Savages

45

Ben gently untangles himself from her moist arms.

Gets out of bed, puts on his jeans and shirt, and steps into the living room. Through the big window he sees Chon sitting out on the deck. Ben goes to the fridge, grabs two Coronas, and goes out.

Hands Chon a beer, leans against the white metal railing, asks, “Good swim?”

“Yeah.”

“No sharks?”

“Not that I saw.”

No surprise—sharks are afraid of Chon. Predators recognize each other.

Ben says, “We make the deal.”

“Mistake.”

“What,” Ben says. “You worried their dick is bigger than our dick now?”

“Our dick?”

“Okay, our dicks. Our collective dick. Our joint dick.”

“Redundant,” Chon says. “Let’s just keep our dicks separate.”

“Okay, they won,” Ben says. “And what did we lose? We got out of a business we want to get out of anyway. I’m telling you, Chon, I’m bored with it. Time to move on. Next.”

“They think we’re afraid of them.”

“We are.”

“Separate dicks?” Chon says. “I’m not.”

“We’re not all you,” Ben says. “We don’t all chew up and spit out fifteen terrorists before breakfast. I don’t want a war. I didn’t get into this thing to fight wars, kill people, get people killed, get their heads lopped off. This used to be a pretty mellow gig, but if it’s going to get to this level of savagery, forget it. I don’t want to be a part of it. They think we’re afraid of them? Who fucking cares? This isn’t fifth grade, Chon.”

Yeah, it isn’t, Chon thinks. It isn’t a pride thing, an ego thing, or a dick thing.

Ben just doesn’t get how these people think. He can’t wrap his rational head around the reality that these people will interpret his reasonableness as weakness. And when they see weakness, when they smell fear, they attack.

They pour it on.

But Ben will never get that.

“We can’t beat the cartel in a shooting war, the math just doesn’t pencil,” Ben says.

Chon nods. He has guys he could recruit, good people who can take care of business, but the BC has an army. Still, what are you going to do? Grab the KY, bend over the railing? Prison love?

“This was just a way of making a living,” Ben says. “My balls aren’t attached to it. We have some money stashed. Cook Islands, Vanuatu … We can live comfortably. Maybe it’s time to put our focus somewhere else.”

“Bad time for a start-up, Ben.”

The market a bobsled run. The credit stream a barranca. Consumer confidence at an all-time low. End of capitalism as we know it.

“I’m thinking alternative energy,” Ben says.

“Windmills, solar panels, that kind of shit?”

“Why not?” Ben asks. “You know how they’re making those fourteen-dollar laptops for kids in Africa? What if you could make a ten-dollar solar panel? Change the fucking world.”

Ben still doesn’t get—

—Chon thinks—

—that you don’t change the world.

It changes you.

For example—