“You what? You smoked grass in his bedroom last night?” He looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Deets, wake up.”
“Uh, yuh?” By the sickly light and tiled walls outside my window, I guessed we were in the Holland Tunnel. “We here already?”
Richard grunted.
Betsy said, “Richard asked me if we should turn you on with the joint we brought. I told him you and I smoked it last night.”
“What’s the matter with you two? What if you had been caught?”
I yawned, reached for my pack of cigarettes. “Yeah, well, it was good stuff, man. Nothing happened. I guess we should’ve gotten you.”
Betsy shrank into her seat.
Richard seemed to hold his breath for about a block, his shoulders hunched with tension.
“Where do you want to get out? You live near the square?”
“Just head up 6th. I’ll show you where to drop me. Then you can cut across to the East River Drive.”
“I know my way.”
“Hey, you guys want to come up to my place? I probably can get you some weed pretty quick.”
Betsy looked over at Richard to make the decision. He didn’t hesitate. “We’re just going to keep moving. Got a long drive.”
She protested his words with a dark flash of her eyes, her body turning to stone.
The tangled traffic sat immobile. No one spoke. The stilted silence inside the car felt unnecessary and wearisome.
“Hey, I’ll just walk from here. See you around. Stay cool, Betsy. Thanks, Richard.”
I climbed out and sauntered away, glad to be free of the strain of being stuck in their emotional turmoil. A few minutes later, they passed by without acknowledging me. Their mannerisms suggested they were arguing furiously. I caught up with the car at a traffic light a block later. Betsy rolled down her window and flipped a cigarette butt to the sidewalk. I heard her say emphatically, “That’s not what happened. I only danced with my top off after the other three girls had taken off theirs. And you didn’t seem to mind when JoAnn and I were nude in front of you and Harold.”
Richard grumbled loudly, “Yeah, but I wasn’t with you last night. What did Deets mean when he said nothing happened? You get crazy on that stuff.”
“Oh, you’re being silly. I didn’t sleep with him in his parents’ house. What do you think I am? So I like to take my clothes off when I’m stoned. I didn’t last night.” Rolling the window back up, she saw me standing a few feet away. She understood I had overheard her and wryly shrugged at me as if to say maybe she should have gotten naked.
The light turned green, and their car pulled away as Richard roared at her, “You can’t keep smoking and stripping, goddamn it.”
This argument was crushing to hear. She liked to take her clothes off when she was stoned? All I got was just a parting flash of ass. But her last look at me made me feel like I should stick my thumb out and catch the next wormhole to her dorm with a kilo of marijuana.
Chapter 21
Early in December, I opened an envelope from the HooDoo Gallery. It contained a folded page from the arts and culture section of the Times. Circled in red was a review by a local art critic.
Also on exhibit at the HooDoo were five anti-war illustrations by a young artist named Deets Parker. Although technically excellent, the pencil drawings don’t belong in a fine art gallery. Parker’s work is more fit for the political cartoon section of a campus newspaper.
Daisy had enclosed a handwritten note.
Deets,
I thought I’d better send you this review and my thoughts about it. Of course I don’t agree with the critic’s assessment of where your work belongs, nor do I categorize it as political cartooning. The man is blind to your insight and to the role of art in changing the world, which I strive to promote everyday. Your drawings carry a message I believe in, and you know, dear sweetie, that I believe in you.
Please come by and see me. I have been worried about you since you got upset and left so abruptly last time you were here.
Love you dearly. You are my secret I know I will have to share with the world someday.
Daisy
Despite Daisy’s encouraging words, the cynical review ate at my confidence. To try and lift my spirits I worked on a drawing for a few hours, then stuck it into my portfolio with a few other illustrations and headed over to Rolly’s apartment to show him my art, smoke some weed, and listen to The Rolling Stones’ newest album, December’s Children.
Rolly slouched in an overstuffed chair, disinterested in my artwork, motioning me to put it on the table while muttering that he’d look at it later.
