Fade to Black

by Ron Renauld

  Eric paced the streets of the Village until past midnight, watching a few of the theatre crowds let out, eyes sorting through the faces for a glimpse of Marilyn. She wasn’t there.

  To hell with her, he thought.

  To hell with Aunt Stella, too. Let her fall asleep waiting for him. She couldn’t treat him any worse, anyway. Let her demand a backrub. He’d throw the money back in her face. The bitch! Hellish old crone! Why couldn’t she love him, treat him the way he deserved. Like Ma Jarrett in White Heat. Cagney’s mother, Margaret Wycherly, always wishing her boy the best. Top o’ the world, she always told him. Always there, understanding, ready to help. Not that Cody Jarrett needed any help. He was the toughest, the smartest. It was Cagney’s best role, Eric thought. Arthur Cody Jarrett.

  He stopped in the arcade at the corner of Broxton and Westwood Boulevard, a brick-walled detour that arched through an old adobe façade. A shoe store had set up a display window featuring a line of cowboy boots. Part of the display was a cardboard cutout of Hopalong Cassidy, one-dimensional but larger than life, grinning out at the customer with the implied assurance that if he were still in the saddle today, this here was the footwear he’d have poking through the stirrups.

  “I got stood up, Hoppy,” Eric mumbled, blinking back tears. “Double-dealed by a tramp. What do I do with someone like that Hoppy?”

  Hopalong offered no advice. Only shoes.

  Eric walked back down Westwood Boulevard to his bus stop. He wasn’t sure how late the buses ran, but someone else was waiting at the bench, so he assumed he was in time for the last run.

  He sat on the top of the backrest of the bench furthest from the other man. Eric’s feet were on the seat and he hunched forward, lighting another cigarette.

  Ten minutes passed by without any bus appearing on the street. He asked the man two benches down which bus he was waiting for, but he was an Oriental who apparently didn’t understand English. He smiled and nodded his head politely at Eric.

  Then, out of the coffee shop came a young woman, wearing lavender pants and a glitter tank top. Jewelry gleamed around her neck, wrists and fingers. Her hair was a curled nest of henna, matching her lipstick and makeup. She walked deliberately out to the curb in front of Eric and stopped, watching the intermittent flow of traffic but making no effort to cross the street when it cleared.

  “Excuse me,” Eric called out to her. “Do you know what time the next bus is, please?”

  “I’m not waitin’ for no bus,” the girl told him dryly. “I’m working.”

  “Work at night, huh?” Eric asked innocently, glad for someone to talk to. “Where do you work? Where are you headed?”

  The girl stared at Eric a moment, but her look of annoyance wasn’t sufficient to dematerialize him.

  “Shut up, will you, numbnuts!” she shouted at him. “I’m trying to hitch a ride . . . on my back. Get it?”

  It took Eric a moment, but he brightened some when it came to him.

  “I’ve got ten dollars,” he told the girl, going for his pockets as he came down from his perch on the bench. “What about me?”

  “Ten bucks?” the girl said smugly. “For what, cat food? Get lost.”

  A Buick Skylark slowed down and moved over to the lane closest to the curb as it approached the girl. The driver made a gesture. The girl nodded. The Buick pulled to a stop beside her, and she opened the door. She paused a second to look back at Eric, mocking, “Hope you freeze your balls off . . . if you got any.”

  Eric watched the Skylark swerve back into traffic and speed off.

  “Go to hell,” he cried out petulantly into the night.

  He was about to sit back on his bench when he saw a cab dropping a passenger off in front of the coffee shop. On impulse, he ran over to the taxi and climbed in. The driver was tall and fat, his cap brushing against the roof of the cab.

  “Follow that car up at the light,” Eric ordered eagerly.

  “What the hell is this?” the cabbie said, “some kind of a joke?”

  Eric handed his ten-dollar bill over the front seat.

  “Just follow it!”

  The cabbie slipped the bill into his shirt pocket and pulled out into traffic, starting his meter.

