25 – This is crazy

 

 

"Just let me off downtown," Chris said, as Dan steered the van back into the maze of streets again. Gil's little empire vanished behind the stand of trees, non-existent, like lost Shangri-la

 "You're not going to party with us?" Dan asked, a note of disappointment in his voice. His plans seemed to have included Chris.

 "Can't," Chris said, staring straight out into the darkness, her gaze tight and angry. "I have things to do."

 "Here? In this town?" Dan said. "What the hell can anyone do here?"

 "Gather news," Chris said. "Gil's been pretty closed-mouth about things. I want to know what the cops are up to."

 Lance felt it, too-- something had happened which Gil had not told them. The gift of drugs seemed inappropriate, and he would have preferred leaving town altogether. A cloud hung over the van despite the startling sky-full of stars.

 "Party pooper!" Dan grumbled, then twisted the van onto one of the main concourses south, darkened houses with long artificially supported lawns in front of each, sprinklers repairing sunlight damage with small floods. The streams of each crossed the road at intervals, the van's tires swishing over them, emphasizing the silence.

 Dan pulled the van over a few blocks short of downtown. "Gil warned us to keep our distance," he said. "I'll let you out here."

 Chris popped open the side door then paused. "Don't rely on him if you get in trouble," she said.

 "We're not going to get in trouble," Dan said with a grin. "Not where I'm going."

But Lance shivered, feeling trouble swarming around them.

 "Fine. I'll make my own way back to Gil's," Chris said and leaped out, pausing for a moment on the illuminated sidewalk before finding a shadow to melt into.

 "Well," Dan said, lighting up a cigarette, his reflected face in the glass looking particularly dark beneath the floppy hat. "It's just the three of us again, eh? So be it."

 "Why don't we just lay low somewhere," Lance said. "This dope thing strikes me as crazy."

 Dan gaze glared across the cab at Lance. "Are you going to spoil the party, too?"

 "I don't mean to," Lance mumbled. "I just don't feel comfortable."

 "Then loosen up, pal," Dan barked. "We've been cooped up and chased for so long, we need the break."

 But not here, Lance thought, feeling someone's eyes on him out of the shadows. Demetre, maybe? Or Buckingham? All the whispered meetings between Gil and Mike haunted him. It didn't make sense to send them out tonight.

 Dan shifted gears and began a slow weave through side streets with Indian names, preserved in asphalt like grave stone markers, much of their original significance lost except to the dying tribes.

 "Where exactly are we going?" Sarah asked. She hadn't spoken much in the last day or so, though he could still feel her anger bubbling under the surface, despite her sudden announcement to return to L.A.

 "South," Dan said. "Near Tempee. A small park where we can trip in peace. In fact--" He reached into his shirt pocket and produced the packet Gil had given them, casting it to Lance. "Divide it up and take it now. We'll be off by the time we get there."

 "That doesn't seem like a good idea," Lance said.

 "Damn it," Dan growled. "Is everybody going to be a party poop. Give me mine. I'll take it." He grabbed several taps and popped them into his mouth, sucking on them as if they were candy. "Ah, tastes good, too."

 Good if one liked chemicals, Lance thought.

 A sour-faced Sarah duplicated the act, though let the pills tumble into her palm for a moment. Lance had not seen their kind before, more like medication with a shimmering external surface. On the street, the dope had always looked like small, sweet tarts. She threw back her head and tossed them into her mouth with a single jerk.

 "Well?" Dan asked, noting Lance's reluctance.

 "Shouldn't one of us stay straight in case something happens?" Lance asked.

 "No," Dan growled. "We all know how you get."

 Scared, that's how Lance got. Straights weren't supposed to witness people on the edge, and each experience had left him liking the crowd and drug less-- unable to comprehend the stumbling and mumbling travelers or their visions. He was more comfortable tripping with them, as along for the ride.

 "Take it," Dan commanded.

 "But I've never tripped outside," Lance said.

 "No problem," Dan said. "This place is magical. It'll seem okay. An old Indian burial ground. Real hip."

 Lance felt the first tingle of interest. "Really?"

 "Really. Now take it, damn it."

 Lance nodded and lifted the pills to his mouth, Dan's gaze following the procedure with intense scrutiny, then relaxed and grinned and shifted again, humming a bit of Jimi Hendrix as he continued the weaving journey.