The room was dark, with dust motes flipping through the one shaft of sunlight that shone on his feet. I felt about the same way as he looked—disheveled and overburdened by troubles.
I lit a joint and passed it to him.
“You look burned to hell.”
He grunted, took a few hits.
“The Stones new album just came out. You heard it yet?” I read silently through the song titles. “Cool cover.”
“Shit, man. I gotta get myself together.”
“What are you talking about? And man, give me some of that smoke.”
He took another drag and passed me the joint, then asked me, “You ever do LSD?”
“Yeah, took a couple of trips.”
“Man, I tried it last week. I don’t know what’s up or down. It’s like I’m in a haze. Last night, in the middle of a lead, I switched keys and played some crazy solo that threw everybody else in the band off. They’re giving each other looks, trying to get it all to fit, and I’m off somewhere else, like saying, this is my dream. I’m a performer. It wasn’t cool. They’re solid. I messed up bad and couldn’t see it.”
“Hey, man, you’ll work it out.”
“I walked off stage and Scott took over. I haven’t been able to touch my guitar. It’s like I’m never coming down, just going round and round. I’m still seeing weird shit.”
“Yeah, I know. My art has changed since I tripped. Ideas I’m portraying are more meaningful, and my technique is more experimental, but then sometimes I feel like you must have, just scritching and scratching ugly nonsense.”
“There’s so much to say. I don’t want to waste my time going through all the crap in my head. Here’s the deal though. I’ve got a gig uptown tomorrow. There’s a good chance some of the Stones are going to catch the show. I’ve got to keep myself together and not blow it.”
“You playing tonight?”
“Supposed to. Don’t know.”
I picked up one of the guitars in the room and starting thumping the B-Flat. “C’mon man, go crazy on this.”
He just stared at me. I knew he thought I was an idiot—drumming on my one note over and over.
“Your band can’t keep up with you. I’ll jam with you. Show those Stones how it’s done.” I howled with maniacal laughter. “C’mon, Rolly, your time’s come.” I kept plunking the third string from the top, eighth fret, letting it ring like he had taught me.
Nothing.
Suddenly I got mad at his inability to function. My voice raised in anger with my recent frustrations, taking it out on him. “The New York Times just blasted my art, my latest love dances naked with everyone but me, and some kind of reptile-tongued man is prowling the streets out there, so pick up your magical guitar, don’t be such a defeatist asshole, jam with me, man, and change the world like I know you can.”
He stared grim-faced, his high cheekbones accentuating a dark blood smoldering deep in his eyes. Slowly, without a word, his hand reached through the beam of sunlight and touched his guitar. I heard a sound of chaos and harmony shimmer through his instrument before he had even placed his fingers near any strings.
He swung the guitar across his lap, leaned his head close down to the neck, and popped a
pick between his fingers seemingly from out of thin air.
Sound turned itself inside out that day.
He started telling me to slide my finger up or down or to another string. Damn, not only was he strumming rhythm and drilling the air with lead solos, but he was directing me how to play a bass line, understanding my inabilities, and timing my moves so it would fit perfectly with the miracles he was unleashing.
After about fifteen minutes, I was playing a six note progression, mixing it up with a double strum of an E minor chord without fouling up or throwing off the beat. A buzz of joy swept through me as I experimented, lowering my fingers to change to an A minor, working my way up the frets, staying in key. My simple melody became a droning hum that melted away my consciousness to a place where I consisted only of sound as Rolly poured himself into a masterpiece of vibrating strings.
We strummed and picked, heads swaying, eyes closed, feet tapping, two souls rumbling through a tunnel of harmony. My right hand felt like a blossom coming forth into the world, joy rose up inside me, and I had to laugh with the excitement and possibilities the universe was shining on me.
I whooped, “It’s blasting through to the other side. Wow, ha, ha.”
The air popped, and Rolly and I looked at each other questioningly. For a brief second, I thought we both had just dropped down into our seats.
