by Layla Wolfe
Wolf fired up a waterpipe he must’ve had on his tool belt, and I took Lytton aside to thank him for the cabin and ask if he knew Byron Riddlesberger from the Flagstaff Friends of Distinction.
“Unfortunately, I know that cheesebag. The Friends used to be our brother club out of Vegas, going on runs with us. Then some went rogue and started a new chapter down here. Fucking meaner and more heartless than the original Friends. I heard you had some trouble with them in Flag.”
“Yeah, they were trying to blow a hole through that girl Heaven, the Morbot I brought to P and E.”
“Yeah. Sock Monkey’s sister.”
“Right. Have you ever seen them slouching around P and E? I really feel like I need to offer her more protection.”
“Nah. They know this is our power base. Never seen them slinking around.”
I said, “I’m just worried he might consider her his property and come after her, since he’s the one who picked her up from the middle of the highway.”
“Middle of the highway?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Apparently she was ODing on some chloral hydrate her husband had fed her like twelve hours earlier. She passed out, and Riddlesberger happened by to save her.”
“Hmph. Chloral hydrate doesn’t last that long.” I’d forgotten Lytton had a Ph.D. in chemistry. “Some other condition of hers could’ve done that, though. Diabetes. My mother had that. Contributed to her death on the Rez. That, and alcohol.” Yes, the half-brothers Ford and Lytton were also half-Apache, Tomahonkeys with different mothers.
“I’ll ask her about diabetes. But somehow I get the feeling seeing the doctor wasn’t encouraged in her compound.” I had to ask the awkward question. “Uh, do you know where she’s staying?”
Lytton frowned, thinking. Then, to my mortification, he bellowed at a greenhouse. “June! Do you know where that new girl Heaven is staying? Sock Monkey’s sister?”
Everyone turned to stare at us as June emerged from a greenhouse. “We’re working on getting her a cage. Then she can stay at Smoky Mountain High.” That was the bud and breakfast where I currently stayed.
Pippa added, “Right now she’s in town with my sister Sally. But it’s a small apartment.”
I was thinking more of moving her to the log cabin that I hadn’t even viewed yet. I took a few steps toward Crybaby, who was toking on the pipe now, as Wolf bellowed,
“Hey, what’re we gonna do about the shipments from Bogotá? That didn’t go over too well when those anusbrains tried to stuff powder into those coffee beans.”
Lytton said, “Yeah, we’ve got a new idea. Someone needs to go there and rent some shipping containers. I wanted to put Bobo Segrist on the detail to make his bones, but he went down to the Mexican border to detain migrants in the desert.”
“Oh, man!” It sounded from his whining as though Wolf felt he’d missed out on all the fun, being part of a vigilante justice group of civilians. “Well, I patched in before Bobo. Send me to Bogotá.”
Lytton said, “You’ll be here working with Town on the shrooms, from the sounds of it.”
I said, “Don’t call them shrooms.”
“I’ll personally escort the product back up here,” insisted Wolf. “You know I can do it, jefe.”
“You’re not as adept as Bobo at Spanish.”
“Sure I am! I know all those persona loca and demente. Those cabróns are desquiciado, oftentimes.”
Tobiah sauntered over, confident he could regain his rep. “Listen to this gillipolas. I’ll bet he doesn’t even know that bobo means fool in Spanish.”
Wolf turned on him. “Who cares, you dillweed? Not like you’d ever be brave enough to fly to Colombia.”
Tobiah crossed his arms in front of his scrawny chest. “Oh yeah? Guess what, geardo. I’m the one who does the financials. I’m the money man. I’ve flown down to meet with plenty of sketchy people just to get paid so you can eat avocado toast.”
Wolf crossed his arms too. It looked like they were about to topple each other with hip bumps. “Oh, it’s real manly to sit behind a desk typing, you fucking Krelboyne! And I don’t even like avocados!”
Lytton inserted himself between the two warring men. I’d seen plenty of disagreements like this over in Syria, especially between incapacitated broke dicks who’d seen combat, men getting stir crazy in their hootches. Me? Never. I was too in control. That was my problem.
