Not Fade Away

by Jim Dodge

  ‘Leg up,’ I mumbled. It was still a long way from my brain to my mouth.

  ‘Thought so. You got some shine back in your eyes.’

  ‘This soup’s good. Thank Dorie.’

  ‘I’ll do it for sure.’ George smiled and turned toward the door.

  It took a great effort but I managed: ‘And thank you, George. Most of all. Your kindness is enough to make me––’

  George turned around, a gleam in his eye, the grin following. ‘Wasn’t leaving just yet. You’re not getting off that easy. Just wanted to grab myself a chair here so I could make myself comfortable while I finished my story. You should know how it turned out.’

  I was confused for an instant, then embarrassed. The story. Oh, shit. I felt like I’d insulted him, and tried to recover. ‘George, you’re living proof it turned out good.’

  ‘Hard to know for sure.’ He shrugged, sliding the chair over next to the bed.

  ‘I want to hear it, George, but I’m afraid I may nod out on you. Full of flu and codeine. Piss-poor audience.’ The effort of sustained thought and speech left me weak and breathless.

  ‘Whatever.’ George waved a hand in dismissal. ‘I need to hear it more than you, anyway.’ The hand abruptly reached toward me, as if to touch my face. I flinched slightly, and unnecessarily, for he was just reaching over to snap off the nightstand lamp.

  The only light in the room came from the windows, seeping through the redwoods and rolling mist outside. Unless I’d completely lost track of time it was around noon, but the quality of light belonged to dusk. The fire was burning down to a glow across the room, an occasional flare at a pocket of pitch, but its light seemed to reach us only as a change in the density of shadows. I could barely make out George’s face.

  I stretched out, clenched my muscles, then relaxed and closed my eyes, waiting for him to begin. A minute passed, then another. I could hear him breathing beside me in the dark. After another minute my pathological antipathy for dramatics crawled up my throat like bile. I tried to make it sound light and friendly, but I could feel the sarcasm in my voice: ‘George, what happened? You lose the key?’

  ‘Naw,’ he said amiably, ‘I was trying to remember a feeling. It’s important that the feeling is right. You’d think the feeling would be unforgettable – and it is – but you never can recall it with the clarity of the original, never whole and present like it was.’

  ‘What feeling?’ I said.

  ‘Free,’ he said. That got him started, and he didn’t stop till the end.

  Part Two

  DOO-WOP TO THE BOPPER’S GRAVE

  ‘You need a busload of faith to get by.’

  —Lou Reed

  AT THE MOMENT I took off in that stolen Eldorado I wasn’t contemplating the exquisitely bottomless metaphysical definitions of freedom, you understand, I was feeling the wild, crazy joy of actually cutting loose and doing it. Blinking in the dawnlight shaping the bridge, the bay, the hills beyond, I felt like I’d just kicked down a wall and stepped through clean. Not a hint of what lay ahead or how it would end, but free to find out.

  As I crossed the Bay Bridge and took a right toward Oakland and the 580 connector, I was riding on romance, the grand gesture of delivering the gift not because it was essential or necessary to existence – how much really is? – but in fact because it wasn’t; there was no reason to risk the hazards except those reasons which were my own.

  Sweet Leaping Jesus and Beaming Buddha, I felt good. Full of powerful purpose and amazing grace. Solid on the path. I gave a little whoop when I cleared the toll plaza and tromped on the gas, the three deuces sucking the juice down, the pistons compressing it into a dense volatility, the spark unleashing the power, driving the wheels. The Caddy handled like a sick whale, but with all the mass riding on air suspension and eleven feet of wheelbase you could eat road in heavy comfort, truly cruise, your mind free to roam through itself, rest, or wail on down the line. She wasn’t made to race, she was built to roll, and I was holding at a steady 100 without a sound or shiver.

  In my defense I’ll say that while lost in the flush of freedom and a bit swept away in the righteousness of my journey, I wasn’t completely inattentive. I saw the highway patrol car in my rearview mirror about a quarter of a mile back. Just by the way he was coming on, I knew my ass was wearing the bullseye; I was pulling over before he even hit his party lights.

