Part 13 (1/2)
”Just leave my body alone,” she said, staring at him.
”Sure,” he said. ”Sure.” He got to his feet and backed away. ”You better believe it.” He felt like going out to his car, getting his pistol from the glove compartment, and shooting her face off, bursting her skull and eyes to bits. And then that pa.s.sed, that hash hate and fury. ”f.u.c.k it,” he said dismally.
”I don't like people to grope my body,” Donna said. ”I have to watch out for that because I do so much c.o.ke. Someday I have it planned I'm going over the Canadian border with four pounds of c.o.ke in it, in my s.n.a.t.c.h. I'll say I'm a Catholic and a virgin. Where are you going?” Alarm had her now; she half rose.
”I'm taking off,” he said.
”Your car is at your place. I drove you.” The girl struggled up, tousled and confused and half asleep, wandered toward the closet to get her leather jacket. ”I'll drive you back. But you can see why I have to protect my s.n.a.t.c.h. Four pounds of c.o.ke is worth-”
”No f.u.c.king way,” he said. ”You're too stoned to drive ten feet, and you never f.u.c.king let anybody else drive that little roller skate of yours.”
Facing him, she yelled wildly, ”That's because n.o.body else can f.u.c.king drive my car! n.o.body else ever gets it right, no man especially! Driving or anything else! You had your hands down into my-”
And then he was somewhere outside in the darkness, roaming, without his coat, in a strange part of town. n.o.body with him. f.u.c.king alone, he thought, and then he heard Donna hurrying along after him, trying to catch up with him, panting for breath, because she did so much pot and hash these days that her lungs were half silted up with resins. He halted, stood without turning, waiting, feeling really down.
Approaching him, Donna slowed, panted, ”I am dreadfully sorry I've hurt your feelings. By what I said. I was out of it.”
”Yeah,” he said. ”Too ugly!” ”Too ugly!”
”Sometimes when I've worked all day and I'm super super tired, the first hit I take just s.p.a.ces me. You wanna come back? Or what? You wanta go to the drive-in? What about the Southern Comfort? I can't buy it ... they won't sell it to me,” she said, and paused. ”I'm underage, right?”
”Okay,” he said. Together they walked back.
”That sure is good hash, isn't it?” Donna said.
Bob Arctor said, ”It's black sticky hash, which means it's saturated with opium alkaloids. What you're smoking is opium, not hash-do you know that? That's why it costs so much-do you know that?” He heard his voice rise; he stopped walking. ”You aren't doing hash, sweetie. You're doing opium, and that means a lifetime habit at a cost of ... what's 'hash' selling for now a pound? And you'll be smoking and nodding off and nodding off and not being able to get your car in gear and rear-ending trucks and needing it every day before you go to work-”
”I need to now,” Donna said. ”Take a hit before I go to work. And at noon and as soon as I get home. That's why I deal, to buy my hash. Hash is mellow. Hash is where it's at.”
”Opium,” he repeated. ”What's hash hash sell for now?” sell for now?”
”About ten thousand dollars a pound,” Donna said. ”The good kind.”
”Christ! As much as smack.”
”I would never use a needle. I never have and I never will. You last about six months when you start shooting, whatever you shoot. Even tap water. You get a habit-”
”You have have a habit.” a habit.”
Donna said, ”We all do. You take Substance D. So what? What's the difference now? I'm happy; aren't you happy? I get to come home and smoke high-grade hash every night ... it's my trip. Don't try to change me. Don't ever try to change me. Me or my morals. I am what I am. And I get off on hash. It's my life.”
”You ever seen pictures of an old opium smoker? Like in China in the old days? Or a hash smoker in India now, what they look like later on in life?”
Donna said, ”I don't expect to live long. So what? I don't want want to be around long. Do you? Why? What's in this world? And have you ever seen-s.h.i.+t, what about Jerry Fabin; look at someone too far into Substance D. What's there really in this world, Bob? It's a stopping place to the next where they punish us here because we were born evil-” to be around long. Do you? Why? What's in this world? And have you ever seen-s.h.i.+t, what about Jerry Fabin; look at someone too far into Substance D. What's there really in this world, Bob? It's a stopping place to the next where they punish us here because we were born evil-”
”You are are a Catholic.” a Catholic.”
