Poor kid… probably thought he’d soon qualify to get served up some of that perfumed, perfectly-preserved Halle Berry cherry parfait on a platter. Jerzy partially blamed Tom-Tom for not prepping him, not schooling the callow young buck in Hollywood’s scary sickly ways, hence encouraging—enabling—his painful naiveté to run riot on Sunset Strip. Tom-Tom was also upset but not for long cause she had lots of eggs in her basket. Like, this poor kid only has two, & one of em just broke on the sidewalk. The remaining egg (organic, fertilized) being dammed up and near drowning in ReeRee’s beaver, closer each hour to crowning itself king (or maybe queen), tiny, efficient predator camouflaged under bawling cloak of helpless infancy, its instinct being to suck the life out of its mother and father, then mature to hate them, hate them for reasons justified, unjustified & imagined, to vilify and overthrow them, all the while concocting contradictory campaigns & stratagems to get their love and attention, all children grow into fools who want unconditional love from the demonparents they’ve come to unconditionally hate, and so it goes, a dumb ceaseless schizoid dance of arrested adult-child development, always ending with the shrink-guided offspring smugly, compassionately forgiving errant momsters & dadbeats in the latters’ final deathbed days, decades-long drama of guilt & fingerpointing at last wrapped in a perfect, perfectly convenient psychotherapeutic giftbag the kids reward themselves with at croaktime, allowing them — the once wounded now healed adult child — to move on. . . …
Jerzy asked, Do you want to smoke?
Rikki knew he meant crystal not kush.
“Naw, the shit is wack. Pretty soon I’m be talkin like you.”
“Well at least you’d be gramatically correct.”
. .
He liked the old man Phil.
Jerzy usually detox’d a couple times a year, something he did in the privacy of his home with a major assist from benzos. Whenever J got clean, he literally slept for 2 weeks. For the hell of it, he told Dr Phil to organize his (off-camera) intervention — when the time was right. Just now, it wasn’t.
“It rarely is, my friend,” said Phil.
“True.”
“I’ll let you in on something. I know how smart you are. Yes, I do. But that wonderful gift, all that wonderful brainpower hasn’t served you so well. It’s even been a hindrance. In certain areas. You’re too smart not to know where this is going to end.”
“Where’s that, Dr Phil?” he deadpanned.
“Right where the big book says it does—‘jail, institutions or death.’”
“Promise me you’ll never work a suicide hotline, Dr Phil.”
. .
He couldn’t ask his fosterparents for any more money. They’d give it to him, but he couldn’t ask.
School became impossible. He told his fosters he was going to stay with Reeyonna, & they said, “That’s where you should be.” Killing him softly with their unending kindness. He lived at the Mt Olympus house now.
Tom-Tom was bugging them for rent. Rikki didn’t understand why she would, when she was staying for free. When he asked to barter with his body she just laughed, then looked at him funny like she was gunna steal his face. The memory of that hopeful time when they made the audition tape, when both of them were certain he was going to become a 
had completely faded. Without the motorcycle, they were trapped up there. Ree didn’t want to go anywhere anyway. After she lost her wallet she got depressed & stayed in her room. She didn’t even want to replace her stolen ID. If Rikki needed anything down the hill he had to rely on Jerzy or wait & get a ride with Dr Phil or whomever. The one person he refused to ask was Bolt.
Reeyonna&Rikki watched The Town on DirecTV. The dude got away with all the $$$ just like in Shawshank but in The Town he got the bitch too. ReeRee liked it but mostly watched peekaboo-style, hand over eyes, because she said it was “too real.” It did make Rikki think about robbery & shit. One big score, then I’m out. That’s what the heist movie crews always said, like in that bitchen movie Heat. Rikki talked about it, talked some shit, putting out feelers. Ree said You better not. You better be there for your baby. Rikki said Our baby. ReeRee said Your baby like right, your baby, to further make a point. Rikki said he wasn’t serious about the heist shit, just fucking around.
He might float it by Tom-Tom, tho. She probably knew somebody with a crew. Maybe she’d even done it before, not a bank or anything, just a small business or somebody’s house, not a home invasion, just a robbery when no one was there. He knew she used to rob dealers. He knew from Jerzy that she used googlearth to scope out celebrity mansions. Jerzy said she started doing that during Million Dollar Listing speedball marathons, then they started doing it together, virtual bling-ringing, they’d check out a celeb house or rental using an address one of his personal twats shittered to him & they could like totally case the back entrances & shit, places where the might sneak out in an attempt to dodge the frontyardarazzi, Jerzy would then be waiting in the back or wherever they’d scoped, Tom-Tom was so good at it she could like land them right in Courteney Cox’s swimming pool & they’d just hang there a while scoping the house from every conceivable angle just like they were hangin for the weekend on a little raft, the googlearth let you look toward this or that neighbor then you could fly over to the house Colin Farrell was renting & just hang & then fly back to Courteney’s or out to the beach to James Cameron’s or The Edge’s. Jerzy had T2 do the same shit with restaurants too but now everyone was doing it, all the celebrigoogleartherazzi. Jerzy said Tom-Tom could zillow what a house cost, she could zillow when it was sold & to what bullshit shell company belonging to J Aniston, Lindsay, Olivia Wilde or whomever.
Then Rikki got prudent & thought, If I’m gunna do a stickup it’s gunna need to wait til after the baby & my adoption hearing. Cause I don’t want to fuck either of those up.
Ree was due right around the time his adoption court date was set.
. .
Jerzy played the NatGeo doc for Rikki on his laptop. They were parked on Mulholland outside the gates of The Summit, waiting with 11 other britneyspearshooters for her to leave the house. Everyone’d been there at least 6 hours; the papp-posse was starting to thin out. Britney wasn’t Jerzy’s thing but it’d been a slow day, all he got was Paz de la Huerta, Toni Collette & Mamie Gummer, anyway, he thought he’d show the scene to the kid.
He told Rikki that hummingbirds could only store enough energy to get them through the night so they were always just a few hours away from total starvation. Just like dope fiends yuckyuck. Jerzy asked how long he thought a hummingbird could live. Rikki said I don’t know a week maybe a month? A year? Jerzy said they could go 10-years-PLUS (the internet said) but that 1st yr was oooh it was TOUGH. Hey tell me about it. Jesus H a 10 yr-old hummingbird has got to be having his share of senior moments. Probably get alzheimer’s, water on the birdbrain, need to start leaving post-its on nests & feeders ahahahahaha. Hey Dr Phil told me a good one. Guy with alzheimer’s goes to a singles bar. He sees this chick & he’s gunna hit on her. So he goes up & says “Do I come here often?” teeheehee you don’t get it do you. Well I ain’t gunna splain. I ain’t gunna explainate. Ain gunna explainify. Ain gunna explainobrag the explainentials. Ain gunna explain the giraffe——holy SHIT 10 fucking YEARS of flutterin n fibrillatin n fuckin hustling to meet your insane daily food nut, plus whatever’s required to fuel your insaner metabolism like some adrenal torment devised by the GODS 10 FUCKING YEARS! the very thought of it had Jerzy continuously tweak-freaking, half-worried that the pondering of it alone might bring on another hopefully nonfatal tachycardiac episode of his own.