Many years ago, back when I was still living in the American West, Nevada, to be exact, carrying num-chuks with me everywhere I went, still trying to find myself, I contracted an intimacy with a racist with a heart of gold, who, and because of his heart of pure gold, had gotten a prognosis of only forty years to live.
One time, the Racist with the Heart of Gold invited me to his summer cabin, up near Lake Tahoe.
And when I got there, on the first night, and after we had had dinner, I was like: “Do you just sit up here all summer long, being racist?”
And he was like: “Yes.”
And I was like: “That’s really sad, man.”
And at the Racist with the Heart of Gold’s fortieth birthday party – a joyous affair at this French restaurant called: Oui! Oui! – I sat and patiently waited for him to keel over so I could saw open his chest, and harvest his heart of pure gold.
And shortly after the birthday cake was served, suddenly, from across the room, I saw the Racist with the Heart of Gold go face first into his slice of birthday cake, and so I shot up from my seat and I announced to the room at large: “Ha ha ha. Nothing to see here, folks.” You know, playing the whole thing off as a joke because nobody but me knew about his heart condition, you see, I was the only one who he had confided in because for whatever reason, people often seem to want to confide in me.
And there in the restaurant, I dragged the Racist with the Heart of Gold’s corpse into the coatroom and I took out the handsaw I had brought along for this express purpose and while listening to the tinkling of forks and coffee cups on dessert plates and saucers, various conversations, all mixing together, coming from without, the coatroom, I sawed open his still warm chest, and I removed the heart of pure gold.
I held the golden heart above my head, dripping with blood, and I yelled: “I’m gonna be rich!”
N’ then I took the corpse, wrapped it up in coats, and threw it in the dumpster behind the restaurant, where it came to rest on fish skeletons and discarded vegetables.
But then, when I was in the pawnshop, with the golden heart, two hours later, looking to cash in on all the suffering I done, as a result of, my acquaintanceship with, the Racist with the Heart of Gold, all the nonsense to which I did have to bear witness, endure, over the course of R acquaintanceship, while waiting for him to die, so I could get to the golden heart, without a murder charge, the pawnbroker, and while examining the golden heart, holding it up against the florescent lights in his shop, turning it this way and that, he said to me: “Where did you say you got this again?”
And I was like: “An eccentric collector.”
And the pawnbroker said: “And might he have a name?”
And I was like: “He’s a she, actually.” Lying through my teeth, as I felt it best – the most prudent course of action – to keep the golden heart’s provenance to myself – to keep it a secret – to just make up more and more elaborate lies if folks like pawnbrokers started making inquiries.
And the pawnbroker, quite haughtily so, said: “I see. And might she have a name?”
And I was like: “No.”
And after I said this, the pawnbroker, he stopped futzing with the golden heart and looked at me for a few moments.
And after maybe 10 seconds, of his eyes just boring into mine – his trying to penetrate my dreamy aura – he said: “How much?”
And I was like: “Huh?”
N’ the pawnbroker, now wildly overenunciating, said: “H-o-w m-u-c-h d-o y-o-u w-a-n-t f-o-r i-t?”
N’ I proudly replied with: “Oh, well, two-hundred billion dollars ought to do it.”
N’ he was like: “I’ll give you two bits.”
N’ I was like: “Two bits? Awe, man.Come on. You can’t be serious. Surely, it’s gotta be worth more than that!”
And the pawnbroker tapped the heart with a fingernail then, and he said: “Fool’s gold. It ain’t worth shit.”
And I was like: “For real?”
And he said: “Yes. No doubt about it. Shit don’t shine, it glistens. Look.”
And after the pawnbroker said this, I looked at the heart for a time, before saying: “So it ain’t pure gold, then?”
And the pawnbroker said: “Are you listening to what I’m saying to you? It’s pure shit.”
And I was like: “No way; I have it on good authority that that heart is pure gold.”
“Whose authority?” The pawnbroker asked me.
And I was like: “Well, a racist’s, if you must know.”
And the pawnbroker looked at me then, and said: “A racist?”
And I was like: “Yes.”
N’ he shrugged his shoulders and said: “I don’t know what U want me to tell U here. U were duped.”
And I looked off then, and I muttered to myself: “Just my luck.”
And the pawnbroker said: “Why are you covered in blood?”
And I was like: “What? Oh. I hit an elk. With my pickup truck. My Ford F-150. America. We spoke 4 about 15 minutes, B4 Death came 4 it. B4 I blew its brains out all over the roadway. Mercy. It was kind of sad, actually. The elk had a lot of regrets. Chief among them: Becoming a debt collector; using its one life – the only one it would ever get – to wander the forest, collecting debts from mostly poor ass elks who never should’ve been granted loans in the first place.”
And the pawnbroker said: “What are you talking about?”
N’ I was like: “I’m talking about the fucking elk that I mowed down with my Ford F-150 on my way over here.”
And the pawnbroker – suddenly affecting a downright supercilious manner (whereas before he had just been being haughty) – looked down at his fingernails then, and he said, in a low voice: “I could call the cops, U know. I’d rather not. But I could.”
N’ I was like: “But why would U wanna call them for? It was an accident. That sorry-ass elk came from out of nowhere.”
And the pawnbroker, now blowing on his fingernails, still not looking at me, said: “Two bits. Take it or leave it.”
And I, feeling like this pawnbroker really kinda had me over a barrel here – that, in point of fact, I had no option but to take his offer; that there would be no leaving it (thinking: “If he calls the police they’ll have me on violating the sanctity of a corpse, at least; I have no wish to report to an American prison on a charge such as this.”) – was like: “Jeez, mister. You sure do drive a hard bargain here.”
And the pawnbroker said: “Don’t tell me my business.”
And I sighed.
But then, off in the distance, on a rack behind the bulletproof glass, behind which the pawnbroker was sittin’, I saw a mint condition Jock Jams compact disc, Volume Two, from 1996, with a price tag on it that said: $1.00.
Montell Jordan was on that record.
Get the girls dancing.
G-g-get it, girl.
And when I saw that, I leaned into the bulletproof glass, behind which the pawnbroker was sittin’, and I crooked my neck in askance, while employing a come hitherance finger, as well, and I said: “Pawnbroker, let me talk at you for a couple of minutes.”
And he said: “I’m busy.”
And I was like: “Humor me.”
And he was like: “Do I need to call the police?”
And I was like: “Do you not like me or something?”
And long story short, when everything was all over, said and done, and once the dust drug up, from some serious negotiating, had settled itself, once more – once I had said: “No. Please. Put down the phone. Sold. The heart is yours, for a quarter.” And after I had produced three more quarters, and passed them through the bulletproof transaction window – I was the proud new owner of a mint condition Jock Jams compact disc, Volume Two, from 1996, and I was like, the happiest guy in the whole wide world.
But then when I got home, all ready to play my new CD, and start the party, get it jumping, ready to move on, with the next chapter of my life, to put behind me all the time that I had wasted on that racist A-hole, with a heart of fool’s gold, all for like, a quarter, I remembered that I hadn’t owned a CD player, in like, fifteen years – once cutting edge technology, now yesterday’s news; a blip in history; poor CD players – and so I just sat down on my floor and started crying in the dark.