  Heart knocking, I scanned the floors and seats for my usual collection of felonies – open containers, for example, or bennies spilling from under the seat – and was relieved to note that nothing was in plain view. Watching in my side mirror as the trooper’s door swung open behind me, I told myself to be cool and take the consequences as they came. If nothing else, I’d learn at the git-go if Scumball or Bingham had squealed, and if the paper held up. Then I prayed to any god who’d listen that the cop wasn’t some Nazi jerk who’d just had a shit-screamer fight with his old lady before leaving the house.

  Praise the power of heartfelt, blood-sweating prayer, he wasn’t.

  ‘Good morning,’ he greeted me – quite cordially, I thought, considering the circumstances.

  ‘Good morning, officer,’ I replied, letting the sunshine beam through.

  ‘I’ve stopped you for exceeding the posted speed limit of sixty-five miles-per-hour. I clocked you at one-oh-two.’ Very precise, a little ice in his tone. Maybe he appreciated accuracy.

  ‘That’s correct, sir,’ I said.

  ‘Could I see your driver’s license and registration please?’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied, and the dance began.

  No trouble with my license – solid as the law itself. He examined the registration long enough that I anticipated his concern and pulled the folder of papers from the glovebox, the lovely odor of Shalimar now worrisomely mixed with that of fresh ink. Following my old friend Mott Stoker’s advice that the only two things to do with your mouth in a tight situation are to keep it closed or get it moving, I got it moving, explaining how I was delivering the car to Texas for some sort of memorial tribute … didn’t really know much about it … was hired by an agent for the estate and the lawyers had fixed me up with this wad of papers, you see, affidavits and certificates and such. I dumped the whole folder on him. He opened it and began shuffling.

  ‘I haven’t read all the legal stuff myself,’ I told him. ‘There was evidently a hassle between the two estates or some damn thing. Only thing I’ve checked double-solid is the insurance. I won’t transport an uninsured car.’

  He grunted. ‘Don’t blame you, speed you drive.’

  ‘Officer,’ I said, edging in a hint of wounded sincerity, ‘I’ve been driving professionally for twelve years – semis, stock cars, tow trucks, cabs, buses, damn near everything with wheels that turn – and I haven’t had a ticket since ’53 and never even came close to a wreck. Agent who hired me said this car’s been in storage for six years while the estate was being settled. Check it out’ – I pointed at the odometer – ‘seventy miles. You know cars: store one six years and seals can dry up on you, gaskets crack, oil gets gumballed in the crankcase. I wanted to know early on whether it’s running tight or not,’ cause it’s a whole bunch easier to fix it here than in the Mojave Desert two o’clock this afternoon.’ I nodded for emphasis, then pointed vaguely down the road. ‘And this – light traffic, triple-lane freeway – seemed the safest time and place to check it out. I know I broke the law, no argument there. But I didn’t do it thoughtlessly or maliciously. Nor recklessly, or not to my mind, since driving’s my profession.’

  He wasn’t impressed. ‘The car is registered to Mr Cory Bingham, is that correct?’

  ‘Yup, you got it. Though it may be getting transferred to the Richardson estate – he was the Big Bopper, remember him? This car was supposed to be a gift to him. Except both parties died – this was back in ’59 – and the estate was just settled about six months ago. Or that’s what they tell me.’

  ‘Just a minute, please.’ He took
the registration with him back to the patrol car. I watched in the rearview mirror as he slipped inside the cruiser and reached for the radio. Flat electric crackle; muffled numbers. I looked down the road in front of me and hoped I’d be able to use it.

  Five minutes later – obviously protected by the righteousness of my journey – I was indeed happily on my way, a ticket in the glovebox, a curt lecture on the-law-is-the-law fresh in my ears if not in my heart, and the bottle of bennies clamped between my thighs. I cracked the lid and ate three to celebrate.

  Keeping it down to a sane 75 mph, I cruised south past San Leandro and took 580 toward the valley. I figured I’d take 99 down to Bakersfield, avoid the LA snarl by grabbing 58 to Barstow, then 247 down to Yucca Valley, a short blast on 62 to the junction with Interstate 10, and then hang a big left for Texas. Might’ve been quicker through LA, but I’d rather run than crawl.

