The Gorgon Festival

by John Boyd

This one was wily, Cabroni decided. He was attempting to head off an investigating officer’s testimony by appealing to male loyalty. Or was it blackmail?

  As Cabroni drove on in silence, pieces began to assemble in Ward’s mind: the card from Los Angeles, the Javert who drove beside him, and there had been more to the Luke Havergal reference than an invitation.

  Because he had no choice, he would go to the western gate of the rose garden, take the solution she had hidden there, and follow the ghost of his first love into the jungles of the young, specifically to the Electric Daisy Chain in Los Angeles, where Big John would tell him where to find Diana Aphrodite, nee Ruth Gordon.

  He loved his wife, but Ester could make out quite well without him and this was a matter of prior loyalties, not to Ruth but to the continuing processes of evolution. In her youth mania, Ruth intended more than a limited rejuvenation. To widen the scope of her experiment, she needed his help and unlimited amounts of the youth solution.

  When Cabroni pulled up before the house, Ward invited him in for dinner, but Cabroni declined. “No, Alex, I’ve got to get back downtown. I want to wrap up this case by Friday. By the way, Doctor Ward, don’t leave this jurisdiction without checking with the D.A.’s office. He might want to question you… Enjoy your dinner.”

  When he entered the dining room, Ester came out of the kitchen wearing her long-suffering smile. “Your stride is off, Alex. I know what’s troubling you, but I forgive you. You had your little fling with Ruth, but she’s dead or gone.”

  “It isn’t Ruth, Ester. I’ve been immersed in theory so long I think I should come up for air, get in some field work. Down Mexico way, they’re doing some interesting work in the effects of mescaline on white mice. I think I’ll head down for a while, during the summer session, and look into it. Care to come along?”

  “When will you leave?”

  “Tomorrow. All I have to do is check out enough money, buy some rough clothes, a jeep, and anti-venom serum for rattlesnake bites. You’d enjoy wandering around in the desert this summer. Those landscapes are romantic with the rock and the cacti, and we could both use a little sun.”

  “No thanks, Alex. I’ll stay and tend house.”

  “In that event, I have some papers I’d like for you to type and take over to Doctor Waverly-Pritchard, after you get them notarized.”

  Tuesday, after lunch in San Jose, along a freeway he had once feared to venture over in his VW, an organically twenty-years-old Alexander Ward tooled a green BMW 280 south toward Highway 101. A motorcycle’s speed of escape made it worth the risk, he had decided, and the BMW 280 was proving his judgment. Under a blue crash helmet with wind visor, wearing a black leather jacket over a pink suede shirt with a white silk scarf, shod in hobnailed motorcycle boots, Ward felt like a bird gliding currents of concrete air, soaring over hills and swooping into valleys, banking around automobiles which seemed stalled at sixty miles per hour.

  Rejuvenation and escape had been simple. Cabroni had posted no guard around Ruth’s house and he had used her tub, afterward taking his equipment and the remaining solution, which were stowed in his bag on the carrier rack behind. His only difficult moment had been personal. After he tidied up his lab, and locked the door for perhaps the last time, he had turned to face the jacaranda tree in bloom. Then the poignancy of departure knifed him and he remembered a line from Hopkins.

  Margaret, are you grieving

  Over goldengrove unleaving?

  Now, all sadness had been pummeled from him by the wind-whip of his passage, and youth let him lose himself in sensualities. He felt the heat of the westering sun on the jeans hugging his thighs, the bounce of seat springs, the plasticity of handlebar grips and, riding easy in the saddle, the charged buoyancy of the lance he bore to the jousting grounds of the Sunset Strip.

  At intervals the heavy licorice female odor of alfalfa floated across the highway to mellow the astringency of diesel fumes. From the tank beneath him wafted the scent of gasoline, heady with nuances of speed and freedom. South of Salinas he smelled the wetness of irrigated loam and the tang of eucalyptus as the valley stroked by, and then he climbed into the oak humus smells of Paso Robles.

  Atascadero, San Luis Obispo, and, toward the southeast, the Sierra Madres formed their names in his mind with the tinkle of mission bells. Winding down from the Santa Lucias, past white dunes by the sea, he came at last to the most unforgettable, unforgotten place name of all, Pismo Beach. After Pismo Beach, Santa Maria, Los Alamos, Gaviota, and Santa Barbara sounded pedestrian.

