Chev knocked ash from his smoke.

– Yeah, and whos been paying your rent and covering the groceries and the PGE and the cable and the water and the gas and every other little thing that comes up?

– Ive been kicking in.

Chev watched a couple Korean girls in midi tank tops walk out of the French cafй up Melrose.

– Mean your moms been kicking in.

– Any of your business?

The girls disappeared into a shoe store and he looked back at me.

– Only that shes not gonna carry you forever and you need to get a fucking job because the IOUs are piling up on the fridge.

– Ill get a job.

Po Sin tugged the end of his thin drooping moustache.

– Cant believe you cant get a job the way the schools need teachers.

Chev flicked his butt.

– He can get a job, they call him all the time. He could sub five days a week. He could go full-time again whenever he wants.

– Only I dont want to, asshole.

– You want to make a couple bucks, I got some work for a guy with a strong stomach for messed up shit.

I looked at Po Sin and squinted.

– What kind of work?

He looked at Chev and pointed at me.

– Know why he doesnt have a job? Because hes the kind of guy you offer him one and he asks what the work is.

He started for the cab of the van.

– He dont want to work.

I followed him around the van.

– I didnt say I dont want to work, I just asked what the job is.

Asking what the job was, that was actually a really smart idea. If Id pursued that line of questioning a bit further, things would have been considerably less complicated. Dug a little deeper into that line of inquiry, and I might have avoided the whole Whos the Asshole in the Motel Room contest that would crop up later.