11 The Mendoza Line

In this episode, the Sick Man returns with the shocking and explosive finale of the latest Fake Cop Trilogy. 

The Toucan Man is still on the loose and Fake Cop can’t find him. So he does something he hates more than anything: he gets introspective. 

So he’s going to do what he usually does: double down in the worst possible direction. Going deeper. Not into the streets, but into whatever the hell is going on inside his mind. Trying to track down the Toucan Man the only way left… by meeting him face to face. Inside… his own mind… 

Will that clear anything up? Probably not. Will it make things worse? Almost definitely. Will there be some kind of calm, rational understanding of reality by the end of this? No. Absolutely not. 

And most importantly - will he finally get rid of that body in the trunk? Yeah, actually… that one might get handled. This is a Greek tragedy in the cereal aisle. 

This is… The Mendoza Line.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Everybody thank you for joining me. Okay. What is up for episode seventy-seven of the Sick Man Fucking Show? Well, today. Today we have the shocking, explosive final or finale, not sure, of the last, or at least latest, Fake Hot trilogy. Now, where were we here? We last saw Fake Hot learning details about the death of his son. Learning details of his own past. And then destroying an entire bar and its patrons in a vengeance-filled rampage. Looking for the Toucan Man. Who or who we totally cannot find. Anywhere. Now this one goes inward. After everything that's happened. After chasing leaves that go nowhere, and watching the whole system stop giving anything back, fake cop starts to realize something may be off. Not out there, but in here. I'm pointing at my head right now, just so you know. And look, I don't love that. I don't love going inward. I'm not an introspective man. It's not part of my thing, you know. I don't believe in it. I think it's overrated. But when every road you take loops back on itself, and every answer starts sounding like it came from your own head, you start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, you've been asking the wrong questions the whole time. So I'm gonna do what I do best, double down in the worst possible direction. I'm going deeper, not into the streets, not into the system, but into whatever the hell is going on inside my own mind. Trying to track down the Toucan man the only way left, by meeting him face to face, inside my own mind. Yeah, no, it makes no sense to me either, but hopefully it will by the end of the episode. I mean, uh, hopefully. Anyway, will this clear anything up? Probably not. Will it make things worse? Almost definitely, yes. Will there be some kind of calm, rational understanding of reality by the end of this? No, absolutely not, like no way. And most importantly, will I finally get rid of that body in the trunk? Yeah, actually, that um that one might get handled, believe it or not. I know. This is a Greek tragedy in the serial isle. This is the Mendoza line. Mr. Wellsman, fucking engage, man.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Sick man talking! We got a sick man talking here! Sick man's talking.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Silence. Not the peaceful kind. The kind that sits there waiting to see what you're gonna do next. I put the key in the ignition, which was the natural thing to do. The engine coughed awake like it didn't trust me. I mean, hey, like, fair enough, man, uh, I do have its original owner laid out in a trunk, so uh, so uh, you know, I really gotta get rid of that fucker too. I rested my hands on the wheel and just sat there for a second, not thinking, not panicking. I don't panic. I know exactly what I'm doing. But that's the problem. Because for the first time in a long time, it's not working. I looked out through the windshield at the Bonanza side, buzzing behind the glass. Same place, same people. Well, the place is all fucked up now, and so are most of the people in there after I got through with it, but uh, same system. Except it wasn't. I had a lead, I had a name, I had a direction, upstream, that's how this works. That's how it's always worked. You follow the money, you follow the product, you follow the people, you follow the pressure, and eventually, something cracks. That's the system, and I built it. Bobby, dead, Richie, useless. The bonanza, just noise, and probably a lawsuit or some legitimate arrest charges coming my way, and upstream, gone. I tight my grip on the wheel just a little. Not anger, just uh recalibration. When something doesn't make sense, it's not because there's no answer, it's because you're asking the wrong question, and I don't ask the wrong questions. Well, apparently I do because I'm sitting here like a fucking idiot. So I started over from the top. I eased out of the bonanza onto Maine and headed toward Davis. Same road, same lights, same half-dead town, pretending everything was normal. That part hadn't changed. The system hadn't changed either. I built it too well for that. It was simple. You control the product, you control the people who move the product, and you control the people who think they control the product. That's it, that's all it is. And I read it clean. Libraries, hockey arenas, PTA meetings, retirement homes, cereal moving through places that didn't even sell food, cashiers kept quiet, stockboys didn't ask questions, cops preferred a free breakfast over paperwork. Everybody understood how it worked. Then the product changed. Same boxes, same colors, same stupid little loops, but