  Again it struck me that although I knew I was going to the Big Bopper’s grave, I didn’t know where it was. One of my major problems with amphetamines is they give me a rage for order, a craving for the voluptuous convolutions of routes, schedules, and plans; and at the same time they wire me to the white lines so tight I don’t even want to stop for fuel. John had suggested hitting a library to research the Bopper, sensible advice for someone who felt like taking the time to stop, but I figured I could stop in Texas and look it up there. But maybe he wasn’t buried in Texas. Or buried at all, come to think of it – he might’ve been cremated. After fifty miles I was already obsessively enmeshed in the complexity of possibilities, and needed another fifty to decide I should know what was what and where it exactly was. Otherwise I was likely to go on going till the speed ran out, and with 1000 hits at my disposal that might take awhile. This was essentially an aesthetic question. I wanted to make the trip clean and clear, with elegance, dispatch, and grace. I didn’t want to end up pinballing blindly from coast to coast babbling to myself. I wanted to deliver the gift and slip away, not get caught in the slop.

  Bolstered by this direct, no-bullshit appraisal of my true desires, I decided that knowledge and self-control were critical. I’d stop at the next town, go to the library, run down the info I needed, figure out what I was going to do, and do it.

  The other imperative was to dump the speed, feed it to the asphalt. Or perhaps dump all but fifty and ration them with my iron willpower; use them, not let them use me. If the drugs got on top I wouldn’t feel that I’d done it, and I sensed that might prove a sadness to last the rest of my life.

  I pulled over a couple of a miles past Modesto and dug the bottle out from under the seat. I hit the button for the power window and, while it hummed down, unscrewed the cap, sighed, shut my eyes, then poured the contents out the window. Shook the bottle upside-down to be sure.

  Then I got out and picked them all up. Fast. Lots of traffic was ripping by, and some of the bennies were blowing around in the draft. All I needed was for some Highway Patrolman to get wind of a frantic motorist gathering white pills off the blacktop out on 99 and have him stop by to give me a hand.

  The thing was, as I was shaking the last bean from the bottle I realized – in one of those magnetic reversals of rationality – this was cheating. To dump the speed wasn’t resolve; or if so, the weakest sort. This was actually an act of cowardice – instead of facing temptation, merely removing it. Virtue is empty without temptation. I’d never had any trouble resisting drugs when I didn’t have any; only when they were in my hand did the trouble start. I finished picking up the bennies – maybe a hundred short – and screwed the lid down tight. I stashed them back under the seat and promised myself I wouldn’t touch them till the delivery was made. Save ’em for the celebration, as it were.

  The next stop on my itinerary was a library. I figured a city was a better shot than a small town for the info I wanted, so I waited till I hit Fresno. I stopped at a Union station for fuel and got directions to the library from the young kid working the pumps. ‘Gonna do a little reading, huh?’ He smirked.

  ‘Actually,’ I smiled back, ‘I heard Fresno has the only illustrated copy of Tantric Sexual Secrets. Stuff on proper breathing and arcane positions that’ll keep it up for weeks. That’s no problem for you young guys, but you get to be my age, all wore down, you need all the help you can get.’

  When I pulled out, he was still repeating the title to himself. I felt good about my contribution to scholarly pursuits as I followed his directions into town.

  The library was quiet and cool inside. I checked the subject catalogue under B for both Big and Bopper, then R for Richardson, J.P. Nothing. Since I had the R’s open, I looked under Rock-and-Roll. Paydirt. I jotted down the call numbers of everything that sounded useful, then hit the stacks. Nothing. Zero. Not one. Probably a popular subject, but it seemed odd they’d all be out. I checked at the Reference Desk. According to the tall, sharp-boned librarian, they were out all right – for good. ‘The kids steal them faster than we can put them on the shelves,’ she explained.

  ‘Steal them? Why?’

  She lowered her voice to provide me with a model of appropriate volume: ‘For the pictures, I suppose.’

  ‘What pictures?’ I hissed, an attempted whisper.

  ‘Of the stars, I guess. We had a policy meeting yesterday and decided that all the rock books from now on will be in the closed stacks.’

  I felt baffled, deflected, so I plunged on to my purpose: ‘Do you know where the Big Bopper’s buried?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ she said, tilting her head as if she hadn’t heard me, a nervous flutter of eyelids.

  ‘The Big Bopper. I need to know where he’s buried.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated, ‘but who is – or was – the Big Bopper?’

  ‘A rock star. He died in a plane crash in 1959. February third.’

