The End of FUN (41 page)

As I was heading back to the house, I got a message:

Oso showed up and slapped a baggie in my hand.

“Check it. VPHPs.”

“What's that?”

“Very Powerful Hallucinogenic Pills, bro. Remember? I was slinging them for Los Ojos de Dios? I stole a package from Pedro Santistevan's house that night we went werewolfing, and guess what? They
were
just aspirin after all. See the little
A
's? Those guys were scamming me!” Oso surveyed the property. “By the way, the place looks different, bro.
Groomed
. I like it. So how goes the dig?”

“It doesn't. It's over. There's nothing there but junk. It doesn't matter. I did something stupid, man. I messed up. I mean, I really outdid myself this time.”

“That serious, huh?”

“Yeah. I feel like shit and I've got a headache, too.”

“Well, I can help with the headache. Have an aspirin. Have two.”

So I did. But I didn't feel any better.

“Listen, bro. You gotta remember: like my uncle says, there's a light in the monkey.”

“Yeah, you told me that one before.”

“I figured it out, though,” he said. “Did I tell you that? We're not the monkey.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the monkey is inside us, and the light is in the monkey!”

“So?”

“So—don't you see?! Inside all of us is a screaming monkey. It's jealous and mean and it wants food and water and power and it can barely keep from tearing itself apart because it knows the truth…that one day it's going to die. You can get hung up looking at that monkey, seeing it in everyone else. But the truth is it doesn't end with the monkey. Because inside the monkey there is a light.”

“And what's in the light? Another monkey?”

“Inside the light is more light,” said Oso, “And the light is good.”

“Wow. That's maybe just two steps too hippie for me.”

Oso frowned. “OK, how about this, then? You see this finger? If I took this finger and stuck it in my butt, what do you think it would smell like?”

“I don't know. Are we gonna find out?”

“It would smell like doody, bro. Why? Because from a scientific perspective, we're all the same on the inside. Get it? Every single one of us. You, me, murderers, politicians—the hard-corest sociopath you can ever imagine. We've all got doody up our butts.”

“Gee, this is excellent news.”

“But also the good ones, too, bro. The grandmas and saints. All of us. We're all just stuffed full of shit. That's a scientific fact. So unless you murdered someone or—”

“Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but—”

“Bro: How many people are there on this planet? Billions upon
billions
. And what percent of them are super-extra-sleazy douche bags? Even if it's as low as one percent, no matter what you did, thousands upon
thousands
of people have
already
outdone you just in the time we've been sitting here having this conversation.”

“Yeah…maybe…”

“Not maybe—
definitely!
I've been thinking about it a lot ever since I got caught. You just can't compete with all the evil in this world. Like,
every four seconds a baby seal is clubbed to death
.”

“Jesus! Every four seconds?”

“Who can really say? That's just a statistic I made up for an example.”

“OK, because every four seconds sounds way too frequent. Who clubs a baby seal?”

“
That's what I'm saying!
Did you club a baby seal?”

“That's kind of what it feels like.”

“But did an
actual
baby seal
actually
die as a result of your actions?”

“No.”

He threw up his hands. “Then don't beat yourself up! You're free as a bird! Whatever you did, and whatever you do, in the grand scheme it doesn't even
register
. That's the power of statistics working for you, bro.”

I wasn't convinced. “Here's what I want to know: If life is full of so much shit, how can there be a God? Who is this dude? What kind of God allows for all that?”

“There doesn't have to be a God, bro.”

“Well, I know that. But I don't want to believe in
nothing
.”

“Even believing in nothing is believing in
some
thing. Humans want to believe. But it doesn't have to be yes or no. It doesn't have to be God or nothing. It can be something else. It can be something bigger than that.”

“Like what?”

“Like beyond our comprehension, bro, like so big it's all around us and yet we only get glimpses every now and again. The point is, who knows? So be good, but also don't beat yourself up.”

We sat on the porch, and I thought about what Oso had said. Morality as a bell curve. Forgiveness by way of numbers and averages. It was an interesting take, the only problem being: How was I supposed to see myself as a statistic? How do you view yourself from that kind of distance? You can't be two places at once. You can't look down at the top of your own head by climbing up a ladder.

