Savages

don’t want to work for these guys, do you?” Ben asks.
    “No,” Chon says. “Let me rephrase that—fuck no.”
    “Then we don’t,” Ben says. “I mean, they can’t
force
us to grow herb.”
    He appreciates the irony, though, that the Mexicans basically want to turn them into field workers. Plant, grow, and harvest their crop for them. He digs the reverse colonialism of it, but it just isn’t his thing.
    Chon looks back at the suite. “We could just kill them both. Get this party started.”
    “Buddha would be so pissed.”
    “That fat Jap.”
    “Fat Indian.”
    “I thought he was Japanese,” Chon says. “Or Chinese. Some ‘ese.’”
    “Indianese.”
    They walk back to the room.

59
     
    Ben’s fucking had it.
    Reached the limits of his hydrocrisy.
    Goes off on a rant:
    Let’s cut the shit, shall we? You guys are here at the behest of an organization that cut off seven people’s heads, and you’re talking like you’re from Goldman Sachs? You represent a regime that murders and tortures and you sit here and lecture me about my business practices? You’re going to increase profits by coercing me to sell at a low price—that’s all, that’s your genius “business plan”—and now you want me to eat your shit and call it caviar? You can put a thug in an expensive suit and what you get is a well-dressed thug, so let’s not pretend that this is anything other than what it is, extortion.
    Nevertheless—
    You want our marijuana business? You got it.
    We can’t fight you, don’t want to fight you. We surrender.
    Hasta la.
    Vaya con.
    AMF.
    (
Adios
, motherfuckers.)

60
     
    Alex turns to Chon. “What do
you
have to say?”
    Oh come on.
    Come
onnnn.
    We
know
what Chon has to say.
    We’ve covered that already.

61
     
    It’s the baditude.
    His beatitude.

62
     
    O is at—
    South Coast Plaza.
    The Mecca and Medina of SOC consumerism where retail pilgrims pay homage at a multitude of shrines:
    Abercrombie & Fitch, Armani, Allen Schwartz and Allen Edmonds, Aldo shoes, Adriano Goldschmied, American Eagle and American Express, Ann Taylor and Anne Fontaine
    Baccarat, Bally, Balenciaga, Bang & Olufsen, Bank of America, Banana Republic (you can’t make this shit up)
    Bloomingdale’s, Borders, Brooks Brothers, Brook
stone
, Bulgari
    Caché, (speaking of which) Cartier, Céline, Chanel, Chloé, Christian Dior
    Claim Jumper
    De Beers, Del Taco (what the fuck is
that
doing in there), the DisneyStore, DKNY, Dolce & Gabbana
    Emilio Pucci, Ermenegildo Zegna, Escada
    Façonnable, Fendi, Fossil, Fresh (no, seriously)
    Godiva, Gucci, Guess
    Hermès, Hugo Boss
    J.Crew, J. Jill, Jimmy Choo, Johnston & Murphy, Justice (uh-huh)
    La Perla, Lacoste, Lalique, Limited (sans irony)
    Louis Vuitton
    Macy’s, McDonald’s (see Taco, Del), Miu Miu (what the fuck?), Montblanc
    New Balance, Nike, Nordstrom
    Oilily, Optica, Origins, Oscar de la Renta
    Piaget, Pioneer, Porsche Design, Prada, Pure Beauty (yup)
    Quiksilver (surfing sells out; ambiguity intentional)
    Ralph Lauren, Rangoni Firenze, Restoration Hardware, Rolex, Room and Board (again, without irony)
    Saks, Salvatore Ferragamo, Sassoon, Sears (Sears?), Smith & Hawken, Sony, Sunglass Hut, Sur La Table, Swatch
    Talbots, Teen Vogue, The Territory Ahead, Tiffany, Tinder Box (no shit, the fire
this
time)
    Valentino, Van Cleef, Versace, Victoria’s Secret, Victoria’s Secret
Beauty
    Wahoo’s Fish Taco (see “surfing sells out”), Williams-Sonoma, Wolfgang Puck
    Yves Saint Laurent
    Zara
    And a score of lesser saints.

63
     
    O is one of the worshippers.
    Would be a daily communicant if she had the cash. Did we say the girl loves to shop? Did we say that the girl maybe
lives
to shop? We’re not slamming O; she’d tell you so herself.
    “I shop,” she said to Ben one time after maxing out her card, “because there is nothing else to do. I have no job, no serious interests, no purpose in life, really. So I buy stuff. It’s something that I can do and it makes me feel better.”
    “You’re filling the internal void with external things,” Ben said.
    (Sanctimonious Baddhist.)
    “There you go,” O said. “I don’t adore myself, so I
adorn
myself.”
    “You can’t replace your absent father’s love or gain your suffocating mother’s approval with material acquisitions,” Ben said.
    (Annoying child of two psychotherapists.)
    “That’s what the
paid
shrink said,” O responded. “But I can’t seem to locate the Absent Father’s Love and