now they kill you. Fast, clean, especially when you put them up your ass. That's not a mistake, that's intention. So I do what I always do: find the leak, follow the line, go upstream. That's the system. Except now, the system's giving me nothing back, so I ran it over in my head again. The product's poisoned, distribution's still running, just not through me. Middlemen are either dead or fucking useless. End users are dropping like flies, including. I cut that thought off before it finished forming. Then I took a breath. Okay, the system still works, it has to. Systems don't just stop working. That means the problem isn't the system. The problem is my position in it. And that didn't sit right. I shifted in my seat, shook it off a little. Nah, that's not it. I'm still the one asking the questions. I'm still the one moving the pieces. I'm still the one deciding what matters. That shit hasn't changed, never will. So why does it feel like I'm following something instead of running it? I didn't like that thought, so I just stopped thinking it. Very easy for me to do, really. I wish more people could. There's far less anxiety around. Feelings aren't part of the system. They never were. Feelings are what you get when you don't understand the rules. I understand the rules. Always have. I was in fact born without feelings, so fuck them. The rest of the drive was quiet, the lights sliding past, the town staying exactly the same as it always does. And that was the part that didn't make sense. Everything was the same, except the answers. Maybe I'd find one back at the basement apartment. Shut the door, I let the place swallow me again. The beanbag chair took me in like it always does. I reached over, grabbed a handful of loops, and started doing some mental reconnaissance. I stared at the ceiling fan like Martin Sheen waiting to go back into the jungle. Each rotation peeled me a little further away from myself. I ran it through my head again. The system, clean lines, clear rules. The loops crunched the same, tasted the same, just felt like they were landing a little deeper than usual. Didn't matter. I kept going, I kept thinking. I sank deeper into the beanbag chair, the fruit loops crunching softly between my teeth, each bite settling heavier, slower, like gravity itself was folding around my skull. My mental reconnaissance started stretching, looping back on itself as tracing lines I hadn't noticed before, running the system again, backward this time, sideways, upside down. Then I saw Johnny Kelly Jr.'s closet. It's always been this vault of weird little truths. Johnny's old stuff, my old stuff, papers I'd never seen before, like they were placed there, the autopsy report, the psych evaluation, that fucking pointless note about Richie. I mean that was such a letdown. Everything had come from that closet. Like the place of a secret agenda. Now, it wasn't quiet anymore. A voice whispers. Or maybe it wasn't a voice. Maybe it was the thought itself twisting into a sound, only I could hear. Instructions, not full sentences, not orders. I don't take orders, fuck those. Just threads pulling me along. Look there, follow that. Follow that. Go deeper. Go deeper. I muttered responses under my breath, nodding like it made perfect sense. My thought loops were bending, curling, melting, slowly, but still carrying me toward something. The apartment stayed still around me, but inside my head, the walls were stretching, folding over themselves, colors shifting behind my eyelids, even though they were open. The closet wasn't just a closet anymore. It was an internal pulse, like the one on my wrist, or wherever the fuck I could never find it in my wrist. Anyway, it was a rhythm guiding my thoughts. A quiet beacon in the thickening haze. Threads I hadn't touched before tangled themselves into patterns, spiraling, overlapping, looping back in ways that made sense only when I stopped trying to make sense of them. Every scrap I found in our closet. The notes, the reports, the absurd reminders, all of Johnny's fucked-up shit, all of my fucked up shit. Was pretty fucked up, glimmered like markers on a map. I was only beginning to read. I whispered under my breath, following invisible lines, agreeing with shapes and sounds that did not exist outside my head. The thought loops bent and swelled, slowed and folded into myself, until I realized the next move wasn't a question, a choice or a strategy. It had been planted in my psyche long ago. Mendoza. God damn it, Mendoza. Just a name, a single seed, and it settled into my mind with the weight of inevitability. I didn't need to speak it. I didn't need to understand it. I only knew it was time to move. God damn it, Mendoza. Yeah, I hear you, buddy. Uh, what's that, buddy? Huh? What's that? Yeah, yeah, you're right, buddy. You're always right. I think it's time for a night ride. The 2002 Pontiac Sunfire sat next to the curb like an angry old man glaring at everyone walking by. Phone buzzing in my pocket, new ride request flashing. I was still moonlighting as an Uber driver, and yeah, I wanted to pick them up, keep that rating high. But not tonight. I had other business in hand.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Besides, I was too fucked up on fentanyl food loops.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

