PIGGS - A Novel with Bonus Screenplay (12 page)

See there you go again, not planning or thinking, just letting shit flow through your head...

What did he think he was doing, running off to do dirty stuff with French babes, leaving Gloria behind?
 
He didn't want girls like that, he wanted her.
 
Jesus, what would she think, he did a thing like that?
 
It'd break her fucking heart, and they hadn't even had a date yet, hadn't even gone for pie.

Jack felt awful, and promised he'd make it up to her somehow.
 
If he had to, he'd hold up a 7-Eleven, which would be a fucking chore. The way they did now, dumping cash right in the safe soon as some fucker gave them a twenty dollar bill, he might have to do three or four.

If he had to, he would.
 
He wondered if Ortega would let him borrow his car.
 
He'd have to say it was medical, something like that.
 
Jack didn't like to lie to friends, but he didn't know Ortega that well, and who else would let him have a car?

J
ack dreams about Cecil and Grape.
 
They're talking, and Jack can hear everything they say.
 
It's like he's a fly or something, sitting on the wall.
 
He doesn't have to listen real hard, so maybe flies can hear better than we know.

"...So the fucking kid's calling, Junior himself, he's getting on the phone.
 
I'm thinking, this little shit's not smart enough to dial, find the numbers on the phone."

"Junior, the old man's kid, he's calling, he's calling on the phone."

"What the fuck I tell you, Grape?
 
I say the kid, he's calling on the phone.
 
He's all upset, he's whining, you know, he's whining like a kid."

"Fucking little kid."

"That's what I'm saying.
 
Fucking little kid.
 
He's telling me the cops got Kenny Hutt.
 
Kenny's in serious shit, they got him in Liberty County, they got him in the lockup there, they're finding some stiffs in his trunk, the guy's are in a fucking rental car.
 
This is all my fault, the kid's saying, I gotta do something, I got to get him out."

"Hutt Kenny, that's who we're talking 'bout here."

"What did I say?"

"Nothing, it's Hutt Kenny is all, it's not Kenny Hutt."

"I give a fuck? I give a fuck, some asshole from Maine or Vermont, he's got a Kenny and a Hutt?"

"This has got to do with Cat.
 
I'm thinking it's got to do with Cat."

"It's got to do with Cat.
 
Why am I telling you this, you know what it's all about?
 
I'm putting this kid on hold, I'm looking for Cat, Cat's jackin' off somewhere.
 
I'm saying, 'Cat, who's the other dude in the trunk, what the fuck's he doing in there?'
 
'Guy was pissin' onna wall,' Cat says, 'he shouldn't oughta do that.'"

"I hear him say that, I think I'm going to piss on myself.
 
I'm trying not to laugh, I don't like to laugh, anything's got to do with Cat."

"You want to laugh, Grape, go ahead and laugh.
 
Cat breaks your legs, I'm going to stand and watch."

"I told you, I'm not going to laugh.
 
Not if it's got to do with Cat."

"I wouldn't, I was you."

"So you get back on the phone, you're talking to the kid."

"I get back on the phone, I'm telling the kid I don't know what he's talking about, I got nothing to do with what his guy's got in his trunk, and you shouldn't be telling me shit like this you're talking onna phone.
 
I'm hanging up, he's calling back."

"I heard him calling back."

"He's saying, the phone's okay, I don't got to worry 'bout that.
 
I'm saying, I'm glad to hear this, I'm worried anyway, I'm talking to a klutz like him.
 
I tell him, fuck Kenny Hutt, fuck a guy wears a collar don't match his shirt.
 
I'm saying, you want to sell your product, send me up a guy don't got any tassels on his shoes. Send me a guy, he's got a little respect."

"Hutt Kenny, that fuck, he don't know about respect."

"That's what I'm saying, that's what I'm telling fucking Ambrose Junior, Junior says wait a minute, I know he's talking to somebody else."

"He don't know what he's doing, he's talking to somebody else."

"That's what he's doing, it's not his old man, his old man's got troubles with his dick.
 
He's coming back, then, he's saying, 'I'm sending a guy.
 
He'll look okay, he won't be dressing like Hutt.
 
But we still got to do a partial, Mr. Dupree, and don't take offense at that.'

"I tell him fuck the partial, you little prick.
 
You want all the pay, you bring all the shit.
 
Keep it, you don't want to do that."

"You're hanging up on the kid."

"I'm hanging up, the kid isn't calling back."

"He'll send a guy, he's not backing out."

"Fucking guy's in his car right now, Grape, you can bet on that.
 
Junior's a prick, but he's his old man's kid.
 
He ain't about to back up."

"Fucking guy's on his way.
 
The kid wants the deal, he isn't backing out."

"What did I say?
 
What did I fucking say just now?
 
Get me somethin' to eat, I don't want nothing Chink, get me something else.
 
And get that fucker Jack.
 
You find him, I don't care where the fuck he is, I want him here, I want him now, you get that little shit back to Piggs..."

"E
ver'body they lookin' for you, mahn.
 
Grape he coming here talking to me.
 
Where the fock
 
Jhack is?
 
I am saying, how the fock I know, Grape he hitting me beside the head, you see?
 
I getting hitted for you, Jhack.
 
Don' be coming here, dey hitting me some more, I don' liking dat."

Jack didn't listen.
 
He sat on the floor, hunched in the corner, scrooched in the corner in the kitchen at Wan's, squatted in the corner stuffing rice in his mouth, rice from last night or the night before that, shoveling that rice, gulping water from a glass, rice falling out of the corners of his mouth.

