The gossamer rasping of feathers against night air made a laid-back bid for his attention. Though still asleep, one eye opened. The enlarged shadow of a parakeet, somehow buzzard-shaped, floated chimerically against the ceiling, then disappeared as the bird alighted atop the radio. All the wispy painted guru monkeys whispered susurrantly and unintelligibly to each other, the metaphysical world’s equivalent of a Manhattan airwell on laundry mornings, when all the Italian women hung out their wash. Far down in the green netherworld of Joe’s romantic reveries, a thought formed. And, like a child playing red rover, the thought began racing around down there, looking for an opening through which to make a madcap dash for the freedom of his conscious brain. Aware of its consequences, Joe urged the troopers patrolling his lethargy to redouble their efforts to keep him ecstatically snoozing. But when the thought finally summoned the guts to make a dash for it, his troopers blew it. And, with one eye on Cheepy, Joe surfaced just enough to recall that he had blown his marriage … and needed to steal that suitcase full of cocaine, fast, before some other criminal beat him to the punch.
Into the valley of anxiety Nancy floated, naked except for a cigarette. By the time she settled onto the bed, Joe had managed to trigger his asthma again. Instant wheeze, folks, and even Houdini couldn’t have escaped the chains constricting his chest!
Nancy peered intently. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah. I’m afraid so.”
“The air in here feels tight. What happened?”
“I was just lying here, minding my own business, when I started thinking.”
“You have to make your mind blank.”
“How do I accomplish that? Swallow a beaker of acid? Touch a shotgun to my temple and pull the trigger with my toes?”
“Just close your eyes, take a few deep breaths. Let them out very slowly. Then think of a place where you’d most want to be, and go there.”
“‘Go there’?”
“Picture a stairway, if you have to, and simply walk down it until you arrive at your dream place. Imagine a door, if you want, and open it and walk on through to where you wish to be.”
“I can’t.”
“Everybody can if they try. If you’re sincere about wanting to be at peace with yourself, you can do it. It’s easy. I do it all the time. If you practice enough to get good at it, you can even travel back and forth in time. You can zip all over the world without ‘actually’ leaving your living room. Nikita does that regularly. Last week he had a conversation with Aristotle. Once he traveled so far forward that he reached the edge of the world’s time. The sun was dying. The earth was covered by ice except for a small patch of the Amazon where he met an Indian from the Minamamo tribe named Kezar, who was among the last survivors on earth.”
“Wait a minute—I can’t breathe here. I’m worried sick about my children. I just told a wife I truly love to go fuck herself. I’ve got a suitcase in the bus station that holds the key to my future, but nobody will give it to me. Plus I’m a goddam self-indulgent, pussy-chasing, educationally privileged, selfish-as-all-get-out rich hippie playing at being a garbage man, and you’re talking about conversations with Aristotle and an Amazon Indian named Kezar?”
Being fazed was not one of the lady’s strong points.
“I can help you cure your asthma if you want me to, Joe. And if you want to cure it yourself.”
“How can I be cured—with a double pulmonary extraction?”
Using the butt of her old cigarette, she lit up a new weed. “You have to concentrate on making it go away. There are exercises. And I’ll put you on our healing list.”
“Do me a favor, don’t put me on any lists.”
“You don’t have to do a thing. We’ll simply put you down, and when we have our healing meetings we’ll pray for you.”
“Nancy, excuse me. But I don’t want a bunch of Maharaji freaks setting their metaphysical meathooks into this kid’s dilapidated psyche.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to try.”
“All I want is my pills.”
She placed her hands on his chest. The cigarette dangled from her mouth as if from the lips of a Parisian hooker in a Brassai photograph. She squinted slightly against the smoke. Cheepy flew from the radio to a lampshade, twitched his tail, and Joe actually heard the miniature splat! of a diminutive birdy caca hitting the dresser. Out in the living room, Sasha was engaged in something muffled and illicit. The dog growled: a thing went thug!… squish!… drool!…
“Don’t move, Joe. I’ll help you relax. With a massage.” Her seductive hands elicited goosebumps. Her eerie tranquillity spooked him. Quaaludes? Ritalin? Or just a level dose of Smatterling? Joe envied her apparent equanimity. At the same time he wanted no truck with it. Let the spiritual folks do their broomstick numbers outside his bailiwick—he was a meat-and-potatoes man.