If Cornelius and I crashed, the rating drops. Defeats the whole purpose. I turned the phone off, and the sunfire over. The engine coughed awake, rusty, reluctant. I felt the vibration travel up my arms. Felt it settle like a buzz in my bones. The streets waited. The night waited. I waited with them. The loops in my stomach were carrying a song to my bloodstream, threading toward my brain. Not sweet anymore. Weighty. Pulling at the edges of my thoughts. My head bending around corners I didn't even know fucking existed, man. The closet's cloud instructions stick to my skull again. Stopped. Precise. Guiding me exactly where I needed to go. Follow the line. Go deeper. Keep moving. Mendoza. God damn it, Mendoza. The streets flip past like slow motion of stove lights. The cracks of the asphalt melting and ribbon. My thoughts began to look back on ourselves. Turn me red. Johnny Kelly Jr. Mendoza's boy. And my boy. All the faces flitted behind my eyes like old film reels. Things I knew. Things I thought. Things I caught. And yet, none of them existed. Not really. Not yet. I tapped the gas. The car rolled forward. Night swallowed the edges of town. Every familiar turn felt unfamiliar. Every street of conduit pulled me somewhere I couldn't name. Somewhere I had to go. Somewhere. I've been before. The road didn't feel like something I was driving on anymore. It felt like it was carrying me. Like I had slipped into a groove that had already been carved out. Tired settling in without asking. I wasn't choosing turns. The turns were choosing me. Settle at first. A light I didn't remember deciding to follow. A street I didn't remember signaling for. But my hands moved anyway. Calm. Like a circular circuit. Like they've done this before. Like they only knew how to do this. The loop settled deeper, deeper, deeper. Not my belly anymore. But in my head, in the space by my eyes where things start to blur together. The system was still there. I could feel it. But it wasn't clean anymore. The lines didn't run straight. They curved to go back. Let me pass things I thought I'd already cleared. Faces. Places. Names. Not lined up the way they should. Johnny Kelly Jr. wasn't just a body anymore. Neither was Ramirez. They felt placed positions. Like markers. Like someone had been building something long before I showed up to solve it. I exhaled slow, watched the windshield stretch the world into something thinner, flatter, easier to pass through. The town didn't change. But it didn't feel outside of me anymore either. Like I wasn't moving through it. It was moving through me. Every street of memory I didn't fully remember. Every turn of correction I didn't realize I needed to make. And somewhere in all of it, quiet, patience. Already ahead of me was the answer I'd been chasing. Not hiding. Not waiting. Just staying exactly where it was supposed to be. The edges started to go first. Not the road. Not the lights. Just the space around them. Like everything important stayed in place. And everything else stopped and peeled back. Stopped insisting on being real. I didn't fight it. There wasn't anything to fight. It felt a fiction. Like my brain was trimming away the unnecessary parts. So I could focus on what mattered. Thoughts stopped lining up in order. They stacked. Sat on top of each other. A name didn't lead to another name. It just was all at once. Mendoza. Ramirez. Johnny Kelly Jr. Me. Not connected. Not separate. Just present. Like four copies of the same file open on the same screen. I didn't question it. Questions slow things down. And whatever the fuck this was, it didn't want to slow down. Time stretched out. But not forward. Sideways. Moments sitting next to each other instead of passing. The lights moving, my hands on the wheel, all of it happening at once. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and like I was remembering it. While it was still happening, there was no difference anymore between what I was doing and what I'd already done. Just repetition, tightening, refining itself. Something in me settled. Not calm, not relief, but alignment. Like a lot turning somewhere deep in my chest. The need to think it through. But I was fucking gone, man. The need to understand it. Also gone. All that was left was movement. Forward. Steady. I didn't need to know where I was going. I only needed to keep going. In fact, whatever it worked hard. Don't read your counterforme. I let out a slow breath. I didn't remember taking in. My hands stayed on the wheel a second longer than they needed to. Then I looked up, and there it was. One building. Sitting out ahead of me like it had been waiting the whole time. No light. No movement. Just a shape I didn't need to study. To understand. I didn't ask how I got here. I didn't ask. Hey man, why this fucking place? That part was already settled, somewhere deeper than thoughts. The warehouse. Down by the docks. I knew I was coming here. I just never said it out loud. The street had gone still. The night holding itself back as if it knew better than to interrupt. The warehouse loomed in front of the parking spot, filling my psychedelic windshield. The same spot where I ordered a large four-topping pizza for $15.99 that ended up costing way more, like multiple lives. It waited, dark and immense. Every brick and every beam charged with memory. Shadows clung to it like witnesses. It had seen it all and it hadn't forgotten. I was here, ready to follow what had been left behind, to face what had been waiting. I didn't need to move. I was already inside this moment. Inside everything that had happened here. I reached for another handful of fentanyl-frosted fruit loops. But this time, I didn't eat them. And no, I didn't shove them up my ass. I wasn't that fucking desperate. I crushed the pieces between my fingers and fed them into the sunfire's air vents. I flipped the recirculation on, and the fan roared awake. A little