Like a Dog. Tara Jepsen
take the longest time to pay their bills? And why do they fight their charges more than anyone else?” Wait what is the joke here. “Do you think they just can’t see their bills through all the caviar, Bentleys, ivory figurines, Manolos, Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies, pet jaguars, orchids, vacation home horse farms in Argentina, private jets and blowhards? I wonder if bills for rich people are like human turds in my driveway are for me? Ignore them at first, then hose them down half-heartedly trying not to splash in my face, do an okay job, move on.
“The key is to live like you mean to. Be the hoe you want to dig in the dirt. Keep the raccoons away and call everything that thrives in spite of you what it is: a weed.”
Good night! A career is born. I walk offstage, victorious. I drive home in a beige Toyota Camry. I drink a glass of water and eat a day-old blueberry muffin. Life is mellow and I’m content.
My brother and I are meeting for coffee at a place at Alabama and 21st. He says he has “a proposition” he wants to run by me. I can’t imagine what that could mean. It sounds like the kind of meeting ladies have where they decide to lose weight together. I come in and see him sitting on the back patio with a coffee. I grab one and walk out into the bright, overcast day.
“Loma!” He says, cheery as can be. “I was going to buy you coffee.”
“Beat you to it.”
“So, how’s it going?”
“What? Normal. Why?”
“Have you found a job?”
“Are you serious? Did Mom tell you to ask me that?”
“I have some really cool shit happening right now,” he says with uncharacteristic excitement. “Oliver is helping a couple guys I know start a trim house in Mendo. I’m gonna run it. I mean I’m one of the people running it.”
“Oh. Okay,” I say, as flat as I can. What a stupid piece of news.
“This isn’t just a farm, we’re specifically being commissioned by some famous people whose names I can’t say here. It’s a big deal. We’re going to be growing the best product in California, probably the country.”
“Weed is legal. Why don’t they have an assistant get a card and buy their shit like everyone else does?”
“Tabloids. They don’t want the attention.”
“Snoop Dogg and Seth Rogen don’t seem to have an issue.”
“Yeah but it’s their image and their management is down with that.”
“I thought you hated celebrities.”
“If they want to pay me, no judgment. Especially if they want to back up the money truck like they’re doing now. Oliver and Rigo have been planning this out for the last six months. It’s gonna be tight.”
Rigo is one of Pete’s best friends who he met in jail a few years ago. I’m not entirely clear on why Pete was in there. Seems like it was probably a minor possession bust for heroin or something. I’m the only one in our family who has any enthusiasm for details. I asked my mom and dad what happened this time and they just waved me off, fatigued about the whole thing. Who can blame them? My brother and I are such embarrassments. They would never, ever say that but I know we are. Their friends’ kids did the old-fashioned stuff like getting married young, having kids, and working anachronistic jobs like banker and real estate agent. Things that still pay well and carry a level of stability and prestige with people my parents’ age. Then there’s me and Peter, just dicking around and trying to be “happy.” My great-grandfather worked on the railroad laying ties and busted his body to raise a huge litter of kids alone and give his descendants a new life in this country. If we’re building on that, then it’s in a real lateral way. Maybe more of a spiritually seeking, downwardly mobile way. Which is hard to value when I think about the brutal physical labor of the railroad. We’re just the privileged douches of our generation. Comfortably useless, desperate to be high, terrified to feel anything yet hoping to bond with another human being, valuing animals over people, recycling. I don’t buy organic anything though, I think that stuff is baloney. I think of my dad, languishing in his permanent divot in the couch, napping next to a fleet of pills meant to deal with supposed chronic pain. He was laid off in his early fifties by Sundial, a small software company he helped build that couldn’t afford him because the CEO was supporting a few not-so-secret (except from his wife) boyfriends he had scattered through Silicon Valley. I dare anyone to see my dad’s ongoing emotional k-hole and still think a straight job is any kind of guarantee, or that hard work pays off.
Rigo was in the clink for beating his girlfriend. I hold this against him. I know he’s a repository of secrets about my brother, most of which I’m sure I’m glad I don’t know. Dudes really bond in a special way over their abject shittiness. I suppose life’s donkey moments deserve companionship. I like that Peter has Rigo because he needs a friend who is close to him. But I don’t think they get into the best shit together.
“Hey have you ever thought about what you would do if you died?” Peter abruptly asks. “If I died I would cold kick it with Grandpa Kai all the time. We would go bass fishing in Canada, like in remote lakes where no one visits. Wildlife of all kinds wandering around and not scared of us. Blue skies, clouds, whatever, I wouldn’t care.”
“I would sit next to a waterfall with Joni Mitchell and sing all day and then eat nachos and skate a pool.”
“I’ll skate the pool with you.”
“Cool.”
“But let’s wait a long time until we die,” he says.
“But not too long, because I don’t want to ever feel trapped in my body and just waiting to die. I don’t want to live past seventy-five, eighty tops.”
“Me neither.”
“So why am I here with you talking about your big awesome trim job?”
“I almost forgot! We need someone who can be an actual liaison. Take product to Los Angeles and present to our clients. You’d have to trim for a month first though, just to get to know the plants. Actually, I should just let Rigo tell you about the job.”
“What’s the pay?”
“More than you’ve ever made. Like four hundred a day to trim, more to transport and sell.”
“This is so fucking cool!” I yell, and reach out to high-five him, like the dork I am. A warm wash rolls over my body. I imagine using a machete to lop the top off a giant bottle of champagne. I have no particular passion for or against marijuana but if it means good money, I am fully onboard to be the new pothead in town.
There’s a knock at my bedroom door and Pete pokes his head in. He stayed over last night so we could watch movies.
“How are you doing, my dude?” I wipe my eyes and pull my comforter up. “Come sit.” He climbs on my bed and leans against the wall.
“I’m good.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Your couch is amazing. It’s like sleeping in a pile of creamed corn.”
“Yummy.”
“I’m so stoked we’re going to work together.”
“Me too. Do any women work there?”
“Trim crew is all women. They’re better at it and easier to work with.
“You’ll get no arguments from me on that,” I say.
“I’ve heard a couple bad stories though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I heard a place north of us was robbed and the guys kidnapped one of the trimmers. Kept her hostage, did fucked-up shit. Cops found her dead.”
“Ew, ew, don’t tell me shit like that! I won’t be able to get it out of my head until the day