by Chuck Kinder
Well, we’re not waiting on me, Jim said.
We’ll have to stop and get some booze, Alice Ann said. —Lindsay, you can ride with me, hon. We’ll stop and pick up some vodka. Vodka is your poison, isn’t it?
Oh, I’ve been known to drink a little vodka on occasion.
See, I told you. Vibrations. When I was a little girl I could foretell the future. I still can sometimes. I’ll read your palm for you tonight, hon. Maybe we’ll even break out the tarot cards and I’ll tell you anything you want to know about your life and future.
We have champagne coming out of our ears at home, Ralph said. —We don’t need to stop anywhere.
We don’t have any vodka, Alice Ann said. —Lindsay and I will take the Caddy. We’ll stop and get a nice bottle of vodka.
Why do we have to split up like this, anyway? Ralph said.
We’re not spitting up, Ralph. Lindsay and I are simply going in our vehicle. You ride with Jim.
Why can’t I ride with you two? Ralph said.
Thanks, dickhead, Jim said. —What am I, anyway, dogshit in the companion department?
You may find this difficult to comprehend, Ralph, Alice Ann said, and took Lindsay’s hand in her own. —But Lindsay and I have become dear, dear friends in just this short time. Our vibrations are totally attuned. The only explanation is that we have met in other lifetimes. I mean it, Alice Ann said to Lindsay, and squeezed her hand. —You are the best friend I’ve made in ten years at least. God, I feel as though in some past lifetime we must have been sisters, Alice Ann said, and then she kissed the back of Lindsay’s hand.
White Meat
1
Ralph Crawford’s house could have been a ship afire for all the lights blazing from it when Jim Stark pulled into the driveway. And then Jim had to brake the Cutlass abruptly, tossing Ralph into the dashboard, when suddenly in the headlights loomed what could have been the world’s largest wolf.
Jesus motherfucken Christ! Jim commented to Ralph. —Ralph, there’s a giant wolf in your driveway.
That’s Killer, Ralph said.
I’ll say, Jim said.
If I were you I’d turn off my headlights, Ralph said. —Headlights seem to give Killer a headache.
You bet, Jim said, and turned off the headlights. —Ralph, who the fuck is Killer? Killer is growling, Ralph.
I’ve been advised that Killer is cool, Ralph said.
I, for one, am not getting out of this vehicle, Ralph.
Honk your horn.
Say what?
Lay on your horn. If he’s not too busy, Paco will come out and take charge of Killer.
Paco?
Paco, Ralph said. —My daughter’s significant other, so to speak. Paco has all these tattoos. If Paco is not too busy, you know, not engaged in some act of sexual perversion with my daughter, he might come out and call Killer off. Otherwise you better just make yourself comfortable. Honk your horn, old Jim.
You bet, Jim said, and honked the horn. —Ralph, will honking the horn give Killer a headache?
No, I don’t think so. I’ve come to believe that a car horn must sound like some sort of kindred howl to Killer.
What makes you believe that, Ralph?
One night I sat out here in Alice Ann’s Caddy honking the horn for well over an hour, Ralph said, and he lit a cigarette. He settled back in his seat. —Maybe it was two hours. Who can tell? I was honking and honking the horn and Killer began to howl. But it somehow struck me as a happy howl. He was sort of howling along with the horn, and it seemed somehow—what?—attuned, in a primal, joyous way. Finally Killer attempted to, well, you know, sort of mate with Alice Ann’s Caddy.
Jesus, Jim said, and quit honking the horn.
You might as well honk it, Ralph said. —It’s our only hope, so to speak. That’s Paco’s Harley over there in front of the garage. There are little lakes of oil all over the driveway. I slid in one the other day. I was carrying out the garbage. There I was one moment, just a regular fellow in America going about his everyday life carrying out his everyday garbage. The next moment I was flying through the air like some cartoon character. Then I was Dagwood Bumstead sitting on his butt in a pool of oil. Hair full of coffee grounds. An orange rind hanging off an ear. A lap full of shitty kitty litter. Surrounded by a snow of used tampons. I can’t really pretend to understand anything about my life, such as it is.
You ought to put your foot down around here, Jim said. —Kick a little ass.
First thing in the morning, Ralph said. —What I should probably do is just stick my pitiful foot out the window right now and get it over with. Let Killer chew it off and bury it in the back yard.
You just don’t know, old Jim. Things were turning around for us. The advance money for the book, money which is ancient history now. The book. Things were looking up for a week or two. Now there’s a blizzard of bad checks flying back at us. We hired this Chicano crew to shape up the yard. To beautify it, in Alice Ann’s parlance. The check we wrote them bounced and now they are requesting cash in hand in return for not coming back over here and plowing up the ground with my teeth. The electricity is going to be cut off. I’m in the process of plea-bargaining with the phone company. I’d get down on my knees and send up a prayer if I knew where to aim it.
Hey, old dog, Jim said, and tapped Ralph on his shoulder. — You just had a book of groovy stories published by a hardball house. Life could be worse.