trick I picked up dropping for Uber. The car filled constantly thick with sugar and chemical haze. Fented all lace fruit loops whirled to the car, spinning back at me over and over and over and over and over. I inhaled sharply. It hit my lungs first, then my chest, then my head. Every breath drew the death, the sweetness, the poison. I was inside of it. Inside a psychedelic storm of my own creation, the air was alive, choking, choking, familiar, familiar. Like a gas chamber made from my past. My own murders. Fuck, uh guess I might as well call them for what they were. In the deaths I couldn't escape. I breathe. And each inhale pushed those images into me, wrapping the car and me into the same unbearable, strange embrace. Not casual. Not accidental, isn't it? Deliberate. Me, the car, the warehouse. All calibrated. I wasn't trying to stay here. I was trying to go somewhere else. Somewhere. Somewhere. Deeper. Strip everything down until there was nothing left between me and the answer. People talk about mushrooms as DMT acid. AOD. Peyo's pretty cool. Seeing things, losing themselves. I wasn't losing anything. I was finding something. I was going in without backup. Each gust of air carried more than loose. Closing in on my senses, flooding the car until it wasn't just the air I was breathing. It was the past. Measure. Control. Like dialing something in. Instead of letting it take over, the street outside didn't disappear. It just stopped feeling separate. The name started stacking again. Ramirez. Mendoza. God damn it, Mendoza. Not as memories. Just present. All at once. Waiting for me to catch up. I exhaled. Letting the fruit loops and fentanyl swirl. Clouding the car, wrapping around me in me. The warehouse sat ahead of me. Dark. Quiet. Quiet. But not empty. It never was. Mendoza died in there. So did Mendoza Jr. And Mendoza Jr. Jr. Fuck it. Who cares? The car was a chamber now. A small tomb of air carrying their memories. Their ends. The weight of every hand I touched. Every life I closed. Each breath I drew was a reminder. Mendoza. God damn it, Mendoza. If he was in there, if there was anything left of him in there, I was gonna find it. The dust seeped into me, filling the space where thoughts stopped lining up properly. Not chaos, not confusion, just everything happening at once. I've been reading, yeah, that's right. Reading about Carl Jung or Young or whatever the fuck his name was, and this shadow. Not the one on the sidewalk, but the other one. The part of you that does things and you blame on other people. The version that doesn't apologize. Yeah, no, it sounds pretty cool. Blame on other people if leveling you do. Now this fucking shadow or whatever it is, if you ignore it, it runs your life anyway. I don't ignore anything. Actually, no, I do ignore a lot, especially that body in the trunk. I will have to get rid of that, hopefully later. But chasing shadows isn't enough. I need to find him. The two can man. So I reach for more loose, and I crush the vents again. Every inhale, every swirl of air aqui, a leather, letting the blur of chemical in my veins, letting it dissolve the edges of the world until I can reach inside and meet what's waiting. Three generations of the Mendoza family. Three and a half, if you can, Ramirez. Which I probably should. Ramirez, who got it right in this car. Well, not this exact car, but another one. I might as well have in this one. Just before I was gonna tell him who his real father was. College boy thought he could muscle in. Run a fake personal training business on top of my operations. So I put him down right here in this asphalt. Like literally, right fucking here. I can see the spot. The bloodstain's still there. They really should do something about that. Fucking town and New Market. Get kids walking around out of here. Johnny Kelly Jr. is gone too. Lost to the Fruit Loops I should have controlled. The Fruit Loops laced with fentanyl or fentanyl, I still don't know. The same one is taking me deeper right now. Every death has its crime, its place. It keeps receipts, and they're all for me. The smell of sugar and dust mixes with the night air. I'm not opening a door tonight. I'm kicking one in. Breathing slows. Asphalt grows in the black silk around me. Thoughts jarpen and dissolve at the same time. Fine. If I've got a shadow, I'll call him in for questioning. And then I'll stop. Not standing in the open. Not clear. Just there. A shape near the edge of the warehouse. Still waiting, waiting, waiting. Mendoza. God damn it, Mendoza. Not moving. Not calling Alex. Just existing. Like he already knew I'd catch up. I didn't question it. I didn't need to. He didn't come to me. So I went to him. I opened the door. Cold air hit me. Sharp. A lab. Each step carried me forward without thinking. The drizzle touched my face. Mixed with the catfram and blood. Mendoza stood just beyond the threshold. I followed. The door gave under my hand. I slipped inside. The air wrapped around me, carrying dust, oil, rust. Something older I couldn't even name. The warehouse drew me in, inhaled me, folding into itself the way the loops had folded in the car, pulling me towards a dark that weighted at the center. Boxes leaned at angles that made no sense. Shadows pushed in close, brushing the edges of my vision. Something moved. Or I thought it did. I followed. We all got cut to pieces here. But I didn't. Didn't even get a scratch on me. But they totally did. I mean they really did get cut to pieces. Nothing happened to me though. Pretty weird when you think about it. The floor splitzered underfoot. Every step was a negotiation, a