by Eve Goldberg
He grinned like a proud father. I guess I was supposed to be impressed. I might have been, if I’d known what he was talking about.
“What we’ve come up with is a hallucinogen similar to those found in the peyote cactus and psilocybin mushroom, both of which have been utilized by many ancient civilizations. Here . . . ”
Flynn scooted across the rug so that he was behind me. He untied my hands. I shook out my wrists to get the blood circulating again. He handed me one of the tiny paper squares. I didn’t take it.
“Twenty-five micrograms. I strongly suggest you try it.” He popped the other square into his mouth and grinned. “See. It’s easy.”
“Maybe some other time,” I said flatly.
“No time like the present.”
I shrugged.
“Really Ryan, there’s nothing to be frightened of. For eons, shamans have used the psychoactive alkaloids occurring naturally in plants to contact the spirit world of their ancestors. Tribal priests throughout the Americas use psychedelics to empower themselves with supernatural visions. Now we — you and I — through the marriage of modern science and ancient herbology, have the ability to transcend our ordinary consciousness, to experience layers of reality that have thus far been hidden from modern man.”
“I’m just here to find Joey.”
“So you say.” His tone had changed. The glint of amusement in his eyes turned to cold steel. I liked the grinning Doc Flynn better.
“Why would I lie?” I said.
“Why does anybody lie? To protect yourself, to protect someone or something you care about, for financial gain, for social or political gain, to appear virtuous, to manipulate your environment, out of insecurity, pathology— do you want me to continue?”
“I’m being straight with you, Mr. Flynn. And if Joey is here, I’d think you’d want to let his mother know that he’s safe. If he is safe.”
“I appreciate the ‘Mister,’ but it’s unnecessary, inaccurate, and ineffective. Look, I’m giving you a unique opportunity. If you’re too puritanical or uptight to appreciate this opportunity, then so be it. I thought you were a pretty hip guy, but I may have misjudged. So here are some terms you might understand better: I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. If you want me to be open with you, you’ll have to take a risk.”
He extended his hand with the tiny square of orange paper towards my mouth like he was feeding a carrot to a horse.
I thought it over. I had smoked weed. It was no big deal. What the hell. I took the orange paper and put it in my mouth. It tasted like paper.
“Chew,” said Flynn.
I chewed until the paper dissolved. I stared at Flynn. He stared back. Nothing happened. Then Flynn lay down on his back and shut his eyes. The keys to the cabin door were beneath him in his back pocket. Maybe he would pass out and I could take the keys and go looking for Joey. I’d just wait it out and see.
I looked around the darkened room, at the chunky log wall, the ancient bureau, the locked door. I looked back at Flynn. His eyes were shut and he was smiling. His arms hung loosely at his side. He looked as relaxed and untroubled as a teabag in a warm cup of water. That’s when I noticed that he was vibrating, the edges around his clothes were glowing, radiating gold and yellow, like a halo, each color blurring into the next. I lay down and shut my eyes and watched the gold halo turn to butterflies on my eye lids. I opened my eyes and a swarm of butterflies . . . is it called a swarm? a flock? a pack? . . . flew in through the hole at the top of the cabin ceiling. Hundreds of butterflies landed on my body, fluttering, lightly touching the skin on my arms. Then the butterflies rose off my skin and flew up through the hole in the ceiling.
I opened my eyes. I hadn’t noticed before the exquisite wood grain of the cabin walls and ceiling. The wood grain flowed like a river . . . flowing like a river, not just the grain but the logs themselves were flowing . . . and now the air was flowing and the wood grain river flowed into the air. I closed my eyes and the river of air flowed into my eyes, forming spirals on my eyelids.
I opened my eyes again. Flynn was sitting cross-legged on the rug. His eyes were closed. His hair was on fire but it must not have been a very hot fire because it didn’t seem to bother him.
“Flynn?” Somebody was speaking. I looked around the room, but nobody else was there. Flynn opened his eyes and grinned. The fire in his hair was changing colors, from red to orange to blue, the colors swirling.
“I think your hair is on fire,” I said.
“That could be. Infinity means anything is possible.”
Flynn stood up. He walked to the door and unlocked it. When he opened the door, a whoosh of light flowed in. I thought for a moment that the light might knock him over, but instead it swirled harmlessly around him like water in a stream flowing around a rock. Flynn moved his hand in a way that I knew meant he wanted me to stand up.
I followed Doc Flynn out of the cabin and across the wooden porch. We walked slowly, very very slowly, each footstep a rocking motion, heel down, toe down, heel up, toe up, the boards creaking with each step. I had never noticed before how many sounds there are in a footstep. On a surfboard, you pay attention to what your feet are doing, but I had never paid attention to my feet walking across a wooden porch.
And now packed dirt.
And now gravel.
We crunched our way across a gravel road. I looked up. The sky was in full blazing sunset. I stared transfixed at the sky. I heard the crunching sound again. Flynn was walking up the gravel road. I hurried to catch up with him. We left the road and entered an oak grove. Waves of green were coming off the quivering leaves which vibrated in the air currents that we created as we walked, single file, like the prow of a boat sending ripples in our wake.
