>Be Evan.

>Be a few months earlier, in March.

>Be discussing shit with Jason, sitting out on the deck, looking out over their neighbor's backyards all empty and cluttered with suburban crap. A compost pile there, a trampoline there, an overgrown garden there.

>Pulp Fiction is playing on Jason's laptop, it's the scene where Vincent and Jules are sitting in the diner discussing Jules' newfound faith.

>Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal, says Vincent. Is that true?

>Well, we'd have to be talkin' about one charming motherfucking pig, replies Jules. I mean, he'd have to be ten times more charming than that on , you know what I'm saying?

>Evan and Jason are only giving the laptop half their attention.

>Jason is on another one of his rants, this one about pay. He had made a decent amount of money thus far from his military earnings but he says he's realized something as a result.

>What's that, asked Evan, knowing what's coming.

>Hourly wages are a step up from slavery, Jason said.

>Really.

>Yeah, no matter how many hours you work, if you're making below a certain rate you'll never get anywhere. You need big payouts, like thousands of dollars at a time, if you want to get anywhere. Saving a couple hundred dollars a paycheck isn't going to do jack shit for you. And most people can't even do that. They're spending everything they get on necessities.

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> Ok.

>That's the thing, so few occupations actually pay like that. Hourly work, the jobs that most people can get, especially since the Recession, are just a step up from slavery. No one can live on fucking minimum wage anymore. It's a fucking ripoff.

>If I get this job at Kensington I'll make like ten an hour.

>And that's good for someone who's about to be twenty-one, but you'd have to work like thousands of hours to even get something close to retirement. And now think about if you had to raise a family on that. Not gonna work.

>Evan nods, tries to focus on the movie. Jason keeps talking.

>You need to get in on the club, man, Jason tells him. Join a cartel of some kind. Make yourself useful to the right people.

>Cartel?

>Yeah, one of the cartels that run the world. The people that push the product. That own the product. The access. The information. The identity. The world's all run by different mafias, man. That's all it's ever been.

>They watch Pumpkin and Honey Bunny share a passionate kiss before they begin robbing the diner.

>When was the last time you got laid? Evan asks.

>Been awhile, says Jason. Why?

>Is it hard, once you've had it, to not get it?

>It's always a pain in the ass to not get laid, but, I mean, I don't know, I guess I just don't really care that much anymore.

>Have you had, to, like, lower your standards at all?

>Naw, it's nothing like that. I could get it if I went looking for it. I just don't.

>Have you ever fucked a fat girl?

>Jason thinks about it.

>No, I haven't. Never had to. Why, you got one that's interested in you?

>No. Not that I know of. Do you think you'd ever consider it, though?

>I don't know, says Jason. I guess. If she had a cute enough face. And I mean, if she wasn't like, too fat. Like, chubby, or thick, definitely. There's some hot-ass thick girls out there. But, like, obese? Probably not. I mean, that'd have to be some special circumstances there. That'd have to be—

>Jason pauses and thinks, then a grin spreads on his face.

>-- that'd have to be one charming motherfucking pig.

>Evan laughs, Jason laughs, the sun shines, Pulp Fiction plays on the laptop, it's a good time.