House of Smoke (25 page)

“When will the actual ceremony take place?” Dorothy asks solicitously of Tiny, as if they were two nice society ladies discussing the latest fashions.

“Shit, man, I don’t know. Some time between now and midnight,” the big woman sighs. “Before this crowd of crazies gets so stoned and drunk out of their stupid minds they forget what they came for in the first place.” She burps modestly, wiping her mouth on the bottom of her shirt. “But seriously, Mrs. S.: by sunset. That’s when I told the preacher. ’Cause he’s got a night gig starting around nine, DJing at some music bar down on lower State. I think it would be pretty to have the wedding when it’s sunset, don’t you?” she asks delicately.

“Very pretty,” Dorothy agrees.

The party is roaring like a wildfire. Everyone has a drink in their hands (some of them sporting multiple bottles or cups), and there’s beaucoup grass being passed around as well.

Dorothy moves through the throng, saying hello to everyone as polite and proper as can be. She is greeted in kind. Everyone here seems to know her, and they all profess to love her. It’s true she’s paying for this party, but that’s not the reason, Laura realizes. It’s because she treats them as individual people, not as some abstract grouping in a sociology textbook.

“Want a hit?” A man holds a joint out to Laura, who finds herself momentarily separated from Dorothy.

“No, thanks,” she answers.

“It’s righteous shit,” he tells her, grinning like a madman.

“I’m not smoking right now. Thanks anyway.”

He drifts away, blending into the crowd.

A haze of weed hovers at head level, a thick sweet cloud blanketing the entire area. It’s good dope, she can tell from the smell wafting off his joint. Marijuana she knows about. The primo stuff is going for four hundred dollars an ounce these days on the street, there must be a pound of it circulating here. Where do they get the money for it? Is it from petty thievery and cheap prostitution? She’s seen people with shopping carts loaded up with bottles and cans, pushing them along the sidewalk. How many bottles and cans would you have to redeem to buy an ounce of grass?

“Miss?”

A woman has sidled up to her. A girl, really, not yet out of her teens. “Spare some change?” she asks aggressively.

Laura is taken by surprise. Here?

“Sure.” What else can she answer?

She always carries spare change with her, for just such purposes. She reaches into her purse, pulls out a handful of coins, and drops them in the girl’s hand, carefully avoiding any actual physical contact.

“Thanks.”

She spots Dorothy in the center of a throng and quickly catches up to her.

“I was panhandled,” she whispers incredulously into Dorothy’s ear

“What do you expect?” Dorothy, amused, asks Laura. “These people are always on the hustle, they have to be.”

Dorothy moves from group to group, comfortably chatting with each in turn. Laura stays tight by her side. Her initial fear of the unknown has left her—but still, all of this, this lifestyle and these people with whom she is completely unfamiliar, makes her uncomfortable.

A makeshift band starts playing old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll. The instrumentation is two ancient guitars that look like they belong in the Smithsonian, a snare drum with a puncture hole in the skin covered over with duct tape, and a bunch of kitchen-sink rhythm instruments—washboard, spoons, a steel-band-like apparatus made up of discarded pots and pans. Somebody managed to score a generator, so they’ve hooked themselves up electronically, and they play at an ear-splitting level. The lead singer, a man Laura has often seen on the streets downtown, a menacing figure who struts around leading his pet brindle pit bull on a leather chain, aggressively hitting on people for money and yelling curses at them when they pass him by, begins belting out an old Creedence Clearwater song at the top of his lungs, his booze-wasted voice completely off-key, improvising lyrics as he goes. What they lack in talent they make up for with energy and zeal.

Everyone jumps up and starts dancing, bopping around like crazy, arms and legs splayed wide, like a modern-day Brueghel painting on acid.

Tiny is in the eye of the storm, a wild woman, dancing simultaneously with three men who bump and grind against her.

“Hey, Mrs. Sparks, come on, join us!” she calls to Dorothy.

Dorothy turns to Laura. “Hold this.” She hands Laura her wineglass.

“You’re not going to dance with them?” Laura asks in disbelief.

“I’m here to have fun!”

She pushes her way into the center next to Tiny, starts shimmying like crazy. She’s good. Laura watches, envious of her grandmother’s easy comfort with all of this. She moves to the side, trying to fade into the scenery.

