Outside.
Brake slam velocity.
Inside.
Whale-tail careen.
Look up, what don’t you.
Siouxsie.
Guided by voices, some of them they surprise, missile-aimed for the console space between Blitzer and Squid, sure she’s Stitches, but taking out a windshield? With her head for a battering ram?
My windmilling arm, my drowning-man fingers.
Her fishnetted calves, tendons past wire-taut, more like hotwire-taut when the ride you’re jacking’s a black-and-white, and the scene of the crime’s Parker Center.
I slow her, don’t stop her, she self-deflects Squid-wards and they’re clutched together screaming swearing spastic fist roof-pounding from there through Blitzer’s eternity of C-O-N control, lost then fought for, finally found. He stops, jumps out, sprints frontwards round to shotgun side and wrenches open the door.
“Get out!”
And I’ve never heard it before but I know it, the just-snapped sound of someone strong as strong, ready as ready, to do only one thing.
“Get out now!”
They know it too, and they do.
In total silence loud itself as Squid herself just moments past, to me and we three crouched together, listening inside, paralyzed in popcorn spilling from who can count how many Heftys, whiplashed, panic-slashed, body smashed, David listening, Tim listening, who knows what for, but me listening, for.
His fingers.
Those fingers.
Long and thick and blunt and strong, square-tipped fingers, one by one, by me tongued and by me tasted, tip to palm root, one by one, by me twined and by me wanted, hot inside me, more than one.
Those fingers.
When I heard his voice, I knew first he’ll do it, second, how. But third I don’t know, what’s the sound, snap of a neck, crush of a windpipe? All I know is, too late now, too late to stop it, too late too late, too late now. And we’re not even trying. Something took hold as soon as Squid screamed, took hold our feelings, took over sounds, fallen palm fronds’ raspy clatter, hollow scrapes, cry yelp yipping yelp cry coyote cry, sirens don’t, copters don’t, thorns won’t, scratch scratch stucco branch, brittle blossoms, bougainvillea, nature sounds no human sounds till bootsteps bootsteps, finally finally.
Circle doorward, driver’s side. Hinges creak him up and in, moving air and me too moving, my hands where?
Ear muffling.
For the slam that isn’t and once it wasn’t casts its own spell changing things as much it seems as the scream that was, just this soft controlled closing of the driver’s door and the different kind of quiet after, knowing now not what he’ll do but knowing knowing what he won’t.
If he would have anyways. Maybe it all came out when he yelled, It’s gone gone somewhere, and more’s gone too when Blitzer talks, his low voice slow like the speed’s scared out of it. He asks if we’re okay, no bleeding, broken bones, gnarly head thumps. And we all take personal inventory then answer, Yeah, we guess.
“Cool,” he says, and turns the key in the ignition.
“What did you do to them?” I say.
“Nothing. They’re right there. In somebody’s driveway. Off the street.”
Tim says, “We can’t just leave them here.”
“Dude, this is a nice fuckin neighborhood. A lot nicer than their usual this time of night.”
“But what about Squid? Is she all right? What happened?”
“You mean what about her besides she just missed sending two carloads of people out to that fuckin cemetery we saw? You know how close we came? That was the side mirror breaking off. Is she all right? NO! After pulling that shit? Not to me, she’s not. She’s fuckin poison, is what she is. What happened? Do you want to know what happened? I’ll tell you exactly what happened. I thought I ran some dude down! When she started wailing like that, out of the blue. Without a word said first. Not one. One minute she was fine and the next minute—she wasn’t. And I just cranked the wheel hard opposite, hard as I could. For, you know, clearance. If someone was down. So I wouldn’t hit ’em again.”
“But you’d have seen something,” David says. “The street’s right there under your nose. There’s no engine separating you. And you’re elevated, too. You see everything.”
“Yeah, well, Davey boy, that’s just it, a dude like me maybe sees too much.”
“The more you can see when you’re driving, the safer it is.”
“I’m trying to tell you something, man. You’re not gonna like it, but just listen. Now first off, I never made no claim to be like this perfect driver. I got a license, okay? And out of all of us, all things considered, in the heat of the night, this night—”
He starts schooling Tim and David on what he means by seeing too much, what he means exactly. And schooling me too, I don’t think he knows that, though, maybe I’m just supposed to realize stuff I never even think about.
“I see things that aren’t there. Not monsters and all that your-brain-on-drugs shit, just—movements. All the time. Past like day two especially. I’m a tweaker, okay? A drug addict! Got that? I didn’t plan it or anything. It wasn’t like my goal in life. But it happened and I got to deal with it and how I deal with the seeing-things part is ignore the fuck out of it. Just say Shine. Later days. Only what if? What fuckin if ? What if it was real movement? Right before Squid?”
He takes a long jagged breath.
“That little tweakery twitch of light out there?”
Another.
“That I think I thought I saw?”
So that’s why why why, when she went into wailing wall-to-wall mode.
Why he crossed the center line on a curve just reacting and looked up, what couldn’t he see, brights-blinded, not at first, what no one low in back could see or ever saw, thanks to this being a maxi-van, no windows back or sides?
