Page 96 of The Slayer
“How long you been using?”
“’Bout that long.”
“Ay Dios mio, Tino. Go home,” Chuito told him with a wince of sympathy. “You do not want to crash here. Especially when you’re already pissed off at the world. Get off it slowly.”
Tino shook his head at that. “I can’t get off it at home.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“’Cause I have to do shit at home that makes me want to keep using it,” Tino snapped at him. “If I’m not dealing and I’m not an accountant, what the fuck do you think I do for the administration?” He pulled off the side of the road and turned off the car. Then he dropped his head to the steering wheel. “Just forget everything I just said.”
“No, it’s cool.” Chuito forgot about the car for a moment and admitted, “We got the same specialty. Don’t worry about it.”
“I thought you were a car thief?”
“I stole cars ’cause it got my dick hard,” Chuito said with a laugh. “I killed motherfuckers because I wasreallygood at revenge.”
“I promised Nova I’d stay. At least for a little while,” Tino whispered, accepting his explanation without flinching, as if murder and revenge was the same as talking about the weather. “I hate leaving him. They don’t have his back like I do.”
“My cousin’s in deep in Miami. We grew up together. It sucks,” Chuito agreed. “He won’t move here.”
“How bad’s the crash gonna be?”
“Since you were twelve?”
“Took me a while to get up to cocaine,” Tino mumbled, his head still against the steering wheel. “But then it just got easier to do it.”
“I get it.” Chuito sighed as he looked at him. “How often?”
“Three or four times a day.”
“Coño.” Chuito closed his eyes as he remembered getting blitzed that often. “Can your brother send you more?”
Tino shook his head. “I don’t want to ask him to do that. The blow upsets him. He thinks it’s his fault.”
“Is it?”
“No.” Tino sounded certain of it. “It’s my fault. He rides it out without anything but fucking cigarettes, and I’m getting loaded every chance I can get. I mean, granted, he did roll his ass off for a few years, but then he just walked away from it like it was nothing.”
“How much do you have left?”
“Not much.” Tino flinched as he said it. “I left it behind on purpose. I needed to get far enough away that I couldn’t get back.”
“Romeo’s gonna notice,” Chuito assured him. “’Cause you’re gonna feel like you want to die, especially if you got half as many bad memories as I do.”
“I gotta lotta bad memories.”
“When you crash, tell him you’re coming to hang at my place for a couple days.” Chuito hit his arm lightly. “I got your back, bro.”
“No, it’s okay.” Tino tilted his head on the steering wheel. “I think I can ride it out.”
“Well, if you can’t. Come see me.” Chuito gave him another smile. “I’ll do what I can to help.”
Tino considered that for a moment before he looked at him again. “Do you wanna drive it?”
“Oh, fuck, yes.” Chuito opened the door before Tino could change his mind. He walked around the front of the car and gestured to Tino. “Move, motherfucker. Let a real man drive her.”
Tino laughed as he crawled over and sat in the passenger seat. When Chuito got into the driver’s side, Tino warned him, “I do have blow on me. So if you could keep me from getting picked up on possession in this backward town, I’d appreciate it.”