"Mahn, you making me sick, you know dhat?" Ahmed said, "I am raised in the focking desert, we got better manner than dat. What you do, man, pissing ever'body off, why these som'bitches lookin' for you?"

"Rhino coming in?
 
I don't want to be here, he's coming in.
 
Rhino going to go right to Cecil, tell him where I am."

"Me, I am going to Cecil, tell him where you are, you don' get outta here.
 
Gimme the bowl, you got enough of thees crap.
 
You going to be 'sploding like a boomb, you know dat?
 
You know what is happen, dey throwin' rice at the weddings?
 
The pigeons is eating the rice, dey drinkin' some'ting, dey 'sploding.
 
Jus' like dat."

"That's rice hasn't been cooked, you fucking raghead.
 
If it was, 'bout a million fuckin' chinks's be exploding every day."

"I am cooking Al Denny.
 
You cooking dat way, you hardly cookin' at all."

"I never heard of nothin' like that."

"This is because you a fockin' waiter an a deeshwasher, Jhack.
 
Fockin' waiter don' have to know 'bout Al Denny or nothin' else.
 
Gotta carry plates an' shit, dat is all you got to know."

"I kicked Cat in the balls.
 
Last night at Piggs.
 
I didn't mean to but I did."

"Shit, man..."
 
Ahmed slammed his hands against his head, slammed his head twice.
 
Rolled his eyes, did his Arab act, said "faya-baba-daba," or words to that effect.

"This is a bad t'ing to do, I t'ink he goin' to kill you for dat.
 
This is what they doing in my country, mahn, only there doin' it twice."

Jack was beginning to think Ahmed was right.
 
All that rice, he was swelling up fast. Not to the point of explosion, but close enough to throw up, or something worse than that.

"You ever been to Canada?
 
I'm thinking another country's the way to go now."

"I am t'ink you maybe right," Ahmed said.
 
He washed Jack's bowl and put it on a stack.
 
Anybody wants to look, nobody's used a bowl, all the bowls are in a stack.

"I t'ink I would go somewhere else.
 
Is fockin' cold in Canada.
 
I am t'inking Whatamala, mahn."

"What?"

"Whatamala.
 
Is hot, mahn, you don' freeze you ass off, you got a beach down there."

"I don't think so.
 
Everyone down there's a Mescan or something close. I wouldn't like it at all."

Ahmed laughed.
 
When he laughed, Jack could see his bad teeth.
 
He could understand that.
 
You wouldn't have a lot dentists, out in the desert like that.
 
You're a dentist, you can do a lot better nearly anywhere else.

"What you don' like, Jhack, is people who maybe got a name like Ricky Chavez, somethin' like dat.
 
Maybe someone got a bank or somet'ing, is liking someone you are liking too."

"Hey, just can that kind of talk, okay?"
 
 
Jack pulls himself up off the floor, which isn't easy, his stomach is cramping up fast.

"I thought we was some kind of friends, Ahmed.
 
I'm not talking 'bout friends that like each other, I'm talking the other kind that don't."

"I t'ink that's what we got."

"Yeah, well you don't show it much.
 
I come here thinking I can maybe talk to somebody, all I'm getting is rice ain't even hardly cooked.
 
That and shit 'bout Ricky Chavez and that other part I don't appreciate."

"Don' be getting you hair up in the air, Jhack.
 
You maybe t'inkin, Ahmed, who is not my friend, he is tellin' Cecil, he is tellin' Cat, Jhack is livin' in the doggie place, he is livin' under Piggs.
 
You t'ink I tellin' them dat?
 
You hurting my feelings, Jhack, an' I don' 'preciate that."

"What?
 
I ain't living in no dog place, what you talking about?"

"Hey, I see you comin' out the hole, like the rhabeet or somet'in, Jhack.
 
I know there is the Gino's Fine Fish Restaurante before the Piggs, and the Sunset Vet before dat.
 
I know these t'ing because I am cook for the Gino's and putting the puppy dog to sleeping at the vet.
 
I am feel so very sad, I am doing that.

"Don' be tellin' me what's where an' what's not.
 
De places is changing, but Ahmed is not.
 
I am being here all the time, Jhack."

"Jesus," Jack said.
 
He wished his belly didn't hurt so bad, he'd whack the fucking Arab right there, see if Ortega would loan him the car, take off right now.
 
Fuck Ortega if he didn't like it, he'd whack the Swede greaser too.
 
And while he's thinking, Ahmed's thinking too, and he's gone, vanished, out the kitchen door, leaving Jack no better off than he was before...

G
loria Mundi sits in the pilot's seat of the Junkers JU-52. She rests her hands easy on the wheel, which is just like the wheel of a Ford or a Buick or any other car, except the upper part's gone
 
It isn't broken, it's simply not there.
 
 
Beside her, to her right, is another seat, with another wheel, just like the one in front of her.
 
This is where the co-pilot sat.
 
Gloria is certain the steering wheel's made like this to help the pilots see.
 
She's taller than the average girl, and it's still hard to see out the front or out the sides. It's cramped in there, and everything's small.

It was surely cramped for Hauptmann Wilhelm Klass, who was six feet three, and a good hundred eighty two pounds. All this Gloria figured from the way Germans measure things, which is not the same as ours.
 
Gloria looked it up in the library over to Luling one day.
 
The lady there gave her a look, and said she remembered the war, and wondered why an Americans would want to know stuff like that.

Gloria didn't mind, she was plenty used to that.
 
Her daddy hadn't built the
BATTLE OF BRITUN
FAMILY FUN PARK
to show off German skills in the air.
 
He'd built it to show those Kraut motherfuckers they'd lost.
 
Daddy had other colorful descriptions but that was his favorite of all.