Angry Buddhist (9781609458867) by Seth Greenland Page B

“Why are we in Mecca?”
    â€œRandall wants to put me where I won’t be seen, Jellybean.”
    â€œYou just call me Jellybean?”
    â€œI’m rhyming is all. Got to rhyme to pass the time. Fuck that anyway. Randall’s hiding me.”
    â€œYou blame him?”
    When Dale doesn’t respond immediately, Jimmy wonders for a moment if he wasn’t a little too blunt. Jimmy announces he’s brought lunch and asks if Dale is hungry. Although he never once visited his brother in prison, it’s as if they talked a day earlier. He takes out a sandwich and tosses it to Dale. “I remember you like tuna, but I hear there’s too much mercury in it now.”
    â€œI can’t eat tuna no more?”
    â€œI got you roast beef. They’re shooting the cattle full of hormones, but what the hell, right? And I got you some beer.” Jimmy flourishes a six-pack of beer. “All for you. I quit drinking.”
    â€œBullshit.”
    â€œSwear to God.”
    Dale laughs. Unlike his charged relationship with Randall, he and Jimmy have an easier rapport, one that comes from each knowing the other will never ask for anything. The brothers chew their sandwiches in silence. Dale considers asking Jimmy why he never came to see him the three years he was in prison. But he decides nothing good could come from that line of inquiry.
    Jimmy cracks open a can of soda. Takes a swig, says: “The Congressman did pretty well by you.”
    â€œYou see this wheelchair he got me,” Dale says, pointing to the contraption now parked several feet from the chair in which he is currently seated. “Motor vehicle is what it is, engine painted red and shit. And he hooked me up selling RVs.”
    â€œWho’s buying RVs now? Price of gas and all.”
    â€œAlls I know is I’m getting paid, likes to be getting laid.”
    â€œBig brother told me to keep an eye on you, check in. Gave me a key to your place. Hope you don’t mind.”
    It bothers Dale that Jimmy has been presented with a key, doesn’t care that a paraplegic might need emergency help, chooses to resent the lack of trust he believes it reflects. But on the surface he is determined to keep it light. “Give me lectures on the straight and narrow, bow and arrow?”
    â€œNo lectures from me. You go right ahead and do what you want. And stop the damn rhyming, please. You’re getting on my nerves.”
    â€œAnd if you catch me, you’ll throw my ass in jail?” Dale pauses, then says: “Then forward all my mail.”
    Jimmy smiles. Can’t help it. He says, “I’m leaving law enforcement in a couple of years, Dale. So if you’re gonna be a fuck-up, I’d appreciate if you’d wait until I was out of the catching fuck-ups business.”
    â€œIt’s a new day, Jimmy Ray.”
    â€œWell, that’s swell.” The word
swell
an ironic hint that he’s not buying what Dale’s selling. Dale misses it. “You want a lift somewhere?”
    â€œLets take a ride to Bombay Beach.”
    This is a speck of a town on the shores of the Salton Sea about twenty-five miles south of Mecca. It is not a place anyone generally asks to be taken. Where Dale would really like to go is Borrego Springs so he can pick up the cash he has stowed, but he doesn’t want to explain to Jimmy what he’s doing in the Wells Fargo bank. He can take a cab.
    â€œWhy you want to go there?”
    â€œTo touch the water.”
    â€œJust roll your ass into the kitchen turn on the tap you want to touch water.” Dale laughs. At least that’s how Jimmy chooses to interpret the soft guttural bark that issues from his throat.
    â€œYou remember the time Dad took us fishing down there?”
    â€œYeah, I must’ve been about twelve. We rowed around in some piece of crap rental boat and I nearly got heat stroke.”
    â€œI used to think about that day while I was in