The oak forest opened up to a chaparral savannah. We climbed a hill. I’m on a mission. The words had floated into my head. They seemed completely right and true and obvious. Flynn stopped, turned, grinned, and nodded as if he heard me. Had I said my thoughts out loud? We know everything we need to know, we’ve just forgotten. The words came to me in Doc Flynn’s voice. Did he say that out loud?
At the top of the hill we sat down and gazed into the trees and shrubs below. We just sat there, saying nothing. After a while, I noticed that the earth was breathing. The scrub brush and the oaks were all breathing in unison with the earth. My own breathing was in sync with the earth’s breathing. Everything was breathing together, all part of the same breath. Wow, I thought. Wow, wow, wow.
I followed Flynn back to the cabin in the dark. I lay down on the rug and closed my eyes. I am on a mission. I am on a mission to save somebody. Someone who needs saving. I’ve always been on this mission, but I had forgotten. That’s why I’m here right now: To remember. This is a key. Don’t forget this moment, engrave it on your brain. I thought about the keys in Flynn’s pocket and laughed. Don’t forget this, this is important..
I opened my eyes and sat up. Flynn was gone. A bird was standing on the rug where he had been sitting. The bird looked at me. The bird was brown with a bright orange underbelly and streaks of white and black on his head. I wondered why the bird didn’t fly away. Birds usually fly away when they are this close to a human. It took me a moment to realize that of course the bird didn’t need to fly away because I wasn’t going to hurt it. The bird looked at me and winked. I’d never seen a bird wink before. I reminded myself to tell Uncle Lou about the winking bird. He’d get a kick out of that. Then the bird flew up to the ceiling and out the hole in the roof.
I closed my eyes and fell asleep. When I opened my eyes again, Doc Flynn was sitting cross-legged on the rug, staring at me. Next to him was a boy with shaggy blonde hair and blue eyes. For a moment I thought it was me.
CHAPTER 7
Joey Flynn’s body was rigid and his eyes were focused on me. He didn’t seem frightened, just alert. On the other side of Doc Flynn knelt a woman. She was small and Asian. Her long black hair was tied back in a pony tail. In one hand she held a plastic cup.
“What day is it?” I asked nobody in particular.
Doc Flynn answered. “Sunday.”
The small Asian woman said, “Are you thirsty?”
I licked my lips and nodded. My mouth was dry as sand. The woman put the cup in my hand. The cup felt cold and wet. After I drank the best, clearest, coolest, purest water I had ever drank, I turned to the boy.
“Are you Joey?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Can I take you home to your mother? She misses you.”
Joey looked at his father.
“Ask your question, son. Go ahead. It’s best to face the truth.”
The boy swallowed. “Is the man dead?” he asked. Fear had crept into his eyes.
“Which man?” I said.
“The one I hit. He was slapping my mom and yelling, so I hit him.”
“Did he have white hair?”
The boy nodded. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted him to stop hurting my mom.”
“What’d you hit him with?”
“Frying pan.”
“You knocked him out?”
Joey shrugged. “I dunno. He fell and didn’t get up. Is he dead?”
“No. He’s not dead.”
“Am I going to jail?”
“Not a chance. He’s not dead. Besides, you were only trying to protect your mother, right?”
He nodded. “So . . . they won’t take me away from my mom?”
“No. They won’t.”
Nobody said anything for a while, so I lay down on the rug and shut my eyes. I watched the blood cells flow through the veins in my eyelids, wondering if the butterflies would return. I heard people talking. I fell asleep. I woke up and looked around. The Asian woman was gone, but Doc Flynn and the boy were still sitting on the rug, looking at me. Flynn had changed his shirt. I sat up.
“I’m ready to go home now,” Joey said.
I looked over at Doc Flynn. He shrugged. “It’s Joey’s decision. He owns his own life.”
He owns his own life. I pondered that. Do we own our own lives? But no profound thoughts came to me on the subject.
“Misako called Cora while you were sleeping,” Flynn said. “Cora wants you to drive Joey home. She’s said she’d leave work early and be at the house by the time you get there.”
My mind was fuzzy. There were questions I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t quite focus on what they were.
“Isn’t it Sunday?” I said finally.
Flynn shook his head. “That was yesterday. It’s Monday now.”
Monday. I tried willing my brain to click into detective mode — or at least reasonably normal mode.
“I thought you didn’t have a phone,” I said.
Flynn shrugged. “You thought wrong.”
CHAPTER 8
Joey sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window. We rode in silence, out of the mountains and down to the coast where morning fog lay thick on the water.
I was glad for the silence. Ghost images and sounds were floating through my mind: crunching gravel, quivering leaves, breathing earth, the words: “I am on a mission,” the sense of purpose that was so clear and absolute just hours ago but was now getting thin and vague like the ocean mist evaporating in the morning sun.
As we neared Santa Barbara, Joey said he was hungry. We stopped at a grocery store and I bought a package of Fig Newtons and two apples. Curiously, I wasn’t hungry, although it seemed like days since I’d last eaten.
The food seemed to perk Joey up. He fidgeted with the radio dial. When all he could find was a country western station, he switched off the radio and turned to me.
