Ceremony of Flies (3 page)

I drop down on the floorboard and hold my breath. Panic, like a wave in the ocean, rises up and grabs me, pulling me with it. I hold my breath to keep from drowning in it. The footsteps tap, tap, slow and determined, come my way. The wave of panic crests.

Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen.

I exhale a little and a little more, not making a sound. The footsteps stop right by me. I’m afraid to look up, but I can feel eyes on me. I can feel the shadow of somebody standing over me.

“That’s my good shirt,” a familiar voice says.

My head turns up almost like gravity is pulling it. The guy from the bar is standing with his hand on the car. Not smiling exactly, but almost.

“Yeah, mind if I borrow it?”

“Looks like you’re in a fix.”

“You think?”

Is this fucking guy for real?

“Gimme that dress right there. The one you took off.” He holds out his hand.

I grab it and toss it to him and without hesitating, like he planned it out ahead of time, he stuffs it in a drainage pipe. “Climb on up front.”

“You’re not going to call the cops?” I ask as I scramble over the seat and climb down on the floor.

He didn’t even stop to think about his answer. “I gotta be in L.A. by morning. I can’t see that me calling the cops is going to be good for anybody, what with me being a witness and all.” He opened the back door of his car and a look of annoyance flickers over his face.

“Sorry about the mess. I was in a rush.”

He packs all his stuff neatly back in the suitcase. He holds the picture of the old lady for a second before he closes the suitcase and puts it on top. He ties it with the gross old rope.

“Go ahead and get up off the floor.”

He could move a little faster.

“You got money?” he asks as he slides into the driver’s seat. He’s moving real slow like he’s going out to cruise by the Sonic on a Saturday night.

So that’s why he’s helping me. It had to be something like that. I guess robbery is better than the rape-and-mutilation alternative.

“Yeah, I’ve got some.” I don’t get up. It feels safer down here. And it’s remarkably roomy. Classic cars have that going for them. I think he’s going to ask how much, but he doesn’t. I don’t have enough to get too excited about. Maybe fifteen dollars in tips stashed in the pouch tied around my waist and the credit card I nicked from the Midwestern prick’s wife when I dumped the drink on his head. That should be good for a few thousand or so. They’re on vacation, after all.

“Hey, Kitty, you ought to get up from there,” he says again. “If you act like you done something wrong, people are going to think you did.” He puts the key in the ignition. A little gold figure with a bald head and folded arms dangles from his keychain.

I hope that charm has some luck in it.

He’s right though. If I’m hiding and looking scared and somebody sees me, they’re going to know something’s up. I climb up on the seat.

The car rumbles to life and as he’s pulling out and rolling the car toward the exit, he reaches over in front of me and opens the glove box.

Whoa, that is not a glove. A blue-black weapon of deadly destruction lies casually in the glove box like it was posing as a checkbook or an old forgotten burrito. Right on top of it sits several magazines. He reaches past the gun and grabs a pair of mirrored sunglasses. He gives them to me.

Not really my style, but I put them on. I pull down the visor and smile at myself as he pays for parking and we roll out into the sunshine as bright as a spotlight pointed right on me.

The Joshua Tree

Yucca Brevifolia
is a treelike succulent native to southwestern North America. It is found primarily in the Mojave Desert.

The name Joshua Tree was given to it by a group of Mormon settlers who crossed the Mojave in the mid-nineteenth century. The plant’s unusual shape reminded them of the biblical figure Joshua raising his hands in prayer.

Good morning sister Mary

Good morning brother John

Well I wanna stop and talk with you

Wanna tell you how I come along

I know you’ve heard about Joshua

He was the son of Nun

He never stopped his work until

Until the work was done

God knows that Joshua fought the battle of Jericho

Jericho

Jericho

Joshua fought the battle of Jericho

And the walls come tumbling down

3

The desert spreads like a moonscape, unbroken in its desolate sameness all the way out to the curve of the earth. Joshua trees wave their twisted arms at the sky, like hopeless beggars grasping at the coattails of rich bastards. We fly down the freeway, riding a tiny string of civilization stretched like a high wire across overwhelming wildness.

I do not have a plan.

I did have a plan. I had the casino job by day, so I could audition at night. I had it all planned out perfect. I would work as a singer, use a fake name. It wasn’t like the cops were going to look for me in Vegas for something that happened in New York. I wasn’t even the main suspect. They just thought I was going to help them find Joey. Like that would ever happen. Joey and me are, were, too tight for that. Like it would even matter if they found him now. It was better to get out of town anyway. Vegas was great. My plan was great, although I should have landed a gig as many times as I tried out, but it’s shot to shit, obviously. Now I’ve got nothing.

Damn.

I rub my sweaty palms on the legs of the too-big jeans. A billboard flashes past.

A
CCIDENT?
I
NJURY?
L
EGAL
T
ROUBLE?

I probably should call. Might as well.

Fuck!

I’m going to miss that audition this weekend. I’m way worse off that when I left New York. I’m so fucked. Where do I go from here?

“You sure nobody’s following us?” I look over at Rex and ask again. That’s his name. Yeah right, like his mother would name him that. It’s been more than an hour since the last time I asked.

He looks in the rearview mirror, then leans over to check the side mirror. “Not that I can see.”

