Burning Man

by Alan Russell

  We were headed for our usual destination, a park three blocks away. As we walked, a headwind pushed at us, but it was a wind that kept starting up and then stopping, and it seemed like whenever I lowered my head and pressed my shoulder into it, the air currents died down. This rising and falling of the wind kept me off balance and made me feel like I was taking Frankenstein steps. The uneven walk made the park seem farther away than usual, and I tried to negotiate an early out.

  “Are the smells really that much better in the park?” I asked. “I mean, look at this pine tree. Doesn’t it make you want to stop and sniff?”

  Sirius wagged his tail but continued forward. The pine tree didn’t interest him, and I remembered how John Steinbeck had brought his dog Charley to the giant redwoods with the expectation of the poodle’s being beside himself at the prospect of watering at the altar of one of the biggest trees on the planet. Charley didn’t respond as expected, and it was all Steinbeck could do to make his dog lift his leg.

  As we passed by the tree I said, “I’m not sure if you’re telling me to piss off, or that I just don’t know shit.”

  Because the LA Basin is near sea level, it’s particularly vulnerable to weather conditions happening hundreds and even thousands of miles away. When high pressure builds over the Great Basin, the clockwise flow of air pushes toward the sea, and as those winds come into LA from the northeast and the east, they are compressed and warmed. There is also a funneling effect from the winds being pushed through the county’s canyons and passes that increases their speed. I had apparently heard Ellis Haines lecture on Santa Ana conditions too many times. He liked to call the Santa Ana winds the “devil’s breath.”

  At that moment, the devil’s breath was blowing down my neck. Haines was probably the only person in California that liked that feeling. When he was on trial, he had volunteered the fact that he’d worn a trench coat on most of the occasions when he’d strangled his victims, saying that he’d gone out “looking like a flasher.” He’d talked about the exhilaration of the winds whipping his coat open and closed, and I remembered how he’d emphasized this while on the stand by raising his hands and saying, “Look, Ma, no hands.” And then he’d laughed.

  I could use an exorcism, I thought, to rid myself of my demon. I suspected that Haines would continue to plague my thoughts until the Santa Ana condition departed, and according to weather reports that was at least a day off. Maybe then he’d stop playing on my mind.

  We made it to the park without seeing a soul. When the winds blow hard, LA likes to hibernate. I let Sirius off his leash and he was immediately onto the scent of something he liked. I thought about Charley again and the big redwoods. Even though Sequoia National Park is only about a hundred fifty miles away from Sherman Oaks, I had never taken Sirius to see the giant trees. It would be a good trip for us, I thought, although I suspected Sirius would react like Charley had. I doubted his taking aim at one of nature’s skyscrapers would make Sirius any happier than his daily sprinkling at his little patch of park with its weeds, mulch, and spindly shrubs.

  As Sirius deliberated over his exact “Kilroy was here” spot, I said, “I can’t see the attraction of this place over the pine tree we passed.”

  Sirius didn’t explain his choice but merely kept sniffing. Finally, he made up his mind. As he finished with his business I asked him, “Plastic or paper?” Since he didn’t express a preference, I bagged with plastic and made the deposit into one of the park’s anchored trash containers.

  With our mission accomplished, we hurried back toward home. The streets were deserted except for a passing car or two. There was a light in the windstorm, though. Seth Mann’s Jaguar was parked in the driveway, and his porch light was on. The shaman was in.

  When Seth has company he usually parks in the garage and leaves the driveway for his date’s car. Tonight it looked as if he wasn’t entertaining. Normally I don’t barge in on him without warning, but tonight I found myself walking up his drive.

  The door opened just as we stepped onto the porch. “I felt my radar going off,” Seth said.

  “Is that a nice term for shit detector?”

  “As it so happens, five minutes ago I called your house to see if you and Sirius wanted to come over for a visit.”

  Sirius was already inside the doorway looking back at me and wagging his tail. He looked like a happy child saying, “Can we, Dad, can we please?”

  “I’m surprised you don’t have a date tonight.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t,” he said, giving me a knowing smile.

  “I am afraid that’s yesterday’s news. We hit a stumbling block today. She came to her senses.”

  “Stumbling blocks can be surmounted.”

  “So can Mount Everest, but not by me.”

  As I followed Sirius into his home, Seth asked, “What’s your poison?”

  “I need a comfort drink, preferably some sour mash from either the great state of Kentucky or Tennessee.”

  “Tall glass?”

  “Make it as high as an elephant’s eye.”

  A minute later Seth brought out the drinks. We clicked glasses and I said, “Cheers.”

  We tilted glasses in each other’s direction, and in the upward movement of Seth’s glass I saw a dark shadow floating in the midst of his amber-colored drink.

  I craned my head for a closer look and said, “Don’t tell me that’s a worm in your glass.”

  “You have your comfort drink and I have mine. I prefer my mescal con gusano.”

  Seth is one of those Anglos that insist upon pronouncing Spanish words as if he was born to the language. “No one really prefers a drink with a worm in it, except for drunken college students on spring break.”

