Apathy and Other Small Victories Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    “Listen moncheechee, I know we just met, but I can tell things about people. I have this perception.” He cocked his head and listened to the clouds singing as they passed before the sun, but he couldn’t hear them because they were too far away. “I can tell you’re a man who knows how the game is played.”
    “Oh jesus.”
    “What do you say you come up to my apartment and we have a business convo, macho de pucho.”
    “Uh, I can’t. I have to go see my girlfriend. Her name is Gwendolyn.” And in that moment, I loved her dearly.
    “Ha ha, I know how it is my man. Las minas. Minatas! Ha ha ha.” And he laughed at the joke I didn’t know he’d made. “That’s good. That’s good. Stay busy. Keeps you sane. But if you ever need a little something, a little powder, a few pills, you come up to my place. Anytime. You want to get happy, get fucked up, get focused, I’ll show you what they really put in those piñatas!”
    “Uh, what?”
    “I sell fireworks too. M-80s, Roman candles, top of the line army issue shit. You get the downstairs neighbor discount.”
    “That’s fantastic.”
    “There’s a lot you can do in this town, a lot that can happen armurro. You just need to know the right people. Come up anytime. Unless you hear me taking care of some other business. Then you’ve got to wait your turn.”
    And something inside of me died.
    Mobo jerked the leash and dragged little Ivan towards the front door.
    “Till we meet again mamado,” he said, and the door closed behind them.
    And they went up to his apartment, the guinea pig stiffening his tiny legs but unable to put up any real resistance. Mobo whispered several Spanish-sounding gibberish words as he dragged the terrified animal into the boudoir. Then he kissed Ivan harshly on his little mouth, and turned off the lights. And many, many laws of God and man were broken in the darkness.
     
     * * *
     
    “Ahhh, that was so good.”
    It was after sex again and my head was broken. I was definitely bleeding internally. I think my brain was injured. I was having trouble doing simple multiplication. That’s the test I use to gauge head trauma whenever I’m really drunk or I fall down. I’d never had to do it after sex though. I thought 4 × 3 was 8, and 7 × 5 was 200. Fuck.
    Gwen and I had been butting heads like rams. She’d lean over and bang! smack me right in the forehead, then rear back and do it again. She seemed to like it, but I was real dizzy. I was one of those rams that had no horns, a baby ram or a girl ram, so it was just my soft head getting bashed in. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing on that mountain anyway.
    “Ow,” I said, lightly running my fingers over my forehead, looking for the crack in my skull. You would think that after so many sex beatings I’d have been numb to the pain, that I was all scar tissue and fused bone and dead inside, but she always found a way to make it hurt like new.
    She took a breath like she was about to say something, but then she didn’t and I was glad. Then she did anyway.
    “At first, I thought you were just using me,” she said.
    “I definitely am.” I just wasn’t sure for what.
    “Asshole!” she said, and punched me in the side. And she laughed as my kidney began to hemorrhage.
    That’s the beauty of honesty. Everyone’s so unused to hearing it they just assume you’re kidding, and you get to feel very good and forthcoming without suffering any consequences except for traces of blood in your urine for the next day or two.
    “No,” she said, “I was afraid you were just using me to get a position ,” and she waited for me to catch on and chime in with something clever so we could be just like a witty couple on a sitcom. But I was too preoccupied with my internal injuries to play Smothers Brothers. I didn’t need laughs. I needed a doctor.
    “A job I mean,” and she grinned, pleased with herself. “But you’re not, are you.”
    “Ugh,” I said, and I