“I really want my pills,” Joe pleaded. “If I take a pill, or squirt a little Alupent into my bronchospasm, I’ll feel a hell of a lot better.”
Oblivious to his whimpers, she let her hands coo over his muscles. Out of the frying pan—Joe thought as sheer dismay rolled over him like Notre Dame’s charging linemen—and into the fire. In this rapidly degenerating town there was no such thing as a quickie, no such animal as the free lunch. Erica Jong could take her theory of the Zipless Fuck and airmail it to Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Joe Miniver, Boy Nincompoop, sole survivor of history’s most recent Donner expedition, had turned right, instead of left, at his destiny, and landed once more among the cannibals!
“If I don’t get my pills real soon, Nancy, I think I’ll die.”
“I can take your asthma from you if only you’ll let me.”
Her fingers handled him like feathers with soul. Blood zoomed into his penis like New York novelists applying for Guggenheims and NEA grants. Joe responded by growing as mellow as if he were being electrocuted by a harmless furry current that individually stroked every one of the seventy trillion molecules in his body. He gasped quietly and murmured, “Don’t you ever get tired?”
Her voice floated down at him from portentous ethereal heights: “When you come, all the asthma will drool from your body.”
But same as before, he couldn’t ejaculate. A vision of Heidi’s naked body kept intruding. He was practically strangled by guilt. The find ’em, feel ’em, fuck ’em, forget ’em boogeyman delighted in a neon chanting that beleaguered his brain. Lord knows, though, she tried.
“You know something, Nancy—”
“Hush.” She breathed heavily. The parakeet landed on her shoulder. Where was the Doberman—out hunting deer? In the hallway, the central-heating blower clicked on noisily. Sasha leaped onto the living-room drapes and they clattered, with a muffled rush of heavy folds, onto the couch.
The pills, man: he still had asthma!
Her body shifted slightly into a pose that apparently had special meaning.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you positive energy.”
“Not to be a killjoy, but I really would like to pop one of my own anti-asthma little beauties.…”
“Shhh.”
“Can I borrow your car? It’ll only take a minute. I’m a careful driver, I swear.” His lungs were filling up with cotton. His chin itched. The Asthma Hangman, a big black-hooded brute naked to the waist, wearing a necklace of confiscated adrenaline-injection capsules, tightened his hemp around Joe’s windpipe. It looked like curtains for sure if he couldn’t reach his pusher in time!
“Joe, it’s one A.M.”
Imitating jovial, good-natured flippancy, he said, “Give me the keys or else I’ll bash in your head with the clock-radio and burn Bradley’s feet and nipples with cigarette butts until he confesses where they’re hidden.”
“They’re in the car. But if you insist, I’ll drive you there.”
“In the car? Aren’t you afraid somebody will steal it?”
“If I projected those negative thoughts, sure, somebody might steal it.”
“I’l
l go alone. You shouldn’t leave the kid.”
“He’ll be all right.”
“What if a burglar—?”
She chuckled. “In my world there are no burglars.”
* * *
SASHA WANTED TO COME. Joe said, “Does he have to?” Eyes twinkling, Nancy replied, “He doesn’t have to, but he sure enjoys driving around.”
Joe said, “I don’t understand why you let him get away with creating such havoc in the house.”
“Because of him, my house is peaceful.”
In the VW, wearing only her robe, Nancy lit a fresh cigarette and started the car. Nearly frenzied beside her, Joe said, “Shouldn’t you bring a purse, or at least your license? I mean, given that you’re almost naked, suppose a cop stopped us?”
She gazed at him humorously and sympathetically. “A cop won’t stop me.”
“How do you know?”
“I never ask them to stop me. They used to pull me over all the time—before I understood—because I drive fast. But now it’s almost as if I’m invisible.”
They turned left onto Valverde: Nancy braked slightly to avoid flattening Nick Danger. Striding purposefully through the night shadows, clutching his singular valise to his heart, the mysterious little shtarker never glanced up.
A moment later, while crossing the North-South Highway, Joe cried, “Wait a minute! Take me to the bus station!”
