34 – Billy Night Rider

 

 

Lance stared at the tourist flocking to Grauman's Chinese Theater. Around him, guitar players and tarot readers squeezed pennies out of them for bad songs and distorted fortunes. He hated the Hawaiian shirts and pudgy faces, and envied their ability to go home when they were done-- each of them acting the way his uncle might have acted, snapping pictures, pointing to the oddities of the Boulevard: Jesus Freaks on one corner, Bikers on another, Gays on a third.

 If there was a job to be had, he couldn't see it. He had vaguely hoped for something around the theater, a guide job showing off the foot and hands prints perhaps. But the gold and red uniforms of the theater ushers reminded him too much of the army.

 "Well, well," a harsh voice said from the shadow of a store front awning, a glint of leather and broken teeth telling Lance exactly who it was.

 "What do you want, Billy?" Lance asked, almost relieved at the familiar face after so many strangers.

 The man staggered out like a cowboy, his broad face and blond hair pure California, thought twisted and scarred from life on the street. Not a big man by biker's standards, but tough from finger to toe, his upper arms smeared with countless tattoos.

 "Not even a hello?" the man said, mocking hurt. "You go away, and you forget all about your old friends."

 "I'd hardly call you a friend," Lance said, trying to maneuver around the man. But Billy grabbed his arm.

 "Friend or not, don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you."

 "Or what?" Lance said, feeling the grimy fingers tighten.

 "Do I have to say it?"

 "I guess so," Lance snapped. "I don't seem to get your drift."

 Billy threw his head back in what sounded like a howl. People looked from around them. Tourists and others, thinking of it as some new attraction.

 "You're a pip, Drummond. Even for a wimp."

 "The word's pacifist," Lance said, unhooking Billy's fingers from his arm. "Are you through talking yet? I have places to go."

 The veins on Billy's forehead thickened like vines, the eyes narrowing into something akin to anger. Yet deep in them, doubt appeared. Billy didn't know Lance. He only knew the rumors of money and Sarah's fast lane party life; resenting being left out of the social set.

 Dan had warned Lance against him months earlier.

 He's bad news, Dan had said. You let him in, he'll take over.

 And the few times on the street, Lance had felt the discomfort of the man's attraction towards Sarah-- and Sarah's attraction back. As if he'd needed any other reason to keep Billy distant.

 The smile vanished from Billy's cracked lips.

 "I was just being neighborly," the biker said-- though his eyes held Lance's questioningly, as if trying to evaluate how much he knew. Had Lance or Dan uncovered his trashing of the McCadden apartment?

 Lance shivered, recalling the holes in the walls, picturing the savage disappointment with which the man had made them.

 "Fine," Lance said. "Be neighborly with somebody else." He turned, but Billy grabbed his arm again, twisting him back, sticking his stinking face close to his. The smell of pot and booze and rotting teeth nearly made Lance sick.

 "You said you weren't coming back," the man whispered, studying Lance's face more closely, more suspiciously, with just an edge of fright around his eyes.

 "We're back because we're broke," Lance said, shaking this grip loose, too. "I'm out looking for work."

 "Work?" the man hissed, spitting out the word as if it was something dirty, his eyes narrowing into slits. "Don't con me, man. Everybody knows how rich you are."

 The why sparked up in his eyes. And for the first time, Lance felt the fear boiling up inside the man complete with the name Buckingham. He half expected the biker to ask him the question outright the way Gil had.

 Are you Buckingham? Is that how you got all your money?

 But the man only spat to the side and stepped away from Lance, shaking his head. "You're not gonna find no work in this town, Drummond. People don't like hippies working for them."

 But I'm not a hippie! Lance's mind screamed. Despite his long hair and ragged clothing, and the company he kept, Lance felt like his uncle, dreaming the same dream of comfort and security. The word home echoed in his head as he stumbled away.

 

 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