18. Astral emissions
19. Mud
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Wake up!” I shoved Alonso hard on the shoulder.
Instantly he was alert. You could feel every cell at attention; he was either entirely asleep or entirely not-asleep.
“What’s all this stuff?” I demanded, pointing at the entry in my dream book.
“How should I know?” he replied craftily.
Good question. It wasn’t my handwriting, but it probably wasn’t his either. Once again, the script was suspiciously similar to Deane’s. “Sorry.” I felt sheepish. “I had a rather powerful, uh, dream.”
“Can I see that?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t—”
He took it out of my hand and borrowed the penlight. After studying the list for a minute or two, he handed the book back and lit us each a cigarette.
“Where’d you learn all that?”
“That’s the point. I didn’t. It isn’t my handwriting. It’s…”
We let a moment pass.
“You have to sneak up on things,” he said, after a while.
“Come again?”
“Watch your language!” He grinned wolfishly.
It took me a minute. “Oh, right. I mean, what are you trying to say about sneaking?”
“I’d rather talk about coming.”
I gave him a full dose of my steely-face, a face devoid of all humor and gamesmanship. Not that you could get the full brunt of it in the dim, but anyway.
“Okay,” he said, inhaling mightily. “You know that bit in the Bible about walking in the front door?”
I knew that Bible school would pay off one day. “John Ten. Something something the same is a thief and a robber. But he who entereth through the front door is the shepherd of the sheep!”
“Right, that. Well, in a way they’re right, but actually they’re wrong.”
“This is making like no sense whatsoever.”
“You sure you want to talk about this shit?”
“I’m sure.”
“All right.” He took off his hat, which he’d shoved to the back of his head, and placed it on his knees. Then he stroked back his hair with both hands, as if the gesture stimulated his brain. “Maybe sneak is the wrong word. What I want to say is that one way you go in directly and the other way you go in indirectly.”
“Go in where?”
He seemed surprised. “The voodoo shop, of course. What did you think we were talking about?”
I held my hands up, palms facing Alonso, like Back off, Jack! I took a minute to organize my thoughts and during that minute the gris-gris, which was still secure around my neck, emitted a warm, pleasing sensation. “Supposing we were talking about the voodoo shop. I want to know how you knew.”
“Snickers?” he offered, pulling the candy bar from his pocket.
“No, thank you.”
“The juju around your neck, man.” His bite of candy muffled the words slightly. “I know where you got it. And I know who made it.”
“I see.” Actually, this was a transparent stall. But what was the point in being cagey? “Okay, who made it?”
“A guy named Sammy.”
Now, you’d think that would have flipped me out. Sammy! But, of course, this Sammy might not be my Sammy. It wasn’t like it was a weird or unusual name.
“Cold eyes. That’s what you notice first. And then his clothes—quite the snappy dresser.”
“And I suppose his skin is sort of pecan-colored?”
“You got it.”
“Uh-huh…” A simple case of subjective reality intruding, that was all. Happened to André Breton all the time. In fact, this was precisely that sort of dream state that those guys clamored to be in. The idea was to enjoy it, I sternly pointed out to my body as the shoulders, stomach, and calves remained tense. The idea was to relax. “Do you have any drugs?”
“Life is a drug.” He touched my forearm. “Sex is a drug.”
It was like somebody had thrown a medicine ball at my belly; this was what they called attraction. Trouble was the surfer boys I was used to going out with always settled for so little and were happy with that. A little digital dexterity put them right out of their misery. You could tell Alonso was going to be a different situation.
He moved his hand up my forearm and then over the round of the shoulder and up to the place where the neck muscles were all bunched up. He gently rubbed. “You’ve got an athlete’s frame,” he said. “You ever do any weight-lifting?”
Not exactly high romance. “No.” Unbidden, the image of Humongous Hannah, The World’s Strongest Female came to mind. She was out there somewhere, the mule, if she was still alive. We could be passing by, right at this very moment. I turned to look out the window, thinking that in this frame of seeing anything could get conjured up, but no. I wanted to see that billboard cartoon blonde looking like she could take on the world, no problemo.
He kissed my neck, the place where the muscle rises up out of the shoulder, the one that sounds like trapezoid. Trapeze artists develop it, I guess, or maybe it makes them look like a triangle. Whatever.
Then he kissed me on the mouth. Wow! And what was that other hand of his up to? Magically, it slithered up my leg. I never let boys do that.
But this was no boy.
Groggily, weakly, I tried to protest.
“Relax,” he whispered in my ear. “There’re lots of things I’d like to do with you. But in the meantime, ain’t we got fun?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Houston!”
Early afternoon and we were on the far edge of Texas. The night had been long or short, I forget which, and deliciously groggy. Sometime toward morning, though dreamlike snatches of rosy prairie dawn flitted through my head like bright pink bugs, my body had fallen into deep slumber. Alonso had gone away—breakfast in Austin?—but now he was back, slumped against me, lightly snoring.
“Houston,” I whispered in his ear, feeling both tender and strange.
“Who cares?” he muttered, snuggling in.
Gently I extracted myself and, stiff and sticky, hobbled off the bus for a pit stop. The corners of my mouth kept turning up of their own volition; the muggy east Texas air seemed romantic and exciting, even though you knew that basically it was just more gunk coating your skin. The bathroom—even that level of grime wasn’t depressing!—revealed, however, the confirmation of my hazy speculation: you can feel great but still look like dog vomit.
Grin and bear it. Spray Oh! de Love on your greasy bleached hair and wash your face like a good kid.
I bought some Snickers bars, some barbecue potato chips, a Pepsi, a Chocolate Soldier, some packets of peanuts, and three cheese sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. Halfway back to the bus, I thought: He’s gone. But he wasn’t. And from the end of the aisle where I stood watching him, it seemed like the whole Deane thing wasn’t really necessary. If I could stay with Alonso… well, some things were better than family.
He smiled when I sat down and showed him our provisions. “I love you,” I said. “Do you love me? Where’ll we go? I want to be with you forever and ever.”
That woke him up. In two seconds, Alonso was upright, sunglasses over his eyes.
He hadn’t said anything yet but already this sick feeling was welling up from the same place my good feeling had come from. Okay, Pet, I told myself—already five seconds had stretched out so that the edge was imperceptible—you’re going to remember this moment, this feeling, for the rest of your life. Don’t you ever, ever, ever put yourself in this position again. Do you hear me?