Free Chump Change by Dan Fante Page B

coward, but bigger.
    “Jou put heem all bak, majn,” he said. “Jou krazee. Jou done want disa chit! Jou too drunk to pay. Done make too much trubl in diza store or I goin’ to fuk you up!”
    My wife’s Visa card slid easily from my pocket and skidded across the counter to him, the way a crap shooter throws a come-out seven. Leaning over, an inch from his face, I yelled, “Ring it up, Ace. Ring it all up! And keep your fucking hands off me. As far as you’re concerned I’m Donny-fuckin’-Trump.”
    The kid couldn’t decide whether to fight or take the plastic. Finally, reluctantly, he picked up the card and made a kind of spitting, throat-clearing noise, then phoned the Visa number to see if my card was stolen. He even repeated the process a second time to make sure. Then he wanted to double check my driver’s license ID before adding up my purchases. I passed the license over with a smile. I had nothing to hide.
    Totalling everything up took him twenty minutes. I watched the register tape get longer and longer until it touched the floor. While he did it, his sexy girlfriend went back to reading her magazine.
    Then I remember making a cocky, stupid decision, one that always made me end up the same way. After the kid had added everything up, I told him to throw in two bottles of Mad Dog 20-20. Hitting the wine too hard is when I start having problems.
    The bill came to $619.00 for everything. There were seven full cardboard boxes to be carried out to the car. I signed the credit card receipt with a flourish, big circles and loops, “E.E. Cummings.” The kid didn’t notice.
    As I was starting the motor, I took a last, long look back through the window at the girl. She was still on her stool at the end of the counter. Still reading her magazine. I knew she knew I was watching her, but she wouldn’t look up. The complete ice queen.
    Unscrewing the cap on the Mogen David, I toasted her holding my bottle up and taking a long, deep wallop. Her haughty attitude didn’t matter. Mad Dog takes all the bumps out of the road.
    I’d forgotten that the “Dog” ride I was beginning was my first since getting out of the hospital. For me, a run on Mogen David was like starting to fuck a five hundred pound female gorilla. All choice is gone. The gorilla lets you know when it’s time to quit. Sweet wine is like that.
    Rocco was licking the cap, so I emptied the contents of the Milkbone box on to the blacktop in the parking lot and tore down the container and used it for a bowl. I poured a finger’s width on the bottom and he licked it up.
    I kept heading east on Venice Boulevard in the hot night wind, sipping wine and watching pieces of L.A. blow across thewindshield. When I got to Western Avenue, I turned north and continued until I passed the Wiltern Theatre at Wilshire. I’d thought I was simply driving, cruising aimlessly as before; but when I saw the Wiltern, I knew I was only a few blocks from the Dante family’s first house in L.A., outside Hancock Park on Van Ness. It was the first home the old man had purchased on income from Hollywood. Movie money. Blood money. I found the house and stopped in front.
    Seeing the place again in the darkness swarmed my mind with thoughts of another life. It had been thirty years or more since I’d lived in the place.
    The old man had bought it because his agent, Harry Goldstone, had felt it would be a good address for a successful Hollywood screen-writer and because it was close to Paramount. Harry negotiated a great deal on the place.
    The house was paid for entirely by Dante’s movie salary earnings. The old man had finally stopped turning down lucrative film assignments and had completely given up being a novelist. After years of writing straight fiction and nearly starving, it was an easy decision.
    We moved to Malibu when I was still young, but I could vividly remember this house and his rages here. It was here that, day in and day out, he rewrote stacks of scripts and