He laughed, sent his guitar into a funky strum of an ending and said, “I think we were levitating, man.”
“Lobsang Einstein, man.”
I heard a child’s voice singing a tune that seemed to be a continuation of the improvised music Rolly and I had just finished playing. Hypnotized by the sweetness of the sound, I went to the window.
Jenny was in the middle of the street, jump-roping.
Chapter 22
Jenny swung the rope over her head, bouncing straight up and down on the balls of her feet. She switched to a short-stepped skipping motion, back and forth, letting the rope sway in front, then behind her.
Her routine soon turned into a performance of skill I couldn’t have imagined. Spinning herself faster and faster into a bouncing pirouette, she swung the rope above and below herself while crossing and uncrossing her arms. When her body turned into a whirling blur, she juggled the wooden handles, tossing them over her head and catching them, somehow continuing to flick and rotate the rope while dancing one foot lightly, then the other, through the encircling flurry. Tiptoeing, twirling, commanding the rope, she performed acrobatic dances, including a somersault, backflip, and handstand, sometimes speeding to a dazzle, sometimes slowing to a rolling, plodding jog.
All the while she sang a nonsense verse to the rhythm of her jumping. I made out the words “monkey in a tree” and “fishes in the sea” and something about “skipping through eternity.”
What’s she doing playing in the street so far from home?
“Jenny,” I yelled, trying to undo the window latches. They wouldn’t budge.
Fearful for her safety, I quickly scanned for oncoming traffic and was dumbfounded, then chilled by the scene below me. A halo of fuzzy light thrummed across my eyes causing the street, normally busy, to appear empty of traffic or people. I could hear engines rumbling, truck brakes hissing and scraping, a horn honking. Someone yelled, “Move it, Mac.”
But Jenny, spiraling and skipping, and one lone parked car were all I could see clearly. In the vehicle, behind the steering wheel, sat Steel Eyes, the reptilian-tongued man, staring straight up at me while he talked to Jenny. His features were sharp—cut and folded with origami crispness. His hair, a stingy crop of military rigidity, shone with an oily slickness. Cruel perversity dominated his thin lips while his eyes reveled in the fear they instilled.
I took a quick step backwards, away from the spear of his gaze.
Rolly moved next to me. “What is it, man?”
“It’s the guy with the tongue. He’s following me or something. Jenny’s gotta get out of there.”
Rolly looked outside. “Tongue? Where, man? What are you talking about?”
I turned and ripped open the door, knocking one of the guitars to the floor.
“Hey, cool it, Deets. What’s wrong with you?”
I tore down the steps, leaping three or four at a time. Outside, the steel-eyed man eased his car forward and maneuvered around Jenny, who moved in the opposite direction, flinging her blue and white rope rhythmically, skipping and hopping through impossible patterns of dexterity.
The man’s voice box gnashed rusty gears, the cogs scraping, flaking iron as he pulled the light blue sedan close to me. “We’ve met before. I’m sure you remember. Not bad so far, kid. You surprise me.”
As he drove away, someone yelled, “Hey, Mac. I got work to do here.” An overweight guy in a white undershirt, sweating and grunting, was pushing a dolly loaded with crates. I was standing behind his truck, blocking a wooden ramp from the street to the open back of his double-parked vehicle. A steady line of traffic inched by, making slow progress.
Nothing made sense. What had just happened? I had seen into another world briefly. And now, Steel Eyes had revealed himself as the smoker in the alley. The grating metallic voice was the same.
I didn’t know how to deal with the eeriness of the past few minutes but believed Jenny held clues as to what had happened. The whir of the rope and the rhythm of her voice became a gravitational force that dragged me behind her, my mind twirling just out of reach of clarity.
Jenny jump-roped across busy intersections as I risked my life to slow down cars, screaming at people to help me rescue the little girl. Drivers laid into their horns, gesturing dismissively, yelling rudely.
