27 – Bum trip, man

 

 

"You getting off?" Dan asked, downshifting for a traffic light. Lance smelled citrus through the open window but had lost track of their journey through the twisting streets. His dose melting in his sweating palm.

 "I feel something," Sarah said, her voice dreamy and sad. "How long till we get there?"

 Her face told Lance everything-- flushed even in the dim light of passing street lamps, eyes dilated into penny-sized circles. He remembered L.A. and knew it would be a rough night.

 "Not long now," Dan said, unable to contain the drug-induced humor. He'd been giggling to himself for blocks. "Another mile or two."

 Lance had his own suspicions. They had been travelling around in circles for an hour, passing several houses a number of times, the effect of the drug creating its own reality.

 "Why don't you let me drive?" Lance suggested.

 Dan looked over indignantly and stoned. "But you don't know where it is, my boy."

 "Neither do you," Lance said as the red light turned green and the van didn't move, Dan staring out into space missing Lance's remark, missing everything but his own special vision. What planet had the man landed on? Or time period visited? Or had the man slipped into the folds of reality the way some hippies did, examining the intricate details of the atoms themselves.

 "Dan!" Lance barked.

 "Huh?" Dan said and shook himself back, glancing across the cab at Lance. "Oh, there you are. Are you off yet?"

 "That's it!" Lance growled. He yanked open the door and leaped out, circling the van to Dan's side. He yanked this door open, too, but stopped suddenly, aware of a car twenty feet behind them. Stern straight faces stared back at him. Not cops, but men like those Mike and Chris had embarrassed in the mountains. Denver men. Men who slowly climbed out either side of the car with pistols in their hands.

 Cong! Charging out of the jungle at them. And he, poised with his wounded grunts at the mouth of a chopper, hovering a foot from the ground, the perfect target...

 "Move over!" Lance screamed, shoving at Dan.

 "Huh?"

 "Don't argue with me, fuck head, just move!"

 Dan fell more than moved, like the first domino in a line, knocking Sarah into Lance's vacant space. Lance leaped in, jabbing down the clutch as the sound of quickening steps came on either side of the van. The van moved, bumping forward in first with the gear shift refusing to make the transition into second-- the faces of the men floating in the windows, banging on them with pistols.

 "What the...?" Dan roared.

 "It's nothing," Lance shouted as the gears changed and the van picked up speed, leaving the spirits behind. A flash came, followed by a snap. Two more patterned holes added to the collection in the rear windshield.

 Where now? Dan's panic faded quickly as he and Sarah pointed to the houses along the side of the road, development houses all built from a single mold, reminding Lance of home. It ached in him, though only God knew what these two saw. Monsters creeping out of the windows perhaps? Or fairies?

 Lance made a sharp left at the next corner as the roar of another motor sounded behind them. Pursuit! Not a mig this time, just a fast sports car. The van convulsed with the turn, unable to keep up speed-- a loose rod or joint rattling under the thing. They wouldn't out-run anyone in this. He snapped off the lights.

 "Hey! What did you do that for?" Dan howled. "You stole all the colors."

 "Just look at the stars," Lance growled, making another left, onto a broader, flatter street. More Pleasant Valley Sunday houses on either side, promising invisibility, the privacy of uniformity. No crying soldiers demanding he ease their pain, no death on his door step. Life like his uncle lived it, without jungle or despair.

 He shook himself, then jerked the wheel again, not up a street, but into someone's driveway and a small grove of trees. He stopped the van and turned off the engine.

 "Is this the park?" Sarah asked, leaning forward to peer out, her face made pale by the starlight.

 "Not exactly," Lance said. "Just sit tight, all right?"

 Dan uttered something incomprehensible, but not negative, hat falling back as he stared up at the sky. Sarah giggled and discovered Dan, her hand settling over his as her mouth puckered into a suggestive grin. She had reached the next stage. Lance grit his teeth as Dan and Sarah struggled over the back of the seat to the bed. He pretended not to hear the giggling or their passion. But his face looked grim in the driver's side mirror, the way it had too often in Nam.

                                                                   ***********

 Darkness settled on the ranch. The crew had gone, taking the bulk of the operation over to the west side of town. Not a good place, but someplace different. Gil felt the ache of it, as if digging up the bones of ancestors. A wiser man would have been better prepared, alternate sources of drugs. But some scent in the air said bad things about the future of big empires and great drug lords. Big business had moved in, bringing violence where none had been needed before.

 He sealed the second suit case, his personal stash of drug that would hold him over until he found new connections, looking up to the sound of the tumblers falling from his locked door. A shadow eased in.

 "Who is it?" Gil asked, standing on the wrong side of his desk, not quite able to reach the drawer with its pistol.

 "You know," the whispered voice replied from just out of the circle of light.

 "Buckingham?"

 "That is a name I use sometimes."

 "Look, friend, you don't have to kill me. I've closed up shop. You can take over the town..."

 "And those?" The point of a pistol appeared out of the darkness, jabbed at the suitcases. "Are those the drugs you stole?"

 "The last shipment and some I've stashed over time," Gil said, easing to the side of the desk, hand reaching for the suitcase handle. "Take them."

 But instead of the handle, he went for the drawer. Two quick snaps sounded; two small holes appeared in his chest. He fell, feeling a rush of what might have been the beginning of an LSD trip, but one that would last forever...

                                                                   ***********

 The Ford came to a wobbly stop at the shoulder of the road, the axile bent from cross-country driving with various other unintended damage underneath. Gil hadn't been specific on the condition, just didn't want it to leave town.

 Mike hopped out. Dawn peaked over the distant mountains, blinking out the street lamps one at a time. Early morning traffic thundered by, grove help and mining workers in pickups and rusted cars. Marie leaned against the headrest, shaking to the vibration of the cars.

 What now? His little jaunt had shaken her father's army, but they wouldn't get far now. Not that he intended to return to Gil's. He felt the heat. Tinkerton's only a small part of it. Gil had warned him. The cops would hit the van this morning.

 Better to skip out now while on a roll.

 "Marie?" he whispered and shook her shoulder. She opened her eyes, makeup and dust like crust around the lashes. "We got to go now."

 "Go?" she said sleepily, glancing out at the road, stiffening only then at the memory of the chase.

 "L.A. We're going to hitch a ride from here."

 "What about the others?"

 "They'll figure it out. We'll meet up with them in Hollywood later. Come on."

 She climbed out, stretched, then retrieved their packs from the back seat. Mike slung one over his shoulder then stuck his thumb out. A rickety red pickup truck full of Mexicans pulled over, their pudgy round faces gawking at Marie.

 "Only going to Blythe, man," the driver said.

 "Good enough," Mike said, throwing his pack into the back before helping Marie up into the read bed. It would be a windy ride, but a start in the right direction. He didn't look back once; afraid he'd see her daddy's army walking across the sand.

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