Stanley bends again, slicing long furrows through the sand. He thinks of the old apartment on Division: the white wall across from his pallet, the first thing his eyes met every morning. How he hated that fucking wall. He begged his mother to ask his grandfather for permission to hang something there — a hamsa, a painting, anything — but she never would. The wall always seemed to be watching, although it would never acknowledge him. Eventually he had enough. He considered wrecking its pure surface with the letters of his name, but even then he was trying to detach himself from it, to leave it behind. Instead he wrote SHIT, the most powerful word he knew. To blind the wall. To keep it from judging. Thinking of it now, he remembers the handprints and footprints in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese, and the memory makes him smile. He straightens, stretches, sidearms the bird-skull back to the sea.
For a long time he walks the wet sand, eyeing the boardwalk, eyeing the water. His shadow precedes him as he goes. To the east almost everything he sees was made or placed by human hands; to the west almost nothing was. The pale void of the beach stretches between. A gull flies by with a dead grunion curved in its beak. Stanley thinks of the fish swarming in the waves, and wonders what switch the moon flips to summon them to the land — whether they’re aware of it in themselves, whether any among them ever opt out, want no part of it, choose to remain below, lurking and lonesome and proud.
As he nears the quiet amusement pier at Ocean Park he spots Charlie ambling along the beach. Charlie’s wearing tatty business attire — white shirt, silk tie, jacket and slacks, fedora — but he has no shoes or socks, and his pants are rolled to his knees. He holds a tube of paper in one hand, a bottle in the other, and he cuts a crooked path across the sand. Hey! he shouts. Hey, Stanley! Bwana Lawrence was just asking about you!
Hey, Stanley says, raising an open palm. Who?
Bwana Lawrence. Lawrence Lipton. Lipton teabags. Hip, fun glad-rags. You know who I mean, man. He said he met you the other night, at the jazz canto.
Stanley squints, shades his eyes. He an older guy? he asks.
An aged man! That’s right. But not a paltry thing. Larry’s the chief cantilever of the canto, in fact. He’s the most load-bearing, soul-clapping old coot you’ll likely find here along the mackerel-crowded sea. And he wants to meet you.
How come?
Because of his book. You’ve heard about his youth book, right? His monument of unaging intellect?
Stanley shakes his head.
He’s tape-recording us, Charlie says. All of us. He’s writing a book about what’s going on here.
Stanley looks at Charlie, then pivots on his ankles, trying to put his own face in shadow. It must be past three by now. Okay, he says. What is going on here?
Oh, disaffiliation and reaffiliation. Dedicated poverty. The last outpost against the approach of Moloch. Lots of stinkweed, and not too many baths. An entirely new way of life. Depends on who you ask. Larry wants to ask you.
Why me?
Charlie sips from his bottle with a sly wiseacre smile. Bwana Lawrence is interested in your unique perspective, he says. Id est, why would a hardnosed juvenile delinquent travel clear across the country to meet an unknown poet. Id est, word has gotten around about your visit to good Doctor What’s-His-Name. I think Larry’s jealous, to tell you the truth.
Yeah? Stanley says. Do I get anything out of this deal?
From the deal, Charlie says, you get a meal you don’t have to steal. Probably half the guys who talk to Larry just do it for the chow. Then they badmouth him behind his back. It makes me sort of sick, honestly. I always tell them: stow your romantic bullshit, because that is what a real writer looks like. Larry’s published novels. He’s written for the movies, and for TV. I have to admit, it’s not always pretty. It’s not always subtle. But he chose to be here. He didn’t just wash ashore, like the rest of us. He believes in the reality of Moloch, and he came here to resist him.
A thin shrill sound comes from the boardwalk — a child crying — and a small spherical shadow sweeps over the sand. Stanley glances up in time to see a white helium balloon pass overhead; then he loses it in the sun. By the arcades the woman with the baby-carriage is stooped, talking to her bawling kid. He can’t hear what she’s saying. The kid wails louder. Well, Stanley says, thanks for letting me know. I’ll look him up.
Charlie’s demeanor has shifted. His mouth works like a rabbit’s; he seems sickly-pale beneath his tan. Larry gets Moloch, he says. He understands how he works, what he wants. Larry thinks you can steal the language back from Moloch and use it against him. I’m not so sure. I think it might be spoiled for good. Because I’ve seen Moloch, you know? I’ve seen him in the world. It isn’t hard, once you know how. I saw him when I was just a child, in the library in Boston. Bull-horned. Furnace-fisted. As in the gold mosaic of a wall. Later I saw him in Europe, too. I’d look down from the ballturret, and there he’d be. Lit by hellfire. Accepting his sacrifices. I think he comes to eliminate the surplus children, and that means he’ll be everywhere soon. Trot out all the sociology you like: I’m talking about a literal demon. A demon that lives off complacency and fear.
The kid on the boardwalk is stamping its feet in a tantrum, screaming like it’s being murdered; the kid in the carriage has started to cry, too. Stanley shifts his weight, impatient and uncomfortable. So, he says, pointing to the tube of paper in Charlie’s hand. What’s that you got there, Charlie?
Charlie’s confused for a second. Then he brightens, passing his bottle to Stanley, unrolling the tube. A going-away present for Alex, he says. See?
It’s a promotional notice for a movie called Cowboy, starring Glenn Ford and Jack Lemmon. The long yellow poster shows the two men in their cowboy duds, one huge in the foreground, the other tiny in the background; Stanley can’t remember which actor is which. He has a hard time believing anybody would make a movie with a title as boring as Cowboy. The poster’s tagline reads, It’s really the best because it’s really the West!
Nice, Stanley says. Alex likes horse operas, huh?
Charlie rolls up the poster, takes the bottle back, and grins. No, man, he says. I don’t think he gives a damn about them one way or another.
He takes another sip. The woman with the baby-carriage slaps her screaming kid across the face, and it shuts up. Stanley’s aware of the waves at his back; they sound like distant fireworks. Well, he says, I better move along. I’ll see you later, Charlie.
Be sure to visit Larry Lipton! Charlie calls after him. Get your free meal!
Stanley doesn’t turn around. He makes his way to the boardwalk, angling toward the penny-arcade where he played pinball two nights ago while waiting for the fish. He wonders for a second if Claudio’s made it back to the hideout yet — if he’s wondering where Stanley is, if he’s been having a great goddamn time — but then he puts it out of his mind. By now the boardwalk has filled with slumming weekenders: beachcombers with metal-detectors, respectable Lawrence Welk fans, junior-grade officers and their girls. In another few hours the sun will drop and the moon will rise, these people will disappear, and all the usual werewolves will come out.
The penny-arcade is bustling, but nowhere near packed. Stanley hopes the Dogs will be around — he wants to get moving on the junk for Alex — but it’s all flattops and crewcuts inside, nary a duck’s-ass or a dollop of grease to be seen. Funny, he thinks. They’ll probably turn up later.