I check behind us just to make sure. It looks clear, though there are a couple of cars that could be undercover cops. I don’t really think they are. It feels like we got away. Like we time-traveled out of Vegas and slipped through the net. That’s not the kind of luck I’ve been having lately. It doesn’t feel like a sure thing.

“Doesn’t that seem strange? Getting away so easy?”

“Ole Linda and me will get you where you’re going. Don’t you worry about that.” He pats the dashboard like the car is a dog. “It’s a sign.” Rex looks over at me and grins. He’s got some white damned teeth. “The Lord knows what you done was an accident and wants to give you a second chance.” He sticks his hand in the pocket of his jacket. He leaves it there for a while moving his fingers around inside like he’s playing with himself but I can’t tell for sure.

“I think I should go to Mexico.” Once I say it out loud, it makes a lot of sense. That’s what people do, right? The guy in the
Shawshank Redemption
, Al Capone, Thelma and Louise. Once you stab a guy, Mexico’s a place you ought to go. There’s no going back after you do something like that.

“You speak Spanish?”

I shake my head. “I can learn.”

“You know what
linda
means in Spanish?”

“It means
beautiful
. Everyone knows that.”

He looks over with a weird expression on his face like he’s disappointed that I knew, then turns back to look at the road.

“She is, you know. The ’71 Pontiac GTO is the most
linda carro
ever made.”

“Uh huh,” I say.

He pats the dashboard again. “I’m taking real good care of you, Linda. Don’t you worry. Nobody’s ever going to take better care of you than me.”

Whatever.

It’s a car.

I seriously doubt
car-o
is Spanish for car, genius.

We fly along the freeway. All the emptiness zooms past in a blur as I imagine the hacienda I’ll live in when I get to Mexico. I’m going to turn things around when I get there. Life will be good. I will be good. Yeah, like that’s going to happen. The only thing being good ever gets you is screwed.

We come around some slight little curve in the otherwise straight road and a field of giant whirligigs appears like they were conjured by magic. They whip around and around. Miles and miles of them like giant whirling bugs trying to fly away.

“That is one
linda vista
,” Rex says.

It
is
beautiful, the white blades beating against the endless blue sky. The sun’s shining down and my hair is blowing out behind me. We’re running and nobody’s following us and it feels more free than free because I’ve got something concrete to compare it to. A vibration trembles in my heart, a concussion like wings beating inside me.

Rex’s mouth hangs open a little like he’s awed by the sight. Maybe we should hook up, I think. Maybe it’d be nice to travel with someone for a change. Someone to watch my back. Maybe he’d like it in Mexico.

He steers the car with one finger on the wheel and makes it glide over to the right lane.

B
ARSTOW
,
the sign flashes by.

He slows down to exit.

A hard fist of fear takes the place of the little wings in my heart. “What are you doing?”

“This is the halfway mark, Kitty. Gotta fuel up.”

“I can’t go to a city!” My heart is slamming in my chest and I’m thinking about the mechanics of jumping out of the car.

“Don’t worry none. Barstow’s just barely a town. No time at all, you’ll be on your way.”

I take a deep breath. He’s right. If they didn’t follow me out of Vegas, they aren’t going to be looking for me here. Nobody’s looking for me. I might even be invisible, a nobody, just as I’ve always feared. My heartbeat slows to its normal pace.

Rex and me and Linda roll down the ramp into Barstow. He drives past the roadside McDonald’s and Wendy’s and into Barstow proper. The lawns are brown and crispy. The houses all seem to be the same exact shade of beige whether they’re made of brick or stucco or wood. This does not look like a place where much happens. The word
sleepy
comes to mind.

“Can’t you get gas back there by the highway?”

“Hey, Kitty, not to be rude or anything, but I think it’s time we go our separate ways.”

He turns into the parking lot of a shabby old shack with a sagging roof and a gas pump out front.

C
ROSSROADS
B
AR AND
G
RILL.

“Like I said, I gotta be in L.A. by morning and that probably isn’t the best place for you, what with what happened and all.”

He pulls the car up next to the gas pump and turns off the engine. I swear I can hear the
whoosh whoosh
of the whirligigs slicing through the air.

Of course. I should have known. He’s probably a fag anyway or riddled with sexually transmitted diseases.

I get out of the car. Sharp pieces of gravel bite into the bottoms of my feet. I don’t react to the pain. I’m not going to let him see my pain.

“Don’t call me Kitty,” I say. A tear trickles down my cheek. It’s from the pain of the stones biting into my feet. That doesn’t count as crying. “What the fuck. My name is Emily. Em-uh-lee, got it?”

Over by the door to the Crossroads Bar and Grill, there’s a little light-skinned black kid with a big nest of hair that looks as dusty as Barstow. He’s maybe five or six and he’s hanging on to the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen. It may be the ugliest
creature
I’ve ever seen. Except for a giant banana slug, that’s uglier. But it’s definitely the ugliest mammal.

“I didn’t mean nothing by it, Emily.”

Rex says my name all smooth like that’s going to make me like him again, then he winks.

Give me a fucking break.

“Like I was saying, L.A. may not be the place you want to go. You just stay out of the way down in Mexico and soon enough they’ll forget all about it.”

The boy and the dog look forlorn like they’re the last two souls on earth. They’re watching me. The kid sticks his tongue out. A fly buzzes around the cave of his mouth. I want more than anything to throw a rock at them.