  At Ventura, he swung east on the Ventura Freeway into Los Angeles after picking up a signalert on his mounted transistor radio that 101 was paralyzed from Malibu to Santa Monica with beach traffic. The Ventura was clear almost to Sherman Oaks, where it clogged for the San Diego Freeway intersection. He wove through the lanes and gunned his motorcycle east toward the Hollywood Freeway. Another signalert warned that eastbound traffic on the Hollywood was backed up two miles west of Cahuenga Pass by an accident.

  From what he had heard of Los Angeles traffic, Ward assumed that “catastrophic” was an Angeleno code word meaning at least five dead. He knew that he could navigate through the jam on his cycle, but the rims and spokes of his wheels were clean and bright and he didn’t want them blood-splattered, so he turned off at Laurel Canyon and went over the Hollywood Hills as the twilight turned the smog over San Fernando Valley a deep purple.

  At the Mulholland intersection at the crest, Ward detoured over to Mount Olympus to get his first unobstructed view of Los Angeles.

  He became concerned for classical mythology when he saw a Grotto of Jupiter near the top of Mount Olympus, but his alarm was superseded by admiration for the eclecticism of Hollywood. At the top, he dismounted and walked to a balustrade to look over the city.

  South of the Hollywood Hills, the smog had rolled out to sea and lights were coming on. The flarings of Hollywood were looped by the red-green-purples of the Sunset Strip to the glow of Beverly Hills. From the curving lights at the foot of the hills radiated the straight beacons of La Brea, Fairfax, La Cienega, and Doheney slashed by the diagonal gleam of San Vicente. Due south, the strait of lights washed against the distance-dimmed radiance of the Baldwin Hills. To his left, Western and Vermont drew dwindling perspectives into an ocean of incandescence which bent beyond the curve of the planet.

  As an esthete, Ward was awed by the lights below. As a biologist he feared for the humanity served by the lights as its fate juxtaposed in his mind against that of the screw-worm flies of Curaçao. But in the vigor of his youth, he yearned toward the promise of the lights and for the girl with summer in her voice who pervaded his being, still, like the memory of an old-fashioned garden.

  Fragmented, Ward remounted his motorcycle, and the warm feel of the saddle re-integrated him. One with his machine, he turned down the winding road toward Sunset Boulevard.

  At Schwab’s drugstore he was directed a few blocks east on Sunset to a motel where he was charged extra for a room with a view of the swimming pool.

  Decorated in orange and blue, Ward’s room appeared inviting at first glance, but a nameplate screwed atop the color television set warned him that the tube was protected by the Electronic Detective Agency. Close inspection revealed that a lithograph of a Russell was bolted to the wall, the bed was countersunk beneath the carpet, and a rubber aspidistra plant set in a Styrofoam pot painted to resemble terra cotta was unobtrusively chained to the wall. Fortunately, the soap wasn’t screwed to the soapholder, so Ward took a shower.

  A mile west from his motel on Sunset Boulevard, Ward found the Electric Daisy Chain at a bend in the boulevard. Two and a half stories with a penthouse, the building was on the uphill side of Sunset near the middle of the County Strip between the City of Los Angeles and the City of Beverly Hills.

  Sunset Boulevard along the Strip had the Western flavor of a Las Vegas without high neon signs. Business establishments fronted the Boulevard with residences immediately behind on streets th
at climbed sharply to the north or dropped away to the south. The commercial buildings formed a melange of shops, apartments, nightclubs, commercial high rises, hotels, hamburger joints, and expensive restaurants. Architecturally the Strip’s underlying unity was chaos.

  Turning behind the Electric Daisy Chain, he parked in a lot without an attendant and walked east down an alley, south down a side street, and west two doors to the discotheque. Long-haired young people, a few barefooted, milled along the sidewalk or sat on the curb. They moved aside at his approach, forming a corridor that led to the door of the club, and he heard a girl murmur, “Dig that pink suede shirt.”