  “Ten bucks ain’t gonna get you far, ace,” he said. “I hope you’re figuring a tip into—”

  “Step on it! Please,” Eric said, “that one there. The Buick.”

  “Don’t sweat it, Mac,” the driver said, veering over one lane and falling in behind the Skylark. He was chewing tobacco, and he lifted a glass beaker to his lips, discharging a mouthful of brown saliva. He looked at Eric in the rearview mirror, noting his outfit.

  “If you want, I can pull alongside so you can climb out on the running board and blast ’em with your heater.”

  Eric saw that the cabbie was laughing and sat back against the seat, sulking.

  “Just drive.”

  “You’re the boss,” the driver said, spitting another load into the beaker and setting it aside as he stayed on the Skylark’s trail.

  Eric had no plan in mind, and he was surprised to find the Skylark continuing west toward the beach. When it turned on Lincoln and passed over the freeway into Venice, he found himself wondering if this were all an elaborately staged prank perpetrated by Marilyn. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. The whore had been wearing so much makeup it could have been her. She could have been following him around all night, just to see how he’d react, then goaded him along with the insults, knowing he’d get in the taxi. No, that seemed too improbable. Too much left to chance. But still . . .

  “You only got another mile, ace,” the cabbie told him as they passed Hill Street. When they stopped at the next light, Eric leaned forward and stared out the windshield at the Buick. He could see the girl lean over and kiss the driver.

  If it was her . . .

  Less than a quarter of a mile further down the road, the Buick flashed its blinker and turned right onto Ozone Avenue, heading toward the coast. The street was lined with cramped bungalows wedged into even more cramped lots.

  Just past Seventh Street, the Skylark rolled to a stop in front of Ozone Park, a small playground for children.

  The cab drove past and turned on Ruth before stopping. Eric got out of the taxi and hurried back toward the park, taking care not to show himself. He stole across the grass to the cover of a Monterey pine, its limbs bent and twisted as if weathering a tempest.

  The man and the girl strolled casually past the playground equipment, talking softly back and forth. After stopping a brief moment inside a squat geodesic dome used for monkey bars, they made their way behind an equipment shed painted bright red with white trim. The shed blocked the streetlight, and Eric could only see them outlined in shadow through his cover behind the pine.

  He saw the girl bend down slowly to her knees, facing the man, who in turn placed his hands over her head and guided it to his waist. Eric watched, intrigued, hearing the man’s intermittent gasps, then a single, extended groan.

  Soon afterward, they emerged from behind the shed. The man headed back toward his car, but the girl walked across the grass toward Eric.

  Eric stood still, holding his breath.

  She walked past the pine without seeing him and continued down the sidewalk, taking Ruth Street as far as Rose. Eric followed half a block behind her and watched as she went into the parking lot next to a Mexican restaurant, which was closed. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a set of keys and let herself into a cherry red Corvette. Starting the engine, she backed out of her parking space.

  Eric ran forward, blocking the driveway as he smiled flirtatiously. Under the lights in the parking lot, he could see it wasn’t Marilyn.

  “How much?” he asked her, “I’m close to home. I can—”

  “You a cop or something, following me around?” she demanded angrily, leaning her head out the window.

  “No, I just—”

  “Then get the hell out of my way, y
ou worm!”

  She revved the Corvette’s engine and drove forward. Eric darted to one side, and the car sped past him, tires chafing loudly against the asphalt.

  “I don’t need you!” he shouted at the fading taillights. He turned around in an unsteady circle as he vented his anger and frustration at the world in general. “None of you! I don’t need any of you!”

  The streets were empty.

  Dejected and miserable, Eric started home.

  His head was beginning to ache.

  CHAPTER • 12

  “They can’t cut your hair like that!” Moriarty cried indignantly as an officer ushered his first client into the office. “It’s unconstitutional, as of—”

  “Can it, cretin,” the juvenile said, rubbing his hand across the top of his crew cut. “This is the way I wear it.” Besides the crew cut, the offender standing before Moriarty had a ring through one nostril and a tattoo on his jaw reading “Ruff and Tumbel.” He wore faded jeans and a black T-shirt.