  “In Mexico the maguey worm is considered a delicacy.”

  “In France they love snails, but I don’t see the French floating escargots in their cognac.”

  “That might be so, but mescal aficionados believe the maguey worm enhances the taste. Besides, it’s nostalgic for me.”

  “You’re nostalgic for worms?”

  He responded to my sarcasm with a shrug. “As you know, I have spent some time living with native peoples. Because they don’t have access to the kind of proteins we do, they happily eat certain ants, grasshoppers, grubs, and termites, as well as the larvae of bees, wasps, and beetles.”

  “And let’s not forget worms.”

  “Mostly the worms are used as bait for fishing, but there are some that are served as snacks.”

  “Worms and alcohol,” I said. “What a wonderful combination.”

  “Perhaps you’d prefer manioc beer?”

  “Is that another one of your native specials?”

  Seth nodded. “What’s unique about it is the brewing process.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask how it’s done.”

  “It’s basic science. In all brewing you need a fermenting agent. In the tribes I’ve spent time with, the maniocs—or other starchy roots—are cut up and boiled, and afterward the roots are chewed up by the young women of the tribe and then spat into a barrel. Add a little water, boil it all up, bottle it and let it ferment for several days, and you have beer.”

  “You drank spit beer?”

  “The chewing and the saliva are what split up the starches and start the fermentation process.”

  “That takes backwash to a whole new level.”

  “I always considered it an honor to be offered manioc beer, knowing the work that goes into the making of it.”

  “I don’t think I could be phlegmatic like you.” I emphasized the word “phlegm.”

  “I suppose I could say it all comes out in the wash.”

  “If I’m going to swap spit, I want to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “And what—to use your words—stumbling block occurred that’s preventing you from doing that?”

  I took a swallow of my drink and considered what to say. “She—Lisbet—wasn’t happy that I involved her in a newspaper art
icle I wanted done.”

  “Was there a reason for Lisbet being unhappy?”

  “She knew I was hoping to flush out a suspect through the article and didn’t approve of my tactics.”

  “And let me guess: you thought the end justified the means.”

  “I am trying to catch a murderer.”

  “You’re talking about the mother of the abandoned baby?”

  I nodded.

  “Was she right about your using her for your own purposes?”

  “The article would have served her purposes as well.”

  “In retrospect, do you wish you had consulted with Lisbet before giving her name to the reporter?”

  “I was doing my job.”

  “Inspector Javert thought he was doing his job.”

  “Who is Inspector Javert?”

  “He is a man who understood the letter of the law but not the spirit of it.”

  “Understanding the spirit of the law is above my pay grade.”

  “How did you and Lisbet leave matters between the two of you?”

  “I’d say we finished our last conversation on a strained note.”

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  “Right now I’d rather not think about it. With everything that’s going on, I don’t have time for a personal life anyway.”

  Even to my ears that sounded lame, but Seth didn’t push me. Instead he spent a few moments studying me. “You look even worse than you did on Friday night. Since that time your bruising has truly blossomed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that shade of purple.”

  “I am just a canvas for art.”

  “You didn’t tell me what happened.”

  I hadn’t wanted to, but now I did. I described the attack and my strange assailants and their mumbo jumbo, and how Sirius had saved my bacon.

  “Right now that’s all I can tell you,” I said. “Another detective is working the case and is trying to track down my attackers based on their tattoos. It’s possible they’re not in any police database, though.”

  “Do you think Ellis Haines sent them to attack you?”

  “They seem to have bought into Haines’s gibberish and wanted to do something for their guru. I wouldn’t be surprised if Haines was somehow acquainted with them, but I don’t think he put out an order for a hit on me.”

  “Manson might not have ordered the Tate-LaBianca murders, but even if he didn’t say the words, he was found to be guilty. It sounds as if Haines’s followers were trying to please him in much the same way. In a messianic situation there exists an environment of proba te dignum—prove yourself worthy.”

  “When they’re caught they can prove themselves worthy with a long stretch in the pen.”

  “Is that imminent?”

  “The tattoos were distinctive—symbols for end-of-the-world stuff. And Sirius did some serious chewing on one of them. We’ll get them, but I am not sure if it will be sooner or later.”

  A sudden gust of wind shook the windowpanes and made me start. “Damn Santa Ana,” I said.

  “There’s a big fire in the Angeles National Forest. The winds are making it impossible to fight.”

  “I’d hate to be a firefighter. I’d hate to be told to go take on an inferno in seventy-mile-per-hour winds.”

  “It’s not a job I’d want either, but neither would I want to do your work. You’ve had to confront two very difficult homicides this week. That has to have taken its toll.”

