Not Fade Away

by Jim Dodge

  ‘Reality is final, but not complete. We will fade into the rain, the river, the restless and infinitely suggestive wishes that spawn our faces. A raven will appear or not. All we have is what is real. What we can comprehend, replenish, sustain, create. And if the possibilities are beyond our comprehension, they are not beyond our choice or, by that same choice, our faith. The is is the real-right-now it all gets down to, and I assure you I know how really and truly hearts are mangled, how the weight of our loneliness collapses on us, the way doubt and ignorance leach our salts. We don’t know if we’re solid, gas, or liquid; light or space; deranged angels or the devil’s fools; all or none or some of the time; or who, what, where, how, or why-oh-why the is is – except as we make it so, affirm it so, and live it as our own witness.

  ‘But here we are. Here we are tonight, alive. We live by life. And we are bound by being, by being life, to make and accept our choices as the truths of ourselves and not excuses wrenched from the impossibility of choosing. All I truly want to say is that I know the choices aren’t easy, that there’s a wilderness between intention and consequence, that if you’ve never been lost you have no way to understand how lucky you are. I address you out of commiseration, not instruction, hoping to remind you that we can hurt each other or help each other, fester or flower, freeze or leap.

  ‘Leap.’

  He’d barely uttered the word when I caught the muzzle flash in the corner of my eye, and in the same instant the left-rear speaker was wrenched from the window and Joshua sagged against the door, hand to his head, blood seeping between his fingers. I leapt across the front seat and pulled his hand away. Expecting the worst, I was elated to see a shallow scratch instead of the brain-dripping hole I feared. I decided it must’ve been a fragment from the speaker or the bullet. I also decided that an explanation for the oddity of the wound could wait, which is about the same instant I was deciding we should get the fuck out of there. I made another leap – back behind the wheel – and was twisting the key when a hand seized mine. Joshua’s.

  ‘No.’ He meant it.

  ‘They’re shooting at us,’ I said reasonably.

  He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t a very inspired speech.’ He idly wiped at the trickle of blood tangling in his left eyebrow. ‘One has to accept criticism.’

  ‘You’re bleeding,’ I told him.

  ‘It’s nothing. A wood fragment from the speaker, I think.’ He picked up the microphone and handed it to me. ‘You try.’

  By now people in bathrobes or half-dressed were pouring outside, the name Henry being screamed. I sat with the microphone in my hand, my mind – so recently and incessently possessed of babble – a blank. I waited about fifteen seconds for the next bullet; then, unable to bear the suspense, I jerked the mike to my mouth and bellowed, ‘You’ve got three minutes to kill us! That’s all my nerves can stand!’ My voice sounded weird to me, fractured, hollow. ‘If you haven’t killed us in three minutes, I’m going to respond to my friend’s statement. I’ll be brief. Then we’ll leave.’ Why three minutes? I thought to myself. Why indeed? Why not?

  Joshua was climbing into the backseat. ‘Forsaking me in my time of need, huh?’ I said.

  ‘On the contrary, George,’ he grunted as he squeezed on over, ‘I’m checking on the damage to the speaker. There’s tremendous distortion somewhere. You sound like a frog chewing ping-pong balls.’

  ‘It’s the fear and madness,’ I explained.

  ‘Nonsense. They’ve shot a speaker. You do understand they were shooting at the speaker, not us?’

  ‘Whew,’ I said, letting the sarcasm drip, ‘that’s a relief.’ I glanced at my watch, suffering a moment’s panic when I realized I hadn’t marked the beginning of three minutes. At least a minute had gone by, it seemed to me, so I called it two, wondering if anybody was actually keeping track.

  Outside, a woman yelled, ‘Eddie, get back in here.’

  From up the block, a man shouted, ‘Goddamn it, Henry, that’s enough shooting. You’re crazier than they are. There’s no reason to kill them.’ I hoped that sentiment was sweeping the neighborhood.

  ‘Ah-ha,’ Joshua said behind me. ‘The bullet hit the edge of the speaker; a wire pulled loose when it fell. Just what I thought.’ He started humming ‘Zippity-doo-dah’ as he commenced the repairs. He had remarkable grace under pressure, or a serious mental defect.