test. The air carried a memory I hadn't touched yet. Something that remembered me before I remembered it. The warehouse did not wait. I moved forward. I followed. I moved through the open space. Mendoza stood still, waiting, not moving, not speaking. Just just there. There. In the exact spot where he had been cut to fucking pieces. I mean, it was bad man. I remembered giving a mouth to mouth. It was totally gross. But I did it anyway. Tried to hold him there. Even for a second. Each step toward him felt more and more deliberate. The warehouse wasn't just around me. It closed into itself, carried me forward without asking. I didn't hesitate. Mendoza stayed. I stayed. Nothing else existed. I stood there, looking at him. Mendoza, my old buddy. Well, I got used to him better than anybody I'd ever known. I couldn't help but I laughed a little. Look at you, Mendoza. You look great. God damn it, I missed you, buddy. He didn't move, didn't blink, he spoke. I froze for a second, and I don't fucking freeze either. I was caught somewhere between the warehouse, the memories, and the chemical storm swirling inside me. Swirling inside me, side, Mendoza? Is that you? How ya doing, buddy? Hang on here. Aren't you supposed to be uh dead? You know? I mean you got cut to pieces. I mean fuck right where you're standing, man. What it was like 72 times. Mostly in the head and face area, a little bit in the neck, too. I mean you got cut to fucking pieces, man. And that other fucking guy whose name I just can't even fuck him anyway. I even did that mouth-to-mouth thing on you, which was totally gross by the way. But I did it anyway, so I hope you're grateful. You know how much I hate kissing men with blood all over their face? You know that more than anybody. I'm not dead. I'm not alive. I'm not Mendoza. I don't know what guy you were making out with in here, but it wasn't me. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're what the fuck? What are you talking about? You're not dead, you're not alive. The fuck that's supposed to mean. And what do you mean you're not Mendoza? Could've fooled me, pal, you're a dead ringer. But the um the voice. You do sound a lot like me, am I right about that? Couldn't even get you your own voice. Sorry, dude. I don't have much of a budget for the show, you know. Tough economy. I'm in the basement apartment. That's not a bad one, though. You're not casting this right. Then why do you sound like me instead of you? You know, you are hearing the voice correctly. No, no, no. I am definitely not hearing it correctly. You're Mandadoza. You're supposed to sound like Mempedoza. You know, like um uh you know, you know, like uh fuck man, you're from East LA. You don't sound like whatever the fuck this is. You're not used to hearing it without the filter. The filter? What the what are you talking about? Fuck this shit. Let's go grab a couple of beers, buddy. No, I'm driving. You're what you're driving? What? You don't look like you're driving, chief. And by the way, when did a couple of beers ever stop you from driving? I'm all fucked up on fentanyl right now. I've been driving all night long, I'm perfectly fine. Well, not really, but you know, uh, kinda. Uh sorta. Not really at all. I'm uh not fucking fine. What is this by the way? Were you just standing here waiting for me? No hello? No, hey partner, good to see ya. Thanks for the mouth to mouth, which must have been totally gross for you, by the way. You already did that part. Uh yeah, I know I did that part. I was there, it was totally gross as I have been repeating endlessly. I'm just saying, you know, usually there's a follow-up of some kind. Some gratitude, man. Maybe a hugger for having a weird day. That wasn't for me. Okay, now that's a weird thing to say. Um well you'll look right, I'll give you that. You know, you got the whole thing down. Face, stance, dead guy energy, very strong. But the voice and the attitude. You're off, buddy. You're way off. You're noticing it now. Yeah, I'm noticing it now because it's fucking noticeable. That's how noticing works. Did you get hit in the head when you got shot in the head or something? What the fuck is going on here, man? Seriously. What the fuck? You're asking the wrong questions. No, no, no. I am asking the right questions, very basic questions. Matter of fact. You're just giving me weird answers. Big difference, man. Wait a second here. Whoa, woo, woo, woo, woo. I know what's going on, I gotta figure it out now. Hang on here, I'm on I'm on that, what is that called? Um, candid punct. Right? Candid punct or the fuck punked camera? Who's that guy? Uh, what's his fucking name? Where are you? Get out of here, he's probably around here somewhere. Alan Kutchner, that's it. Yeah, get the fuck out of here, man. This joke's over. That file in the closet. The psychological evaluation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one where they laid out exactly how I'd rack everyone around me. You know, they were dead right too, like they were fucking fortune tellers or something. It wasn't just a diagnosis, it was a blueprint. For uh what exactly? For the story for me to exist. You existed because of the st what fucking story. What is going on around here? Every 80s and 90s cop movie has a formula, sidekick, name, ethnicity, quirks. You followed the genre, I filled the role, rewrites, rehearsals. None of us ever actually existed. Not me, not Mendoza Jr. Not Mendoza Jr. Jr., whatever his fucking name was. You are the guy who made him up. You kept casting us because your mind demanded it. But we were always just projections, characters