Do you really think they’re groovy, old Jim?
You bet. You know I do. And, who knows, what with all those swell blurbs from your famous friends, the book might not sink out of sight in a week like most collections of short stories.
Jim, I haven’t told you the whole sad story, Ralph said. —All that rubber-check business, big deal. I’ve hung paper all my adult life. I’ve lived like a pathetic caveman without electricity in my life, too. Big deal. But the mess I’m in now is a different can of worms entirely.
What can of worms is different, Ralph?
This latest bad business. This is serious city. I’m going to jail, Jim, without passing Go. That’s the long and short of it.
You mean there is some justice in this wretched world?
Yeah, you laugh. You think I’m fooling. Well, I’m not.
Why are you going to jail without passing Go, Ralph?
Hit the horn some more, Ralph said. It’s a long and sordid story. It’s a pitiful story.
All your stories are somewhat pitiful, Ralph.
The neighbors don’t even speak to us anymore. They close their doors in our faces. They call the sheriff on us. And who can blame them, I ask you? Sometimes this whole driveway is packed with hoods on Harleys. Revving up their monstrous machines as they shoot up heroin in broad daylight. Paco and his pals drag-race up and down the street like crazy men. This is a residential street, for God’s sake! This is a tree-lined residential white-bread street. Paco and his pals give each other points for running over the neighbors’ pets. They take aim at the neighborhood kids. Not that I give a rat’s ass for the scumbag kids in this neighborhood.
But why are you going to jail, Ralph? Jim said, and took a paper bag from beneath the front seat. He pulled a pint of Jack Daniel’s out of the paper bag and opened it. He took a half tab of windowpane acid and downed it with a long drink and hit the horn.
Those little neighborhood scumbags turn over my garbage cans. My windows stay soaped with obscene comments. Every night in this horrible neighborhood is Halloween for my house. I don’t suppose I could have a drop of that, could I?
Why are you going to jail, Ralph?
I don’t belong in jail, Ralph said. —It’s simply a big misunderstanding. So I made a little mistake. Why make a federal case out of a little mistake, that’s my question. I really could use a little nip, old Jim.
Just don't guzzle it, okay, Ralph, Jim said, and passed the pint to Ralph. —Just cut to the chase, Ralph. Why are you going to jail without passing Go?
Okay. This fellow came to my
door today. He caught me off guard. I hadn't heard him drive up. He was from the prosecuting attorney's office. That's how serious it is. So all right. So I mistakenly cashed a couple of unemployment checks after I started teaching that term at Berkeley. A very human kind of error in my book. A foolish mistake on my part. I'll be the first one to admit it. But you would have thought I'd robbed a bank or something.
How many unemployment checks did you mistakenly cash while you were teaching, Ralph?
Oh, I don’t know exactly. I don’t remember exactly. You know me, old Jim. I don’t have any head for numbers.
About how many?
Eleven.
Goodbye, Ralph.
What? What?
Adios, amigo. I’ll write you from time to time.
Really? Really do you think?
Cell-block city, old Ralph.
How do you know that? You don’t really know that.
Look at it like this, Ralph. You’ll have plenty of time to write. When you’re not out on the chain gang anyway.
Now I know better than that. Chain gangs aren’t allowed in an enlightened state like California in this day and time. Are they? Anyway, it’s not like I’m some sort of hardened criminal like some people I know. I’ve never armed myself and gone out to commit criminal acts like some people I could mention.
You’re going to be singing the cell-block city blues, old Ralph. That’s simply the long and short of it.
I wasn’t myself. I was muddled. I’ll plead that, temporary muddleness. Something. Anything. Did I tell you my old mom is going blind? News like that would muddle a lot better man than me even.
Sure, Ralph.
She’ll fake it, Ralph said. —I’ll get her a white cane. She’ll wear dark glasses and stumble into the courtroom. That old bat owes me that much. I think I’m going to just leave the country. Flee for my life, such as it is.
The law has long arms, Ralph, Jim said, and hit the horn. —Pass the bottle, Ralph.
I’ll cross borders under cover of darkness. I'll vanish off the face of the earth. I’ll live and write under an assumed name. Like that mysterious B. Travis fellow, or Tavern, whatever, who disappeared into the wilds of Mexico. I’ll hide out in a little Mexican fishing village. I’ll disguise myself, wear a wig, if it comes to that. I’ll be the mysterious fellow writing at the corner table in the smoky cantina. Wearing a wig and writing under an assumed name. Alice Ann has always wanted to get south of the border.
Pass that bottle of Jack, goddamn it, Ralph, or whatever your name is, Jim said, and hit the horn.
Killer suddenly rose up on his great hind legs and put paws the size of pillows on the hood of the car. This was not a good thing in Jim’s mind, especially since the acid had kicked in faster and more fireworky than he had expected. When the Cutlass seemed to tilt forward, Jim ducked around the steering wheel and banged his head as he tried to dive under the dashboard.
