Don Winslow - Savages

ALSO BY DON WINSLOWThe Dawn PatrolThe Winter of Frankie MachineThe Power of the DogCalifornia Fire and LifeThe Death and Life of Bobby ZIsle of JoyWhile Drowning in the DesertA Long Walk up the Water SlideWay Down on the High LonelyThe Trail to Buddhas MirrorA Cool Breeze on the Underground

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ISBN 978-1-4391-8338-0 (ebook) To Thom Walla.
On or off the ice.Going back to California,
So many good things around.
Dont want to leave California,
The sun seems to never go down.JOHN MAYALL, CALIFORNIASAVAGES

Ophelia says that Chon doesnt have attitude, he has baditude. Its part of his charm, O says. Chon responds that its a muy messed-up daddy who names his daughter after some crazy chick who drowns herself. That is some very twisted wish fulfillment. It wasnt her dad, O informs him, it was her mom. Chuck was 404 when she was born, so Paqu had it her own way and tagged the baby girl Ophelia.

Os mother, Paqu, isnt Indian or anything, Paqu is just what O calls her. Its an acronym, she explains. P.A.Q.U. Passive Aggressive Queen of the Universe. Did your mother hate you? Chon asked her this one time. She didnt hate me, O answered.

She hated having me because she got all fat and stuffwhich for Paqu was five LBs. She popped me and bought a treadmill on the way home from the hospital. Yah, yah, yah, because Paqu is totally SOC R&B. South Orange County Rich and Beautiful. Blonde hair, blue eyes, chiseled nose, and BRMCBBest Rack Money Can Buy (you have real boobs in the 949 youre, like, Amish)the extra Lincoln wasnt going to sit well or long on her hips. Paqu got back to the three-million-dollar shack on Emerald Bay, strapped little Ophelia into one of those baby packs, and hit the treadmill.

Walked two thousand miles and went nowhere. The symbolism is cutting, no? O asked when wrapping the story up. She figures its where she got her taste for machinery. Like, it had to be this powerful subliminal influence, right? I mean Im this baby and theres this steady rhythmic humming sound and buzzers and flashing lights and shit? Come on. Soon as she was old enough to know that Ophelia was Hamlets bipolar little squeeze with borderline issues who went for a one-way swim, she insisted that her friends start calling her just O. They were cooperative, but there are some risks to glossing yourself O, especially when you have a rep for glass-shattering climaxes. She was upstairs at a party one time with this guy? And she started singing her happy song? And they could hear her downstairs over the music and everything.

The techno was pounding but O was coming in like five octaves on top of it. Her friends laughed. Theyd been to sleepovers when O had busted out the industrial-strength lots-o-moving-parts rabbit, so they knew the chorus. Is it live? her bud Ashley asked. Or is it Memorex? O wasnt embarrassed or anything. Came back downstairs all loose and happy and shit, shrugged, What can I say? I like coming.

So her friends know her as O, but her girls tag her Multiple O. Could have been worse, could have been Big O, except shes such a small girl. Five five and skinny. Not bulimic or anorexic like three-quarters of the chicks in Laguna, she just has a metabolism like a jet engine. Burns fuel like crazy. This girl can eat and this girl doesnt like to throw up.

Im pixielike, shell tell you. Gamine. Yeah, not quite. This gamine has Technicolor tatts down her left arm from her neck to her shouldersilver dolphins dancing in the water with golden sea nymphs, big blue breaking waves, bright green underwater vines twisting around it all. Her formerly blonde hair is now blonde and blue with vermilion streaks and she has a stud in her right nostril.

Arent they all, though? What Chon thinks as he looks out at another sunny day. One after the other after the other after the Other. He thinks about Sartre. Bens condo is plunked on a bluff that juts out over Table Rock Beach, and a prettier place youve never seen, which it better be given the zeros that Ben plunked down for it. Table Rock is a big boulder that sits about fifty yardsdepending on the tideinto the ocean and resembles, okay, a table. You dont have to be a Mensa member to figure that out.

The living room in which he sits is all floor-to-ceiling tinted windows so you can drink in every drop of the gorgeous viewoceans and cliffs and Catalina on the horizonbut Chons eyes are glued to the laptop screen. O walks in, looks at him, and asks, Internet porn? Im addicted. Everyones addicted to Internet porn, she says. Including herselfshe likes it a lot. Likes to log on, type in squirters, and check out the clips. Its clich for a guy.

Cant you be addicted to something else? Like? I dunno, she answers. Heroin. Go for the retro thing. HIV? You could get clean needles. She thinks it might be cool to have a junkie lover. When youre done fucking him and dont want to deal with him you just prop him on the floor in the corner.

And theres the whole tragically hip thing. Until that got boring and then she could do the intervention drama and then go visit him at rehab on weekends and when he got out they could go to meetings together. Be all serious and spiritual and shit until that got boring. Then do something else. Mountain biking, maybe. Anyway, Chons thin enough to be a junkie, all tall, angular, muscledlooks like something put together from junkyard metal.

Sharp edges. Her friend Ash says you could cut yourself fucking Chon, and the cunt probably knows. I texted you, O says. I didnt check. Hes still eyeing the screen. Must be hot hot hot, she thinks.

About twenty seconds later he asks, What did you text? That I was coming over. Oh. She doesnt even remember when John became Chon and shes known him practically all his life, since like preschool. He had baditude even then. Teachers hated Chon.