A Romance Novel For Dudes
Ross Patterson
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65 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012
Copyright © 2015 by Ross Patterson
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Regan Arts Subsidiary Rights Department, 65 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012.
First Regan Arts hardcover edition, June 2015
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014955548
ISBN 978-1-941393-49-9
Interior design and background illustrations by Daniel Lagin
Jacket design by Richard Ljoenes
Jacket art and interior illustrations by Tim McDonagh
Printed in the United States of America
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For Emma, Forever Ago.
Wait, that’s the title of a fucking Bon Iver album.
For Nikki, my waitress at the Daytona Beach Hooters who I
had sex with and never called back. I knew shit was going down
when you drew a heart instead of dotting the i in your name
on my receipt. In case I left you with child, this book is for you.
Also, if you want to fake my signature on it and give it to him
or her like it came from me, feel free. I won’t say shit.
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Contents
About Me, St. James St. James
xi
Chapter One
MON DAY, A PR IL 3 0, 1849 —COLOM A , C A L I FOR N I A:
T H E DAY T H AT I B EC A M E R IC H 1
Chapter Two
B E I NG R IC H M A K E S YOU A B E T T E R PE R S ON 5
Chapter Three
I T ’ S H A R D TO G E T T H E S M E L L OF S E X OF F 15
Chapter Four
E V E RY M A N N E E DS A DY NA M I T E MON TAG E TO F E E L A L I V E 27
vii
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C ontents
Chapter Five
T H E W IL D W E S T WA S R A D,
B EC AUS E YOU COUL D J US T K IL L PEOPL E 43
Chapter Six
T I M E TO TA K E A S H I T I N M Y OW N H A N DS .
I T H I N K T H AT S E N T E NC E I S W RONG. 61
Chapter Seven
T H E S T R E NG T H OF A M A N C A N ON LY
B E M E A S U R E D BY HOW M UC H H E C A N L I F T 79
Chapter Eight
DE AT H I S A H E AV Y T H I NG . . . E S PEC I A L LY W H E N
T H E COR PS E W E IG H S OV E R E IG H T H U N DR E D POU N DS 99
Chapter Nine
T H E R E A R E L AW S NOW ? W H AT T H E F UC K ? 111
Chapter Ten
W H E N YOU’R E R IC H , I T ’ S OK AY TO M U R DE R PEOPL E 127
Chapter Eleven
A N I RON IC NA M E FOR A C H A P T E R
W H E N YOU LO S E A L L YOU R MON E Y 141
Chapter Twelve
W H E N ON E DOOR CLOS E S , A NOT H E R PE R S ON
I S PROBA B LY F UC K I NG B E H I N D I T 159
viii
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C ontents
Chapter Thirteen
A F T E R S I X Y E A R S , I A M F I NA L LY R E A DY TO L E AV E C H I NA 173
Chapter Fourteen
DRUG S A R E F UC K I NG AW E S OM E , A N D E V E RYON E WA N T S T H E M 191
Chapter Fifteen
I T TA K E S A BOU T ON E HOU R U N T IL I A M R IC H AGA I N 205
Chapter Sixteen
PEOPL E A R E S TA RT I NG TO H AT E T H E C H I N E S E . I G E T I T. 219
Chapter Seventeen
T I M E TO K IL L E V E RYON E I N S IG H T . . .
R E L A X, T H E Y DE S E RV E I T
235
ix
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About Me,
St. James St. James
June 9, 2015. McSorley’s Old Ale House. New York, NY
A
s I sit at an aged wooden table at the back of Manhattan’s oldest
bar, a man walks in and demands a Michelob Ultra. The bartender shakes his head and replies, “We only have two types of
beer here, light and dark. We also never had to serve women until a
court order in 1970.”
The guy looks at him incredulously and says, “I am a man.”
“Not if you’re ordering a fucking Michelob Ultra!” I shake my
head and laugh to myself as the man walks out. It’s only fitting that
I’m doing this here.
Hello, I’m Saint James Street James. I hate road abbreviations,
so I spell out my last name. At some point in your life you’ve seen
me partying all over the world, gracing the covers of many famous
sport-fishing and leisure magazines over the years—along with my
xi
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A B OU T M E , S T. JA M E S S T. JA M E S
twenty-six-page spread in the infamous July 1973 issue of Playgirl
that’s been banned, except in Luxembourg. You may think you
already know everything about me, but you don’t. The one secret I’ve
been harboring for most of my adult life is . . . that I’m 186 years old.
That’s not a misprint, I’m 1-8-6, holmes. Yeah, I put an L in “homes”
so you would understand how serious I am.