What is the wolf trying to do now, Ralph? Jim inquired, rubbing the rising knot on his forehead.
I think Killer is in love, Ralph said. —With your car. But don’t worry too much. It will probably pass. Killer is sort of fickle for a wolf.
Jim peeked above the dashboard. He was almost in Ralph’s lap. Killer’s terrible yellow eyes flashed with a look of what? desperate yearning, lust? Killer bared teeth like dripping sabers. Killer raised his huge head and howled into the night. Frothing fiercely from his cavern of a mouth, Killer arched his enormous neck forward. With a blood-red tongue the approximate size of Jim’s arm, Killer licked the windshield. Like filthy soapsuds, saliva blurred the glass, and without thinking Jim clicked on the windshield wipers. There was a great howl of pain and vast annoyance, then an astonishing silence. Jim pressed both hands on the horn and held them there. Ralph clasped his hands over his ears. Porch lights flashed on from houses up and down the street. The growl that followed was unlike any sound Jim had heard in his life. It seemed to grow from something huge rising from deep under the earth. The blaring horn was a small, feathered, fluttering, hopeless thing. When the car began to rock violently, Jim clutched Ralph around his neck. Ralph’s eyes bulged as he struggled for breath.
An amazingly muscular young man walked out of the kitchen door. He stood there framed in the kitchen doorway’s light, a glowing cigarette dangling from the center of his dark face. He was wearing only black bikini briefs. He flicked his cigarette and snapped his fingers. Killer belly-crawled across the driveway to him. The muscular young man opened the kitchen’s screen door and he and Killer disappeared inside Ralph’s house.
2
Ralph opened the refrigerator door and stuck his head in, while Jim, after shooing a big orange cat off a chair, sat down at the kitchen table. Two cats were curled up asleep on the tabletop. Other cats roamed about the kitchen counters sniffing and licking stacked dirty dishes. All the various cats around the room appeared to pulse, to grow larger, then noticeably smaller with each breath. They were pulsing pussies to Jim’s eyes, and a rainbow of colors. A cat whose heart Jim could see visibly beating beneath its glowing green fur jumped up on the table and sniffed at a cup half full of cold coffee with cigarette butts floating in it like little dead albino fish. A purple cat drank from a dripping faucet, its pink little tongue darting in and out. When it had satisfied its thirst, the purple cat rubbed a paw over its face and then roamed along the counter until it came upon what appeared to be a small glass pyramid in which Jim was certain he could see an egg, a carrot, a piece of celery, and what could have been a blue- green sandwich.
What’s that, Ralph? Jim said.
What’s what?
The contraption on the counter over there that the purple cat is licking. The little glass pyramid thing, or whatever.
That’s living proof, Ralph said. —This is the final straw, I’m here to tell you. I don’t believe this. Alice Ann was up until the wee hours working on some of the world’s most serious snacks. In case you guys actually came over. And for what I ask you?
Living proof of what, Ralph? Jim said.
I just really don’t believe it, Ralph said. He took a large oval platter from the refrigerator and placed it on the table in front of Jim. On its wide white surface were four deviled eggs, three pieces of cream cheese-stuffed celery, maybe a half dozen tidbits of this and that. —That platter was jam-packed with fancy goodies, I’m telling you. And those were, too, Ralph said, pointing to two other empty platters on the kitchen counter that colorful cats were licking. Ralph stepped to the kitchen sink and scattered the colorful cats. He took an empty bowl from the sink and waved it in the air. —As late as three o’clock this very afternoon there was a tangy blue-cheese dip in this bowl.
We can always order in pizza, Jim said, and snatched a deviled egg from under a blue cat’s nose. The blue cat looked at Jim and mewed fuck you.
And you know what was in that bowl? Ralph said, and pointed to a large, flat bowl on the kitchen floor by the door to the dining room.
Tell me, please, Jim said, and grabbed another egg in the nick of time. When Jim plopped the egg into his mouth, it possessed, like the previous egg, the texture of tiny feathers which fluttered faintly going down his throat.
Steak tartare! Ralph said, and sat down heavily at the kitchen table. He took a long drink of Jack Daniel’s from the bottle Jim offered him. Ralph leaned forward and looked into the cup of cold coffee and floating tiny dead fish. —This is not my cup, I’ll have you know. This place was neat as a pin as late as three o’clock this afternoon, which is when we walked out the door to meet you guys.
Ralph, you have to explain the little glass contraption to me, Jim said. —I need to understand, Ralph.
You mean you haven’t heard about pyramid power yet? You spent too much time in Montana, old Jim. Pyramid power is all the rage these days. Among Alice Ann and her cosmic chums, anyway. It all has to do with these divine vibrations and cosmic energy coming in from the universe. Pyramids are sort of like television antennas you see. Pyramids attract an
d arrange all that cosmic energy raining in from the universe. If you tap in on pyramid power, you can have a better life. Just ask Alice Ann about it.