                                                                   ***********

 "What is it?" Marie asked, propping herself up on her elbows, her breasts plopping out from under the sheets like two small loafs of dough.

 Mike had risen, trying not to wake her, his naked form illuminated by a beam of moonlight half way to the door.

 "Nothing," he said tightly. "Go back to sleep."

 "But where are you going?"

 "Just into the other room. I need to think."

 Sleep had eluded him for hours, and the room, as silent as it was, had been filled with the echoes of Gil's words. Earlier, he had heard the bustle of moving things and starting engines. The sense of a retreating army pervaded the place. But for the last hour, quiet had come, covering over the usual night noises, the breathing of sleeping figures, the coughing or joking of the guards. The building bled the last of its humanity into the dark, a slow death from which there would be no resurrection.

 "Think about what?"

 "About going to see the old man."

 "Now?" It must be after midnight!"

 The clock said 12:15.

 "In the morning it will be too late," Mike said.

 "But he won't be up this time of night, he's ancient. And it won't want to see you anyway. Not after all this time."

 "He knows I'm coming," Mike said, fishing in the darkness for his pants and boots.

 "Knows? You've talked to him?"

 "I don't have to talk for him to know," Mike said, the restrictive denim rising up over his naked self like chains. "But he knows-- and I know, and I'd better go alone."

 "NO!" Marie snapped. "You go and I'll never see you again."

 "Nonsense. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

 "I'm going with you," she said, shoving the sheet from her.

 "Marie..." he started but knew better than to argue with her and continued to dress.

 

 Hip Cities main menu 


email to Al Sullivan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

19 – Reluctant friends

Image
    The van bucked slightly as it climbed up out of the ravine, the dirt road turning into gravel, then asphalt. The jeep in front of the little caravan blinked out each turn like a command. Behind the van, a half dozen other jeeps followed, soldier green, nearly invisible in the darkness.   "A lot of help you were back there," Chris said, seated beside Dan in the front. Mike and Marie sat on the bed in back, like buffers to the battle of silence between Lance and Sarah. "I expected the pacifist to stand by and watch, but you?"   Dan glanced sidewards at the cruel twist of Chris' mouth. She reminded him of his ex-wife, making his ache worse. He hadn't been laid since the road to Denver, and then only a quickly with a hitch-hiking hippie chick. He missed the regularity of L.A. and the parade of mid-west girls from which to pick. But his ex-wife had always been able to turn him on, in the mood or not.   "You expected me to charge out into the midd...
Read more

4 – A million dollar debt

Image
  They were back there somewhere-- though the rear-view mirror showed only the passing glitter of Denver suburb street lights, like stars glowing from a bowl of water. Dan Newhaul gripped the wheel as the van followed the winding road up and out of it, circling the belly of the mountain like a lopsided belt.   Back there riding the curve behind him with their headlights off. He tried to picture their grim faces and grey suits, wondering if they would break his legs or toss him off a cliff. He glanced forward in time to swerve away from the guard rail.   Calm down, boy! Don't do their job for them.   The grade increased sharply, and Dan downshifted. The weak Volkswagen engine struggling to keep up speed. It hadn't been built for mountains like these. And the thin air effected its fuel mixture. It coughed and grunted. The additions he and Lance had built into the thing weighing it down. Like the wood bed frame and the boxes of clothing. They swayed with each ...
Read more

26 – The Old Man

Image
    They drove northwest. Reservations infested the region like amusement parks, encircling Phoenix as if around a circle of wagons. Mike remembered the details of the road though he had come there only once. Over and over he had travelled it in his head, each time imagining himself begging the Old man's forgiveness. Now the wheels of the silver Pinto kicked up the dust, bounding over the dirt road like a real steed.   "Are you all right?" Marie asked, touching Mike's hand on the wheel, polished nails shimmering in the light like tiny knives.   "No."   "What's wrong? You never said."   What wasn't, he thought, but mumbled: "Nothing."   He had no way to explain the feeling, the ache inside his head when he sensed something wrong. The whole affair with Gil had left him more confused than when he'd come-- and slightly empty. He lacked Chris' loyalty to clan upon which to lean during hard times. The rituals of his ...
Read more