One Week Ago
Sarasota, FL
It was minutes to lunchtime on Friday, and Max was feeling good. He was feeding the pressure washer hose to Mikey while he washed the second story of a mansion overlooking the Gulf of America. Through his dark shades, Max watched modest fishing boats and yachts pass through the inlet, out into the Gulf. They'd smoked a joint 30 minutes ago, and he was trying to hang onto his high. He squinted, and a flash of a rainbow formed in the mist. Pressure washing was three times as humid in the mid-July heat.
Mikey tugged the line, and Max pulled the slack from the ground. The steady thumping of a Reggaeton beat played from the JBL speaker clipped to Mikey's belt. Max was shuffle stepping and humming Spanish hooks he didn't understand. Mikey stopped washing and shouted over the commotion of the motor and music in a thick Bronx accent, "It's lunchtime, Bro, I need a Newport right the fuck now!"
The five house painters sat on deck furniture around the infinity pool and ate lunch. Max ate a ham sandwich that left mustard on his bottom lip. Bill, the boss of the crew, passed Max a lit joint and nodded to say, "Wipe that mustard." The other two painters, Ukrainians fresh off the boat, sat to the side, talking and eating. Mikey ate grilled chicken over salad. He was talking about how he was planning to sneak into a yacht party in Miami; he held out his phone displaying a photo of a Puerto Rican girl with a massive ass and big, fake titties.
"I took her out on my jet-ski two weeks ago, we went all up and down the bay from Nokomis to Sarasota. She couldn't believe it, squeezing my abs and shit." Punctuating his story with a big bite of chicken and baby lettuce.
"You fucked yet?"
"Not yet, bro. She's playing games and shit, trying to take photos all the time and wanting me to post. She's got like 1000 less followers than me, bitches like that."
Max and Bill looked at each other; Mikey carried on about the bitches in his stable, algorithms, and clout-chasing sluts.
"Well, I hope you fuck her," Bill said with sincerity. His sun-bleached ponytail was held together by ten rubber bands and a red paisley bandana folded into a thick headband. Somehow, he had survived multiple concussions and nearly fatal motorcycle crashes.
After lunch, they began sealing the building with acrylic masonry sealer. Bill worked slowly and methodically, caulking any gaps between the window frames and stucco exterior. The Ukrainians worked with roller setups, moving in countering directions around the structure. Max stood on top of an empty overturned 5-gallon bucket and cut in the window return that looked out into the back patio. Mikey held a Newport between his fingers in his brush hand and took a drag before he dipped his brush.
Max could see into the empty mansion, and it looked about as dead as he'd figured: gray tile, white cabinets, white granite countertops, white walls, and overpriced, uninspired abstract paintings. As he worked, he began to play scenes in his mind of a botoxed mid-50's housewife harassing her overweight husband about getting the mole on his shiny bald head checked by the dermatologist.
They moved to the next section, with Max and Mikey working on opposite sides of the patio door. Max shut off his mental sitcom to ask a question,
"So they're going from one shade of white to another?"
"I guess so. I don't ask questions, bro."
"They should have gone with a pastel pink or blue, like that classic Florida vibe."
"Pink?" Mikey laughed. "I like the Mediterranean look."
"Makes me think about models on yachts and cocaine," Max responded as he cleaned up the edge of his cut line with a wet rag.
An hour later, they took a break and smoked a joint. Max, Mikey, and Bill pulled three pool chairs into the grass, under the shade of a large Banyan tree. The fatter of the two Ukrainians, Ivan, sat on an unopened 5-gallon bucket, smoked a modded box vape, and laughed at his phone.
Max bummed a Marb off Bill and vowed to get him back, but Bill waved him off.
"How's the bike coming along, Bill?" Max asked, before he took two deep drags off the joint and passed it to Mikey.
"Looking good, just got my fishtail pipes last week. When are you going to ride with us up to Tampa?"