  In clock time, every second is of equal duration, but our experience proves this simply isn’t true. The duration between tick and tock stretches, compresses, and, to judge from this occasion, sometimes stops. I stared at the second hand until I was sure it was moving again, figuring I’d lost half a minute minimum during my watch’s malfunction. That would make it three minutes, maybe more. I switched on the microphone.

  ‘Time’s up,’ I announced. ‘Thank you, folks. We meant you no harm at all and hoped you’d feel the same way.’ Evidently Joshua had reconnected the wire because my voice was loud and clear. Which was a waste of a good sound system and speedy repairs, since I had nothing more to say; and even if I did, my mouth was suddenly too dry to speak. I flipped off the mike and dropped it on the front seat. Then, with a desperation disguised as bravado, I opened the door and slowly got out of the car, careful to keep my open hands in plain view. I walked around to the front of the car, then climbed up on the warm hood, and then onto the roof. There I stood in the clear-night mountain air, looking at every face I could see, people standing in protective clusters, faces at windows, families jamming doorways or half-hidden on darkened porches, and then I began to applaud, steadily, sincerely, and painfully, for my hands were still tender from the cactus waltz.

  ‘Get your worthless asses outa here!’ a voice snarled from the shadows.

  ‘Yeah, before you get ’em kicked,’ the guy with the baseball bat added.

  I continued my applause.

  ‘You people’re crazy and shouldn’t be loose.’ It was an old woman’s voice, sharp with a judgment born of experience, cranky with the fuss caused by fools.

  I clapped madly.

  The shouts stopped and I could hear my applause echoing down the street. I don’t know the sound of one hand clapping, but I can tell you for sure what two sound like. My hands hurt, but I continued my ovation.

  And finally a person I couldn’t see – just a shadow on a porch at the end of the block, not a clue if it was man, woman, or child – joined my applause. Only one, true, but that was enough. Besides, nobody booed. I stopped clapping.

  ‘Thank you for your patience,’ I said, and jumped to the pavement, opened the door to Joshua’s honoring nod, cranked the Caddy over, and we made away in the night – a departure, in my view, not without a certain touch of panache.

  Within two miles the graceful dignity of our exit was fouled by a flashing red light, and what had been a cool slipaway became a for-real, rootin’-tootin’, flat-out, ass-haulin’ and bawlin’-for-momma getaway.

  As the red light hammered on behind us, I turned to Joshua for instructions. He was holding the microphone by its cord, swinging it like a pendulum to the pulse of the red light, his other hand pressing a chartreuse handkerchief to his forehead. He was lost in either thought or shock.

  I prodded him: ‘I believe some sort of law enforcement official is signaling us to pull over.’

  ‘Ignore him.’

  ‘He won’t go away.’

  ‘That’s sheer conjecture on your part, George,’ he replied, still swinging the microphone. He stopped abruptly when the sheriff hit his siren. ‘That siren is certainly obnoxious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Unless you’re deaf,’ I agreed.

  ‘Ignore it if you can,’ Joshua advised.

  I kept it just above the speed limit, the sheriff on our tail like glue. About a mile on, as we entered a long straightaway, he swung out and pulled even with the left-rear window. I decided I’d treat him like any other motorist, hitting my highbeams to indicate it was clear to pass.

  The sheriff killed the siren and pulled up even
with the Caddy. He used the roof-mounted bullhorn to issue a crisp, professional request: ‘Pull over, cocksuckers!’

  ‘Must we also endure slurs on our sexuality,’ I asked Joshua, who was reaching over into the backseat.

  ‘Yes,’ he grunted.

  ‘Sticks and stones, huh?’

  ‘Within reason.’

  ‘PULL OVER AND STOP OR I’LL SHOOT!’ the sheriff commanded.

  ‘What about bullets?’ I asked Joshua.

  ‘We should display compassion for his crabbed and envious mind,’ he replied mildly, turning back around in the seat and gazing thoughtfully down the road as he fiddled with the microphone in his hand.

  ‘NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS!’ the bullhorn boomed.

  The next thing I heard was Joshua’s voice, still mild, but at a decibel level far beyond the capabilities of the sheriff ’s puny bullhorn: ‘Sir, we don’t recognize your authority to detain scientists at work or pilgrims on their appointed way.’