“Hey, come on, you’ve got to dance!”

A man grabs her by the hand, pulls her into the vortex.

“No, I don’t, thank you, I don’t …” she stammers, feeling herself dragged along, the wineglass slipping from her hand and shattering on a piece of rock, trying to dig in her heels but unable to, pulled into the center of action near Tiny and Dorothy, the man holding her now in a tight embrace, dancing a wild self-invented jitterbug, slamming his body against hers, then apart, together again, his breath against her face rank and sour, his body odor overpowering, holding her tight, forcing her legs to move in rhythm with his own, one thigh wedged tight between her two, firmly against her vagina. She can feel his erection against her leg, dry-humping her. He’s going to ejaculate, she thinks, petrified at the thought, it’ll seep through his pants and onto her dress.

“Having fun?” Dorothy calls out gaily.

Laura’s eyes roll like a lassoed mustang’s. Can’t Dorothy see what this man is doing to her?

She gives Dorothy a sickly nod, summoning enough strength to push the man away from her a little, still dancing with him but at least their bodies aren’t touching now, his cock isn’t jammed up against her, if she closes her eyes she can almost pretend she’s at a fraternity party back in college with a bunch of drunken boys who had the same hungry desires as this man. The man is young, about her age, he could have been at one of those parties.

In another lifetime.

At least he hasn’t thrown up all over her, like some of them did.

The party finds its own momentum, and cruises. Dorothy and Laura find a comfortable place in the shade to sit. It
is
kind of fun, Laura thinks, if you can watch it from a safe distance. The people are enjoying themselves, she has to admit that. More than she does at the parties she goes to with her friends.

“I’m thirsty,” Dorothy announces. “Are you?”

“Maybe they have some soda. Do you want a soda if I can find one?”

“I’d rather have a beer. I’ll come with you.”

As they walk towards the kegs they pass a group of Latino-looking men sitting off from the rest of the crowd by themselves, passing around a bottle of cheap wine and smoking cigarettes.

One of the men rises to his feet: the man who had accosted Frank Bascomb in his jail cell the night before Frank died. Some of the men with him were also in the cell that night.

“Hello, Mrs. Sparks,” the man says in his accented voice, bowing slightly.

“Hello,” Dorothy answers pleasantly, giving the man the kind of blank-but-warm professional smile that politicians dispense five hundred times a day when encountering someone they don’t know from Adam but who thinks they do.

“Nice party here,” the man observes.

“Yes, it is.”

“You paid for it?”

“I made a contribution.”

“Well, God bless you for that,” the man tells her. He glances at Laura, who looks at him devoid of recognition, since she’s never seen any of them before.

“Thank you,” Dorothy says.

“Who are they?” Laura asks as she and Dorothy move away, out of hearing.

Dorothy shrugs. “Some more street people, I guess. I know many of the people here, but I can’t be expected to know everyone.”

They stand at the keg. One of the men who had been dancing with Tiny draws them two plastic cups. It’s mostly foam by now.

“Luther, this is my granddaughter, Laura. Laura, this is Luther, Tiny’s future husband.”

Luther is a trim man, smaller than his future wife. In comparison with most of the others here, he’s clean and neat. He’s recently had a haircut, a shave, and a shower.

They shake hands. Luther’s grip is firm.

They’re not all the same, Laura thinks, silently chastising herself for being such a judgmental prude. She can learn things from her grandmother, if she’ll allow herself to.

“This old lady is a hell of a good woman,” Luther tells Laura. “A fine woman. A real fine human being.”

“Oh, stop that,” Dorothy protests, smiling broadly.

“Yes, I know,” Laura answers Luther.

“A damn fine woman. All this today is on account of her.”

“I said
stop
,” Dorothy tells him. “It’s your wedding day. Anyone would do what I did, it’s no big deal.”

“Nobody except you would do a thing like this for us,” Luther insists. “You’re a special person, and we all know it.”

“You’re embarrassing me, Luther, so no more of this talk.”

“Wanted you to know how I feel.”

“Well, that’s fine. I’ll see you later, at the ceremony.”

She and Laura walk away.

“A damn fine woman,” Luther calls after her.

The day slides by. The sun starts to drop.