  A placard beside the door announced the opening night of Glamorgan, the Welsh bard, for his first appearance in the United States. On the door itself was lettered:

  ADMISSION FREE

  NO COVER—TWO DRINKS MINIMUM

  Despite the sign, no one seemed to be entering but Ward, who shoved open the door into a dimly lit foyer. To his right was a cashier’s cage. On his left was a cloakroom with a girl seated behind a half-door. Ahead of him, up a short flight of steps, a uniformed security guard stood before a second closed door. On the door beside the guard was an illuminated sign: NO BARE FEET.

  “You pay here, sir,” a girl in the cashier’s booth called.

  “Your sign says admission free.”

  “There’s a two-drink minimum, sir, and you buy your drink coupons in advance. Drinks are two-fifty apiece. That will be five dollars, sir.”

  Either this was a clip joint or it was in a high rent district, Ward thought, as he drew out his wallet. He couldn’t see Diana Aphrodite patronizing such a place when Ruth Gordon was so careful with money.

  Ward took his tickets and started up the stairs with his helmet under his arm when the guard called down, “Sorry, sir. You’ll have to check your crash helmet. It’s considered a weapon.”

  Ward turned to the checkroom and handed the girl inside his helmet.

  “That will be a dollar fifty, sir.”

  Ward paid because the guard, holding the door open for him above, was beginning to look imposed upon. Ward hurried up the steps and the guard asked, “May I see your I.D. card, sir?”

  Ward took out his wallet, for the third time in ninety seconds, and handed the guard his driver’s license. The guard flashed a flashlight onto it and flashed the light into Ward’s face.

  “You can’t pull this trick in the Electric Daisy Chain, Haircut. Miss Frost can’t abide minors who swipe their old man’s license to swill booze. Give me your tickets and take these.”

  The guard took two chips from a pile on the ledge behind him and handed them to Ward. Ward took the chips because they were balanced on the end of his driver’s license, and once he had accepted the chips he felt he had to honor the serve, since the guard was opening the door for him.

  “What are the chips for, sir?”

  “They entitle you to two Shirley Temples.”

  “But I paid for alcoholic drinks.”

  “Miss Frost isn’t about to lose her license selling booze to minors. Move along, Haircut. You’re blocking traffic.”

  Entering, Ward understood why there was no traffic to block. Four steps across the vestibule at the Electric Daisy Chain had cost six-fifty—over a dollar a step.

  Down a hushed corridor, carpeted and lit by electric tapers on paneled walls, Ward walked, through unguarded swinging doors, into a blast of sounds without rhythm where lights swirled without illumination. To his left, through the weirdly lit shadows, he could see forms that moved fantastically to the discordant melody. He had not returned to the swinging years.

  As eyes and ears adjusted to bedlam, he saw the noise came from a jukebox amplified by speakers around the huge room. To his right, dimly seen, small tables were crowded together, and beyond, in a corner, he saw a service bar. Above the floor where dancers weaved and jerked hung a spotlighted bird cage where a girl in a bikini, eyes closed, writhed to the rhythms of a very different drummer. On the floor, couples moved without touching, front to front, side to side, back to back, keeping at a distance possibly to avoid injuries, since their jerks seemed unpremeditated. After Benny Goodman, the Dorseys, and Danny Kaye, this dancing was not in his sack.

  Fingering his chips, he edged around the dancers, looking for an ash-blond head in lights that made all hair red, green, or lavender, waiting for the music to end as one record followed another endlessly. Apparently, the sets were over only when the dancers dropped.

  “Sit down, Establishment, and buy us a drink.”

  The voice sounded softly beneath the juke’s hammering vibes. Turning, he saw a girl at a table almost beneath him, her hair long and lanky. She wore a T-shirt and no brassiere—a tactical error, since her chest resembled a washboard with a single corrugation.

  But seated next to her was a blue-eyed blonde, exuding serenity, whose hair was fluffy and her skin well scrubbed. She wore a loosely fitted cashmere sweater which yet was strained to contain her proportions, and for her the absence of a bra was a strategic triumph. Above her magnificent left was a campaign button reading “Love it or leave it.”

  Ward threw his chips on their table.

  Before his bottom touched the chair, a waitress was beside them, saying, “A round here, sir?”

  “Two Shirley Temples and a Scotch and water,” he ordered and said to the girls, “You’re both too young for alcohol.”

  “Only Establishment creeps get their kicks from alcohol,” the dirty girl said.

  “You just called me ‘Establishment.’ Does that make me a creep?”

