Savages by Don Winslow Read Free Book Online Page A

Until an indignant steward came and tossed them off.
    Thrown off the beautiful greens.
    Off the Dream.
    The Duke, Der Bingle, and the Bobster don’t want you here anymore.
    Ben wanted Chon to object—I’m a war veteran, I fought to protect your right to shoot eighteen holes on a beautiful California morning by the sea by the sea by the beautiful sea you and me you and me oh how happy we’ll be. I bled for these holes. Without men like me, the clubhouse whores would be wearing burqas, my friend.
    But Chon wouldn’t do it. Refused to summon up the righteous indignation. Truth was, he
didn’t
go to Stanland to defend his country club. He went because he was already in the SEALs when those cocksuckers flew airplanes into the WTC.
    He didn’t say that to the steward, though. Guy was already cardiac-paddle-ready, so Chon just said, “Keep it green,” and left without further incident.
    Anyway, now he’s at John Wayne Airport. You fly into Orange County, they let you know what you’ve gotten into, pilgrim. Don’t be fooled by the hip surfer thing, you are in Rich Republicanland and you’d better behave accordingly or they’ll let the Duke loose on you.
    As if.
    Just a short while ago the Republicans were objects of fear and hatred—now they’re just pathetic assholes. Barry took them to thepaint and cut their throats. (O-
BAM
-a!) Now they walk around like white frat boys in Bed-Stuy, talking tough to show they aren’t scared as the urine streams down their chinos into their cordovans. Obama has these dweebs so turned around all they can do is get behind some fat junkie DJ, a gibberish-spewing PsychoBimbette from the Far North, and a tele-dork who gives adrenaline-crazed, 1950s-style “chalk talks” (speaking of little white dicks) like some health-class instructor in a sex-offender unit.
    Chon has a mental vid-clip of this clown choking on a chicken bone in a restaurant, rolling on the floor while the black and Spanish waiters and busboys fall all over each other hustling to dial 511.
    Of course the Dems will find some dazzlingly random way to fumble at the goal line; they always do (“What did you say your name was, darlin’? Monica?”). In the meantime Chon can’t wait—can’t
wait
—for the inevitable moment one of these clowns chokes on an open mike and calls Obama a nigger. It’s going to happen, you
know
it’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of time and it will be a blast to see the dazed befuddled expression on that pasty stupid face as he realizes his career is deader than a Kennedy.
    POSTMORTEM CAREER COUNSELOR
And your career died how?
    CHUCKLEHEAD
I called Obama a nigger.
    POSTMORTEM CAREER COUNSELOR
    (Incredulous pause)
Wow.
    In the meantime, the GOP just settles for other kinds of buffoonery. Chon’s personal fave is the guv of South Goober banging the
chica
in South America while claiming he’s on a hiking trip in the Appalachians(on “Naked Hiking Day,” no less).
    Then crying about it.
    The other thing about Republicans—they cry on TV these days like a twelve-year-old girl who didn’t get invited to a birthday party. (“It’s okay, Ashley—Brittany’s a jerk—everybody
loves
you.”)
    Republicans didn’t used to cry.
    Democrats
cried and Republicans mocked them for it.
    The way it should be.
    Ask John Wayne.
    Chon used to hate Democrats as weak-kneed yuppie hypocrites, a party of closeted gay men too gutless to come out and stand up for who they are. He still does, but since Iraq—since the Sock Puppet got his leash yanked by Mr. Wilson—who Chon
really
hates are Republican politicians. Not to put too fine a point on it, Chon thinks they should be hunted down like rabid dogs, shot, and tossed into a common pit, with lime poured over their rotting corpses so they don’t emerge some Halloween night like the zombies they would otherwise become.
    Anyway …

41
     
    They find Ben in baggage claim waiting for his green duffel bag, like he’s still some college kid coming