Jim Gavin - Middle Men - Stories

“ Muy bien ,” said Larry, once everything was sorted. “How’s everything else going?”

“Business is good right now,” said Fred. He waved his arm around the office. “The Lord’s really blessed us.”

“I know how that goes,” said Larry. “As long as we’re talking that…” Larry folded his arms. “The other day I caught my stepson on the computer looking at things he shouldn’t be looking at. Some really nasty stuff. Nasty, nasty stuff.”

Fred, looking genuinely aggrieved, shook his head.

“Six or seven dudes with their business out,” said Larry, “and there’s one chick in the middle, just going for it.”

The giant Tuiolosega boys looked up from their phones.

“I’ve got the new Brentford catalogue if you want it,” said Matt.

“So we had a talk,” Larry continued, “and the next day, all on his own, he went down to our church and told the pastor he wanted to rededicate himself to Christ.”

“Good for him,” said Fred. “It’s easy for kids to get screwed up these days.”

As a gesture of dismissal, Fred handed Larry and Matt his card.

Larry reached into his fanny pack and took out a colorful bundle of cards and loose scraps of paper. “Let me upload you into the system here,” he said, placing Fred’s card on top.

“I’m out of cards,” mumbled Matt. “I’ll go grab one.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Fred, walking them out.

Back in the car, Larry took a deep breath. “I think I fucked that up.”

“It’s okay,” said Matt. “I’ll check in with them later this week.”

“Sometimes the mouth moves faster than the brain,” said Larry. “But at least I was talking. You can’t just stand there like that. You gotta open your damn mouth.”

• • •

They got on the 710 north, a blind and savage freeway. The lanes were choked with freight trucks coming up from the harbor. Matt’s Kia was dwarfed on all sides by smoke-belching eighteen-wheelers. Shadows crept over him and he lost sight of the sky. The farther he got from the coast, the more claustrophobic he felt. Driving inland was like being lowered into a pit.

Larry, rummaging through the glove compartment for a tissue, found a battered copy of Catch-22 . It was one of the few books Matt had saved from high school and he had picked it up recently.

“I never read this,” Larry said, flipping the pages. “Is it good?”

“It’s fucking great!” Matt heard his voice go up an octave; he coughed and tried to take it down a notch. “My dad read it while he was in Vietnam. Can you believe that?”

“I used to read a ton on the road. All that legal thriller crap.”

“I’ve read a bunch of Grishams,” said Matt.

“What’s your favorite?”

“I don’t know,” said Matt, trying to remember which one was which.

“ A Time to Kill is his best book,” said Larry, “and can I tell you why in two words: Matthew-fucking-what’s-his-name. He’s a great actor when he wants to be.” Larry examined his bloody hand. “Did you read The Bridges of Madison County ?”

“Sort of.” Matt thought of all the crappy books on tape his mom listened to during her chemo sessions and he thought of all the Sandra Bullock romantic comedies they watched together at home in the afternoons. He’d squirm during the melodramatic parts. She often wondered aloud how she and her husband, with twelve credits of junior college between them, had managed to raise children who were such snobs. But now, whenever he saw one of those terrible movies on cable, he’d watch it, waiting for the melodramatic parts where she used to choke up. It was a sick way to make himself cry.

“I think Meryl Streep shows her tits in that,” said Larry, lighting a cigarette. “But for my money, Crimson Tide is the best movie ever made.”

“I’d probably disagree with you there,” said Matt.

“David Spade hasn’t been in anything good in a while,” continued Larry, connecting a mysterious series of dots. “Not since Three Amigos .”

“He’s not in that,” said Matt, with a sudden note of authority in his voice.

“Who am I thinking of?”

“I don’t know.”

“David Spade. He was on Just Kill Me , right?”

“ Just Shoot Me . Right.”

“He was also in the other thing. With Pauly Shore and the other guy.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“What movie am I thinking of?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it Valley Dude ?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He wasn’t in Valley Dude ?”

“I don’t think that’s an actual movie.”

“I think I’m thinking of what’s-his-name. The other guy.”

These were the kind of looping and erroneous cultural discussions Matt tended to have with his mom. He had a sudden urge to write it all down, every pointless word.

They were passing over the lost industrial cities of Bell, Cudahy, and Vernon, a flatulent corridor of derelict foundries and abandoned railroad spurs. In the distance, through the bright, murky haze, the downtown buildings looked like they were sitting in a jar of formaldehyde.

“I miss the road,” Larry said. “I miss the action.”

“The driving gets to me,” admitted Matt.

“Yeah, but it’s better than being holed up in some office.”

• • •

They made a brief stop in City of Commerce to see Ron Ciavacco at Five Star, but his sister, Valerie, who did all the purchasing, explained that Ron was at a doctor’s appointment. He hadn’t been feeling well. Without looking up from the invoice pile she was sorting, she coughed and said, “His heart.”

Matt drove east on Washington and then took Soto north toward Boyle Heights. After spending the morning on the freeway, circling through lifeless industrial zones, it was nice to see people on the street, waiting at bus stops, pushing strollers, crowding around the frutas frescas men. They passed the old Sears distribution center, a giant art deco relic. Larry had him turn left and they came to an empty road that ran alongside the stark, geometric banks of the Los Angeles River. The sloping concrete walls absorbed the sunlight and pulsed with an alien phosphorescent whiteness. Matt turned away from the hypnotic glare and saw a dead rooster in the middle of the street.

“Chupacabras,” said Larry.

They passed a series of vandalized warehouses and came finally to a long cinder-block fence crowned with barbed wire. A dozen or so cars were parked on the street. They got out and Larry removed the Hawaiian shirts from his briefcase.

“Do you want hula girls or palm trees?”

“Hula girls.”

“Take the palm trees. The hula girls is kind of tacky.”

Farther down, a couple plumbers wearing bandannas, cut-off Dickies, and bright red Hawaiian shirts walked through the gate, each with a twelve-pack under his arm. The air was filled with acrid smoke.

Going through the gates, they passed a dark, lanky bald man with a thick mustache. He was leaning heavily against a stack of pallets, trying without success to pour a bottle of Bacardi into a can of Coke. He lifted his head and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Larry’s shirt. “Brentford sucks!”

“What did you say?” said Larry.

“Your ballcocks are fucked, man!”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“That’s Mike Melendez,” said Matt. “He’s the Kenner rep.”

“Fuck Brentford!”

“I don’t have to listen to this.” Larry unzipped his fanny pack and took out a gun.

“Jesus Christ,” said Matt.

“Don’t worry,” Larry told him. “It’s loaded.”

Matt couldn’t take his eyes off the gun. He felt, instinctively, that if he turned away, a bullet would rip open the back of his skull and his body would be dumped in the river. Mike, for his part, was not impressed. He made a dismissive propeller sound with his lips and took a swig of his Bacardi and Coke. “Whatever,” he said, shuffling away.