I was rich enough to almost triple my life expectancy, while
permanently maintaining the looks of a thirty-five-year-old man
still in his prime. Oh, and I also beat AIDS. Twice. You can do that
shit when you’re rich, and I am really fucking rich. The only other
way to beat AIDS is if you win the Olympics. Go ask Magic Johnson
or Greg Louganis if you don’t believe me.
Why am I telling you this? After living 186 years on this planet,
I’ve become bored—and unless a scientist invents a new place to put
a hole in a woman, I’ve done everything else there is to do in this life.
I’m also tired of seeing what the male species has evolved into, so the
moment I finish writing my memoirs about my life . . . I’m going to
off myself. You read that correctly, I’m going to kill myself. This isn’t
going to be a casual Paris Jackson “I ate a bunch of children’s chewy
Tylenol” suicide attempt; I’m going to blow my fucking brains out.
Before I do, I want you to know the real truth about me. That’s
why I’m writing this book with nothing but a loaded handgun and a
pile of freshly cut pure Bolivian cocaine next to my old classic Remington Rand typewriter that Hemingway gave me. He only used it
once, as a urinal at a house party. After relieving himself, he shook
twice and typed only one sentence on a piece of paper: “This typewriter smells like piss; get a new one, fuckface.” Classic Hemingway.
xii
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A B OU T M E , S T. JA M E S S T. JA M E S
If all of this sounds too intense, then stop reading the rest of this
shit right now. Seriously, put down your glasses without the prescription in them and close this book, because this kind of male
hubris isn’t for you. I’m not going to apologize for being a real man,
and I certainly don’t know when it became trendy to tell everyone
that “you weren’t cool in high school.”
Back in 1827 I was born in a time where men were actually men.
We fucked whoever we wanted, whenever we wanted, we didn’t pull
out, and the only “child support” that was given was if you put a
blanket in the basket before you dropped your illegitimate baby off
on a stranger’s front porch. We didn’t cook shit using Pam or butter,
just a raw skillet, and maybe a little spit. We put our boxers on backward so we could take a shit without having to pull them down
before we sat down in an outhouse.
The following memoir is filled with the most important stories
ever told in the history of the United States. It will end all stories
about every other man ever told, so go fuck yourself, Buzz Aldrin.
Enjoy my life.
—Sincerely, St. James St. James
xiii
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Chapter One
Monday, April 30, 1849—
Coloma, California: The Day
That I Became Rich
A
tall, thirty-two-year-old man stares deep inside a filthy hellhole
of a gold mine with a dimly lit lantern, trying to see through a
cloud of dust. This man is me, but I refuse to give any further
physical description of myself until I’m wealthy. Most great men
usually do. What I can tell you is that I’m jammed between the tits
of the great American gold rush of 1849, and shit is fucking real. This
isn’t a goddamn hobby where you take your kid out panning for gold
with a spaghetti strainer on Sundays hoping for the best. People have
died doing this. Which is why I pay someone else to do it for me.
Suddenly a dirty Chinaman in his forties emerges from the dark
hole with three dead parrots clinging to his shirt. He’s smiling
through cracked “dying of thirst” lips, but my eyes are fixated on his
tiny, yellow hand. I don’t want him touching me, so I shine my lantern in his face and demand that he stop walking toward me.
Dropping to his knees, he cries out, “You rich, boss. You rich!”
1
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AT N IGHT S HE CR IES , W HIL E HE R IDES HIS S TEED
He opens his hand to reveal a small, brightly speckled rock covered in mud. I make him take off one of his wooden shoes and place
the pebble inside it. Carefully, I remove the canteen from around my
neck and wash the dirt away. It appears to be gold, but to be sure, I
make him bite into it.
Staring at the nugget nervously, he knows what he has to do. He
closes his eyes, places the nugget into his mouth, and bites down
hard. Instead of his rotting teeth breaking off instantly, they make a
soft imprint. Holy. Fucking. Shit. It’s real hardcore American gold,
and I’m fucking rich.
I won’t bore you with the details of how I then made this Chinaman excavate and load 480 pounds of gold onto my wagon, drag
it into town personally (because I didn’t want to tire out my horse),
and melt it down into gold bars by hand while I stood behind him
with a loaded shotgun pointed at his head. Come to think of it, that
was probably only boring for me—he was probably scared shitless.
On that note, congratulations, you’ve just read the best first
chapter of any book ever written. Notice how I skipped over my
childhood and all that bullshit? That’s because nothing cool happens
in your life until you become rich, and up until the moment you just
read about, I was a poor-ass farmer. My parents were decent people,
but they were working-class citizens, whose only claim to fame was
that former president Martin Van Buren once took a shit in our
outhouse during a campaign visit to California. You sure as fuck
didn’t pay fifteen bucks to read about that. Let’s just get to me being
rich and fucking awesome. You’re welcome.
2
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