The Kings Of Cool

46

John doesn’t want to go home.

“You can’t live in the cave year round,” Doc says. Like, September through October would probably be fine, but then the weather changes and Laguna gets cold and damp at night. But cold and damp is exactly how John would describe the atmosphere at his house, his mother being remote and, more often than not, drunk.

What happens is, John moves mostly into Doc’s house.

It’s a gradual thing-John comes after school and hangs out, stays for the big spaghetti dinners, everybody gets stoned, John falls asleep on the couch or in one of the three bedrooms with one of the chicks who make up what is basically Doc’s harem.

After a while, John is just there, a fixture, a mascot.

Doc’s puppy.

He goes surfing with Doc, he helps Doc pass out tacos, he gradually comes to understand where Doc’s money comes from.

Dope.

Just hanging out, John gets an idea what the Association is and who they are. The boys make thinly veiled references around him to their runs down to Mexico and the bigger expeditions to South Asia.

One day John tells Doc, “I want in.”

“In on what?”

“You know,” John says.

Doc gives him that charismatic, crooked grin and says, “You’re fourteen.”

“Almost fifteen,” John says.

Doc looks him over. John is your basic grem, but there’s something special about him-the kid has always been this little adult-the chicks around the place sure as hell treat him like a grown-up-and he’s not so little anymore.

And Doc has a problem maybe John can help him with.

Money.

Doc has too much of it.

Well, not too much money per se-nobody has Too Much Money-but too much cash in small denominations.

So now you have to catch this image John skateboarding to banks in Laguna, Dana Point, and San Clemente with a backpack full of singles, fives, and tens that Doc gets from his street sales. John walking into the bank and exchanging the small bills for wrapped stacks of fifties and hundreds.

And John knows which tellers to go to, which ones get birthday presents and Christmas bonuses from Doc.

And if the cops see a skinny kid with long brown hair, a T-shirt, and board trunks pushing his street board along the sidewalk, he’s just one of dozens of pain-in-the-ass skateboarders, and it doesn’t occur to them that this one has thousands and thousands of dollars slung over his shoulder.

Some kids have paper routes-John has cash routes.

Doc kicks him fifty bucks a day.

Life is good.

John puts up with school, does his route, gets his fifty, goes back to the house, and slips into bed with girls who are now more often in their twenties than in their late teens and who are giving him an education he can’t get in the classroom.

Yeah, life is good.

But it could be better.