Which continues until you finally realize, one day, that you don’t have to pay for any of your smoking dope if you buy in quantity with your friends and then sell a few ounces at street prices to anybody who’s interested. And probably by this time your parents have seen a picture of you in the papers with long hair, hanging out of the occupied administration building, and they have told you to come home to Flat Top Community College or be damned—which is to say, you have been cut off.
So that’s the way it begins, with a few lids to friends to keep the bookstore off your back, or the landlord or the used-car salesman or whoever else has it in for you at the time, and from there it grows like a weed. And soon enough you’re dealing quite a bit of dope and you aren’t seeing many friends, since you’re either buying or selling or smoking with buyers or sellers, and you spend a lot of time hustling and being far out and saying, “Oh, wow! Hey man, did you dig that?” And it goes on that way for as long as you can stand it—forever, if you can stand it that long. But the chances are good that the game will grow either too bold or too old, and the routines too sadly and forlornly familiar, and you will retire from street life and go back to where you came from. Which is where you are.
11
I CALLED MUSTY’S NUMBER IN Oakland and some guy who seemed to know said I should come over, that everything was cool. I was supposed to ring the buzzer under Carol Moss. I said fine and went over.
Driving over in the car, I felt better and better. It was a beautiful spring night and the windows were down; I could hear the sounds of the street and the people. The driving was mechanical and I began to drift into the fantasy, the current fantasy you might call it, but strong just the same. At first it was just faces: faces in my mind, faces of the people blurring as I drove past them, and then I saw the crowd fanned out before me like a huge faceless corpse, dead but alive, jumping and jiving as I tuned up for the next number, and I was telling the engineers to make sure all the recording equipment was in order, because I didn’t want to have to do it more than once. If I had things my way I was going to do the damn thing once and then get out from under the glaring heat of those spots, out into the night and away. They yelled back that everything was cool and I nodded to Willie. He thumped up the bass and started it rolling, drifting and flowing, echoing hollow from the P.A. speakers in the back of the stadium. And then the drums chopped in, stomping and humping, with the light clang of the cymbals on top of it, and then we were into it, the crowd knew that it was what they’d been waiting for all night and they moaned, an insane screaming moan of pleasure, screaming, We love it, it’s yours, it’s yours, we love it, we love it. And then the harp flew in and we were going, man, we were going and this was all they were going to get, but before we went they were going to get it. Just then the cords broke in front of the stage and there were cops all over the place, tripping and falling over the equipment and themselves and the chicks clawing and grasping and then it was gone, done and gone, and the MC was yelling “The New Administration,” and the crowd was chanting for more, more, but we were down and under and out of the lights… The lights, Jesus, I’d just run a red light and some poor bastard back there was screaming at me. I checked the rear-view mirror nervously, but there was no heat. Pure luck. I took a deep breath and there were no more faces. I finished the drive and parked across from the address I had been given.
It was an old, two-story house with big bay windows. There was a chopped Harley leaning against the side of the house, back behind the cars so you couldn’t see it easily from the road; it must be Musty’s. I smiled in the darkness. Connection at last.
I pressed the buzzer and a funky little blonde showed up, wearing a bathrobe that was much too big for her and an irritated expression. She sized me up with a cold eye, like one of those people at fairs who guess how much you weigh. “You’re the guy from the Coast,” she said. “In the back.”
I stepped into the hallway, which smelled old and dark. “Are you Carol Moss?” I said. “I’m—”
“In the back,” she said, walking away.
The hall led me back toward the only light in the place, past the stairs leading up to the second floor, past an empty living room and a foul-smelling can. I came out into the light and saw three dudes sitting around a small kitchen table. There was a nappy-looking spade in a white linen suit, a guy with long curly hair and a droopy moustache, and a little guy with glasses and a nervous look. They all glanced up when I came in, but went right on talking.
“Last night,” said the little guy with tiny pupils and glasses, “last night was heaven. It was just heaven! I didn’t think twice about it all day, just went in when I felt it coming and bingo! dropped it clean as a whistle.”
“Was it tapered at the end, like a fine cigar?” the spade asked.
“No,” the little guy said. He got a suspicious look. “Why do you ask?”
“You should make sure it’s tapered,” he said. “So your ass won’t slam shut.” He laughed at that, and the dude with the moustache laughed too. The little guy looked annoyed.
“No,” he said, “it wasn’t tapered. No, it wasn’t.” He began to smile at the recollection. “As a matter of fact, perfectly round and hard, and what a relief! What pleasure! I mean it was just−−”
“Heaven,” Moustache said. “You told us once before.” Moustache seemed a little bored with the conversation. He looked up at me. “You Harkness?”
“Yeah.”
“Have a seat,” he said. “You’re just in time to hear Lou tell us all about his intestines. This is Lou,” he said, pointing to the little guy, “and Clarence. I’m Musty.”
I nodded, they nodded, and I sat down. Lou looked spiteful. There was only a bare bulb overhead, and the walls were painted black, giving the place a séance atmosphere. The walls were covered with posters: Peter Fonda on a hog, with a sign saying OURS IS THE ADDICTED SOCIETY; Jimi Hendrix scratching his belly; Bill Miller for Berkeley City Council. They didn’t have the one of Frank Zappa on the can, I thought. But then, they did have Lou.
Lou sensed a lull in the conversation and was off again, full speed ahead. “You know,” he said, “today’s been just awful. I mean, really awful. That bust on Holly Street’s left me tighter than a miser. I’ve tried three times since dinner…” he held his hands out wide, as if to show they were clean “… and nothing. Nothing!”
“You need a systems analysis,” Clarence said, and laughed.
Lou was wide-eyed serious. “You think so? Does that help?”
“Cut the shit, Lou,” said Musty. He turned to me. “Good trip?”
“Little dull so far,” I said, lighting a cigarette. Nobody laughed.
“You miss the bust?” I shrugged. Obviously, I had missed the goddamn bust. “Sorry that happened,” Musty said. But, like John, he didn’t seem very concerned. “How’s John?”
“Fine, he’s fine.”
“Well,” Musty said, “we got your stuff here. It’s not quite Michoacán, but it’s nice. Very smooth.” He pointed over beside the stove, where there were a lot of bricks wrapped in foil. “Very nice gold,” he said. “John’ll really dig it.”
Then we talked about the bust for a while. Clarence asked me how the heat was in Boston.
“About usual,” I said. “They don’t hassle the colleges much. Mostly they try to hit you when you’re away from the nest. Airports, stuff like that.”
“I think…” Lou began.
“That sucks,” Musty said, “that airport thing. You want these bricks now?”