made from your own psychology. You wrote me with your eyes closed, scene by scene, rewrites, rehearsals, projections of your own mind. You didn't botch the raid at the warehouse, you staged it perfectly. You hit every mark the script required. So the warehouse isn't a crime scene, that's what you're saying here. It's a set. I'm the lead, on the director, on the stunt coordinator. Eh, not bad. I might not even need that Uber gig anymore. Although I do want to hit five stars, got a long way to go. I'm like a 1.3 right now. Alive, dead, never mattered. That's just how you wrote it. And speaking of Uber, you killed a man because he gave you a one-star rating. Do you think this will improve your reputation among rideshare companies? Oh, for fuck's sakes, man. You know, I gave him five stars, even though he was the worst driver I ever fucking had. How's that supposed to be fair? You know how it works. I scratch your back, you scratch mine, and the fucking guy gave me a one star. Just one bad rating, and that's it. Sticks with your whole can't fucking shake it, man. Have you ever heard Balkan bagpipe techno remixes? Cornelius said it comin'. I did it like Dexter too, was pretty cool. I didn't cut him up after just with the belt, you know, he's in the trunk. And he's been in that trunk for the past few episodes. You really should get rid of his body. Ah, fuck it, it's February. I'm fine. I've got to at least uh mid-March or so, uh, according to my research. I could probably stretch it to early April, but not May, definitely not May. I uh I checked the Googler, the thing never lies. Alright, look, buddy. Alright, alright, alright, let's start over here. Uh maybe it's the fentanyl, uh, maybe that's what it is. But this whole thing is going sideways. Now I mean fair is fair. I did do this to myself, to experience this experience that is happening at this very moment. Uh I was the one, hotbox in a 2002 Pontiac Sunfire, with fentanyl food loops, like it's some kind of spiritual retreat. Figured I'd get a little clarity. You know, meet my shadow. Like that jung or young or whatever his fucking name was. Look, the guy who moonlights is a therapist for fake cops who make up fake partners. That fucking guy. He's got some cool shit. I figured this shadow thing would help me find a two can man. Instead, I get you. Or whoever the fuck. Look, you were talking to me from a closet in my basement apartment, like you were airing out my own psychic laundry, telling me to come down here, and now I'm here, and here you are, or here we are, or here us are, or me as us are, or you as me, or me as you as me as you, or whoever is fucking standing in this hall of mirrors. I mean fuck. And now you're telling me I made you up, that your whole existence, and Mendoza Jr. And Mendoza Jr. Jr., your nephew, your cousin, whoever the fucking lineage was. Not if it was real, but that it was all fake. Well, like me, right? I'm a fake cop. I'm a fake personal trainer, fake Uber driver, fucking fake human being. Never went to the academy to be a real cop, never took kinesiology to become a real personal trainer, never took my Uber driving test or whatever the fuck it is they do. I don't know what they do to get that job, actually. I just killed a guy, stole his car and identity. So what are you saying, Mendoza? Was this all a rehearsal for me talking to a hallucination? A script running on me. No, Brad. You're running the script. You grew up on those movies, those TV shows, the cops and sidekicks, the partners who never quit. You needed someone to run with, so you invented me. Ah, yeah, you mean like uh Black Rain? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The 1989 Neo Noir action thriller directed by Ridley Scott, starring Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia. Yeah, I would have been Michael Douglas in that, and you would have been Andy Garcia because uh, well, uh, you know, he got cut to pieces too. Just 27 years old. I guess he had it coming. You didn't build a partner, Brad. You copied one from the only place you knew where to look. The movies, and then you called it real. So you're uh, so what the fuck here, uh you are a genre requirement, is that it? You could have made me Irish, but instead, you went with a different Hollywood stereotype. Ah, for Christ's sakes, I already had a character named Johnny Kelly. Look, just shut up. Look, fuck, look, fuck. Let's get back to this. What about Ramirez? Ramirez wasn't my son. That was never true. You looked at that picture he showed you, and you filled in what you wanted to see. You needed a father for him, so you put me there. Alright, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on, hang on, hang on. He did die, right? That actually fucking happened. He died. I mean, he took a sniper bullet right to the dome. I'd cut him right to pieces. Well, his head anyway. Kid died my arms. Just 23 years old. Well, I was gonna avenge the death of your son. Yes, Ramirez was real and totally got cut to pieces. Yes, that's all true. But it wasn't by a sniper. You keep bringing him up like he's separate from you, like there's someone out there you can blame. Well, of course there's someone to blame. There's always someone to blame. You know my policy on blame externalization. I'm pro blame externalization, very pro. If something bad happened, it wasn't my fault. Somebody somewhere had it coming. No, there's just a story you keep writing, and the part of you that needs it to be someone else. But Ramirez, he was gonna be an actor. Uh the next Peter North, he said, whoever that fucking guy is, I'd never heard of him before