by John Rechy
Now black heat poured into Griffith Park—their destination implicit this whole mesmeric day; they had known it, or so it had seemed to Lisa and Jesse, when the car approached the night-shrouded park. Trust me, the haunted eyes had exhorted.
In the hypnotic wailing dark heat, Jesse and Lisa walked with Orin past the black ruins of charred areas, past secret coves and hiding paths. Ravaged trees twisted into violent shapes under the mottled gray of a spectral moon. As they advanced up the deserted roads, they heard the harsh exhalations of the pillaging wind.
Far beyond, at the top, the Observatory swam in a pool of electric light radiating from its base; surrounded by darkness.
At the end of this night's journey, Jesse James felt certain that, like all the heroes he admired, he would have a destiny. Orin promised it. Trust me, Jesse raised his chin. They made their way up the concrete road.
At first the park's contorted darkness had frightened Lisa. But as she moved along with Orin and Jesse, her fears faded. Trust me. And she had—from as far back as the desert, perhaps before that, days ago, but certainly from the moment of saddened silence when he had dug a grave for the slaughtered bird under the only shade he could find in the desert. She had not told him this, but on that day she had become eighteen. Trust me.
Even Orin was drenched in sweat when they reached the edge of the lawn that leads to the Observatory. The invading desert heat increased in layers. They moved into the path that veers down to the left of the three-domed building. Away from the dying yellow lights of the park's scattered lamps, they hiked into the branchy depths of the park, farther, deeper, under clawing limbs, tunnels carved by bent trees, past oxidized pipes like orange decayed veins, which feed the Observatory its power. Farther. A collapsed tree blocked their way. Orin led the way over it. It was now as if they had entered a tunnel of the night itself, the park's true wilderness. Huge powerful trees interlocked.
They reached a broken crag, a small cliff, which dropped into a path of fire-scarred land. Moonlight swept the burnt skeletons of trees clinging to the dead earth on a plain as desolate as a plundered graveyard.
Ahead, on another small hill, a mass of trees formed the heart of the park's darkness.
They stood on the edge of one hill and faced the other across the burnt waste. Here, rocks jutted from the earth in distorted protrusions. Orin climbed onto the blackened stones. Lisa raised herself and stood beside him. Now Jesse was with them. On that jagged crest, they stared across the escarpment separated by a decline and the desolate stretch.
Then Orin bent and forced a heavy rock over the stone rim. The crashing noise pushed against the howl of wind.
Out of the clotted darkness ahead, a lone form seemed to emerge. The wind shoved trees to one side, then the other, wiping away the outline within the shifted darkness of clasped branches. Now across the barren spread, there was nothing, only frantic trees.
Against the glow of distant fire, Orin, Lisa, and Jesse James stood on the crags and faced the dark.
PART TWO
Lost Angels: 8
“I didn't see anything!”
Inside the motel, the spell of the night shattered like black glass. For Lisa. For Jesse.
“Nothing!” Lisa emphasized her first denial. She wanted to erase what she had seen—thought she had seen, only for a moment—in the park—and, with that, to erase even her lack of fear then; it disturbed her now, now that they were in this room of past safety. To assert that safety, its reality, she went to the bed and held Pearl.
“I didn't see anything either,” Jesse said. He resented the way Orin had prepared the day.
Orin sat at the table of the room, which had become their home since they had arrived in Los Angeles just days ago. He reached for some stationery in a drawer of the table. He found a pen. He sat there, pondering. Then he wrote numbers.
Jesse threw himself on the bed, weary from the long night journey. He didn't bother to remove his boots. He knew what had only festered before like a buried splinter: Orin controlled them, their reality. What if there had been someone out there and we— …
“… —were in danger?” It was Lisa who had spoken the words Jesse longed to form. “Not that there was anyone,” she thrust away. “It was just one of your weird tests. And you tricked us, just to scare us—acting strange the whole day. Trust me, trust me, trust me! you kept saying over and over. And you made all kinds of promises!'’ Her voice was firm—she pushed Pearl away.
Orin looked quizzically at her. “You weren't in danger; I had already made sure of that—wouldn't put you in danger, you know that. Just wanted him to see you, and he did.”