  “Cool it,” the girl said. “I meant you were anti-Establishment Establishment. What’s your name?”

  “Al, from Atascadero,” Ward said, playing it cool. If they figured he was from the state institution there, they wouldn’t ask questions. Once Cabroni found out he was gone, the name Alexander Ward might be a handicap. Since he had been employed on government grants, his fingerprints were on file with the FBI.

  “I’m Margie. This is Dolores. She’s fresh and clean from a motorcycle rumble.”

  “I’m interested in motorcycles, too, Dolores.” Ward turned to the well-washed beauty. “I drove down on a BMW 280.”

  “Wow,” said Dolores. “BMW 280.”

  “You shouldn’t have told her that,” Margie said. “She’s a motorcycle groupie, and she could get you killed. What are you pushing, Al? A new hair style?”

  “It’s the style at Atascadero,” he said.

  “It’s just like Papa’s,” Dolores said. “Nixon would love it.”

  The waitress brought their drinks. “That will be three-fifty for the Scotch and soda, sir, not including the tip.”

  “The girl in the foyer told me they were two-fifty,” Ward said.

  “They are two-fifty in the foyer, sir. But there’s entertainment in the main ballroom. Glamorgan, the Welsh Bard, is making his debut in America in fifteen minutes. Another first by Miss Frost.”

  Ward tipped her a quarter and she picked it up, muttering, “All this and a suede shirt.”

  “Is this a clip joint?” Ward asked the girls when the waitress was out of earshot.

  “Miss Frost caters to the elite,” Margie explained. “All the kids here have connections.”

  “Well, here’s expensive mud in your eye,” Ward said, raising his glass.

  Dolores did not raise her glass. As if she had forgotten something, she asked, “Are you a radical?”

  So lately immersed in mathematics, Ward assumed Dolores was using a double entendre in that rarest of all humor, mathematical wit. He quipped back. “I’m a square without a square root.”

  “Wow,” said Dolores, wide-eyed at his repartee, and she lifted her glass in a toast.

  This girl was brilliant, Ward decided. Not one female in a thousand would have caught his nuance and toasted it. And there was about her a quality—aloofness, detachment, imperiousness—which might have belonged to Joan of Arc.

  “Her papa’s
head of the Orange County Patriots,” Margie explained, “and doesn’t want Dolores associating with the New Left because he’s a wheel in the New Right.”

  “Light up, Margie, and give us a drag,” Dolores said, switching the talk away from politics. Obviously she had breeding as well as brilliance.

  Ward felt he had much in common with the poised, well-groomed Dolores. She was witty, averse to gabby women, and shared his interest in motorcycles. Like hers, his political bias was conservative, and they had similar family backgrounds; Ward’s father had also been a strict constructionist.

  From her bag, Margie produced a long, slender cigarette, lighted it, and rolled a cloud of smoke at Dolores, who ignored the gesture. To prevent a cat fight, Ward interjected pleasantly. “Is it Turkish?”

  “No. Lebanese,” Margie said, wafting a cloud toward him. Vaguely Ward recalled hearing some talk about Hollywood blow jobs and he decided that Margie must be some local form of kook, a blower. To humor her, he smiled. “Very pleasant.”

  “Tenting tonight!” Dolores cried, and leaned over, cupping her palm under Ward’s jaw and drawing his cheek to hers, tilting his head forward until all three foreheads were touching over the table. Their heads formed a triangle which caught the smoke rolling up from Margie’s mouth. For Ward, the touch of Dolores’s forehead offset the acrid odor of the smoke.

  Ward assumed it was some sort of spontaneous group encounter, currently the rage in California, and the sense of sharing grew pleasant in the confines of the tent. Neither Diana nor the Surgeon General of the U.S. might have approved of such behavior, but Ward hated to see the ritual end. It brought him the feeling he was in a free fall while stationary.

  After their last drag Margie leaned back and said, “That stick cost me seven bucks, wholesale. You both should contribute at least two dollars apiece.”

  Now Ward knew he had reached the penultimate territory of the hustler, but Dolores was reaching for her bag, and so he said, “I’ll pay the two dollars for Dolores.”

  Having worn a groove through the air to his pocketbook, Ward quickly handed over five dollars. Margie pointed to the dollar and quarter change from his drink on the table and said, “There’s your change, Al.”