  I glanced over to see how the officer was responding to this modest objection just in time to see him lift an ugly sawed-off .12-gauge from the floor rack. There was a burst of static or sputtering over the bullhorn, followed by a rage-gored bellow: ‘RIGHT NOW, FUCKERS!’

  ‘EAT SHIT!’ Joshua screamed.

  I don’t know who was more shocked, me or the sheriff. As if blown apart by the sonic blast from Joshua’s souped-up system, the Caddy and his Dodge swerved away from each other. I recovered and he didn’t. However, he did manage to slow it down enough that when he twirled off the shoulder and took out thirty yards of barbed-wire fence he didn’t roll it.

  ‘Stop,’ Joshua recommended.

  I pulled over and we looked back. The red light was still flashing, but erratically. The interior light came on and we could see the sheriff jump out and immediately go down screaming, tangled in barbed wire.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Joshua said, ‘merely rendered inept by his rage and our magic. Let’s leave him here, preferably with haste.’ He clicked the mike switch on and murmured cheerfully, ‘Good night, officer.’

  I pulled back onto the road and put my foot in it, romping it up into triple digits within fifteen seconds.

  After a minute Joshua asked, ‘How fast are we traveling?’

  ‘About a hundred and ten.’

  ‘Is that necessary?’

  I thought about it for a moment. ‘Not really. But you said “with haste” and, given the likelihood of pursuit, I find speed comforting.’

  ‘Then by all means enjoy it. And should it contribute to our safety, all the better.’

  ‘Speaking of escape, Joshua, it might not be a bad idea to get rid of the silver box and its contents – that’s the sort of evidence that could really nail our sacks to a wall. Unless you don’t want to dump it. Sentimental attachment, investment, whatever.’

  Joshua smiled. ‘I’d already decided to give it to you in appreciation for your help. A gift to the giver, as it were. It’s yours to dispose of as you will.’

  ‘Joshua, did anyone ever tell you you’re a sneaky ol’ fart?’

  ‘I always thought generosity the simplest of virtues.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, nodding my acknowledgment.

  Joshua nodded in return. ‘Good. Enjoy it. I’ve spent months refining it.’

  ‘Will it handle a forty-five RPM?’

  ‘Yes. The train recording is a forty-five.’

  ‘Would you mind if I played some records from a friend’s collection on my new machine? As loud as possible?’

  ‘Rock-and-roll, I assume?’ He didn’t sound enthusiastic.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  ‘Am I being punished, or is this an attempt at persuasion?’

  ‘Neither,’ I said. ‘In celebration.’

  ‘George,’ Joshua muttered, ‘it isn’t sporting to flog a man with his own rhetoric; our mouths too often prove larger than our hearts.’

  ‘Tough,’ I said.

  We started with Chuck Berry’s ‘Maybelline,’ followed by Jerry Lee Lewis’s ‘Shake, Rattle, and Roll,’ which we were doing, and that followed by four hits of speed for me and one for Joshua, bless his heart, who decided he at least owed it to the music to hear it in its proper context. I even saw him tap his foot a few times as he stared straight down the road, lost in what marvelous eruptions of mind I couldn’t imagine.

  At Joshua’s suggestion, we drove around at random till well after dawn. His theory held that we could confuse any pursuit by confusing ourselves; to lose them by getting lost. Getting lost, however, turned out to be difficult. Usually we hit a dead end and had to turn around, so more than once we had the vague feeling of having been there before. Joshua would say, ‘Let’s take the next right and then drive for nine minutes and take the next seven lefts.’ Almost always we wound up at a gate or dead end. Besides, there were frequent road signs telling you where you were and how far it was to the next place. But it worked. We saw a few cops, but none who seemed to notice us.

  Joshua and I parted company in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, a town he selected from a highway mileage sign as appropriate to our farewell. I let him off just inside the city limits, within easy milkshake distance of a Dairy Queen that was about to open for the morning. He thanked me for the ride and a memorable night. I thanked him for the silver music box and for making me feel possible. I was sad to see him go.

  I took 25 South toward Las Cruces and the intersection with 10. I looked for some company but there wasn’t a thumb on the road. I missed Joshua’s bent but somehow reassuring presence, and that, along with feeling bone weary and emotionally drained from the night’s adrenalin hits, left me blue. It’s common cultural knowledge that the best cure for the blues is music, so I turned Little Richard up full volume and listened to him rave about a woman named Lucille.