Why! Lisa didn't allow herself to ask that question; he almost seemed to want them to.
Why! Jesse sat up, wishing he would ask that. Why did you want “him” to see us? … Look at him acting like he's been there before, even talked to whoever is there—if there's anybody!
“And I only asked you once to trust me, that's a fact,” Orin said, “and I didn't make any promises, a-tall.”
“How can you— … ?” Lisa stopped. He was right.
He was right! Jesse knew, startled. But it had seemed otherwise.
Lisa frowned, withdrawing her further accusations for now. Why had it seemed, so powerfully, that he exhorted all day, and promised— …? Quickly, Lisa decided to remove Pearl's hat—it was badly frayed. Pearl Chavez—the real Pearl—hadn't worn a hat anyway. But neither had she worn this fluffy dress. Why had she called her Pearl in the first place? She didn't look the half-breed who had seen, in silhouette through a window, her father kill her Indian mother because he found her with another man—but really because the Indian woman hated her daughter. No—this Pearl looked like a little girl playing grown-up.
Still so cool, like nothing's been said. Jesse studied Orin. Was there a man in that park? When they stood on those rocks, he had been sure the outline was that of a man. He had felt a stalking excitement, as if he were in a movie with Cagney. Now, in this room, everything only “seemed.” “You really serious you know someone's out there, Orin?” He disguised his grave tone in casualness.
“You know as well as I do, Jesse,” Orin said. He drew a line across the paper, adding some figures.
Jesse bit his anger. There it was again. Answering but not answering. “Why did you want him to see us?” He was instantly elated by his boldness; then an overlap of apprehension lessened his elation. There were certain questions whose answers he might not want to know—Orin seemed to count on that.
“He's got to trust us,” Orin answered, as if the answer was obvious.
Why Again Lisa drowned the persistent question. He wanted them to ask a reason because that meant they accepted a presence out there, and God knows what he'd come up with, in his mood. She saw Jesse about to ask more. “Stop asking him questions, Jesse! He'll make more things up!”
Jesse was glad to agree; he wasn't sure he would have asked any more.
She had walked into that frightening park at night! And yet she hadn't been afraid! That bothered Lisa, now. Again her strong voice accused. “I don't even believe you talked to that weird woman on television.” She had to render it all unreal.
Oh, oh. Jesse winced at the powerful accusation. He, too, had wondered about that…. And just look at her! Jesse admired Lisa; one moment playing with her doll, and another moment confronting Orin like that—and Orin taking it. Or just allowing it. For now.
Orin drew another line across the paper before him. “What?” he asked her.
Pretending. “If there is anyone out there—and we captured him—would we be heroes?” Jesse remembered having asked that question, but he didn't remember an answer.
Orin laughed. He set aside the paper on which he had computed. “For finding someone who just walked away from a hospital?” he questioned back. “ ‘Cause he wanted to be free?” He looked into his wallet.
How many individual gatherings of paper-clipped money were left? Jesse wondered. There's got to be more
! He and Lisa weren't contributing anything now. That was one of the ways Orin was able to run things so easily, buy their silence, which contained a hundred new questions each time one seemed to be answered. And! Nothing kept Orin from simply leaving them.
Lisa challenged, “And who cares if someone's out there—as long as he's not hurting anyone.” She heard her last words and felt apprehension. “Would you turn him in—if fhe exists?” She deliberately did not address either one of them directly.
“Depends.” Jesse startled himself. He had used Orin's ready answer, and it had come automatically, Orin's word.
Lisa glanced at Jesse. Was he trying to sound like Orin? “What if there was somebody out there and he shot at us!”
Damn right! Jesse got up, stood near her—an ally.
“He doesn't have a gun, no rifle; told you—I made sure of that. He just had to see there's three of us— …”
So he's been out there alone, those early mornings; talked to whoever— … if— … Now Jesse was sure he didn't want to hear any more, not tonight; now everything was confusing, and everything could turn threatening.
With an audible slam, Lisa closed the bathroom door behind her. She, too, was undecided how much clarity she wanted for now.