  “They get their hooks in you,” I admitted. “I purposely skipped Rose’s autopsy. Unfortunately, I had to spend a lot more time with Paul Klein’s body. He is going to be my ghost for as long as the case goes unsolved, and probably for a long time after that. Seeing him nailed to the tree is a sight I’d just as soon never have seen. I can’t get the image of his body out of my head, even though for the sake of the case I need to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I need to get beyond his crucifixion. I need to see as the killer saw. I have to look at the staging that was done, and I have to understand the hate. When the killer staged Klein’s body, it was almost like he was saying, ‘Look, everyone, here’s a false prophet.’ Klein was crucified because the killer needed him exposed. I have to ignore the violence of the image to read the message there. The killer wanted to show what a bad guy Klein was.”

  “You said Klein was a bully. Was he a terrible human being?”

  “He was arrogant and full of himself, but it’s hard to imagine that he deserved to die like he did. That’s why I need to understand the killer’s hate. What makes someone hate with such virulence?”

  “Hate is arguably the strongest of all the emotions. It is nourished in the darkness of the human soul. Hate is fueled by anger, whether it is rational or not.”

  “The killer’s hate was personal.”

  “If that’s the case, then there might have been pathology involved.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “The perversion of love is hate. One of Newton’s Laws of Motion is that for every reaction there is always an equal and opposite reaction.”

  “There’s something to that, but I still can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Did you ever hate anyone?”

  “I hated myself.”

  “And why was that?”

  “I could have saved Jenny’s life. I could have insisted that she go see a doctor earlier than she did. I could have been less absorbed in my own work and seen how sick she was.”

  “You blamed yourself for her death?”

  “Sometimes I still do.”

  “You punished yourself. I know that. Did you ever think about killing yourself?”

  “I tried to do it indirectly.”

  Seth nodded. He had been there and knew that I had. Sirius stirred and sat up, and then put his head in my lap. My guardian spirit wasn’t going to let me brood.

  We sat in companionable silence. Outside, the wind was gusting and swirling. I did my best not to listen to its echoes. I reached the bottom of my glass and Seth went and got us both refills. When he came back, there was a fresh worm in his drink. We began talking about less weighty subjects, and our conversation and the drinks took the edge off of the night even while the Santa Ana winds howled.

  Seth noticed my wince as he consumed another gooey maguey. “It’s just a worm,” he said.

  “You remind me of a character from the original Dracula film with Bela Lugosi,” I said. “Ever see it?”

  “I vant to suck your blood,” Seth said in a bad Hungarian/ Transylvanian accent.

  Instead of telling him that Lugosi never uttered that line I said, “Anyway, this poor guy Renfield is bitten by Dracula, which causes him to lose his mind and get locked up in an insane asylum. And because he was bitten by a vampire, Renfield starts getting some strange cravings, so when he’s in the asylum he takes to eating creepy-crawlies.”

  “And I’m supposed to be this Renfield?”

  “If the insect fits,” I said. “One of the film’s classic scenes is when the guard at the asylum stops him from eating a fly and Renfield indignantly says, ‘Who wants to eat flies?’ And the guard says, ‘You do, you loony.’ Then Renfield tells him, ‘Not when I can get nice, fat spiders.’”

  “You actually memorized that dialogue?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t, what with Renfield being your role model.”

  “I wasn’t the one bitten by a vampire.”

  I ignored the Ellis Haines reference. I didn’t want to talk about him anymore.

  Outside the wind howled.

  “It’s playing my song,” I whispered.

  “What song is that?”

  “It’s the song of the Scarecrow.”

  “Scarecrow?” Seth asked.

  “Dorothy’s Scarecrow,” I said. I tried to make light of my statement by attempting the Wicked Witch of the West’s cackle and saying, “How about a little fire, Scarecrow?”

  Seth wasn’t sidetracked. “The Scarecrow was afraid of fire.
Is that what you’re hearing—and fearing—with the Santa Ana winds?”

  “You sound more like a shrink than a shaman.”

  “The two disciplines are closer than you might think.”

  “That’s nothing I’d brag about.”

  “You haven’t answered the question.”

  “I’ve already done my obligatory therapy, Dr. Freud.”

  “And what did you get out of it?”

  “I got exactly what I needed. A slew of mental health professionals agreed that I was fit to return to duty.”

  “Did you lie to all of them?”

  “I told them what they wanted to hear.”

  “You haven’t told me what I want to hear. I know how you suffer. I’ve just been waiting for the time when you were ready to talk about it.”

  Attempting sarcasm, I said, “And what is it that you think you know?”

  “I know that you still burn.”

  His words made me burn again—in shame—and in that instant any and all anesthesia from the alcohol disappeared.

  “I often hear you scream in the middle of the night,” he said. “The way you scream and some of the things you shout make it clear you are reliving what happened the night you were burned.”

  “Shit. If I’d known I was being the town crier, I would have gotten my room soundproofed.”

  “That’s not the answer.”

  “Neither is my being the village idiot.”

  “Is it always the same dream?”

  “It’s never exactly the same. I keep reliving different moments of our fire walk, but everything is so vivid it’s like I’m back there again. And in every dream I find myself burning up.”

  “You feel the heat?”

  “I am fucking on fire. That’s how much heat I feel. My mind and body so believe what is happening that there have been times I’ve awakened with blisters on my skin.”