Pure good fortune and a round of free beers led to a friendship with an amateur forger, who entrusted Chub with his printing equipment while he went off to state prison. In no time, Chub was cranking out fake handicapped stickers and selling them for cash to local motorists. His favorite hangout was Miami’s federal courthouse, infamous for its dearth of parking spaces. Among Chub’s satisfied customers were stenographers, bondsmen, drug lawyers and even a U.S. magistrate or two. Soon his reputation grew, and he became known throughout the county as a reliable supplier of bootleg wheelchair emblems.
That’s why he was sought out by Bodean Gazzer, who’d been having a terrible time trying to park downtown. Having recently purchased the Dodge Ram, Bode thought it was foolhardy to leave it three or four blocks away while he went to wrestle the bureaucracy of the corrections department. Those particular neighborhoods weren’t such lovely places to go for a stroll; wall-to-wall Haitians and Cubans! He had nightmare visions of his gorgeous new truck stripped to its axles.
Chub felt an instant kinship with Bode, whose global theories and braided explanations struck a comforting chord. For instance, Chub had been stung when his parents scorned him as a tax cheat, but Bode Gazzer made him feel better by enumerating the many sound reasons why no full-blooded white American male should give a nickel to the Infernal Revenue. Chub brightened to learn that what he’d initially regarded as ducking a debt was, in fact, an act of legitimate civil protest.
“Like the Boston Tea Party,” Bode had said, invoking his favorite historical reference. “Those boys were against taxation without representation, and that’s what you’re fightin’, too. The white man has lost his voice in this government, so why should he foot the bill?”
It sounded good to Chub. Damn good. And Bode Gazzer was full of such nimble rationalizations. (
Some of Chub’s acquaintances, especially the war veterans, disapproved of his handicapped-parking racket. Not Bode. “Think about it,” he’d said to Chub. “How many wheelchair people you actually see? And look how many thousands of parkin’ spaces they got. It don’t add up, unless… ”
” ‘Less what?”
“Unless those parkin’ spots ain’t really for the handicaps,” Bode had surmised darkly. “What color’s them wheelchair permits?”
“Blue.”
“Hmmm-mmm. And what color is the helmets worn by United Nations troops?”
“Fuck if I know. Blue?”
“Yessir!” Bode Gazzer had shaken Chub by the arm. “Don’t you see, boy? There’s an invasion, who you think’s gonna be parked in them blue wheelchair spaces? Soldiers, that’s who. UN soldiers!”
“Jesus Willy Christ.”
“So in my estimation you’re doin’ the country a tremendous goddamn service with those imitation handicap stickers. Every one you sell means one less parkin’ spot for the enemy. That’s how I think of it.”
And that’s how Chub intended to think of it, too. He wasn’t a crook, he was a patriot! Life was getting better and better.
And now here he was, on the road with his best buddy.
Soon to be multimillionaires.
Spending a long leisurely afternoon at Hooters, eating barbecue chicken wings and slugging down Coronas.
Flirting with the waitresses in them shiny orange shorts, sweet God Almighty, sporting the finest young legs Chub had ever seen. And asses shaped just like Golden Delicious apples.
And outside: a pickup truck full of guns.
“A toast,” said Bode Gazzer, lifting his mug. “To America.”
“Amen!” Chub burped.
“This here is what it’s all about.”
“For sure.”
Said Bode: “No such thing as too much pussy or too much firepower. That’s a fact.”
They were shitfaced by the time the check came. With a foamy grin, Bode slapped the stolen credit card on the table. Chub vaguely recalled they were supposed to ditch the nigger woman’s Visa after the gun show, where they’d used it to purchase a TEC-g, a Cobray M-ii, a used AR-I5, a canister of pepper spray and several boxes of ammo.
Chub preferred gun shows over gun stores because, thanks to the National Rifle Association, gun shows remained exempt from practically every state and federal firearms regulation. It had been Chub’s idea to browse at the one in Fort Lauderdale. However, he’d had strong reservations about paying for such flashy weapons with a stolen credit card, which he thought was risky to the point of stupid.