37 – The party
Lance heard the party two blocks away, like
voices echoing in a canyon: Jimi Hendrix's guitar licks emphasizing the silence
of the other buildings. When he turned the corner, he saw the apartment windows
flickering ominously with the sharp blue fire of strobe lights-- an open
advertisement for a police raid.
And it got worse. People stood around at the
end of the drive laughing, and others sat smoking pot on the steps up. Even the
balcony held an over-flow of stoned people, many of them strangers, too young
to be part of the set he and Sarah had known before leaving.
"What the fuck are you people doing out
here?" Lance asked those in the drive. They looked at him with that
indignant social air that had become all too common in Hollywood-- the
outsider-insider head-trip that annoyed Lance to no end. As if the love &
peace generation had become country club to which one had to be invited.
Acid's the door, man, the freaks once told
him. You don't take it; you don't see like we do.
But his face convinced them to move back
towards the stairs, and he herded them up, the crowd there joining them in the
climb, glaring back at Lance, saying without words he was bringing them down.
A bummer, man, the old crowd had told him.
You're just one big bummer.
His uncle would have called him practical.
Practical in not wanting attention drawn to himself or his private little drug
trips when he took them. Practical in refusing to let some stoned asshole
create that attention for him.
"Up," he said. "And into the
house. I don't want you people out here."
He cast a glance back towards his landlady's
apartment. For some reason it was dark, indicating she had gone out for the
evening. A bit of precious luck that he wouldn't waste.
"Up," he ordered, and the freaks
climbed, reluctantly to the landing above, and slowly re-entered the apartment.
Once inside, Lance saw the reason for the
over-flow. Wall to wall people. There was hardly space in the front room to
stand-- though some lucky people near the walls had carved out little
love-nests, their naked forms squirming like pink worms in the strobing lights.
At the far end of the room, near the mouth of
the kitchen, another space had been cleared for dancing-- a stereo with two
huge, black-faced speakers blared out varying types of trip music. Hendrix had
been replaced by the less-talented droning of Vanilla Fudge.
The dancing amounted to little more than
people swaying in place. Even had there been more room, they would have still
swayed, led on by a huge, blond-haired man Lance recognized from the old days,
the arms outstretched with palms exposed.
"Can you feel it, children?" the
huge man said. "Can you feel the vibes now moving through you? The fabric
of reality calling to you, begging you to come down to it?"
"We feel it, Dale," some of the
swaying trippers said, looking about as conscious as the stumbling drunks on
Sunset Boulevard. "We feel it."
Lance felt sick and searched though the faces
till he found the one he wanted and shoved his way through the human forest,
grabbing Dan by the collar and dragging him to the wall.
"What the fuck is going on here?" he
hissed into the face. "Are you trying to get us busted or what?"
The stoned Dan grinned at Lance, long brown
cigarette dangling from his lip Bogart-style. But his eyes lacked the flat,
nearly dead look of a tripper.
"We're safe, pal-- there might be cops
outside watching, but they won't do anything."
"What?" Lance growled and glanced
towards the balcony where more people gathered, imagining the army of blue
uniforms spilling over the railing. "If they're watching..."
"Relax, pal," Dan said, patting his
shoulder. "They're just out there to see who all's coming to this
shindig."
Insanity!
One didn't play games like this with the
police, taunting them as if they wouldn't react. Lance knew better. He'd seen
the fire deep in Demetre's eyes, the embers of some deep fury that would not
stay dormant forever.
Lance wanted to shake the smugness out of
Dan's eyes and make him understand the fragile balance of power upon which
their freedom rested, this formidable idea that there were bigger fish than
them to catch.
Lance felt the ill wind coming with its
impending violence. Like the crisp jungle air just before a fire fight in Nam,
each detail slipping into place.
"What about my landlady?" Lance
asked. "I saw her lights out. Has she heard any of this?"
"Not likely. I saw her leaving before the
party started."
Thank God for small favors, Lance thought. But
who knew when the woman would return. He eyed Dan darkly. "I want the
volume of this insanity turned down," he said. "And the people
restricted to inside the apartment. That includes those on the balcony."
Dan's face twisted with disapproval. The noise
level seemed to be part of his plan, a mating call to attract Bobo hither.
"I mean it, Dan," Lance warned.
"It's my rules or the party's over."
"All right, all right," Dan said,
shoving Lance away with annoyance. "Yo!" he shouted towards the
balcony, beginning his own cattle drive, bringing the herd inside before
closing and locking the door. He moved through the crowd to the stereo and
jerked the volume down.
"Hey!" the huge Dale roared.
"We're missing the best part. Turn it up. Turn it up!"
This last became a chant taken up by the
swaying forest of people, their faces twisting into something ugly now that
their illusion had been shattered. The volume of their voices drowned out the
music.
"Shut up!" Lance shouted, drawing
attention to himself. The chant stopped. Dan turned the volume on the stereo
down another notch. "This is my apartment. Either keep down the noise or
get out."
They moaned, some echoing the all-too-familiar
epithet of being brought down. Here we go again with him, they muttered. Should
have known he'd be a bummer.
But they quieted-- slowly reabsorbed into
their trip, beginning the slow sway to the tunes as Dale brought his arms up
telling them to stay calm.