“What'd you do anyway, bro?”

So I told him about Katie and Shiloh.

“Ah,” said Oso. “The classic double-grab fail. Look, I can't undo what you did, but I can help with the treasure.”

“Like I told you, there's nothing there.”

“You think? Are you one hundred percent sure?” Oso gazed darkly into my eyes. “Let me ask you this: how much faster you think the dig would go with—a
backhoe
?”

“A backhoe?”

“Yes!”

“And where do we get a backhoe?”

“Come on. I'll show you!”

He led me over the ridge and down into Coyote Heights, where there was a single backhoe sitting next to a utility shed.
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“I saw it the other day. Look at that poor old dinosaur just WAITING for someone to fire her up.”

“Oso, we can't steal a backhoe.”

“Not steal.
Borrow
. I know how to work it—my uncle had me running one last summer. You ask me, the whole idea of private ownership is a shackle on the spirit anyway. Like anyone
really
owns anything on this earth! I promise you: we'll return her even better than we found her.”

“How do we run a backhoe without a key?”

He held up a screwdriver. “Two words:
hot
and
wire
.”

“Hot-wire? But you're about to go on trial!”

Oso gazed at me with dark eyes. “Hey, we're
all
on trial, bro. Are you gonna tell me that after all the work you put into the dig, just because you found some kitchen crap on the top—which is probably, by the way, just a decoy—are you telling me you're just gonna give up at the end? Do you even know what tonight is? Tonight is a special night. A night that only comes twelve times a year. Or maybe thirteen. I'm not sure. Tonight is the
new moon
, bro. Meaning
no
moon. Meaning complete and total blackout. Meaning perfect night for a backhoe heist.”

“I don't know, man.”

Oso recoiled in disbelief. “What do you mean,
you don't know
?! It's the perfect opportunity for me to practice my hot-wire skills! We can get this whole operation completed, ninja-style, in under an hour. Easy. Piece of cake. Tell me one thing wrong with this plan.”

“OK, look what happened last time. We had a plan then, too. I crapped my pants and you got put in jail. We get together and do stupid shit and it never works out.”

“Are you
kidding
me?” Oso sputtered. “Are you straight-up messing with me or
what
, bro? First of all—well, OK. So last time we made some mistakes. I'll give you that. It was a full moon. The pills didn't help. But no drugs this time. This time we go
au naturel
. Those aspirin you ate don't count, OK? And listen—if you're gonna say we do stupid shit that doesn't work out…first of all, this isn't stupid. Second of all, when it doesn't work out the way you want, that's half the fun.” Oso raised his arms. He was shouting now.

“Listen, Aaron—you can mope around feeling bad about things you cannot change. Or you can
do
something about it! You ask me, it's time to get bold! You told me yourself there's something buried out there. Well, you can give up now, or you can scrape at it with a shovel for the rest of your life—or you can have a go at it with some legit machinery and see once and for all what it is you got!”

Clouds gathered as we waited for nightfall. Moon or not, it didn't matter—by the time we were ready to execute our plan, the sky was a black slate and the lightning had started—no rain, just this dry electrical storm lighting up the brush in thundering flashes. We drove Oso's creeper truck out to Coyote Heights, lights off so as not to arouse suspicion. Oso fiddled with the backhoe. And fiddled. And fiddled. Time was passing and I was worried someone was going to catch us.

“Crap,” he said. “Shoulda brought a flashlight….Can't see what I'm doing….Stupid screwdriver….Oh, wait. Here we go!”

Once Oso had the tractor going, stealth was pretty much out the window. I stood on the side step and held on as best I could as we roared on back to my grandpa's house, bumping over rocks and brush.

Oso pulled up to the tree and started his work. I watched him in the flashes of lightning. He made it look easy, a kid playing with a toy in a sandbox, lowering the bucket and circling the tree, digging as he went, steering around my holes, like he might corkscrew his way eight feet into the ground. But this was only preliminary. Once he'd marked his area, he parked on the side and put the outriggers down.