They tried to support themselves on the table but they were laughing too hard. One of them would recover a little and then the other one would say “No alcohol” or “Sunday school” and off they’d go again.
We watched. I think both June and I were glad they were having such a good time, but the punchline was lost on us.
Wild hyenas, they kept it up for a full five minutes. It was getting fairly boring, but you knew they needed to do this. It was similar to the time Linwood told June and me that Nana had died and we fell over laughing.
“Boy,” Stan said, finally getting a grip on himself. “Lordie. I needed that.”
The corners of her mouth still inclining upward, Linwood got her compact out once more. Even though her eyes were all red, she looked a lot better.
“What was so funny?” June inquired in hurt tones.
Stan and Linwood deliberately avoided looking at each other. It was a struggle to control their mirth but they succeeded.
“Just life,” said Stan. “Hell, you might as well laugh at it.”
“Now what?”
“Now—how about if we all go to Florida and go to the beach!”
June and I groaned—what was it with them and the beach?—but Linwood looked pretty happy.
On our way out of the Quarter an hour later, this truck ran a stop sign, plowing into the front end of our car. Linwood died instantly, as did June, who had been leaning forward in her seat. Stan lingered on for a day or two.
I was the one who survived. Is that supposed to be first prize? Once Deane had disappeared, I had thought the whole deal was settled. I was wrong. The last thing I noticed, before the screams and the shattering glass and the car whirling like a top into oblivion, my hand unthinkingly holding the too-warm amulets in the pocket of my coat, was the glittering window: we were right in front of the stone-cold eye of the voodoo shop.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Tucson!”
I woke up hungry, sticky, dry-mouthed. Total yuck. The gluey window revealed Woolworth’s, a pawn shop, a greasy spoon. The cumbersome bus pulled into its station.
“Fifteen minutes in Tucson! Next stop El Paso!”
The man catty-corner in front of me, the guy with the briefcase, had disappeared.
It was going to be tough recapturing some zest for this whole pathetic enterprise. Back at the beach, school was just getting out. Friday afternoons, Darlene and I generally walked down to the beach to meet surfers and smoke dope. It was warm enough to lay out—would I even get a decent tan this summer? Did anybody besides Darlene miss me? Bread loved me but he probably didn’t miss me. And Aunt Edith was no doubt washing her hands with relief: like bad parents, like bad sister. Who knew, if I went back now, she could slap me into Juvenile Hall.
I let out a sigh worthy of Stan.
Don’t farewell, fare forward. I put my money in my pocket and left the duffel to guard my seat, repel interlopers, and then went into the bus station, passing through one clean swath of downtown Tucson air, which was nevertheless redolent with the far-off odor of desert verbena. Out there somewhere, cactus were blooming. After all, tonight we’d be crossing Texas.
“Fifteen minutes,” the bus driver reminded me as I entered the terminal. Terminal was a good word for it.
“Coffee with cream,” I told the woman behind the tiny counter. “Do you have any pie?”
“Cherry. Lemon. Apple.”
“Are they fresh?”
She gave me a wiseacre smile.
“Apple. With a piece of cheese?”
She produced a soggy wedge, deplasticked a sheet of American cheese and slapped it on. The coffee was something you don’t want to discuss.
I stirred in a bunch of sugar and played around with the goopy pie. Besides the unpleasant feel of my jeans, my bra straps were cutting into my shoulders. Some adventure. One day out, I hated the life of the road. No Beat poet, me. The way to go was to have your parents do the driving and stay in Holiday Inns every night. The shower. The clean white sheets.
“Cigarette?” a male voice asked.
Over to my left was what looked like a cowboy-Indian. He had copper skin, broad cheekbones, and heavy black hair, slicked away from his face with oil, but he was dressed more like a bronco rider: low-cut jeans, battered boots, neckerchief.
“Do you want one or are you offering one?”
He briefly dazzled me with his teeth. “If you’re offering, I’m taking. If you’re taking, I’m offering.”
Settle down, Sam! I ate a bite of pie before answering, to show my cool. “Have one of mine.”
He helped himself to my pack, which was sitting on the counter. His long frame was perched on the stool like a crane on a spool of thread. After exhaling the smoke in an impressive stream from his nostrils, dragonlike, he emitted even more from his mouth and then inhaled it back through the nose, very French.
“Are you from El Paso?” I asked.
He stared first at my face and then at my neck. “Same as you,” he said. “I’m going to New Orleans.” He pronounced it Nu-Aw-Leans.
I was outhipped, no doubt about. Not only was my cigarette expertise outclassed, but also the smoke tasted both oily and chalky, the same way my face felt. Coffee coated my tongue like tar.
“El Paso!” the driver called.
Time flies when you’re having fun.
The cowboy-Indian tipped his hat to me and I figured that was that, except he stuck close boarding the bus and two minutes later was settled next to me in the seat. He removed his sunglasses and we exchanged looks: his eyes were a clear dark brown, strong tea in a white china cup.
The bus pulled away from the terminal and out into the afternoon dust.
“Alonso.” He touched the base of his throat with an index finger.
“Me Jane.”
Alonso put his glasses back on.
“Sorry,” I said a minute later. “Happy to meet you. My name’s Pet.”
He smiled and his profile lost that cigar store Indian look. “Petunia? Petrina? Petulia? Wait, Petroniski!”
My cheeks flushed; he had a strong effect on me, but also the fatigue of the trip was taking its toll. “Just Pet. My family nickname.”
“Okay, Just Pet.” He took off his sunglasses again and put them in the front pocket of his workshirt.
That was when it occurred to me that the odd feelings welling up, strong but not emanating from any particular part of the body, might be what they called sexual attraction. Maybe. How old was this guy anyway? Under thirty, but so what.
“Since we’re going to travel together”—the innuendo was peculiar—“why don’t you tell me about what you have around your neck.”
So that was it. He wasn’t taken with me: he was taken with the gris-gris. Typical, and my chest felt a little sad.
“Who made it?” he asked after a few minutes had passed.
I shrugged.
“But you remember where you got it.”
“Oh, sure.” We were out of the city already. Sagebrush, saguaros, little yellow flowers just like always. And the looming presence of endless distant mountains.
“Do you want to tell me?”
“Not particularly.”
“Uh-huh.” His voice was unsurprised.
A few minutes passed. Alonso tilted his hat down over his eyes and slumped back in his seat and I turned away from him, trying not to be alert to how close he was, the nearness of skin and all that skin contained. No way was sleep going to come, that was the last thought before my head plopped against the thick glass and it seemed like my body floated out over the desert somewhere, riding along while the first crayon streaks of sunset advertised the approach of night.