"Shit. I need to put more money into my Magna, I wouldn't trust my brakes on the highway."
"Sometime," Bill said.
Mikey was off in thought, bogarting the joint. Bill pulled another out of his pocket and lit it. Mikey noticed and apologized. Bill nodded as to say, 'Pass it to Max.' They rotated the two joints and took an extra long break. The late afternoon heat combined with potent weed was making Max feel euphoric.
Mikey broke out of his meditative state, visibly stoned, and asked the other two,
"You ever wonder how you got here?"
"What do you mean? To this house?" Bill asked. Right away, Max knew they were in for one of Mikey's soliloquies.
"We've all got criminal records of some kind, working under the table for this crazy Russian Jew. Do you ever feel like you wasted your potential?"
"You had potential?" Bill asked, Max laughed.
"I met Fat Joe when I was 14 in the Bronx. If I had finished my mixtape, I coulda given it to him. Fucked up and got into selling ecstasy to college kids upstate."
"Why didn't you rap about that?" Max asked.
"I don't know, bro. Maybe I should start rapping again."
"You got bars," Max said, just to see how far Mikey would take the conversation.
"Thanks. I know."
Bill lit another cigarette then said, "I've dodged a lot of bullets in my life, so I can't complain about anything. I've got my Ol' Lady and Hollywood the bulldog. Life could be a lot worse."
"You right, you right. Sometimes I just start wondering what could have happened, and how we all ended up here; Rebels without a fucking cause." Abruptly, Mikey stood up, flicked the butt of his Newport towards the hot tub, and marched off with a dejected swagger.
Max looked at Bill and almost laughed. Bill was unamused.
"He needs to pick up that butt. I didn't want to ruin his grand exit. Fucking theatrics."
"I don't mind Viktor," Max said.
"Viktor is okay. You just gotta learn how to deal with him."
"When he hired me, he said," Max put on a bellowing Russian accent, "'I'll pay you twice what I pay my niggers!'"
Bill smirked and said,
"That's what he tells everyone. The Mexicans give me hope, they get paid like shit and they're always happy."
"I guess it's a lesson to be happy with what you got."
"They dropped everything to get over here. That's more than most people do with their lives. I wonder if they play up those stories though."
"Or leave out the worst parts."
"Yeah, like sucking a Coyote's dick."
The crew finished out the day and cleaned up around 3 p.m. Max cleaned his Purdy brush with the hose at the front of the house while Mikey filmed a TikTok video of himself doing burpees and clap push-ups. Ivan and Stephan packed their materials and drop cloths and drove off in a black Nissan Accord with top-40 pop music blasting out of the windows.
Max and Mikey rode back to the shop in Bill's Harley-Davidson edition F-150. Mikey sat shotgun, Max sat in the back. He checked his flip phone and saw a text from Rudy Uchida - Chill? Max T-9'd back: Bar?
They hotboxed Bill's truck. They went around St. Armands Circle and watched as they passed ghost town gelato shops, pizza parlors, and other tourist traps that stood sentinel for the upcoming tourist season. As they exited the circle and headed east toward downtown Sarasota, "Sweet Child o' Mine" came on Bill's CD mix, but the opening riff started to skip, blue balls building - Bill hit skip and "No Excuses (Unplugged)" by Alice In Chains played. Max tapped Mikey on the shoulder and asked for a Newport; Mikey obliged. They ascended the Ringling bridge. Some joggers fled, some ran toward the ensuing skyline that was creeping over the horizon. A combination of elements from every era of past development: old brick "skyscrapers", historic pseudo-Spanish apartments, distinguished mid-century condominiums, and ultra-slick neo-modern angles. All three heads swiveled as two girls wearing lusciously tight neon-colored athletic bras and shorts passed. Mikey said, "damn!" Bill watched their toned asses in the rearview mirror and said, "damn!" Max said, "damn!" The song changed to "Blurry" by Puddle of Mudd.