Lytton held his hands up high. “You two aren’t even supposed to be in the same room together. Tobiah, give Town the cabin key. Wolf, follow him and Crybaby up to the cabin, scope it out for suitability. Passwater, can you go up and give them more intel?”
Lytton stepped out to talk to Passwater, and the two poindexters snarled at each other. I had no idea what their history was, but it was in my nature to soothe and mend frayed nerves.
I said, “Wolf. Our dogs haven’t had their lunch yet. We should feed them at the new house. Kind of make them feel welcome.”
Wolf knew I kept dog kibble in my sidecar—I think he kept some in his saddlebags—but it was funny the way he instantly stood down from the nerdy accountant once dogs were mentioned. “Yeah, good idea! You’ve got to see this place, buddy. They used actual pine logs to make the banisters.” He described the scene with his hands. “The plate glass windows look out onto a private lake. There are fucking heads on the walls.”
Tobiah wouldn’t give it a rest. “They’re called mounts, peckerhead.”
Wolf spoke from the corner of his mouth. “Shitstain. Yeah, Town, follow me. It’s just a straight shot up Lake Mary Road.”
“Right behind you,” I said, already starting the march to our rides, Linus trotting at my side.
We rolled together up the undulating mountain highway. Wolf rode point as we leaned into the curves in formation, Crybaby riding sweep at the rear. Already we felt in sync, in tandem, in cahoots with each other on a spiritual level. I didn’t want to sound like my parents, but there was some higher power at work, blessing our venture.
Wolf had trained Beetle to sit one up behind him, his paws on Wolf’s shoulders. It looked dangerous, but Wolf had explained it was actually safer in case he had to lay down his ride. Beetle could easily jump free of the accident. I considered it—it looked danged cute, too—but decided against training Linus for that. I wanted my angel Heaven sitting one up behind me, Beetle in his proper sidecar with goggles and helmet.
Wolf wasn’t kidding about the cabin. It was some outstanding structure, two shining stories of solid pine logs festooned with wrap-around decks. Elk must’ve eaten all the grass around the house because it looked mowed, all the way down to the lake. Everyone took off their lids in awe, and Linus had to bark to remind me to let him out of the seatbelt.
Crybaby ran his fingers through his feathery hair. “Holy mother. How many bedrooms?”
“Five,” Wolf said with pride.
Passwater said, “You guys’ve got it made.”
“Yeah,” agreed Wolf. Our two dogs leaped on one another, joyful at their freedom. “The master bedroom has ceilings two stories tall.”
“This is just a cabin to these guys?” asked Passwater as we headed for the front door.
“Oh yeah,” bragged Crybaby. “You should see what Lytton’s old lady calls a ‘rock’ on her finger.”
Wolf held out the keys to drop them into my palm. “Captain Spiro. Lead the way.”
So I did.
Living as I’d been in hootches or tiny condos, the log cabin felt more like a palace. I held my breath, wanting to thank the author of my existence for bringing me to such a place. Was this my reward for quitting drinking, yanking myself up by my bootstraps, and finding Linus to complete my life? He ran about excitedly, snuffling the dazzling wooden floorboards as though rooting out a rat. He led us into the kitchen, again all pine with a butcher block island and an old mint green Edgewood stove. Wolf went directly to the fridge as though he knew there was a paper-wrapped hunk of meat in the freezer and tossed it onto the counter. Linus sat,
alert, like he’d just been looking for some frozen hamburger.
To be honest, I pictured cooking with Heaven in that room. Not having her cook, but cooking with her. I used to like making dishes, back in the days when I ate. Now I was working out again, I needed nourishment. So did she. She truly seemed to enjoy some of the tasks, such as working with the land and animals. She was the type to never stop moving about.
“Dog food?” I asked.
“Hell no! People food. I overheard Tobiah complain the last renters left some meat in the freezer. I was all over that. There’s a built-in barbecue out back.”
Passwater shifted some little packages around on the counter. The house was lit by so many skylights the tiny Ziplock baggies were clearly stuffed with dried mushrooms. “I figured we’d do a little test drive on these while I examine your fruiting chamber.”
“Right on!” cried Wolf, practically grabbing them from Passwater’s fingers. “Lay it on me, baby!” He scooped up the wrapped meat and clomped in his engineer boots to the sliding doors, dogs on his tail.