in my life. But if he's anything like Bobby De Niro. Yes, you do know who that is, Brad. You have known who Peter North was since 1986, and you keep bringing up Ramirez. You didn't see him as he was, you saw what you needed him to be. Well, he showed me a picture. He said it was his father, and it was a picture of you, man. For Christ's sakes, at least it sure looked like you. You filled in the rest, but it wasn't me, or you, or I don't. I'm even I'm confused right now. Anyway, you don't deal in people, Brad. You deal in roles. Yeah, well, he fit the role, and if the role fits. No, you made him fit it. Because a cop needs a partner. That's your rule. That's how it works. That's how it works in movies. So when you saw him, you didn't see Ramirez. You saw a partner's son. A missing piece on your board of revenge. And what about Johnny Kelly Jr.? You got any fancy theories on that? Einstein or Newton, whoever the fuck was smarter, I don't know. Neither. This isn't physics, Brad. It's pattern recognition. Oh god, here we go. Johnny Kelly Jr. wasn't a theory. He was an outcome. Your son was an addict because he didn't know his real father until it was too late. Hey, yo, look, buddy, I uh I think it's been established by now. Uh a guilt trip. I ain't got the chemistry set to take the ride. He died from shoving two and a half keys of Fentanol Fruit Loops up his ass. He took the rainbow route. That's more than an outcome, fella. You know, I was gonna try that myself uh front right now, but um I figured I'd just do the hotbox for old time's sake. Regardless, Brad, your son died with two and a half keys of pure fentanyl fruit loop shoved up his ass. Yeah, I know, it was a uh pretty rough way to go. Probably rougher on a medical examiner, though. The uh the rainbow route is pretty messy. I mean, I handle forensics on the scene, but I wasn't touching that. You know, I didn't kill my son. You keep saying that like I accused you of murder. You didn't need intent. You only needed proximity. Proxy So what, this is uh this is my fault now? Not now. Always. Oh well that's fucking convenient. No Brad. Convenient is what you built before it happened. Oh my god, and what did I build? A man, a name, a face, a purpose, something to carry it when it went wrong. And here I thought I was chasing something real. You are chasing yourself. The fuck you mean I'm chasing the toucan man, man. Like I said, you're chasing yourself. Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what the fuck here, man? What what? I think you're the one hallucinate now, buddy. Holy shit, what the fuck? These fentanyl fruit loops are pretty cool, but give me whatever you're smoking, man. Fuck. No, I'm the only thing in this room that is consistent. You created the Toucan Man for the same reason you created everything else. Uh, which is what? Control. Back in 1985, the Great Crab Apple War against the Great Eights, episode 32, check it out. You didn't just make a decision, you built a system. You divided the world into pieces, roles, operators, outcomes. You didn't want to take the blame for everything. So you separated the parts of yourself that would. That's what the two can man is. Nah nah nah nah nah nah. No way, fuck off, man. No offense, but you know, fuck off. You split, not because you were weak, but because you were efficient. One part sets the board, another part plays the move, and the last part, the part you don't acknowledge, does the damage. Yeah, yeah, you know, I don't know about that part there, Chief. Uh, I don't need to create some imaginary villain to do my damage for me. I've done enough on my own. You've seen it before. Fight Club, same structure. Hey, hey, hey, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Slow down. I am two guys now. No. You are one man who decided that being one wasn't enough. So you built two can man before anything went wrong. You already had someone to blame. Yeah, actually, that part does kind of square. Uh I have always believed strongly in blame externalization. By the way, Fight Club, that's a hell of a movie, man. Bad Affleck and Matt Damon are a great team. I love them in training day. You know what though, it's too bad Denzel Washington wasn't in that one. Oh man, he would have been fucking perfect. As Alonzo, you know, he could have won an Oscar, you know. Fucking Hollywood. Anyway, what the fuck are you going on about? You already know. No, in fact, I do not already know. You do. You just don't like where it leads. You know, buddy, we used to have a plan, man. It's fucking great too. Bearer bonds, remember? Steal them off them diplomatic immunity assholes. Then we go off and retire in some paradise where we drink beer all day and night. Maybe shoot our guns into the water, you know. Do something fun. We had a plan, man. Take the papers, get away, clean, no noise, then move more loops. Sounds like a system, Brad. Yeah, yeah, that was a system. So what the fuck does the two can man be and me have to do with this? I still don't know what's fucking going on. It's starting to sound pretty cool though. Tell me more. He was the part that moved when you didn't want to. The part that took the blame. You do know how you feel about blame externalization. You're pretty fucking extreme with it, Brad. Uh, yeah. So say it. The um the two can man. Fuck. You know, Mendoza, I swear, man, I just can't say that name without breaking out laughing, you know? I know, seriously, Brad. I've been having the same problem the whole scene, you know. I'm just trying to stay stoic, but it's an absolutely ridiculous name, a lot. No, tell me. It's fucking funny