“My dad says you’re a private eye.”
“Yup.”
“So you’re like Stu Bailey on 77 Sunset Strip?”
“Something like that. But without the swanky office, or the pretty secretary, or wrapping up each case in an hour.”
“Your secretary’s ugly?”
I laughed. “Actually, you’re looking right at him.”
“But you’re the private eye.”
“At the moment I’m both. Maybe when I hit the big time I’ll have a pretty secretary like Stu Bailey and his pals.”
“Do you own a gun?”
“Yup.”
“Can I see it?”
“Nope.”
Joey pushed on the button to the glove compartment, but it was locked.
“Is it in there?” he asked.
“You’re a smart kid. That’s why I keep it locked.”
“But if you need your gun in a pinch, wouldn’t it take too long to get it out?”
“See, that’s why you can’t believe everything on TV. Real life PI stuff isn’t all about guns and bad guys and shooting.”
“Well, if I was a private eye, I’d carry my gun on me at all times.”
“And have a pretty secretary?”
Joey’s cheeks reddened. We drove for a while in silence again.
We cruised through Carpenteria, passed the cut-off road to Rincon Point. Rincon was one of my favorite surfing spots. This time of year the surf was mushy, but come winter Rincon had a big, peeling right break that curled around the rocks. And another perk: it hadn’t yet been discovered by the surfer-wannabes who drove in from the Valley, Nebraska, you name it, and cluttered up the water. I blamed it on The Beach Boys. Their tunes were tight with catchy hooks, and they were inspiring half the country to converge on California each summer.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Joey asked.
His question jerked my mind off the beach and back into the car.
“I used to.”
“What’s her name?”
“Allison.”
“Why not anymore?”
“She dumped me.”
“Why?”
“You’d have to ask her.”
Joey looked at me with a puzzled expression, then turned away. I knew my answer was dopey.
“I guess we just grew apart,” I added.
Joey pushed the button on the glove compartment a few times.
“My dad has a girlfriend,” he said.
“Misako?”
“Yeah.”
“You like her?”
“She’s okay.”
I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.
“Joey,” I said after a while, “you up for it if I ask you a few questions?”
“Like what?”
“About the night you ran away from home.”
He wrinkled up his nose. “I guess.”
“That white-haired man who was hitting your mom, you ever seen him before?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Ever seen anybody else hurt your mom?”
“No.”
“You said the man was yelling. Did you hear what he was yelling about?”
“He was swearing. He said . . . can I say the word?
“Go ahead.”
“He said ‘bitch’.
“Okay. What else?”
“I don’t really remember. I just knew he was hurting my mom and I had to make him stop.”
“Sure, I understand. I know you were just protecting her. Relax about that, okay?”
Joey shrugged. He started to press the glove compartment button again. I got the feeling that he was shutting down.
“When I was your age,” I said, “I lived alone with my mother too.”
The click click click of the glove compartment button stopped. I looked over at Joey. He began pressing on the button again, but lazily. I had his full attention.
“And if some man had slapped my mother,” I continued, “or hurt her in any way, I would have done just what you did. I would have wanted to beat the shit out of him.”
“I tried to hit him, but he pushed me.”
“Probably swatted you away like a fly.”
Joey nodded. “Yeah.”
“So how’d you get yourself way up to Santa Maria in the middl
e of the night?”
There was a long silence.
“Do I have to tell you?”
“I’d like to know.”
“Well . . . I’d better not.”
“Why’s that?”
Joey shrugged and looked away.
We drove in silence again. Past the bluffs at Point Dune . . . past the Malibu cliffs with their trails zig-zagged down to hidden beaches . . . past the Malibu Pier where a flock of seagulls had gathered on the asphalt outside the Fosters Freeze, pecking at bits of free burger buns and fries . . . past a billboard advertising Coppertone Suntan Lotion . . . past another billboard hawking the Kodak Instamatic camera.
“Photos!” Joey suddenly blurted out. “He was yelling about photos. ‘Where are the photos!?’ ‘Where are the fucking photos!?’ He was yelling. It woke me up.”
“The white-haired man said that?”
Joey nodded.
“What photos was he talking about?”
“I don’t know. That’s just what he said.”
I nodded. “Good job, man. You’ve got a good memory.”
Joey beamed. Then his voice went dark again. “How come you’re sure he’s not dead?”
“Because he was gone when your mother woke up in the morning. Dead men don’t just walk away.”
“That means he might come back.”
“It’s possible.”
“He might come back and hit my mom again.”
I had nothing to say to this. I didn’t know who the man was or what he wanted, or what he was capable of. Joey turned towards me. He stared directly at me just like his father had done sitting cross-legged in the cabin.
“Can you do something to keep him from coming back?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged. What could I tell him? That a job is a job, and this job would end when I dropped him off at home. That Lou’s number one rule is Don’t Make It Personal, but at the same time there was something tugging at me inside to help Joey out, to make sure the white-haired goon never came back. To fix it so Joey didn’t have to be alone all day and deal with a mother who drinks. It didn’t make a lot sense to me, and I knew it wouldn’t make any sense to Joey. So I stayed quiet and kept driving.
