The Kings Of Cool

147

John watches the wave roll toward him.

First of a set.

Thick, bottom-heavy.

He starts to paddle into it, then changes his mind-like fuck it, it’s too much work-and duck-dives through the lip of the wave.

Bobby Z sits on the other side.

Bobby Zacharias, like John, one of the younger members of the Association. Ultra laid-back, ultra cool, moves literally tons of Maui Wowi from the Best Coast to the Least Coast, lighting up Times Square like it ain’t never been lit up before.

John slides down the backface.

“Didn’t want it?” Bobby asks him.

“I guess not.”

They didn’t come out here to surf, they came out to talk away from the eyes and ears of too-cozy Laguna, away from the binocs and microphones of the DEA and the local heat, and, let’s face it — hard to keep a wire dry in the water.

Not because they don’t trust each other, but because they don’t trust anybody.

Sign o’ the times.

The seventies are cooked.

The silly season is over.

You don’t think so, ask Jimmy Carter. You don’t believe Jimmy, ask Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan.

Say it again Ronald Reagan.

President Ronald Reagan, and that cowboy was ready to scrub Iran off his map like it was mustard on his tie, and ayatollahs couldn’t wait to give back those hostages when Ronnie got the news to them that either the hostages go to Germany or Germany comes to Tehran in the form of the 101st Airborne armed with nuclear-tipped. 44 Magnums.

Make my day.

Do you feel lucky, Khomeini?

Apparently not 444 and out.

Like, we ain’t fuckin’ around anymore

We like dusting people off.

We don’t drink the Kool-Aid, we put our boot on your chest and pour the Kool-Aid down your fucking throat.

Reagan, like all American trends, came out of California. The country migrated out to the West Coast, got closed out by the shore break, and now it’s all backwash. Dig it, it has nowhere else to go but back.

It’s business now, baby, it’s the eighties, it’s you do not fuck with the money, you don’t lust in your heart-you lust in your portfolio, Gordon Gecko ain’t quite there yet but he’s on his way, he ain’t heavy he’s my brother-bull shit, that fat lazy chucking-down-the — Quarter-Pounders-like-they’re-Necco-Wafers-motherfucker is heavy, he’s obese, and you ain’t carrying him anywhere, he can drag his own lard-ass into the gym, or not, whatever, he’s OHO

— On His Own Didn’t he listen? What did he have, cotton in his ears? Didn’t he hear the Great Communicator communicate that we’re back to the good old mythical days of

Rugged Individualism?

You drive your own Forty-Mule Team (not to be mistaken for forty acres and a mule-that’s for, you know, them) of Borax across the economic desert, you stand tall on your own two feet.

Commune?

Commune with my ass.

And trust?

I got your trust for you right here, motherfucker.

Unless you’re talking trust fund, keep trust out of your mouth, baby. “Trust”-the verb-is mostly for the past tense, as in

“I trusted him”

— ex-wife

“I trusted her”

— ex-husband

“I trusted him”

— guy sitting in the hole after selling dope to a trusted friend who had a mike taped to his shaven chest hence John and Bobby meet out in the ocean, where neither one of them can wear a wire. They let the next wave roll under them, then Bobby says, “I heard that Doc got busted.”

“Bullshit,” John says.

If Doc got popped, he’d tell me.

Wouldn’t he?

“I hear it’s federal,” Bobby says. “Serious weight, serious time.”

John knows that Bobby’s concern isn’t for Doc’s welfare.

“Doc wouldn’t flip,” John says. Even if he would, John can’t help thinking, Doc can’t trade up. He’s on the top of the pyramid, and the feds don’t trade down.

Bobby’s ahead of him. “Maybe the cops would go for quantity over quality. How many guys could Doc give up?”

The answer is a lot, but John doesn’t care how many, he cares who.

Like him.

“If Doc’s looking at fifteen years,” Bobby says, “maybe he gives us all up instead. Maybe he gives them the whole Association.”

“That’s not Doc.”

“That’s not the old Doc,” Bobby answers. “The new Doc…”

He leaves it hanging.

Doesn’t need to finish. John knows what he means.

Doc has changed.

Okay, who hasn’t, but Doc has changed. He isn’t the Doc you knew in the old days, springing for tacos. He isn’t the “this pie is big enough for everybody” Doc-he’s the “this pie is big enough for Doc” Doc.

It’s coke.

Coke isn’t grass.

Grass makes you mellow, coke makes you paranoid.

Grass inhibits your ambition, coke makes you want to be King of Everything.

Which is what Doc seems to want. More and more John hears Doc using the first-person possessive pronoun-singular-more and more he hears him use “my” instead of “our.” It’s Woodstock to Altamont-this ain’t our stage, asshole, it’s my stage. And you don’t come on my stage.

And Doc is starting to treat the Association like it’s his stage.

To be fair, other guys are getting weird, too. Mike, Glen, Duane, Ron, Bobby-all the Association guys are getting hinky with each other, starting to quarrel over territory, customers, suppliers. Guys who used to share the same wave can’t share the coke business.

And narcs love that. They exist on the divide-and-conquer, it’s their bread and butter. And now they’ve busted Doc?

“We don’t know if it’s true,” John says.

“Can we take the chance?” Bobby asks. “Look, even if it isn’t true this time, it’s going to be true the next. The way Doc’s going, it’s not if, it’s when. And you know that, John.”

John doesn’t answer.

The last wave of the set rolls through.