Crybaby was a little more hesitant regarding the hallucinogenic. “I guess we should know what we’re talking about, and trip at least once.”
I said, “I promised someone I’d take it with them.” I flipped the little baggie back and forth between my fingers before opening it to inhale deeply. Fungus. Definitely fungus.
“Who?” asked Crybaby. “Lytton?”
“No.” I moved away, hoping Crybaby would drop it, but he didn’t.
“Pippa? You do know she’s married to Fox Isherwood, don’t you? Guy who runs the falcon sanctuary?”
I flashed him a thankless frown. “I do. Not Pippa.”
“Faux Pas? Duji? Tuzigoot?” He rattled off names of Bare Bones elders, guys who’d founded the club along with Ford and Lytton’s father, now deceased.
“No! You think I’m trying to brownnose it? No! That girl I brought down from Flagstaff. Heaven.”
“Oh. Why didn’t I think of her? You’ve been foaming at the mouth about her since you came down.” He paused thoughtfully. “A Mormon wants to do shrooms?”
“Yes. Hey, Passwater. I’ve heard that psilocybin can help with addiction problems?”
“Hell to the yeah,” said Passwater. He leaned against the counter and dumped the contents of one bag into his mouth. Speaking through a wad of mushrooms, he said, “What people have said to me, psychedelic journeys give them a new distance on their lives. You gain a better vantage point, and things that once seemed overwhelming suddenly seem handleable. Some of them, it’s amazing how they overcome old habits so easily.”
“Yeah?” I encouraged Passwater as I spilled the shrooms into my palm.
Passwater spoke drily as he struggled to chomp the fungi. “Yeah. Seems like the trippers who had the biggest mystical experiences were best able to do things like quit smoking.”
“Cigarettes, you mean,” said Crybaby, still masticating his own share.
“Or anything addictive,” said Passwater. “I think addiction is a narrative people get mired in. It gets reinforced every time we fail to quit. The hallucinogenic journey lets them see the immediate pleasures of their habit in the long-term window of their lives.”
Hmm. I liked the way Passwater put it, so I tossed the fungi into my mouth and chewed. Yeah, they were rubbery and dry. Now I spoke like Passwater, cottonmouthed. “So someone like Wolf, who doesn’t see his addictions as problems, won’t emerge from the trip enlightened.”
“Right,” said Passwater, finally swallowing. “Losing the habit has to be the overt intent of the journey.”
I was confident I was completely over my drinking habit, so I went out to the backyard. My overt intent of my session was to study the effects, so I could better resonate with my buyers. I sat in an Adirondack chair on the flagstone patio and watched Wolf grill. He declared himself a “mushroom head” because he’d found an apron and one of those chef’s hats. The mood was light and high-spirited, so to speak. Passwater and Crybaby were interested in the pond, sticking their hands in and examining the droplets from their fingers.
When I tried running my spread fingers before my eyes, that’s when it started. They left streaks, or trails of luminescent, ah . . . stardust? It reminded me of the moon dust that covered much of Syria, or maybe the pink mist that sprayed from one’s body with certain gunshot wounds. Oh no. Now I’m thinking of Syria. I tried to stay in the moment, at the log cabin with my old and newfound friends, so I talked to Wolf.
“Do you see color trails in the air?”
“Oh, yeah! You know?” He even splayed his hand and moved it in front of his eyes, like I had. “Sort of fragile floating trails of color, mostly purples and pinks. Sometimes I get a rush of endless points of light, like the Milky Way flowing across a river right in front of my eyes.” His giant, dorky grin seemed to envelope his entire face, and I laughed. He didn’t ask why I was laughing. Over by the pond, Crybaby and Passwater were chortling like goons, loud and boisterous. This, in turn, made me cackle and roar.
However, I wasn’t having any spiritual breakthrough. The Ponderosa pines sheltering us from neighbors stood like giant, benevolent guardsmen, pulsing and teeming with life. Wolf declared the steaks done, but when I looked at them writhing on the platter, I knew I’d never eat anything like that again in my life. Passwater was game, and took a plate at the picnic table, but Crybaby agreed with me.
