Swag Read Free Page A

been studying the situation for some time now, ever since I got back from LA, reading up on all the different ways people break the law to make money. You know why most people get caught?”
    â€œBecause they’re dumb.”
    â€œRight. Or they’re desperate. Like a junkie.”
    â€œStay away from junkies,” Stick said. “Don’t have any part of them.”
    Frank raised his eyebrows, impressed. “You believe that, uh?”
    â€œIt’s the first rule of life,” Stick said. He finished his drink, making sure he got it all, shaking the ice in the empty glass. “I’d buy a round,” he said, “but I got eight bucks on me and it’s got to last till I find out where I’m at.”
    Frank looked over at the bartender and made a circular motion for a couple of more. He said to Stick, “Don’t worry about it. Listen, I was going to ask you what you had in mind. The cop I talked to said you were unemployed.”
    â€œNot in Florida. I can get all the work I want in Florida. Cement work. I was going back there to see my little girl.”
    â€œI understand you’re divorced, too.”
    â€œFinally. Listen to this, you want to hear something? We’re living in Florida, my wife starts bitching about the hot weather, how she doesn’t see her old friends anymore, how her mom’s driving her crazy? Her mom lives down there. Wonderful woman, old lady’s never smiled in her life. She’s watching television, that commercial used to be on a couple years ago about brotherhood, working together and all? It shows all these people standing in a field singing that song—I can’t think of how it goes now. All these people singing, and in there you start to recognize some celebrities, Johnny Carson . . . lot of different ones. Her mom squints at the TV set and says, ‘Is that niggers?’ I’m taking her to the eye doctor’s, the car radio’s on. Every Friday I’d take her to the eye doctor’s. She listens to this group playing some rock thing and says, ‘Is that niggers?’ We come back up here, sell this house we got that’s right off the Intercoastal—come back, my wife’s still bitching. Now it’s the cold weather, busing, the colored situation, shit, you name it. We’re arguing all the time, so finally we separate. Not legally, but we separate. Now what does she do? She goes back to Florida and moves in with her mom. Divorce was final last month.”
    â€œListen, I believe it,” Frank said. “Man, every word.”
    â€œI don’t know what’s going to happen there,” Stick said, “but I like to see my little girl once in a while.”
    â€œFortunately,” Frank said, “neither of my wives had any children. Or any of my acquaintances, I mean that I know of.”
    Their drinks came and Frank stirred his, watching the clear liquid turn milky as it mixed with the ice cubes. Stick waited for whatever was next and Frank said, “It’s funny you mentioned staying away from junkies as a rule . That’s one of my rules. Don’t have anything to do with them. Don’t even go to a place where they’re liable to hang out.”
    â€œYou never get in trouble doing that,” Stick said.
    â€œI got some other rules, too,” Frank said. “In fact, I’ve got ten rules. I mean, written down.”
    â€œWhat? How to live a happy life?”
    â€œSort of. How to be a success in a particular undertaking. Which could certainly lead to a happy life.”
    â€œYou going to tell me,” Stick said, “or I got to ask you what they are?”
    The bartender rang up their tab and put it on the bar. Frank waited until he moved away.
    â€œI told you I’ve been studying, well, different ways of making money. I’m not talking about anything tricky like embezzlement, you know, or checks. I’ve hung a little