  She spent half an hour searching for information, but found nothing I didn’t already have. Real name Jiles Perry Richardson. Died at age twenty-seven. Born in Sabine Pass and worked as a disc jockey. Hit single with ‘Chantilly Lace.’ Nothing in any of the papers regarding the funeral arrangements.

  I thanked the librarian for her help and walked out into the bright autumn sunlight. The swept-fin Caddy spacemobile was stretched along the curb like an abandoned prop from a Flash Gordon movie. I wondered about Harriet’s taste in automotive styling for a moment, then shook my head. Who’s to say what sort of wheels a Texas rocker might tumble to? And maybe Harriet had a sense of humor.

  Fresno to Bakerfield was straight double-lane freeway. I kept the needle steady on 90, smiling with the knowledge that every time the wheels turned I was farther away from Scumball’s clutches and closer to my destination, as vague as that was. Even though I’d come up empty, the library stop had fulfilled my scholarly obligation. I could enjoy the road, roaring along with the speed coming on solid in my brain, and I figured my itinerary would sort itself out along the way. When you’re feeling good, there’s no hurry – and what’s a pilgrim without faith?

  The Caddy needed gas again, so I stopped at a station in Bakersfield, a Texaco on the corner of a shopping mall. While the rocket guzzled Super Chief I hit the men’s room and washed my face with cold water. Already I felt road-wired and gritty, and the usual amphetamine dry-mouth had left me parched, so when the Caddy was gassed I drove to the supermarket in the center of the mall and bought an ice chest, a couple of bags of cubes, and a cold case of Bud. I downed two fast, cracked a third for immediate use, and iced a dozen in the cooler, which I stashed in the trunk. The front seat would’ve been my first choice, but good sense prevailed. The trunk meant I’d have to stop every time my thirst caught up, but it was a lot less likely I’d find myself performing silly exercises for law enforcement officials.

  Between Bakersfield and Barstow it was hot and windy. For one of those reasons of odd association, I remembered telling Natalie and her boyfriend that I was Jack Kerouac and on my way to climb Mount Shasta to whisper a word to the wind, and started to feel rotten about the
lies. Granted, I’d been covering myself, but other evasions, less sleazy, leapt to mind. Squirm as I might, the truth was that even in my exuberance I’d resented their awed innocence, their eagerness to believe. The cold fact was that I’d wronged them, cheap and cruel. The postcard Natalie had given me was still in my pocket, and I decided to send her a much deserved apology. All the way to Barstow my speed-soaked brain entertained itself by composing and revising appropriate expressions of regret.

  It was after dark when I pulled into the Barstow Gas-N-Go and topped off the Caddy for $8, which back then was a hefty cut for fuel. The attendant, a chubby red-haired kid who had to count on his fingers to make change, was absolutely slack-jaw awed by the Caddy – washed all the windows and polished the chrome just to stay near it, touching. Handing me my change, he smiled bashfully and said, ‘My daddy says a man that can afford a Cadillac sure ain’t gonna worry ’bout paying its gas. Guess that’s close to right, huh?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ I told him. ‘I can’t afford one. I’m just delivering it to the Big Bopper.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘An old rock-and-roller. A singer.’

  ‘Here in Barstow?’ He looked dubious.

  ‘Nope. Texas is where I’m headed.’

  ‘He’s paying you to drive this car? Goddamn, I’d love a job like that.’

  ‘No money involved. I’m doing it sort of as a favor.’

  ‘Yeah, hell,’ he said, ‘I would too. Damn right.’

  I had an impulse to invite him along but thought better of it. He was too enthralled by the machinery. But when he shuffled along after me as I headed back to the car, his eyes caressing the Eldorado’s lines, I invited him to take a slow cruise around town.

  ‘Mister, goddamn you don’t know how much I’d like that, but I can’t. I’m the only one here till Bobby comes on at midnight, and Mr Hoffer – he’s the owner – he’d fire me sure as anything if I took off. Almost fired me last week ’cause these two guys from LA came in and did this trick on me about makin’ change and the cash box come up thirty-seven bucks short. Mr Hoffer said when I messed up next I was gone. I was already fired from two jobs this summer and Daddy said just once more and he’d kick my ass so hard I’d have to take my hat off to shit. I can’t do ’er, much as I’d like to.’