He said, “Looks like it’s gonna get up and walk off the plate.”
“Right!” I cried. “Like with little legs.”
“You’re not grossing me out,” said Wolf, stuffing his mouth with meat.
Crybaby pointed. “That fallen tree looks like a hell cannon.”
I glanced over my shoulder. He was right. It did resemble one of the improvised mortars insurgents used to make. Bringing me back around to Syria made me temporarily panic I’d become so unmoored I might have a flashback—the night of the assassination attempt, probably. Crybaby didn’t help by continuing to point into the underbrush.
“Around that corner are people ambushed, waiting for us. Oh my God! Check out that eagle. Looks like that golden eagle we used to see over our base.”
Glad to have something pleasant to look at, I shielded my eyes and watched the eagle. Strange he circled right over us, as though he knew we were dead already. This reverie was pierced by the sharp cry of an outsider.
“Cap’n! Permission to come aboard!”
I swiveled my torso. That’s when I knew I was irredeemably high, because it sure looked like Slappy Lomax standing there by the house. Goofy Slappy, his long arms hanging at his sides.
And who . . . wait a minute . . . who was that female vision next to him?
“First dibs on Slappy’s woman,” said Crybaby.
My brain struggled piecemeal to remember who she was. Her upturned nose and wide, white-toothed smile prodded at me. The cabin’s logs behind her seemed to grow into monoliths, soon a medieval palisade complete with turrets. The woman now became a King Arthur legend, her impossibly long flowing hair blending into misty skirts, possessed of an interior light. Every color I’d ever seen was dull as boiled codfish compared to the clusters of transparent fruit that made up her being—viridian, crimson, royal purple more vibrant than the setting sun . . .
She waved at me. “Town!”
As I stood, Slappy came toward me. He bro-hugged me with such force I went “ooph.” I watched the woman over his shoulder. She was shy, holding her giant purse in front of her as she took several determined steps, like a proper soldier. It seemed like she even saluted!
“Captain Spiro!” she barked. “Private Heaven Larimore at your service!”
All sorts of absurd comments erupted around me. “Oh, I’d like you to service me.” That probably came from Wolf. “Yeah, I need a tune-up!”
“See who I ran into,” said Slappy. “I was in town looking for you. This little angel said you saved her life and she wanted to thank you.”
“Ooo!” cooed Wolf. “You better thank him appropriately, young lady!”
But she only had eyes for me. With the smile still lighting up her face, she came to me. “Hi, Town,” she said quietly. “I’d like to try some of those mushrooms, too. I’ll need to, if I’m going to be farming them.”
“Passwater!” bellowed Wolf, without checking with me first. “Another round, please!”
I reached out and took her hand.
Chapter Eleven
Heaven
I had no idea what I was getting into!
But it signaled the beginning of the rest of my life. The swelling and pounding in my chest when I laid eyes on that man again—it really scared me, because I’d never felt anything similar. Looking at men usually translated into indifference at best, or terror in the lowest realms of existence.
I’d run into Slappy when he came into The Hip Quiver, the indoor archery range Arkie—I mean Sock Monkey—ran. I’d been hanging around there a lot just to catch up and bask in his presence. Family. I mean blood family. Brighten had always tried to teach me about the meaning of family. In our world, being holy didn’t really mean you had a close relationship with God. No, Brighten said you had to make meaningful gestures of love and fidelity. This obedience was created by affection and devotion. On earth, she said, as well as in heaven, we make important bonds by what we do with and for other people.
That was a rule I could get behind, as they say. I’d never practiced that well in Cornucopia just because I was so messed up most of the time, either walking toward or racing away from Orson Ream. Now I was determined to enact it afresh, starting with my blood brother. I was helping Sock Monkey for free at the range, and it was one of the most joyous—if not the most joyous—time of my life.
In came people like Roman Serpico, a rock star turned Bare Boner who always had the grip of a Sig Sauer sticking out in the waistband of his tight jeans. He loved archery and even shot with a stick bow, the hardest type to sight in. The ganjier August came from A Joint System, although Sock Monkey wouldn’t let anyone shoot if even slightly buzzed or stoned.