“But it’s all locked up. No bus arrives for at least an hour.”
“Please,” Joe begged plaintively, “just do as I say this once.”
From the back seat, Sasha reached up stealthily, and suddenly pinched Joe’s earlobe. “Hey, ouch!” Joe swung around angrily. Sasha leaped over the backrest, and crouched out of sight in the well between the seatback and the rear window. “That stupid animal just pinched me!”
“Sasha, you be a good boy,” Nancy reprimanded him mildly. “Don’t be flirting with Mr. Miniver.”
Joe said, “Park in front of it, with your headlights aiming inside. I’ll pretend I’m reading the schedule in the window.…”
Nancy did as told. After checking to be sure they weren’t under surveillance, Joe stepped down and sauntered nonchalantly up to the glass door. Pretending absorption in the arrival-and-departure schedule, he peered into the gloomy station, searching for Peter’s bag.
Instead he found himself staring into the beam of a flashlight held by a startled figure dressed in black and wearing a rubber gorilla mask, frozen in a frightened crouch, the black-watch suitcase in one hand—CAUGHT! RIGHT IN THE ACT!
Joe said, “Somebody’s in there!”
Whereupon the world exploded. It seemed at first as if a gas heater had accidentally burst inside the station, so cataclysmic was the report of a gun going off. Almost in front of Joe’s nose, the glass shattered, yet miraculously the bullet flung in his direction sizzled harmlessly past the ear Sasha had just tweaked. Old athlete that he claimed to be, Joe reacted instantly, flopping sideways in sheer terror, realizing as he fell that somebody had taken a murderous pop at him, fully intending to end his life.
Asked in a moment of tranquillity how he might be expected to react to such an outrage, Joe no doubt would have declared, “I’d collapse and play dead, or scramble the hell out of there.” Confronted with the actual thing, however, his terror and astonishment were instantly replaced by outrage. “You son of a bitch!” he screamed. The gall of that intruder! Joe’s fumbling fingers snatched up a medium-sized rock. And, instead of playing possum or scuttling off like a terrified crab, he lurched back onto his knees, and cocked an arm, prepared to hurl the rock at a protagonist toting lethal hardware and lugging the suitcase that held within it the key to Joe’s aspirations.
Two more shots blahooied horrendously from within the bus station: glass bits and plywood splinters bounced off Joe’s chest and shoulders as he fired his stone, but no hot lead projectiles thumped messily into his chest or forehead. Inside the depot, the masked gunslinger hollered, “Out of my way, you thon of a bitch, I’m coming through!” To Joe’s astonishment, the robber leaped straight for him, suitcase in hand, and, in either a panic or an exaggerated show of derring-do, missed the door entirely, crashing through the plate-glass window like O. J. Simpson on his way to catch a plane.
Joe flung up one arm, warding off the fatal blow. Grunting hysterically, the barbarian crash-landed on top of him. The suitcase crunched into Joe’s head and popped open, spilling several dozen chunky, rectangular boxes of herbal teas across the ground. The desperado’s flailing body smelled of sweat, gunpowder, fear, and shoe polish. “Ah thit!” he wailed. A fist thumped Joe’s shoulder; again the gun went off, this time almost in his ear. Squealing, Joe hit back. One fist glanced off the gorilla mask. A boot accidentally kicked his groin, as the masked man struggled to disentangle himself from their accidental union. “Which one ith the boxth?” he groaned, scrambling to gather in the containers. A gun clattered onto the pavement, and, surprised by his own murderous audacity, Joe grabbed it, swung it onto the black marauder, and might even have triggered a shot at point-blank range, had not the guy screamed in a near-falsetto voice, “Don’t thoot me!” as, his arms full of boxes, he careened away. When, like a disoriented bird, he clipped the side of the depot building, boxes cascaded every whichway; he landed spread-eagled against the pavement. But this time he regained his feet instantly.
“I’ll kill you!” Joe roared. But instead of pulling a trigger, he hurled the gun with all his might: it clattered harmlessly against those fleeing heels.
At which point, all hell broke loose.