Jesse leaned over the table where Orin had been writing on a piece of paper; there were several numbers followed by many zeroes. Many, many zeroes.
Anger. Confusion. In the bathroom, Lisa startled herself in the mirror. Her face was smeared with dust from the park. She washed herself. She still looked different.
She removed her clothes. Her breasts looked fuller. She got under the shower, letting the water wash away the park's darkness. Orin scared her less. She turned off the water. Maybe she was just getting used to him. She dried herself, wrapped a furry towel about her wet hair. She touched her nipples, delicately, moistened her fingers with saliva, and then touched them again. Sexuality hugged her.
Last night when she had come out with her nightgown lowered, there had been that awful moment of Orin's anger. Now she needed to confront it.
She slipped on her nightgown, the sheerest one she had. No underclothes. She dabbed water over her breasts. She reached for the door knob, then stopped. This time she moistened the part of the material that veiled the upper portion of her thighs, so that it revealed her flesh there, and a hint of her pubic hair. She felt happily defiant, and emboldened by the fact that on that earlier night there had been clear desire when Orin saw her. She had retreated too quickly from his possible anger, anger she was almost sure now she had only imagined.
She walked out and stood very still in flimsy nudity.
“Hot as pistols!” another of Cody's lines shot out of Jesse when he saw her.
“Lisa!”
Lisa felt the lash of Orin's anger. It had been there before, and it was there now—fiercer!—in the way he flung her name. In the bathroom she had been one person, a new one; now quickly she was another, who belonged in this room. She breathed deeply, as if to retrieve the bold part of her. But that briefly born “her” did not return. So she grasped for words from her treasured “all-times,” words which would save her. But which, now? All she could remember were lines of surrender and loss. The moisture of her breasts and thighs increased with perspiration. She felt paralyzed in a nightmare—Orin's.
Jesse inched toward her, toward her breasts pasted against the material as thin as tissue, the smudge of auburn between her legs—a beautiful, sexual woman, who wanted him, them.
Lisa grabbed Jesse's look of desire. She straightened her body, asserting its exposed sensuality, Jesse's look giving her assurance that she hadn't done anything bad.
“Lisa!”
She felt herself whirling in the vortex of Orin's fury. Why had she done this? Why!
“Jesse's hard-on was so demanding he clutched it—not caring what Orin would say. He put his hands about Lisa's waist, lowered them to her buttocks.
“Leave her alone.” Orin's words were emphatic whispers.
Lisa rushed to Pearl on the bed. She covered herself with the bed sheet and pushed Pearl against her stomach.
“Hey, you listen— …” Jesse's challenge shot out at Orin. You controlled us all day, Orin! he didn't say aloud; you took us with you to that goddamn park to scare us, or test us, or whatever the fuck you're doing, and you're still doing it, and I know you want Lisa as much as I do! Jesse walked over to where Lisa lay in bed. He held the edge of the sheet as if to uncover her.
“Jesse.” Orin's word warned—so softly.
And yet, Jesse saw, Orin's look was on Lisa, on her body. If he pulled the sheet at the moment of Orin's desire, then it would happen, but if at that moment anger raged— … He let go of the sheet.
Lisa reached for her robe, put it on, sat up fully covered. “I was just playing,” she whispered.
“Just having some fun,” Jesse mumbled.
“Nothing wrong with a little fun,” Orin released them all.
Jesse laughed in eager relief. He sat on the bed with Lisa—not touching—to assure that everything was all right again.
“Shoot, you can even change your name if you want to, Lisa—haven't in a long time,” Orin offered in his light tone. He sat with her and Jesse on the bed. “Medea,” he said. “You can be Medea. Know who she was? She was a woman who let lust rule her, gave up everything for it, couldn't control it—so lustful she killed her children.”
“No one should kill their children!” Lisa protested. She brought Pearl to her breasts.