Everyone is pretty drunk by now. The band has stopped playing, but a few women still dance to the music inside their heads. Laura watches, feeling like an anthropologist observing a primitive, less-advanced culture. The women, especially, are incomprehensible to her. Some wear nipple rings, she can see them, most of these women don’t wear bras and their tits bounce in and out of their shirts. Some, she knows, even have their
vagina
folds pierced!

“I think it’s about time for a wedding,” Dorothy comments as a man, not someone homeless, a regular person, approaches them. “There’s Wally Jackson. He’s performing the service. Hello, Wally!” she sings out.

“Hello, Mrs. Sparks. Hi, Laura. I didn’t know you frequented functions such as these.” He squats next to them, a garment bag draped over his arm.

“I’m keeping my grandmother company.”

“Stick with her, kid,” Wally winks. “She’ll teach you a thing or three. You been listening to my show lately? KYTT, Saturday mornings at nine.”

“I’m not usually up Saturday mornings at nine,” Laura tells him.

“It’s a struggle for me, too,” he admits.

Wally’s the best-known radio jock in Santa Barbara. His signature show,
The Rock ’n’ Roll Classic Review
, has been a local fixture for years. He stands up. “Time to put on my preacher face.”

“I didn’t know you were a minister,” Laura says. “What church?”

“Universal Life, honey,” he winks. “Ordained me mail-order, twenty-five years ago. Sent in the form and a check for thirty dollars. Best thirty dollars I ever spent—kept me out of Vietnam.”

He drifts off.

Dorothy points excitedly towards Cabrillo Blvd., where a Channel 3 truck has pulled up. “The television people are here, right on schedule like they promised.”

A woman newscaster and her crew get out and begin setting up.

“Is
The Grapevine
going to have an article?” Dorothy asks Laura.

Laura nods. “I’m writing it myself.” She reaches into her purse, takes out a miniature Olympus. “I’m even going to take pictures.”

Wally Jackson, now flamboyantly attired in a full-length rainbow-hued robe, topped by a clergyman’s traditional vestment-shawl over his shoulders, has set up on a small grassy knoll at the edge of the clearing. There’s a clear view to the beach across the street, facing west towards the sunset.

“I love weddings,” Dorothy says, as she and Laura walk towards the ceremonial area with everyone else. “There’s one in particular I’m looking forward to before I die,” she adds with a gleam in her eye.

Marriage is not on Laura’s agenda, especially after recent events. She bites her tongue so as not to say something she’ll regret.

Everyone forms a rough semicircle around Wally.

“Here she comes!” a child calls out.

People turn to look. Tiny comes marching across the field, head held high, the full late-afternoon sun shining on her face like a beacon. She’s wearing a wedding dress, a real one, all white satin and lace. Pastel-colored ribbons and pink baby roses have been woven into her hair. Her large bare feet have been washed clean, and her fingernails have been polished.

“She’s beautiful!” Dorothy pronounces in a whisper that seems to express satisfaction and justification.

“Yes, she’s beautiful,” Laura echoes, astonished at Tiny’s transformation.

Luther is wearing squeaky-clean clothes, a mismatched ensemble from the Salvation Army Thrift Store. He takes his place in front of Wally, next to Tiny.

They clasp hands, holding on tightly, as if to ground each other to this spot.

The assemblage is completely still. A spell is in the air; what’s happening here, right now, is so different from everything that takes place in their lives that it seems almost dreamlike, suspended in time.

The Reverend Wally Jackson of the Universal Life Church makes note of this special moment.

“If there’s anyone who doesn’t believe that love can change the world, they should be here today, in this spot, with us,” he notes. “Because every one of us, right now, is in personal change, and it’s deep. Real deep.”

Laura flashes on what he’s saying. It penetrates right to her core—why Dorothy makes her pilgrimages to places like this, to be with people who are so different from her. This is a righteous learning experience, one she hopes will stick.

“Dearly beloved … we are gathered here today …” Wally begins.

The television camera is poised, focusing on them, on all of those assembled here, to record this wonderful moment for posterity. And as the video camera begins to roll, the men who were in the jail cell with Frank Bascomb turn their backs so they’re not spotted by the lens; unnoticed, they casually drift away, crossing the busy street against the traffic and disappearing from sight.