“Goddamn right it’s far out,” Musty said. “It’s also a drag to talk about.” He paused and I hoped he was through, but he suddenly picked up again. “And I’ll tell you what else is a drag,” he said. “A real bummer this is, too. You got any idea how many people are blowing dope these days?” I shrugged. “A hell of a lot, man,” he said. “A hell of a lot. Ten or twenty million, if you read Life magazine. Five percent of this country, bare minimum. You have any idea how much dope all those people consume?” I shook my head. He shook his head back. “A hell of a lot, man,” he said again. “And I’ll tell you what happens. The heat, see, the heat figure they gotta stop all these people from blowing dope, ’cause otherwise they’re going to have a country full of drug addicts on their hands, right? Right. Okay, so they crack down on the dope supply, they make it hard as hell for a normal Joe to get his hands on some normal smoking dope. And they figure that’s good, see, they’re doing their job and preventing everybody from getting addicted. Right?” He laughed bitterly. “But then look what happens. There’s not enough dope around, so the shitbird dealers start burning the scene down. And they don’t have any more good weed than the next man, so they sell shit—any kind of shit—and they cut it with something to give it a kick. And the people who know what weed’s all about, see, they’re not getting burned, ’cause they know better. But the people who don’t know better, they get screwed.”
He threw his hands up, then rapped the table once more. He was getting pretty excited. “Like these dudes who try to sell you a lid and say, ‘Drink it as tea’—all that means is that they’re pushing some ragweed cut with meth, and you aren’t going to buy their crummy lid, right? Right. You know that, and I know that. But some high school punk isn’t gonna know that, and he’s gonna go home and fix himself up some tea, and if he does it often enough he’s gonna have a speed habit. Too much, huh? This country has a potential drug nightmare on its hands, and the pigs are busting their balls to keep it going. All the time telling the straight mommies and daddies what a good job they’re doing, keeping dope out of the kiddies’ hands, when actually they’re responsible for hooking more little ignorant brats on more kinds of shit than you can even think of. It’s too much.”
He sighed, and seemed to run out of steam. He sat back in his chair, shaking his head, then seemed to remember the joints he had rolled. He lit one and took a drag, then handed it to me. “Comes on nice,” he said. “Just wait.”
Carol Moss appeared out of nowhere and sat down at the table. She didn’t say anything, just sat.
“Want some smoke?” I said to her, holding out the joint. She shook her head and Musty laughed.
“Forget about her,” he said. “She’ll snap out of it.”
I took another long, luxurious hit and then held the joint away from me, observing the fine blue-gray smoke and the creeping advance of the burning tip across the yellow terrain. And realized that I was stoned. “Wow.”
Musty said, “Fine smoke, what?”
12
IT WAS DEFINITELY EXTRAORDINARY SMOKE, and I couldn’t say a thing for a while. The events of the day got up and introduced themselves to me formally and asked me to sit and chat. Having no alternative, that is exactly what I did. It had been quite a day.
I realized that I was very tired and that the business end of everything had been concluded. I could crash. The feeling came over me like a huge breath of hot air, not uncomfortable but impossible to escape, and I knew that I wanted to sleep.
Musty was in front of me saying something. I think he was still talking about how good the dope was. My ears focused and zoomed in on his words. People talk too much, I was thinking. And they eat too much. So they fart a lot and have jizzy friends like Lou. They’re fat and they drive fast cars and listen to the news and beat off to Lawrence Welk. They’re lonely. They get cancer and diarrhea and heartburn and dysentery and malaria and syphilis and an education, all from talking too much. The hell with them. I wanted to go to sleep.
“Where’s Lou?” I asked, and everyone in the kitchen stirred audibly.
“He said something,” said Musty.
“Jesus Christ, he’s alive.” A chick’s voice. Must be that Carol what’s-her-name.
“And he wants to go to sleep!” said Musty, laughing.
“Where’s Lou?” I said again. “Got to get some sleep. Completely whacked out. That dope is unbelievable.”
“He’s functioning,” said Musty to the chick. “But just barely.” Then to me: “Tell you the truth, I don’t have the slightest idea where Lou is right now, and he probably doesn’t either. He may be back in an hour, which was an hour ago, but it’s more likely that he’ll be back sometime tomorrow. He’s got an old lady in North Berkeley and once he’s up there he doesn’t show for a while. So you might as well crash here.”
“Fine,” I said, “anywhere. Sorry to be so lively, but this happens to me every so often, just comes over me. Nothing I can do about it. Uncontrollable desire to close my eyes. Strange but true.”
“You can take Jack’s room,” said Musty. “Second door on the left, at the top of the stairs. There’s a sleeping bag in the closet if there aren’t enough blankets.”
I thanked him and split.
13
SECOND DOOR ON THE LEFT, open, I stumbled in. Sat down and with a sigh of relief, took off my shoes and was just about to throw off the jacket when I heard someone say “Hello.” I whirled around, and there she was, or rather there it was, a shift of swirling colors so bright they hurt my eyes, glistening white teeth, beautiful tanned skin—a fine woman, the whole thing extremely fine, too fine, to be true, in fact too fine to be true anytime but now. All I could think was, Please would you… please just go away.
“Hello,” I said. I put my shoes back on and stood up. “Sorry, but they told me downstairs this room was empty. Which room is Jack’s?”
“Sit down,” she said, still smiling.
“I’d like to very much,” I said, “in the morning. But right now I’m very sleepy and have to go to bed. So if you’d tell me where—”
“This is Jack’s room,” she said. “My dog is having puppies in my room and the smell is too much, and I didn’t know anyone was staying here tonight, so…” She shrugged. “But if it really bothers you I’ll leave. The smell’s not that bad.” Another beautiful smile. I was being hustled; she knew damned well I wasn’t going to throw her out if her dog was having puppies. Well, hell, I figured I could probably get her to drop one of the Seconals I had with me, so the light wouldn’t be on all night. I wondered how long I was going to have to be sociable before I could shove one down her throat. There was nothing to do but sit down and find out.
“Your dog’s having puppies?” I said.
“Yeah,” she laughed. “Six the last time I looked, but probably more by now. I’d take you in to show you, but Dagoo is getting motherly already and she wouldn’t like having anybody around she didn’t already know.” I nodded, cursing myself for not having been born a dog, with the same prerogative. “Want to hear some sounds?” she said, and without waiting for an answer she went over to the stereo in the corner of the room. As she did she brushed her long blond hair back from her face and I saw it clearly for the first time in the candlelight. Then she came back over and sat down next to me.
“Want to smoke some dope?” she said. “Out-of-sight stuff, Musty got it for a rich friend of his back East.” She produced a lid and began rolling some joints. She lit one, and placed the others in the marvelous cleft peeking over the top of her shift.