  No doubt about it, the music helped keep the blues at bay, but what helped even more was a quiet afternoon spent on the banks of the Rio Grande, watching the wide dirty water roll by. I’d stopped to take a quick piss, but by the time my bladder was empty I was caught in the soothing pull of the river. I decided to rest for half an hour and ended up sitting there damn near till dark. Drowsing off on occasion, I watched the water move, calmed by its broad, sullied, inevitable force. When I finally fired up the Caddy, I felt like I’d had a good night’s sleep. Nothing was left of the blues except the shadow that’s almost always there.

  I stopped in El Paso to gas up for the West Texas run. I fueled myself with two tacos from Juan’s Taco Take-Out Shack, of which I ate one and two bites of the second, followed by benzedrine, of which I ate five. Thus fortified and clear of mind, I put the Diamonds’ ‘Little Darlin” on the box and began the slow curve east into the hill country.

  I even had myself something of a plan. I’d haul down to Houston, grab a motel, sleep till I woke up, chow down, then hit the library or do whatever else was required to find out exactly where the Bopper’s bones had found their repose. I felt sure he was buried in his hometown, or else in Beaumont, but it was time to know for sure. Past time. I’d been sloppy, a truth I calmly acknowledged and calmly vowed to change. Yup, no doubt about it: time to gather everything tight and true. I felt a surge of purpose and knew I was going to pull it off. I was closing on the end, about to deliver.

  Clint, Torillo, Finlay, up the Quitman Range as the moon rose, past Sierra Blanca and down to Eagle Flat and on through Allamore, Van Horne, Plateau, I took West Texas at full gallop, whipping it down the highway behind the cut-loose combo of drugs and rock-and-roll. ‘Pow! Pow! Shoot ’em up now … ah-hoooo, my baby loves ’em Western Movies.’ Blues dusted, even the shadow blown away. I didn’t need Joshua or Kacy or sleep. I remember saying over and over for miles, lyrics to my own music, ‘Myself, this moment, this journey.’ Seriously.

  I pitted for gas at the 10–20 Junction Texaco Truck Stop. A scrawny young guy buttonholed me outside the men’s room and asked for a ride to Dallas. His eyes alone constituted probable cause, and his breat
h was so cheap-wine sour it would’ve straightened out a sidewinder. I told him I was taking the other fork, to Houston, and that I didn’t feel like company anyway, that for the first time in too long I was enjoying being alone.

  I pulled back on 10 with Little Richard wailing ‘Tutti Frutti’ up my spine. With a quickness and accuracy that would shame your average computer, I plotted time and distance, assessed my neural system for evidence of fatigue, considered a snarl of intangible intrinsic needs, and determined seven bennies was the optimum dose. I washed them down with a cold beer. The run to Houston was going to be long and empty – exactly what I wanted. I leaned back in the Caddy’s plush seat, powered down a window for fresh air, flexed my fingers on the wheel, and screwed the juice to it till the stars blurred. I was a white rocket in a wall of sound; pure, powerful, ready to tighten down and deliver the gift, kiss the Caddy’s grille against the Bopper’s stone, soak down the backseat with gasoline, then set Harriet’s letter ablaze and toss it in, a little torch to spark off a magnificent fireball, love’s monument and proof. Yes, mama, yes. Wild into the wilderness. Wop-bop-a-lu-bop. Flower and root.

  And there, right there, precisely at the diamond point of affirmed purpose, riding that bridge-burning music and wholly committed to my unknown end, I caught the shadowy semblance of Double-Gone Johnson in the headlights’ halo and got myself turned around. Not completely around, or not immediately, but a definite hard left, 90°, due north.

  Later I wondered why, given my mood, I even thought to stop, but the fact is I was stopping before I thought. Neural impulse, social reflex, whatever: I snapped to him. Whether this was wise or stupid, lucky or fucked, are judgments I leave to you. But before leaping to a conclusion, let me describe the man as I saw him – the raw impressions in the headlights as I slowed, the finer details as he eased himself in – and ask you to consider what you would’ve done in similar mood and circumstance, in that same span of three skipping heartbeats I had to decide.