“Out of the way, jerk.”
Jenny continued on, sidestepping pedestrians perfectly, the rope never tangling or touching anyone. The whole time, she never missed a beat to the song she sang.
I demanded for her to stop at street corners, but she always skipped right out of my reach.
Noticing no one tried to dodge around her or even turned their head to admire her skill, I began to wonder if I was hallucinating or witnessing some crazy miracle. She seemed to be skip-roping in a land of blind ghosts.
After crossing Christopher Street and hitting a lucky red light on 6th Avenue, we reached the arch in Washington Square Park. As she circled around the nearby fountain she bounced straight up and down, looking me in the eye, directing a strange ditty at me.
“You don’t know if it’s
you or me
I don’t know if it’s
us or them
Even they don’t know
where or when”
She moved off in the direction of the Monster Alley mansion. Her jump became a simple no-frills hop. I walked beside her.
“Jenny, where’s your Mom? How come you were so far from home?” I couldn’t bring myself to ask if she had noticed that the cars had all disappeared when I first saw her nor how had she managed to jump-rope through crowds of people and moving traffic.
“Do you know that man in that blue Buick who was talking to you? Y’know, in front of the building I came out of?”
“Oh sure, he’s Doctor Steel.”
Doctor. Steel. Reptile-tongued, cigarette-smoking, rusty-throated, all around spooky character. Doctor Steel.
“Who is he?”
She didn’t answer. She just kept twirling the rope over her head, under her feet, over and over, until we reached the east edge of the park. Deciding not to press her for answers, I tagged along, awaiting whatever strangeness would unfold next.
“I think I’m going to stop now.”
“Wow, you sure know how to use that jump-rope. I’ve never seen anyone as skillful as you.”
We walked to her building. She told me Mister Pigeon wasn’t back yet, that she had stayed with her grandmother on Thanksgiving, and her mom probably had made chocolat
e pudding for dessert. The thought struck me that to Jenny, the surreal acrobatic trip for the past twenty minutes was perfectly normal. As she talked, the strangeness of the day lessened. When she opened the front door of the building and held it open for me, I felt relieved. She seemed a friend.
“Why, thank you for seeing my little girl home.” Jenny’s mom beamed as she leaned down to give her daughter a kiss. “I’d ask you in, but there’s so much to do. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much company.”
“That’s all right, but can I ask you some questions?”
“Mom, can’t he have chocolate pudding with us?”
“Not tonight, Jenny. You have chores to do, and I’m sure our new acquaintance has other things he’d like to be doing.” She smiled at me. “My name’s Amelia.”
“I’m Deets.”
She turned her attention back to Jenny. “Deets will always be welcome.”
“Okay, Mom, but he has a lot of questions and needs to talk to someone.”
Amelia laid a hand across her ample breasts and blushed. “Why, of course he must.” She patted Jenny on the back, ushering her into the apartment.
Touching my arm gently, she said apologetically, “Deets, I promise you we’ll have a long chat someday.”
“When?”
Her hand slipped to my wrist. She squeezed it lightly. “You’ll know when. Stay safe.”
With the intimate pressure of her fingers, I accepted the enigmatic answer. Her words and simple action had conveyed a comfortable relationship with the strange and confusing events I was struggling to understand. I walked away wondering how or why I was witnessing the odd world inhabited by the stalking Doctor Steel, the dervish Jenny, the disappearing Santa Pigeon, and the promises of Amelia.
I'll know when...? How...? Who are...?
A dog’s muffled “Ruf” woke me. Confused as to where I was, looking around for the mystery barker, my eyes rested on the red-draped lamp. I became cognizant of my bedroom. Lobsang Rampa’s book lay across my chest.
What had I been dreaming? Vague shadows of snow-covered mountains clung to the mist of my awakening. I must have been digesting the book’s descriptions of Tibet. Or was it the scene painted on Pigeon’s third floor door?
Mayhem (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 1) Page 11