every time, man. Yeah, no, but listen, um, they just well, they just get it, don't they, Mendoza? Or me, or whatever the fuck I'm talking to. You know, this is actually kind of perfect. Yeah. The Toucan man. That's me. I mean, holy shit, Mendoza. Are you kidding me? This is the coolest shit I've ever heard in my life, man. Well, now I'm the two toughest guys in town. Now that's what I call a fucking reputation right there. You're enjoying this? Yeah, yeah, I uh I think I am. I mean, wouldn't you? I may have said it before, but this whole thing is pretty kinda sort of badass, you know. Come on. Ah, fucking celebrate. Yeah, I should probably order a pizza. Where's my phone? Oh, hang on, last time I did that, I got you killed. Now you're laughing. I'm not real, remember? Oh yeah, shit, that's right. Sorry, buddy. I'm kind of preoccupied with this whole uh twocan man thing, you know? Coolest shit I ever heard in my fucking life. I think maybe I should become a fake psychologist. God damn, I'm so glad I came down here. Great to see you too, Mendoza. Whoever the fuck you are, the Toucan man. Yeah, that's me. God damn it, Mendoza. You see what you did? You didn't just give me a name, you gave me a position, a role. That's what I do, right? I don't stumble around in the dark like everyone else. I divide things, I conquer things, I build systems out of chaos so I can walk through it clean. And you, you Mendoza, you're part of that system. You always have been, buddy. The two can man. Yeah. I like that. I really, really do. Cause it means I'm not just some guy reacting to the world. I'm the guy who sets the rules for how it gets played. And if I'm the one setting the rules, then nothing here, none of this shit you've been telling me, is out of control. Not the plan, not the damage, not even you. Cause you don't go anywhere, do you, Mendoza? You're not some separate thing I'm saying go back to. You're the part that stays when everything else moves. You're the part that keeps the shape of this whole thing intact. I don't lose you, I don't lose anything. I just keep going. No, Brad, please, I beg you for God's sakes, not to take me around in your brain with you for the rest of your life. Especially on those fucking night rides, my god. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Shut the fuck up, you got no choice, buddy. The two can man. Yeah. That's me, that's me. God damn it, Mendoza. You know what this is? This is the part where a guy's supposed to walk out alone and pretend he's fine. That's the rule, right? That's what happens in every movie. Got that lone wolf bullshit. But a fake cop doesn't move like that. A fake cop needs a fake partner. Doesn't matter if he's sitting beside you or sitting in your head. That's the job. You don't go into the dark alone. That's how you get lost in it. That's how Andy Garcia died in Black Rain. He was just 27 years old. God damn it, Garcia. I guess he had it coming. Anyway, Panda, let's get the fuck out of here. This can't be a fun place for you. Honestly, you know, it's not so awesome for me either. I uh I did give mouth to mouth to three men in here, and it was totally gross. Totally, you know, especially with the blood and everything. It wasn't just the man part. Yes, Brad. It was honestly disgusting. But you're still missing something. You're good at systems, but systems don't cover everything. Well, they fucking cover enough, don't they? I mean, you know. Not this. There's always someone on the outside of the plan. Uh yeah. You got um let me see, you got me, you got uh you got the two can man, that's also me, apparently. Um fuck. Angel Dubois, Johnny Kelly Jr.'s mother. God damn it, Mendoza. What am I gonna tell this kid's mother? Fuck. She already thinks I'm a shitty father. I mean, kind of unfair, and she didn't tell me about him for a year. And he was 20 when I met him. What the fuck? God damn it, Mendoza. I guess I've got it coming. Or somebody is, it's certainly not gonna be me, man. What the fuck? I mean, she is gonna be pissed. Uh fuck. I pulled a 2002 Pontiac Sunfire round back at the local funeral home. Same place I made a mental note of in the previous episode. Or was that this episode? It can be hard to remember. Everything kind of blends together, you know. Anyway, a building that specializes in people that are already not my problem anymore. Pop the trunk. Good old Cornelius was still in there. He's a loyal son of a bitch, I'd give him that. Same position, same attitude. A real low maintenance guy. Okay, buddy, this is where we part ways. Little sad, I know. Goodbyes can be tough. All you had to do was give me five stars. But nope. I grabbed him under the arms and dragged him out. It's stiff. That's February for ya. Good for storage, bad for flexibility. I propped him up against the back door of the funeral home, took a step back, and assessed the scene. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that'll that'll fucking work, I think. I checked my pockets, found a receipt and a pen, and wrote a note. I am dead. Hmm. I paused. A little too vague. I flipped the paper over and tried again. And I wrote, This is totally a dead body, not a prank. I taped it to his forehead, press it down nice and firm. Professional. I'm sure they'd appreciate that. I stepped back and gave it one more look. Just to make sure. Yep. Alright, looks good. That should totally solve this problem. I finally got rid of that body. And helped the local business. Two birds. One stone.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

Where the other eyes are. Sometimes it's a lot, and you can entertain me.