A large gray 1957 Dodge van with a cow skull welded onto the front grille and a plastic skylight bubble on the roof veered out of the shadows and screeched to a nose-dipping halt. A psychedelic sign on the van’s side said CHICKEN RIVER FUNKY PIE. Three doors opened simultaneously, and more men in black, wearing rubber gorilla masks, and including a diminutive figure that had to be a dwarf, sailed to earth brandishing machine guns, semiautomatic pistols, and a pump shotgun. With no further ado, World War III broke out in earnest. Guns, bombs, bullets, hand grenades, smoke, muzzle flashes, ricochets—you name it, it happened! Deafened by the holocaust, Joe hunched into a fetal position among the boxes, and prayed for rain.
Apparently, they wished to assassinate the original intruder. Incredibly, their hot lead, spewed about so liberally and unscientifically, failed to fell the zigzagging klutz, whose arms still hugged a dozen boxes. Instead, the sprinter stepped on a rake: the handle twanged up, as in an old-fashioned film comedy, brutally whacking him (vertically) across the face. He catapulted backward, spraying more boxes, yet again exhibited astonishing resiliency, almost reamassing his cargo before thudding to earth. In no time he was upright again, and bounding away like a frightened deer.
A Volkswagen microbus careened into the parking lot. Brakes locked, it fishtailed with a grinding wail of protesting rubber and a blazing horn into the Chicken River Funky Pie van. Metal crunched and crumpled, glass popped, motors yelped shrilly and hissed: steam arose. More black-outfitted goons disguised as apes emerged from the VW, pistols, rifles, and other assorted noisy accoutrements blazing.
Such turmoil!
The original fugitive collided against a garbage can and sprawled to the turf, landing in a heap of chattering oilcans and mushy coffee grounds. The Chicken River death squad continued their fusillade in his direction, even as they busied themselves near Joe, snagging tea boxes, which they dumped into a burlap sack. The dwarf hooligan screamed orders: “Get the boxes! Kill the son of a bitch! We need ’em all! Shoot that asshole! Gimme some more bullets! Die, scumbag, die!”
When the VW crowd had entered the fray, it seemed as if everybody must fall within the tornado of crisscrossing slugs creating a withering whirlwind of almost certain annihilation. Yet, though weapons were repeatedly discharged at point-blank range, everybody’s marksmanship left something to be desired. Assailants cursed, ducked, lurched, jumped out of the way, crouched behind Nancy’s Bu
g, the bus, the van, the corner of the depot, and did not fall. They slugged each other, toppled to earth only inches away from Joe, but bounced to their feet like Silly-Putty, unawed and unafraid. In the heart of such deadly choreography, Joe waited for a stray bullet to end his life. Chips of cement pelted his thighs, butt, and shoulders; bullets whined between his legs, searing his Levi’s without causing an actual rent in the fabric.
Automobile windows disintegrated from errant shotgun blasts. The depot provided a seemingly endless supply of loudly erupting crystal. The original intruder survived his garbage-can collision, but five steps later he pitched into a ditch. Closer to the situation’s core, the dwarf manhandled an empty tommy gun, wielding it like a baseball bat. Oofs, grunts, expletives, epithets, gurgles, and soft-nosed bullets mangled the airwaves as all parties involved continued gathering herbal tea boxes. One man secured an armful, only to lose it when tackled by another pug. Gunsmoke and dust, as thick as if laid down by a Hollywood smog machine, circulated among the scufflers. Joe had difficulty following the action.
Then, out the corner of one eye, Joe caught a flash of beige fur leaping from Nancy’s Bug. Sasha landed upright, apparently unnoticed by any of the free-for-allers. The monkey danced through a dozen flailing arms and kung-fu legs, snatched up a single box of herbal tea, gave Joe the finger, and obnoxiously scampered back to his mistress with his prize.
All the boxes were gone. Somebody kicked the empty suitcase. An order was given: “Let’s scram!” The clumsy oaf who’d launched this bizarre episode heaved out of the ditch, but immediately tangled his legs in rusty barbwire coils and went down again. Screeching backward, the Chicken River Funky Pie van banged the VW bus, knocking it sideways: spinning tires kicked up spurts of stinking smoke. A horn was stuck. Hollering men piled into both vehicles. A final shotgun blast took out the microbus windshield. Other pellets, aimed at stars, chopped the pavement around Joe like hailstones: one BB actually pinged harmlessly off his head.