"The door's still there, people,"
the large man said. "Just close your eyes. You'll feel it. Don't let this
bring you down."
But Dale's dark eyes seared across the room at
Lance. Hatred and rage spilling out of him as he mouth spouted slogans of love.
Lance turned away and hooked Dan's arm, dragging him to a free space near the
door.
"How long does this have to go on
for?" he asked.
Dan looked deflated and shrugged. "A
couple of hours, I guess."
Lance looked to the wall clock just visible in
the kitchen. Two hours meant midnight. He glanced around the room for Sarah and
found Marie instead, a stoned, pretty Marie seated in the corner half
undressed, some macho, imitation-hippie manhandling her.
"All right," Lance told Dan.
"But I want them out by one. You dig?" Dan dug it but didn't agree,
his face going sour as Lance turned away.
Lance tapped macho-man's shoulder.
"She's taken," He said, hooking a
thumb towards the door. The man wasn't stoned and glared up at Lance, hands
forming fists at his side.
"Don't," Lance warned. "Just
get."
"She's yours?" the man asked, sudden
comprehension coming into his opportunistic eyes.
"Yeah."
"Well why didn't she say so," the
man grumbled and rose, and after a quick study of the room, staggered out.
"What did you do that for?" Marie
asked, her voice cold and her eyes indicating a condition less stoned than
Lance had thought.
"I'm not sure Mike would have
approved," Lance said, pulling her to her feet. She staggered and giggled
as her bared breasts brushed against Lance's arm. He ignored her interest and
pulled up her bra. Only then did the frown appear as she realized who Lance
was.
"Where is Mikie," she asked in her
previously innocent voice, her gaze searching the room for sight of him.
"He didn't come back with me," Lance
said. Mike had mumbled about needing to think, wandering off towards the
Boulevard. "Just come on."
He took her hand; she resisted, showing a bit
of interest in another lurking male across the room. Lance pulled her towards
the beaded curtain and through it into the hall. Bodies had filled this space,
too, littering it with acts a degree or two more serious than those in the main
room. Dan's room was an outright orgy-- one body piled on top of another in a
confusion of limbs. The bathroom had a waiting line. The smell of burning dope
rising out of it like something from Dante's hell-- one man sat on the closed
toilet lid, pulling the rubber arm tie tight, while prodding at open sores with
a needle, looking for a useable vein.
Lance paused transfixed, wondering if he
should be the ultimate drag and put a stop to it. Where had the heroin come
from anyway? Had it been part of the Denver package? Did American drug
companies manufacture that, too? Or were these just needle freaks, shooting anything
they could melt down in a spoon, using sugar and water when there wasn't any
kind of pill.
He'd known junkies before, both here and back
east, but had never watched the process. It was worse than simply being
odd-man-out in a general high. He retched, his empty stomach sending searing
acid up into his throat.
"Come on," he grunted and yanked the
curious Marie from the door, barging into the master bedroom where an even
larger and more obscene orgy was underway, bodies sprawled on and odd the bed.
In the middle of it, back against the headboard, a naked and stoned Sarah
moaned, some strange man's face in her crotch.
Lance staggered back, tripping over his own
feet as he tried to retreat, tried to close his eyes. But it was the same scene
all over again. The parties. The drugs. And this! He should have screamed, but
his mouth didn't seem to work, except to utter a hoarse whisper to Marie.
"Come..."
"Where?" she asked, her own gaze
studying the pile of squirming flesh as if trying to find a place for herself.
"Just come," he said and dragged
back down the hall and through the beaded curtain. The music's volume had risen
again with the blond-headed Dale screaming at his followers to "Feel
it!"
Lance plunged through the dancers and snapped
off the music.
"Out!" he said to the stunned faces.
"Hey, pal," Dan moaned, untangling
himself from the arms of a near-naked brunette. "You said one."
"I changed my mind," Lance snapped.
Big Dale and his followers looked enraged
enough to riot but looked towards Dan as to blame him.
"What kind of stunt is this?" he
roared. "You call a party and then send in this fascist!"
"It's his place," Dan said sourly.
"But that's not partying!" Dale
said. "If we're here to party than let's party. No rules. No paranoia. No
bring downs."
Others beyond the influence of the big man
nodded from their love-making and private trips in the corners, glaring at
Lance across the room.
Uncool, man, their gazes said. You don't
belong here with us.
And he didn't. And didn't want to. Finally
with angry twist he put the music back on and barged through them towards the
door, dragging a limp Marie behind him.
Dan met him half way, his face a mixture of
rage and embarrassment. "Look, pal, I don't mean for it to come down like
this..."
"Fine!" Lance snapped. "You
just make sure it's over by one. You got me?"
"Sure, pal," Dan assured him.
"But where are you going now?"
"I don't know," Lance said, looking
at Marie, who stared back with the same stoned rage as the others, trying to
twist her hand out of his. "Maybe I can find Mike. I shouldn't have left
him with the mood he's in."
He glanced towards the beaded curtain and
stiffened.
"By one," he mumbled and pushed
Marie out, letting the door slam hard behind him.
Comments
Post a Comment