“Sometimes people do—without really killing!” Pain deepened Orin's blue eyes. Then he said, “Didn't mean to scare you, Lisa—sorry if I did. What I was telling you—they're just stories, about Medea and everything—like your movies, see. The old woman, she had lots of books, liked to read—oh, she really loved to read! When she started losing her sight, she got the biggest damn magnifying glass you've ever seen!” He laughed briefly. “I read to her—stories, legends, myths. Lots from the Bible. She liked that better than almost anything else. Except sin,” he breathed barely. “And she loved listening to Sister Woman preach.”
Jesse's lips opened, formed silence. Lisa softened her breathing—nothing must stop these words of revelation.
Orin bent over and touched Pearl, as if to make her more comfortable for sleep. “Yeah—the blind old woman,” he said. “She loved those old stories and listening to Sister Woman promise salvation—for sure!” He covered his face with his hands.
He moved away from Lisa and Jesse. He stood at the wide window. “For surer he repeated, the way he often said “a-tall.” The drapes were drawn against the night. He parted them and peered out into the simmering darkness.
“That's why she left Sister Woman all that money—but only if she can prove to us that God is as powerful as she says—as she promised. Powerful enough to— …” He stopped, as if inspecting the glass-shielded night. “Every time she got me to write that Sister Woman, when she knew she was dying, toward the last, she'd insist, Tell that Sister Woman before she gets one penny, she's got to show us proof. Proof!—in the fireworks of God.’ “
Proof of what, Orin? Proof of what! But Lisa knew she wouldn't ask. Perhaps didn't even want to know—not now.
Mick Vale: “Mr. Universal”
When he saw Robert Newman commanding the entrance to Harry's Gym, Mick Vale immediately abandoned the Pec-Deck machine on which he had been blasting his chest muscles. Mick—Michelangelo Valenti before he emigrated from New Jersey to “the mecca of bodybuilders”—felt the striations of his pumped pectorals pull like the fingers of two tightly clasped hands. Strong hands. In the learned semi-swagger of a prize-winning bodybuilder, he sauntered to the area of the free weights, the barbells and dumbbells. All physique champions and serious contenders from around the world trained at Harry's.
Other hugely developed bodies that had been stretching, pulling, and pushing on the padded seats of the contraptions that resembled electric chairs, discarded the machines’ cams an
d levers and insinuated themselves dutifully among the men who were heaving the iron weights, up, out, down, over; pulling and stretching cables; chinning on and dipping between bars.
The machines faced the racks of free weights across the room like weapons of the opposing armies they represented. Mirrored walls, surrounding, multiplied the warring equipment. More than twenty men, with muscles so big they seemed attached, worked out now, early afternoon. The meat-slabbed bodies were barely covered with ripped t-shirts, cutoff pants, tattered boxer-style trunks. Harry's outlawed bikinis and brief trunks and bare torsos, to assert its nonsexual buddy-to-buddy, man's-man to man's-man masculinity. Portions of defiant muscles peeking out of the cultivated tears emphasized the forbidden eroticism.
On an incline bench now, Mick prepared to do a set of presses; these work the upper pectorals so that they flare and sweep to the crown of the deltoids. Hands slightly wider than shoulder-width, he held the weight, poised overhead, then lowered it—slowly—so that the full range of movement would allow each muscle its own awesome moment. Seven repetitions. Finished, he stood, feeling the ultimate rush of the bodybuilder, the “pump”—muscles engorged by fresh assertive blood.
Mr. Venice Beach, Jr. Mr. America, Mr. America, Mr. International, Mr. World—these were only some of Mick's physique titles. He faced the mirror. Dark, good-looking, not tall—he claimed to be 5'-9” but wasn't, not quite—he weighed between 200 and 210 solid pounds. Through the pieces of his chopped t-shirt, his muscles shocked each other in mutual, admiring discovery, then, recovering, competed for attention.
In the bodybuilding magazines, there is a stock vocabulary used only on crowned champions. In that language, Mick Vale would be described like this: “His shocking triceps are carved like horseshoes, his massive arms bunch into incredible baseball biceps, his fantastic lats flare like bat wings, his mind-boggling shoulders spread as wide as a barnyard door, his fabulous abdominals knot like ropes, his unbelievable thighs are thick as oaks, his fabulous vascularity resembles a road map, he is massive but ripped to shreds.”