(Else maybe they’d get it, the Squid thing.)
Close, coming fast, right at us.
“I don’t know how many faces, front and back. Lit up by our lights. Jammed in like a Pinto or something. All these little brown faces. Kids. Five at least, just the kids. In this fuckin aluminum can on wheels.”
And no, not the kinds of things he ever saw that really weren’t there.
They were there, they were terrified, we were Death.
“I know I slammed the brakes but I don’t remember it. I just remember no control. No control and we were the death of all those kids.”
Tim says, “But we weren’t.”
“Dude, it’s just luck. We almost were. And it would have been on me. All that death. I don’t mean the law. I don’t mean the blame. I mean the wrong. You don’t do that to your friends. Put them in that place. Not unless it’s pretty fuckin unavoidable. There’s enough bad chances in life already. I don’t know what’s up with her. I don’t even want to know. I don’t care. Fuck her.”
David says, “Let’s just get them back in here and try to stay calm. You don’t just throw your friends away on the street in the dark like cigarette butts, either.”
“It’s your ride. Is that what you want?”
“Yes.”
“All right, then.”
He opens the door.
“Maybe I’ll catch you two—or we’ll—Rockets, you with me?”
Tim says, “Is this really necessary?”
Blitzer says, “Yeah, it is.”
David says, “But what will you do?”
“Keep walking up the hill. We got those mice still. We promised ’em.”
And Blitzer’s wrong.
We didn’t.
I did.
But follow me don’t follow me, I’m with him, sure I am.
22
I keep up with him too, though Beachwood’s steeper every step it seems, we’re pretty far up.
But not Up.
Not at all, not anymore, it’s like I never even did that Desoxyn. Same goes triplex quadruplex for Blitzer, however much he’s done. I can tell. I thought ab
out asking him, right after we left the van. Just to make conversation. Just to not be silent. But I already knew, so why ask? And likewise with every single thing I’ve thought to say since, there’s always some reason not to. Whether it’s how long it might take to get to the Hollywood sign or what’s up with the drug addict deal or dude, I meant to tell the tale, I blew mass chunks on the Dog Groomer to the Stars, and not just anywheres either, I gobble-greased his hairy spleen, and I think he liked it.
So the only thing I’ve said to him period since things went coco-loco nuts is “What did you do to them?” And every breath I take it bothers me more, not too friendly-sounding, now was it. It’s not like Blitzer’s in the wrong, not at all. I guess that’s part of what’s giving me this speaker’s block or whatever, I’d rather say nothing than the wrong thing. Especially at the wrong time or place, and this feels like both, for almost everything.
But the longer there’s nothing, the harder to replace it with something. And Blitzer’s never gone this long without saying anything, not around me, not awake. It creeps me a little, like thinking back earlier on Siouxsie asking me about the cops, with Rory.
Right.
This.
One bruise especially. And these too I’m always, late nights especially, dreamy, the clock says it’s time two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Wondering, wondering down at the yellow bricks, bruises dreamy, let me let me, fields of poppies, blizzards of gauze, get some get some, words out now.
“Hey, can I bum a—”
He stops walking, and frisks himself for smokes while my voice trails off then fades back in, lower and slower on the alternate route, the brain bypass I guess, like I’m listening in to all the boys and all the girls, sweet-truthed, not saying it myself, “I was wondering if I can bum a kiss off you?”
He doesn’t say anything, but I said the right thing, I know that. We melt into each other, that’s what it’s like, we don’t melt down, it’s more cup a flame to keep it going than try to set the night on fire.
He lets out a long long breath and what he finally says, I don’t understand, I’m all, What?
“I said your name.”
“Tell me more about Idaho.”
He says, “Ohhh . . .”
“If you want to.”
He says my name again, or sighs it, actually.
“While we walk, I mean.”
“No, let’s kick it here a few. What hey, it’s Candyland. There’s even peppermint stripes on the little school-bus shelter there. Liz Taylor–made for a smoke break.”
Sitting on the kiddie-sized bench inside the arch of plywood candy canes I hear all these crickets suddenly. Like they just started up. But do they do that? All at once? Maybe they were there before and I’m just noticing.
I wonder if Blitzer hears things too. Like he said he sees things. Things that aren’t there. Like what if he’s hearing these crickets and ignoring them, thinking they’re only in his head.
“I’m tired,” he says.
I really want to ask him.
“That was so fuckin gnarly, Rockets.”
But I’d better not.
I say, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“What? Fuck, no. You said Idaho.”
So he talks about this hike he went on with his cousin, to a high lake in the mountains it took three days to get to, carrying everything on their backs. And from the shore you could see deep down in the clear water of the lake three triangle rocks, perfect even identical triangles, huge rocks, thousand-pound rocks, arranged in a line, too big and too deep for people to have moved them, and he was sure it was a gateway to another dimension, or a way back into the past, or even another world. And you could feel it too, even at night, even with your back turned. He says he wants to go back and just kick it there to see what happens, with mass amounts of Vitamin S in place of all the groceries you’d need otherwise. And he talks about how green it is in Idaho, everywhere, how speaking of groceries green like that’s food for the eyes, nourishment you need to see all there is to see, and you just don’t get it in places like LA, so really and truly all of us are partly blind.