  The officer behind the juvenile told Moriarty, “Gallagher said I can only stand guard for ten minutes.”

  “Go tell Gallagher thanks for the offer but we don’t need a babysitter,” Moriarty said.

  “Right arm,” the juvenile said.

  “Shut up,” the cop told the kid.

  The juvenile whirled around to face the officer.

  “Hey, oinker, why don’t you go rooting for acorns?”

  “Maybe I should rearrange your face instead,” the officer said threateningly, taking a step toward the kid.

  “All right, knock it off, both of you,” Moriarty intervened. “Officer, I’ll handle him alone. Okay?”

  The officer looked from Moriarty to the kid and sighed.

  “Sure, suit yourself. It’s your funeral.”

  The officer left the cell. His footsteps sounded loudly as he walked down the basement hallway and started up the steps.

  “Strange pad you got here for a pigsty,” the juvenile remarked, taking in the converted cell.

  Moriarty took a file off his desk and read off the name on it. “Okay, Franco. For starters, I’m not a cop. I got a way to keep you from doing time, but you’re going to have to co-operate with me.”

  “I ain’t no joy boy, if that’s what you’re looking for,” Franco taunted.

  Moriarty eyed the juvenile patiently.

  “Sit down, Franco. Let’s talk.” He pointed to a director’s chair across from his desk.

  Franco looked at the chair, twisting his lips wryly. “I thought you guys used couches.”

  “Well, guess again,” Moriarty said. “You probably noticed I don’t have a gray beard and I don’t talk with a phoney Austrian accent, either.”

  “So what’s your gig, then?” Franco said, sitting down.

  Moriarty sat on the edge of his desk and opened Franco’s file.

  “It says here you were picked up at a rock club after you stabbed four people in the buttocks with a paring knife,” he read. “Do you have any idea why something like that might appeal to you?”

  Franco pulled out a toothpick from behind his ear and prodded it between his teeth as he thought. When he pulled the toothpick out its tip was red with blood, as were his gums.

  “New Wave dental floss,” Franco explained.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Franco grinned and leaned back in his chair.

  “Oh, yes. Why do I stab people in the ass. Well, Doc, you see, I think it all goes back to my childhood. Whenever there was a birthday party, we’d always play Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and every time we played, I’d never win. So I ended up with this complex, see . . .”

  “Lay off the bullshit,” Moriarty said. “Look, you’re a first offender on an assault rap. You think you’re a rough-and-tumble punk, maybe you’d like to pull a little time upstate with some lifers who’ll want to use your asshole every time their arm gets tired. I mean, that’s real new wave, don’t you think? Or maybe you don’t know what I’m talking—”

  “Okay,” Franco said, slouching back in his seat. “Okay.”

  Moriarty flipped through several pages in the file.

  “You know, Franco, if you changed a few names and dates in this portfolio here, it would sound an awful lot like me when I was your age. A spoiled little upper-middle-class brat tired of playing the same old games. Out for a little excitement, something besides the same old shit, right?”

  “Yeah, you got it,” Franco said. “Only I ain’t gonna sell my ass out and become no shrink.”

  Moriarty smiled, holding his palm out at Franco. “Touché, Franco.” The juvenile slapped his palm. “You always like to hit below the belt, eh?”

  “Only when you ask for it,” Franco said.

  “Fair enough,” Moriarty conceded, going back to the file. “It says here also that two of the guys you stabbed were in the group that was playing at the club. Is that right?”

  “You got me,” Franco said sullenly.

  “The group’s name was Rough and Tumble, wasn’t it?”

  Franco shrugged his shoulders, raising a hand to stroke his chin, covering the tattoo on his jaw.

  Moriarty read on, “Now, we’ve got two conflicting reports on why you were kicked out of the group. Which was it, because you couldn’t spell or because you couldn’t drum your way out of a paper bag?”

  “You tell me, Doc,” Franco said bitterly.

  “All right,” Moriarty said, pulling a 45 single out of the file and showing it to Franco. It was by Rough and Tumble. “I listened to it last night. You couldn’t drum your way out of a paper bag.”

