Bluestone's Blog

I realized, only a few chapters into T.K. O’Neill’s Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert, that Frank Ford’s blunt grittiness wasn’t just a literary choice. It was a clever and calculated decision regarding a character that turned out to be one of the most likable protagonists I have ever encountered in a novel before. Ever! — Masa Radanic, The International Review of Books

CHAPTER 14

The steaks were excellent, high quality meat, and the sides Maria had created for them—baked potato with sour cream, salad, green beans—were sufficiently bland and un-offensive in a mid-western sort of way (possibly a request from Larry Richards) and didn’t add to the discomfort in Frank’s already rumbling digestive tract.

Huevos rancheros, indeed.

Now shuffling slowly toward his cabin beneath the star-filled sky, Frank was half in the bag from beer and red wine, and sleepy from the big meal, but he was struggling internally.

Behind a few glasses of wine, Richards had been persistent and insistent that Frank should stay and meet the two arriving members of the “consortium.” And, well, that just wasn’t Frank’s kind of scene.

What he really wanted to do was blow the hell out of here and get back on the road to California, the Golden State not that far away now.

He decided he’d stay just long enough to meet the new arrivals, if only to check out these rich boys Richards was hanging with and maybe get a read on them.

Frank was thinking Larry had slipped somehow, the man fallen from the lofty pedestal he’d placed him on. The whole ride down it seemed like Richards was living in his reptilian brain—a concept Frank’s former girlfriend, Nikki-the-sociology-major, used to talk about.

Larry was not exactly totally calculating, but he did talk obsessively about deals and scams and making money. And maybe he wasn’t actually suspicious and paranoid—although sometimes close—but he certainly was distant.

So the reptilian thing was at least partly accurate.

At times Larry’s voice sounded like a cheap tape recording. And he didn’t seem to care about anything but money. So you could say he showed a definite lack of empathy. A far cry from the warm and light-hearted Larry Richards Frank remembered from their youth.

Hell, Richards was the first guy he ever saw light a fart.

But did Frank really know him?

Do kids, especially boys, ever reveal their true selves to their friends?

If they even know their true selves…

Frank had met Larry in the summer before their sophomore year in high school. They both were working as caddies at Zenith’s most exclusive country club. They came from different family backgrounds, Frank from a “troubled home,” while Larry’s parents were stable and approached upper-middle class. Nonetheless, Frank and Larry became friends.

Frank always thought of Larry as someone living on the outside of wealth and looking in with envy. Certainly better off than Frank was but not in with the elite like Richards obviously desired. Both of Larry’s parents worked, which was a rarity in those times. His mother was in retail and his father was a lawyer with a private practice. This afforded Larry the opportunity to mingle with the rich while still looking to take advantage whenever he could. Frank could recall a number of schemes Larry had come up with while attempting to wedge his foot in the door of the luxury suites without paying the dues.

Larry was even kind of a trendsetter, in that he was one of the first to attempt soliciting door-to-door for UNICEF in the well-to-do neighborhoods.

Without any affiliation with the organization.

But after a few stops, one of the residents recognized him and he had to discontinue the scam.

Never got caught, though, and did pocket thirty-five bucks.

Thinking about it, Frank accepted that he, too, had a well-developed reptilian side.

And he wasn’t very proud of it at the moment.

Ah, but what the hell, he thought, pulling open the door of the dome, he’d be out of here tomorrow and off to the green of sunny California. Putting this parched land where too many humans already lived—more pouring in every day by the carload—behind him.

(End of Chapter 14)

PAPERBACK + EBOOK AVAILABLE

Bookshop.org:  https://bit.ly/3XG682t

Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/3sBA5SZ

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3DEFkYz

https://books2read.com/u/mlEM1B 

SEE ALL T.K. O’NEILL’S BOOKS HERE: https://bluestonesblog.com/