She peels off the black dress and stands in front of him in her black bra and panties, knowing that she’s a vision. She lets him look for a few seconds, then reaches behind her and unsnaps her bra.
Brad smiles, kicks off his shoes, and hurries out of his slacks and Jockey shorts. He picks her up and then drops her onto the bed. Then he nudges her legs apart, kneels between them, and reaches for her panties.
Her hand blocks him.
She looks into his eyes, smiles, and says, “No, Brad. If you want this, you’ll have to marry it.”
No one comes into Kim’s room.
Without paying.
104
Coked out of his skull
Stan takes inventory.
Takes a long look at the Bread and Marigolds store and the merchandise they’re trying to sell to a diminishing customer base and decides that it’s over.
Sees himself in his shabby denim and feels stupid.
Less than.
Who?
John?
Doc?
Diane?
Bread and marigolds, he thinks.
Jesus.
The place is a fire trap, anyway
It only takes a little kerosene and a match.
The fire this time.
105
“Your boyfriend is pretty ripped,” Doc says to Kim.
She looks over and sees Brad slumped on a sofa, his eyes glassy from coke and booze. He’ll be out cold any second.
“My fiance,” she corrects.
“You’re going to marry that stiff?” Doc asks.
“For a while,” she answers.
“Come on,” Doc says, taking her hands.
“Where are we going?”
“You know.”
In his bedroom he says, “Take them off, Kim.”
“Take what off?”
“The pretty clothes.”
She does and stands in front of him.
Pirouettes.
“My God,” Doc says.
He admires her perfect body for several seconds and then lays her down on the bed.
“Look at that, ” he says.
She puts her hand over herself and says, “No, Doc, if you want this, you’ll have to-”
He laughs.
Long time coming, this rendezvous.
She wraps her arms around his broad back.
Remembers lying in a cave hearing him with her mother.
Soon it’s like she’s tumbling over a waterfall, and she holds him tighter.
Turns her head and sees the Charles Jourdans.
Her pretty shoes.
106
John pulls on his slacks and walks back into the living room.
He’s fucked out.
Taylor wasn’t a ride, she was the whole amusement park.
Six Flags.
Magic Mountain.
Knott’s Pussy Farm.
That girl Kim, the mule, is on the couch next to a life-size Ken doll who looks like he just had his head handed to him.
She’s sitting there like there isn’t a drug-crazed orgy going on all around her, like there’s not a pistol on the coffee table at her demure knees. Like she’s about to answer questions from Miss America judges and then twirl fire batons while singing a medley from Oklahoma! but whatever, because speaking of fire there is one.
Outside, the sky is on fire.
107
The Bread and Marigolds Bookstore is, as they say, engulfed in flame.
They all stand across the street and watch as the fire department pretty much lets it go, trying only to contain the fire and keep it from spreading to buildings they don’t consider a public nuisance.
Their faces red in the reflection of flame, they stand and watch Doc
Kim
John
Stan and Diane, arms around each other’s shoulders
Doc asks, “Anyone have marshmallows?”
They laugh, even Stan.
They are
Stardust
Golden
Caught in the devil’s bargain.
Laguna Beach 2005
108
The sun comes red over the Laguna hills.
Ben strides to Chon’s apartment.
Knocks on the door.
Waits.
A sleepy O, clad in one of Chon’s T-shirts, opens the door, sees the look on Ben’s face, and screams
Nooooooooooooo!
109
He’s all right, Ben tells her as he walks her to the bed and makes her sit down.
He’s wounded, some shrapnel, they got most of it out, he’s in the hospital, he’s going to be okay.
“God.”
Ben allows himself a slight smile. “He called-classic Chon-and said-”
110
“I fucked up.”
111
“Is he coming home?” O asks.
“No,” Ben says. “Also classic Chon. He’s hoping they can ‘put him back together’ enough so he can go back to his team.”
“Jerk,” O says. When Chon calls her a couple of hours later she asks, “They didn’t shoot your dick off, did they?”
“No, it’s still there.”
She feels good hearing him laugh. She says, “Okay, I’m going out and buying a nurse’s uniform…”
He laughs again. “ A Farewell to Arms. ”
“Is that some kind of sick joke?”
“No, it’s a book.”
“Yeah, I don’t do books,” she says. “Okay, ‘Navy Nurse’ or ‘Candy Striper’?”
“Candy Striper. Definitely.”
112
Ben walks back to his place.
He was going to tell Chon about being shaken down, but now he can’t.
No way he piles on with this.
So he needs to handle it himself.
He needs a plan.
That leaves Chon out of it.
113
Chon hangs up and relishes the thought of O for a few minutes, and then moves off it because a real nurse comes with his meds.
Sanitized word for drugs
Which there’s a war on. And there’s also a War on Terrorism and they’re connected, Chon contemplates as the meds take hold-the politicians either are on drugs or should be.
A bunch of religious fanatics mostly from Saudi Arabia fly planes into buildings and we invade…
Iraq.
It’s a generational thing, Chon muses.
Bush Sr. goes to war against Saddam Hussein and puts troops in Saudi Arabia (which was bin Laden’s reason for going to “war” against America), and Hussein tries to kill Bush Sr., and then Bush Jr.-faithful son, loyal son-uses bin Laden’s attack as an excuse to get payback for Hussein’s attempted hit on his dad.
41 as Brando
43 as Pacino and featuring Saddam Hussein as Virgil “The Turk” (near miss there) Sollozzo. And the U.S.A. as a collective, credulous Diane Keaton
Just this once, Kay, I’m going to let you ask me about my business
Shut the fucking door in her face and get on with it, lock yourself up with the Cabinet and the Congress and
Guzzle the Kool-Aid.
No, Chon decides, the problem with the politicians is not that they’re on drugs, it’s that they’re not.
The drugs they have for bipolar, schizophrenic paranoid delusions are so good now.
They work.
Problem is, they work so well that the patients think they’re cured and stop taking them and get sick again and do crazy shit like invade Iraq in the delusional belief it’s going to make their fathers love them.
So please, Mr. President
Chon thinks as he floats into a drug cloud of his own
Please
Don’t go off the meds.
114
Drug Warrior Dennis Cain
Gets up in the morning feeling no different, which is almost a disappointment after making a Faustian deal for his soul.
I mean, you think you’d notice, right? Something different.
Yeah, not so much.
He makes his coffee, drinks his orange juice, kisses his wife on the cheek, makes two scrambled eggs and eats them while exchanging sleepy early-morning talk with his girls, says to his wife,