The more he says the more a softness drapes like extra warmth on this word here and that word there but never sweats or smothers them, gives a glow I guess, it’s not like he’s talking in his sleep, more like talking from another place, so different from Candyland it might as well be on the far side of those rocks in that Idaho lake, another world, another dimension. And when he stops I start telling him that but there’s no sign he notices when I break it off, so he must have lullabyed himself, that’s what it was, so I just sit here remembering and wondering if he does too, if he remembers when we only slept.
“Rockets?”
“Yeah.”
“You were talking.”
“I stopped.”
“Why?”
“I started thinking.”
“About what?”
“Shaving off my spikes. Being all skinheaded again, for my birthday. You know, to match my face now.”
“Too bad you didn’t jack those clippers.”
“I did.”
I rap my knuckles hard on the plastic in my crotch, loud enough for knock-knock action, oh most defiantly.
“Who’s there?” he says.
“Little Boy Blue.”
“Little Boy Blue who?”
“You son of a bitch, you forgot already?”
To make amends for amnesia he shaves my head, right here in the shelter so no passing cops can bust him for barbering without a license. He takes it slow and stubble-checks constantly with his open palm, so I’m rubbing up against him practically purring by the time he puts finishing touches on outlines of sideburns I mostly imagine and maybe partly feel. More than tension, anyways, it’s gone all gone. It’s like everything’s back to how it was, though when exactly I’m not sure, after we got the mice I guess, because they’re definitely getting scratch happy in their carrier, smelling all this nature. I tell Blitzer Thanks a trillion billion, and say I’m glad he didn’t go through with it down there.
“Go through with what?”
“Killing them.”
“Killing who?”
“Squid and Siouxsie.”
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“After you yelled at them.”
“You thought I’d kill them?”
“I was scared you would.”
“How?”
“With your hands. You sounded so—deadly. I knew you could. I was waiting for the sound.”
“You’re serious!”
“Well, like I said, now I’m just—”
“How could you think that? How could you fuckin think that?”
“You yelled at them like that! You don’t know how it sounded. Really really serious. Not like Rory and Darby yelling that they’d kill each other. They never sounded like they’d really do it. You did. You fully did.”
“I told them to get out of the van. I didn’t say anything about killing anybody.”
“True.”
“I didn’t fuckin lay a hand on them!”
“You didn’t think about it?”
“No! I never hit girls.”
“What about Gerber?”
“When did I hit her?”
“You said you never hit girls but you can’t remember hitting Gerber or not?”
“You’re fucking with me! If I ever hit her it wasn’t on purpose. It was in the fuckin pit. That doesn’t count.”
“Oh.”
“What’s up with you all of a sudden? Just a few minutes ago—”
“Nothing! Just forget it! I kept worrying I’d say the wrong thing, so I didn’t say anything. I should have stuck to it.”
“You didn’t say the wrong thing, if that’s what you were thinking. But it’s just—fuck, I don’t know, it’s—”
“What?”
“Depressing! Why I lost it was
people could have been killed from her flippin’ out like that. People almost were killed. It was horrible. How can you think I’d go from that to killing people myself?”
“I didn’t know that. It was before you explained what happened.”
“You should have known anyways. You think you tell people to get out of a van and they do just what you say but you’re still not happy so next step is, kill ’em? With your bare hands? On a public street full of witnesses? That is psycho shit. It’s like the Strangler. It’s worse! Killing your own friends. In front of other friends. You think I’m like that?”
“If I did I wouldn’t—”
“What?”
“Kiss you. Or, well—feel this way.”
“What way?”
“You know, all—”
“Excited? You feel like that right now?”
“Not fully. But—kind of.”
At first he’s wordless, totally. Then he reaches over and rubs my head and almost under his breath says, “Okay. That’s cool.”
“I mean you said, back at the motel, remember you said we were just getting started, and it keeps coming back to me.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
He circles one hand around my wrist and says my skin’s really soft there.
I say, “Not to change the subject or anything, but I was wondering if . . .”
He laughs.
“Dude, you ask once, it’s good for at least fifteen minutes.”
“Well, actually—”
“Oh,” he says all flat and disappointed. “Actually.”
“I was wondering if you noticed all the crickets.”
“Crickets?”
23
Locusts?
What’s the dif—
Stop! What hey, that sound? Everybody look, what’s slowing down?
The van! It’s them! But—
Bush of a buffalo. Sperm of a springbok.
Zion Country Safari.
“They’ve been jacked by Mormon missionaries!”
Fuckin teeth as white as their shirts, check. Black ties, check, blond hair, check, always travel in pairs, double check. And for verification purposes, jaw check, jaw check, dome light on, driver dude turning, quarter, half, full, hell fuckin na, profile perfect, Sergeant Rock.
What We Do Is Secret Page 11