Read Online Angry Buddhist (9781609458867) by Seth Greenland - Free Book Online

prison. Think it was maybe the only thing I could remember the three of us ever did with him.”
    â€œWhat’d he take us, like, once?”
    â€œYeah, once. I caught a fish, but he wouldn’t let me cook it because he said I’d get sick.” There is a silence that hangs between them for a moment as they each recall that day more than thirty years earlier. “We got date shakes at the Medjool Date Oasis.”
    â€œHow do you remember that?”
    â€œJust do. Tried to get Randall to stop off and get one today but he’s too damn important now.” Looks for backup on this sentiment but Jimmy gives him nothing. “You won’t take your poor cripple-ass brother down there today?”
    â€œTell you what. You got a rain check for next week. Get a date shake at the Medjool Date Oasis, head down to Bombay Beach, how’s that sound?”
    â€œProfound.”
    Jimmy spends another ten minutes there. He tells Dale about his new job he’s about to start and Dale talks about what it was like being inside for three years. He’d never done a stretch that long before but he tells his brother he handled it well. Jimmy makes Dale nervous. Not because of anything he’s doing, though. But his presence, his work in law enforcement, and their history together are a rebuke to Dale’s entire life. Dale has felt this way about both of his brothers for a long time. Although grateful for the visit, when Jimmy says goodbye and closes the door behind him, Dale is relieved. The day is starting to stress him and stress can bring on a seizure. He reaches into his pocket for his meds and takes his second dose of the day.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Â 
    A fter a ten-to-five shift at Fake and Bake, Nadine returns to her house in Cathedral City, just east of Palm Springs. Her place is a small, two bedroom bungalow, fourteen hundred square feet, built with cheap materials during the nineties real estate boom. The house had been foreclosed on six months earlier but Nadine is not the owner. A client from Fake ‘N’ Bake is a loan company representative and he surreptitiously arranged for her to move in. The water was still running and Nadine found someone on Craig’s List who knew how to hook up a generator so although she is technically a squatter, the place feels like a home, the Foreclosed sign in the front yard notwithstanding. An easy mixture of whites and Latinos, the low-key town is desert-on-a-budget and Nadine blends right in.
    She puts a Lean Cuisine teryaki chicken dinner in the microwave and lets Diablo the Chihuahua out for a run in the fenced yard. Nadine straightens up while her food cooks. The place is sparsely furnished with a white velour couch, two upholstered chairs and a coffee table, all purchased at local garage sales. She removes the dish from the microwave and while it cools on the kitchen counter, she takes a shower. Hard called earlier and asked if he could come over. She had hoped he would ask her out to dinner but that wasn’t on his agenda. She told him not to expect to be fed and he had said that was fine with him.
    Nadine towels off and gets dressed. Her slim legs taper into delicate ankles, one of which is sporting a gold anklet Hard had given her. Examines herself in the mirror. She’s wearing a pair of low-slung Capri pants from which a hot pink thong peeks in the space below a sleeveless white cotton blouse. She has been dieting and exercising at a hotel where she pretends to be a guest and her already attractive form is in fine shape.
    Nadine fishes in the medicine cabinet, locates a bottle of Valium. She had taken one about three hours earlier, as far as she can remember, and wonders if it’s too soon for another. But she was feeling on edge today, figures she can start cutting back tomorrow. Down it goes, chased with a Diet Coke. Sitting in a chair with a magazine, she wonders when her life is going to change. Nadine did not have a lollipop