”We're being punished here, so if we can get off on a trip now and then, f.u.c.k it, do do it. The other day I almost cashed in driving my MG to work. I had the eight-track stereo on and I was smoking my hash pipe and I didn't see this old dude in an 'eighty-four Ford Imperator-” it. The other day I almost cashed in driving my MG to work. I had the eight-track stereo on and I was smoking my hash pipe and I didn't see this old dude in an 'eighty-four Ford Imperator-”
”You are dumb,” he said. ”Super dumb.”
”I am, you know, going to die early. Anyhow. Whatever I do. Probably on the freeway. I got hardly any brakes on my MG, you realize that? And I've picked up four speeding tickets this year already. Now I got to go to traffic school. It's a b.u.mmer. For six whole months.”
”So someday,” he said, ”I will all of a sudden never lay eyes on you again. Right? Never again.”
”Because of traffic school? No, after the six months-”
”In the marble orchard,” he explained. ”Wiped out before you're allowed under California law, f.u.c.king G.o.dd.a.m.n California law, to purchase a can of beer or a bottle of booze.”
”Yeah!” Donna exclaimed, alerted. ”The Southern Comfort! Right on! Are we going to do a fifth of Southern Comfort and take in the Ape Ape flicks? Are we? There's still like eight left, including the one-” flicks? Are we? There's still like eight left, including the one-”
”Listen to me,” Bob Arctor said, taking hold of her by the shoulder; she instinctively pulled away.
”No,” she said.
He said, ”You know what they ought to let you do one time? Maybe just one time? Let you go in legally, just once, and buy a can of beer.”
”Why?” she said wonderingly.
”A present to you because you are good,” he said.
”They served me once!” Donna exclaimed in delight. ”At a bar! The c.o.c.ktail waitress-I was dressed up and like with some people-asked me what I wanted and I said, 'I'll have a vodka collins,' and she served me. It was at the La Paz, too, which is a really neat place. Wow, can you believe it? I memorized that, the vodka collins, from an ad. So if I ever got asked at a bar, like that, I'd sound cool. Right?” She suddenly put her arm through his, and hugged him as they walked, something she almost never did. ”It was the most all-time super trip of my life.”
”Then I guess,” he said, ”you have your present. Your one present.”
”I can dig it,” Donna said. ”I can dig it! Of course they told me later-these people I was with-I should have ordered a Mexican drink like a tequila sunrise, because, see, it's a Mexican kind of bar, there with the La Paz Restaurant. Next time I'll know that; I've got that taped in my memory banks, if I go there again. You know what I'm going to do someday, Bob? I'm going to move north to Oregon and live in the snow. I'm going to shovel snow off the front walk every morning. And have a little house and garden with vegetables.”
He said, ”You have to save up for that. Save all your money. It costs.”
Glancing at him, suddenly shy, Donna said, ”He'll get me that. What's-his-name.”
”Who?”
”You know.” Her voice was soft, sharing her secret. Imparting to him because he, Bob Arctor, was her friend and she could trust him. ”Mister Right. I know what he'll be like-he'll drive an Aston-Martin and he'll take me north in it. And that's where the little old-fas.h.i.+oned house will be in the snow, north from here.” After a pause she said, ”Snow is supposed to be nice, isn't it?”
He said, ”Don't you know?”
”I never have been in the snow except once in San Berdoo up in those mountains and then it was half sleet and muddy and I f.u.c.king fell. I don't mean snow like that; I mean real real snow.” snow.”
Bob Arctor, his heart heavy in a certain way, said, ”You feel positive about all this? It'll really happen?”
”It'll happen!” She nodded. ”It's in the cards for me.”
They walked on then, in silence. Back to her place, to get her MG. Donna, wrapped up in her own dreams and plans; and he-he recalled Barris and he recalled Luckman and Hank and the safe apartment, and he recalled Fred.