Holy smokes, I’m drunk out of my gourd…
He had to concentrate on each step. Focus, focus! he ordered. If he fell down on the sidewalk, everyone would see. By the time he got to the end of the street, that last beer was overriding his liver. Collier walked as though he had cinder blocks tied to his shoes. Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall, he kept thinking.
When he looked down Number 3 Street, he saw a drove of tourists moving toward him. There’s no way I can fake it, he knew, and with my luck they’ll all want autographs. I’m so stewed right now I doubt that I could sign my name…He made a forty-five-degree pivot on the sidewalk—Here goes!—and walked right into the woods.
I’ll walk through the woods around the hill. No one’ll see me, and that’s a good thing because I’m pretty damn sure I’m gonna fall on my face a couple of times.
Among the trees, he found a convenient footpath, then—
flump!
—fell flat on his face.
The town buffoon, he thought. Me. Washed-up TV hasbeen alcoholic wreck and L.A. burnout useless waste of space! Gets shit-faced in the middle of the afternoon…Collier hoped there was no afterlife. He didn’t want to think that his dear dead parents might be seeing him now, lamenting tearily, “Where did we go wrong?”
He dragged himself up, then lurched from tree to tree for about a hundred yards. He could only sense where the inn was. Over there someplace, he thought, and gazed drunkenly left. He squinted through double vision, saw that he still had about four hours before his date…
I can’t make it, I need to sit down for a little while. His butt thunked to the ground, and he thought he heard the seat rip open. He heard something else, too, a steady disconnected noise…
Running water?
He shot his face forward and thought he saw a creek burbling through the woods. I ought to go put my face in that, he considered, but now that he was down, he wasn’t getting up. There was no bed to spin here, only the woods.
He nodded in and out. The steady sound of the creek reminded him of those sleep-machine things that supposedly offered calming sounds but only wound up alerting the sleeper. He nodded off again, quite heavily. He felt as though he were being buried in sand.
Pieces of dreams pecked at him: the clang of railroad workers, and men singing like a chain gang. He dreamed of Penelope Gast fanning herself in a posh parlor as female maids tended to her, and then he dreamed of the smell of urine.
A splendid horizon, into which a steam locomotive chugged briskly, smoke pouring, and a whistle screeching as it disappeared into the distance…
“I wanna do it, too,” the voice of a young girl whined.
“Don’t be stupid!” insisted another older-sounding girl.
The brook burbled on, but beneath it crept a fainter sound:
scritch-scritch-scritch
“Then let me do it to you…”
“You’re too little, stupid! You’d cut me!”
“No I wouldn’t!”
Something like alarm pried open Collier’s eyes. The voices weren’t from a dream. He craned his neck and stared forward, at two young girls doing something near the creek. One dirty blonde who looked about thirteen or fourteen, and the other about ten, with a ruffled helmet-cut like a 1920s flapper, the color of dark chocolate. They were both barefoot, wearing white smocklike dresses.
Shit! Two little kids, and they don’t know I’m here, Collier realized. It would likely scare them if he announced himself. The young one stepped into the water and continued looking down at the other, who sat with her back to Collier and seemed to be leaning over.
scritch-scritch-scritch
What the hell is she doing? Then Collier almost screamed when a feisty mud-colored dog trounced in his lap and began licking his face. “Jesus!”
Both girls looked over, and the younger one said, “Look. A man’s there,” in a sharp Southern accent.
The blonde’s accent seemed more lazy. “Hey, mister. That’s just our dog. Don’t worry, he don’t bite.”
“He’s a good dog!”
Collier had to palm the dog back. He wasn’t sure, but in the animal’s enthusiasm, he thought it might be humping his leg.
“Leave the man alone!” one of them squalled.
The mutt broke off, running excited circles in the clearing. But Collier knew at once: That’s the dog I…think…I saw in my room.
“What are you doin’ there, mister?” the dark-haired one squawked. She had smudges of dirt on her dress, and there was something about the way she stood and the way she looked at him that seemed hyperactive.
“I, uh, oh, I was just taking a nap.”
“Too much whiskey, huh, mister?” supposed the older one. She kept her back to him, and was leaning over as if looking into the creek.
“An alkie!” the younger girl half shrieked. “A rummy, like Mother says! Says there’s lots of ’em.”
Collier’s head thunked. “No, no, I’m staying at the inn.” Then he lied. “It’s nothing like that. I was just taking a nap in the woods, because it’s nice out.”
“Rummy! Rummy!” The little girl danced in the water, while the mongrel joined her.
Precocious little shit, Collier thought.
“Shut up, Cricket. Don’t be disrespectful…”
scritch-scritch-scritch
Collier felt he had to prove something now. Very carefully he stood up, and noticed that he’d slept off some of the drunk. Some but not all. Careful. He walked over. “What are you girls doing over here? I hear this noise.”
The dirty blonde looked up, smiled with a doughy face that seemed to droop. Her eyes looked dull in spite of the big, proud smile. “I’m shavin’ my legs, ’cos I’m a young lady now, and I gotta do ladylike things.”
“That’s what our mother says,” the younger one seemed to regret. “I can’t wait till I’m a young lady, too, so I can shave my legs.”
Collier almost winced at the sight. A cup of shaving lather sat beside the blonde, and indeed, she was shaving her legs in the creek, with an old-fashioned straight razor.
scritch-scritch-scritch
Then she splashed the lather off with creek water.
“Oh, wow, you should be careful,” Collier warned. “You ought to do that at home. If you cut yourself, you could get all kind of germs from that water.”
Both girls traded bewildered glances. Now the blonde splashed off some more, shot her gleaming legs up. She wriggled her feet in the air, and seemed pleased with the effect. “There,” she drawled. “All smooth now, just like a real lady.” The doughy face beamed back up. “My name’s Mary, and this here’s my sister, Cricket. I’m fourteen, she’s eleven.”
“Hi,” Collier said, and tasted a waft of old beer.
The younger girl jumped out of the water and poked him with a finger. “What’s your name, mister?”
“Justin.”
A toothy grin turned Cricket’s face into a lined mask. “You ain’t one’a them fellas who messes with little girls, are ya? Ya don’t look like it.”
Out of here! Collier thought. Kids these days—they see all this molestation stuff on Oprah. “No, no, but you girls have a good day, I have to go.”