Desert Gothic

Mr. Epstein and the Dealer

3 2 Mr. Epstein and the Dealer The dealer doesn’t have a girlfriend, no kids, divorced once with a restraining order stapled to it. He lives alone in Nana’s pink stucco house and mostly watches a lot of TV. Paint peels from the orange walls in long fine stripes; when he walks through the house he’s reminded of candy canes. Over the past decade his habit has enlarged to a pack and a half a day. Among his problems he counts his back as his worst. A dull pain radiates in waves down his lower lumbar and into his legs. Several times a week, the dealer spreads a Penthouse across the kitchen counter , flips to the stories in the Forum section, and jerks off into a waist-level, flip-top-lid Rubbermaid trash can. Nights, he’s often kept awake by thoughts of unpronounceable, German-sounding M r. E p s t e i n a n d t h e D e a l e r 33 diseases that attack without warning. This he dismisses as a consequence of work. A few close friends, he’s tight with Ralph. They have beers. He finds that too many words in a big situation are a great deal useless. They have the habit of sitting in his stomach like hard little pebbles, grinding his troubles together. This year, as an early birthday present to himself, the dealer is considering buying a Kawasaki two-stroke, two-cylinder Jet Ski. Overall he is, he supposes, satisfied. So inside of an hour the dealer finds himself discussing odds of this season’s Diamondbacks, boots up on Mr. Epstein’s La-Z-Boy, to then later kneeling over the toilet in the old man’s bathroom, vomiting. A wad of toilet paper ends up looking like a dead corsage in his hand. It melts to pulp under the faucet. The dealer wipes his mouth and glances at the mirror—tired eyes, his breathing even. Boots still firmly on the ground. “My Spanish is leaky,” the dealer says, clicking the bathroom door shut. “And airport customs. I don’t know. That worries me.” “I don’t blame you,” Mr. Epstein says from the kitchenette. “But you’re resourceful down to your fingertips. Look at the business you created. And out of thin air.” When Mr. Epstein speaks, his dentures come together violently, a wet clacking the dealer has always found irritating. “You’ll find a way,” Epstein continues. “It’s not a big load.” The dealer swirls these last words over with his tongue as Mr. Epstein fills the electric kettle and turns it on. Not a big load. Shrunken by age, bald except for Velcro strips on the sides, the old man says, “Here. Grab a stool. Peppermint tea will help settle your stomach.” Mr. Epstein’s apartment is a one-bedroom efficiency designed for seniors on the verge: handrails lining the walls, emergency call button, safety-trip electric burners. Mr. Epstein has ordered every available option; he leaves nothing to chance. The whole setup is ripe with anticipation, a preventative terror bubble. There’s a phone to the security desk next to the bed, large red arrows high on the walls marking the exit. 3 4 M r. E p s t e i n a n d t h e D e a l e r The walls are flat cream and lined with scuffed rubber baseboards . The dealer takes note. He is standing on wall-to-wall, industrial-grade gray carpet, a tight-woven synthetic with a plastic base, for spills. He knows things. He once worked roofs on tract homes before starting in this business. “I understand it’s a significant errand,” Mr. Epstein says. “Ultimately it’s your decision. But I have no one else to ask.” It’s not the asking that angers the dealer; it’s the nature of the question, the responsibility attached to it. Earlier, Epstein paced nervously around the small apartment as he outlined his tragedy and lobbed morbid percentages about tumors this size, this grade, this late in the game. Fidgeting with an emerald ring on his pinkie, he linked one ugly symptom to the next, unrolling a long chain of medical facts as invisible bombshells dropped all around the dealer. Never once did the old man look him in the eye, and when Epstein finally finished, he collapsed into a pile of embroidered pillows on the couch, released a muted...