  “What do you know about it?” Franco snarled.

  “Quite a bit, actually,” Moriarty told him. “I’ll tell you something else. I can get you placed on parole with an officer who can teach you the best back beat in the business if you’re willing to work at it.”

  “What is this shit?” Franco said suspiciously.

  “I’m in charge of a new program,” Moriarty explained. “You’re the first guinea pig I’ve got to work with, so if you play your cards right you’ll get twice as many breaks as you deserve. Inside of two years you can have a clean record and enough skill on the skins to get back into any group that’s got an opening. Now, you think about that a few days and we’ll talk again, okay?”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “You’ll have to get a job to pay back medical expenses for the guys you poked. Your parole officer will give you two free hours of drum lessons a week, but anything over you have to foot on your own.”

  There was a sound down the hallway, and Anne walked up to the cell.

  “Gallagher wanted to make sure you were okay,” she said.

  “We’re doing fine,” Moriarty assured her. “Oh, ah, Franco, this is—”

  “We’ve already met,” Anne said. “I was his escort here.”

  Moriarty closed shop for the day and the three of them went upstairs, where Franco was led back to his cell.

  Outside, Anne followed Moriarty as he walked over to his bike.

  “So how’s the first day?” she asked.

  “Miserable,” Moriarty said, unlocking the chain around his ten speed. “You ever look at an old picture of yourself and get the feeling your past is laughing at your present?”

  “No, can’t say as I have,” Anne laughed. “Why, did you stab someone in the ass when you were a kid?”

  Moriarty suddenly went livid.

  “Why don’t you look it up in my file!” he snapped viciously.

  Anne looked at him, caught off guard.

  “Hey, Jerry. It was just a joke . . .”

  Moriarty’s rage faded as quickly as it had flared.

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry, Anne. My fault. I have a lot on my mind.” He lifted his bike out of the rack and straddled it. “Listen. About tonight. You mind if I call it off?”

  “Well . . . no, no. That’s fine.” Anne frowned. “Are you okay, Jerry? Is there anything I can do?”
r />   Moriarty smiled stiffly. “No, I don’t think so. Well, as a matter of fact, you can give me a rain check. Don’t worry. It’s personal. Nothing to do with you.”

  Anne smiled.

  “Deal.”

  Moriarty pedaled away from the station and made his way to Main Street.

  Franco had gotten to him, dredged up forgotten memories of his days at Berkeley; the beat years before the antiwar movement had claimed him, back when he’d jam at night clubs until dawn, fuelled on Dexedrine and a desire to live up to his nickname. Dean. Dean Moriarty, the wired hero of On the Road. It seemed impossible that the past he remembered was in any way connected with what he had become. It had been a whole different life, a whole different time.

  Moriarty slowed down as he came to the corner of Main and Ryder.

  Venice de Menice was the showbar Franco had been arrested at. It offered New Wave shows on weekends and Wednesdays, but the rest of the week it was a jazz and blues club.

  There was a battered van parked in front of the club, and a group of middle-aged black musicians wearily made trips back and forth between the van and the club, bringing in their equipment. The club wasn’t open for business yet, but music spilled out into the street from the open front door. Elmore James.

  Moriarty stopped in front of the club to watch the band bring in their instruments. Old, weathered cases, held together with electrical tape. A faded upright bass, the wood scratched and nicked.

  Moriarty felt his rear pocket, where he kept his harmonica.

  “Hey, you guys,” he said.

  The man carrying the bass, fifty years old, tall and full-bellied, stopped and looked at Moriarty with dull, bloodshot eyes.

  “Ah, can I help you move some of that stuff?” Moriarty asked.

  Without answering, the man picked his bass back up and carried it inside the club. Another member of the group, short and thin, dressed in a baggy suit, peered up at Moriarty through the smoke trailing upward from his cigar.

  “You want to help?” the small man said. “You come here tonight and bring some of your friends. We could use a full house for a change, you hear me? Gettin’ tired of packing it from town to town.”