiker getting nervous in the back of the truck and tapping on the window; Eli telling Ron to f*ck off, that he wasn’t the boss; Ron screaming something like, “You wanna bet, you f*cking pussies, watch this shit!”—and climbing out of the truck, getting the bat from under the seat, and taking after the hitchhiker like a lunatic. When another minute had gone by, Eli fired up the pipe. Anything to stop thinking about it.

Eddie finally spoke. “Goddamn,” he said, shaking his head, the shock lighting up his glossy eyes. “I never thought I’d see something like that.”

Eli exhaled slowly and set the pipe on the table. He leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head, hoping to drift off into better thoughts. “I know,” he said. “The guy’s head came apart like a melon.”