Savages

left, toward the aft. Swims to the ladder and holds on to a rung as he opens the bag and takes out the pistol.
    One clip—nine rounds.
    Nine oughta do it.
    He climbs on board.

105
     
    They give O more OxyContin.
    They don’t have to force it down her throat, either, she’s glad to take it.
    Because she’s fucking terrified, right?
    She doesn’t know where she is, she doesn’t know what they’re going to do with her, she has images of floating heads floating around her head.
    You sit on a bed in a small locked room for hours and hours with nothing to do but imagine someone putting a chain saw to your neck, you’d take as many sedatives as they want to give you.
    You just want to go to sleep.
    When O was little she’d lie on her bed in her room listening to Paqu and One screech at each other and all she’d want to do was sleep to stop the sounds. She’d pull her knees up, stick her hands between her legs, shut her eyes tight.
    Asking herself
    Am I Sleeping Beauty
    Will my Prince(s) Charming come wake me?

106
     
    Chon opens the cabin door.
    With his left hand.
    Gun in his right.
    The problem is out cold.
    With a woman beside him.
    Very pretty. Honey hair splayed on the pillow, naked shoulders above the sheet, full, kiss-swollen lips slightly open. Chon hears her breathing.
    She’s the lighter sleeper. Opens her eyes and then sits up and looks at Chon incredulously. Is he a dream? A nightmare? No, he’s real, but who is he? A burglar? On a boat?
    She sees the gun, knows how the man asleep beside her has the money for the boat and her honey hair. Looks at Chon and murmurs, “No. Please. No.”
    Chon shoots twice.
    Into his head.
    Problem solved.
    Swallowing a scream, she jumps out of the bed, lunges into the head, slams and locks the door behind her.
    Chon knows what he needs to do.

107
     
    Back in the water.
    Under the water.
    Powerful strokes propelling him
    Chon cuts through the blackness
    Swimming strong and fast
    For an O-lympic gold medal.
    Where he knows the water is deep he drops the gun and lets it sink to the murky bottom.
    He knows it was a mistake
    Not killing the woman, but—
    he thinks, as he plunges up through the painted water—
    I’m not a savage.

108
     
    I couldn’t have done it.
    A mantra Ben involuntarily repeats, his mind on continuous loop as he races to the grow house.
    I couldn’t have done it.
    Couldn’t have pulled the trigger on myself, even to save O.
    Would have wanted to.
    Would have tried to, but—
    I couldn’t have done it.
    With the mantra comes shame, and, surprisingly for the product of two shrinks, a derogation of his manhood.
    You feel less a man for not blowing your own brains out? On command? Ben asks himself. As if you’ve ever equated masculinity with machismo. That’s crazy. That’s beyond crazy, that’s over the crazy horizon.
    Yeah, but crazy is where we live now.
    The Republic of Crazy.
    And Chon would have done it.
    Check that—Chon did it.
    And what if
    what if
    what if
    they had ordered Chon to shoot not himself but
    Me.
    He would have done it.
    Sorry, Ben. But
bam.
    And he would have been right.
    Ben pulls off onto the cul-de-sac in the quiet suburban neighborhood in the eastern reaches of Mission Viejo. The “Old Mission.” (Meet the new mission, same as the old mission.) The house is at the top of the circle, its manicured backyard separated by a wall from a long slope of chaparral that shelters rabbits and coyotes.
    He pulls in to the driveway, gets out, walks up, and rings the bell.
    Knows a surveillance camera is on him.
    (Better be, anyway.)
    So Eric knows it’s him when he comes to the door.
    Eric doesn’t look like a dope farmer, he looks like an actuary. Short light-brown hair, receding on his forehead, horn-rimmed glasses. All dude needs is a pocket protector to be totally dweeb.
    “Hi.”
    “Hi.”
    He walks Ben through the living room—sectional sofa, La-Z-Boy recliner, big-screen TV playing
America’s Got Talent
—and then the kitchen—granite countertops, oak island, stainless-steel sink—to the indoor swimming pool under its canopy of tinted Plexiglas.
    There’s a fucking pool, all right.
    With grow lamps, drip lines.
    Metal halide—vegetative phase
    High pressure sodium—flowering phase
    A fecund hothouse.
    Ben looks at his watch.
    Motherfucker.
    Realizes that his armpits are soaked with anxiety sweat.
    “It’s all packed up?” he asks.
    “Everything that’s harvest-ready.”
    “Let’s get it