The Best of Lucius Shepard (92 page)

—I
ain’t never gonna say no, but I’m pretty damn wasted.

—Me,
too. I don’t really need to or nothing. I just want to see what it’s
like...when I’m like this, y’know. Okay?

We
fucked like space babies in no gravity, coming together at goofy angles,
forgetting for long moments what we were doing, our minds scatting on some
loopy riff, reawakened by the touch of lips, a breast, something that got us
all juicy and eager for a time, speeding it up and lapsing again into slow
motion, into stillness. It took Leeli damn near an hour to come and once she
started it took her almost the same to stop. She curled up into me after like a
dazed, sleek bug that had eaten too much of a leaf and said, Sweet Jesus. That
was amazing! I was too gassed to respond. If we’d been a pair of spiders, she
could have gnawed off my legs and laid eggs in my belly and I wouldn’t have
argued the matter.

Leeli
had some trouble sleeping due to the itching that goes with the Dilaudid
wearing off, but finally her breathing grew even and deep. I did a few more
hits, pulled on my pants and went onto the porch. A wind had sprung up, driving
away the skeeters and quieting the frogs. Clouds edged with milky light were
racing the moon, parting around it, and the grasses gave forth with an
approving chorus, like the sound Leeli made when the Dilaudid rushed upon her,
only louder by a million throats, seeming to appreciate the architecture of
dust and reflected fire in the sky, the hosanna clouds, the lacquered
moon-colored water, the grasses tipped in silver, the black cut-outs of the
palm islands like left-over pieces of Africa. I had that feeling of small
nobility and pure solitude the world wants you to feel when it reveals this
side of itself, so you’ll believe nature was this awesome beautiful peaceful
rock concert deal before man come along and doggy-fucked it full of disease,
and not the bloody, biting, eat-your-meat-while-it’s-alive horror show it truly
is. That night I was okay about feeling this way and I walked along the shore,
sucking in the odors of fish and frogs and the millions of unrecorded deaths
that had accompanied the Hojo manager’s as if they were the latest Paris
perfumes.

I
thought I was out there on my lonesome, just me and a scrap of wilderness and
Dilaudid, but when I climbed a hummock to avoid wading through the marsh, I
spied Ava, Carl, and Squire standing at the tip of a grassy point about sixty
feet farther along. Ava was gesturing at the sky like she was naming stars or
teaching about the weather or something. Squire and Carl, whose jaw was
bandaged, were gazing upward. I was too fogged to jam their nature walk in with
all the other nothing junk I knew concerning them and make any sense of it, but
when they strolled off still farther from the lodge, I realized this was my opportunity
to take a peek at Ava’s personals and maybe scoop up some cash. I hustled back
as fast I could, which was not real fast, and located the room where she was
bunking. Her tote bag was stuffed under a pillow. I found no money, but among
the keys and Kleenex and cosmetics and all was a badge holder holding a photo
ID. Official evidence that Ava was affiliated with the FBI. A fake, I thought,
but then remembered where I’d met up with her and wasn’t so sure. At the bottom
of the bag was a leatherette photo album. The first picture was an overexposed
black and white shot of Ava and Carl leaning against a vintage Chevy Impala.
The ‘sixty-two convertible. She appeared to be around seventeen, eighteen, and
wore white socks and buckle shoes and a print dress with a belling skirt that
covered her legs to the mid-calves. Carl had on jeans and a sport shirt with
its tail hanging out. He looked no younger than he did now. Another guy sat
behind the wheel of the Impala. His face was a blur of sunlight, but going by his
round head, I guessed this to be Squire. Both Ava and Carl were grinning and
pointing at a shield-shaped sign on the shoulder of the road. The sign was also
blurred, but readable: State Road 44.

Several
of the remaining pictures were shots of Carl, some of Ava and Carl. A few
recent ones showed them with Squire. None of these said much to me, not like
the first. Seeing that Ava had aged, though not so much as she should have, and
Carl hadn’t aged a day, this gave rise to
Star Trek
movies in my head.
Space aliens, UFOs, abductions, secret government projects, intelligent robots,
all kinds of happy horse-shit. A couple of times I thought I’d figured out who
they must be, but if they were aliens or whatever on the run from the
government, what the hell were they doing on government property? If they were
working with the government, why were they hanging out with the likes of Leeli
and me? And what was that house doing in the dunes near the Cape? A trap for
lowlifes such as myself, I decided. That was it. Damn straight. Alien creatures
from beyond the stars were studying the pork rind set. Government super-clones
were learning how to mimic the scum of the earth so they would be in place to
assassinate the redneck Jesus, who’d be coming to a womb in Kissimmee any day
now. Or could be robot killers who did the evil bidding of the Bush
administration were given vacations during which they hung out with real folks
and fucked them up every whichaway. Or Squire and Carl were aliens who’d
suffered brain damage in the Roswell crash and Ava was their rehab nurse,
training them in the ways of society, and their vibrations were keeping her
young. I got somewhat insane behind all this, creating tabloid headlines,
picturing me and Leeli on the talk shows, discussing her alien lesbian lover
with Jerry and Jay and David and the rest, going out to Hollywood to attend the
premiere of the movie about our life story. Gradually I calmed down. There was
bound to be a logical explanation for the photo and Carl’s recuperative powers and
everything else. I told myself I’d get to the bottom of it eventually.

*
* * *

I woke the following morning
with a pistol barrel poking my nose and Rickey’s hand on my throat and his
burnt-out eyes giving me a close-up of the dark sour-smelling rathole they
opened into. It was like the little room he lived in was inside him, too.
Straggles of hair curtained off his face, but did nothing to filter his rotten
breath.

—Motherfucker,
you stole my dope! he said.

Leeli
gave a squeak and rolled off the bed, covering herself with the sheet.

—Where
the fuck is it? Rickey asked.

—I
took four goddamn tabs! I said. You want ‘em back, you gonna have to scrape out
my nose!

—Don’t
think I won’t! He screwed the barrel down hard against my cheek. I’m missing a
bottle.

—He
didn’t take nothing! Leeli said. I promise!

—You
check around by your chair? I asked. Jesus, you could hide a Volkswagen under
all the crap you got on your floor.

His
face lost some intensity.

—I
guess you were so clearheaded last night, you couldn’t have set it down
somewheres and forgot, I said. You would know if you give it a kick accidental
when you got up to piss or something.

Thought
confused his expression. He backed away from the bed, the pistol angled toward
the side.

—Jesus
Christ! I sat up and swung my legs onto the floor. Fuck you so crazy about,
anyway? You said you had a good goddamn supply.

—It’s
gotta last the weekend, he said sullenly.

—You
run out, I know you’ll get you some more. I pulled on my undershorts. What’s
wrong with you, man? Busting in here like that. I ever cheat you before? I ever
treat you anything but righteous?

Rickey
puzzled over that. The words came slow from his mouth, like slobber off a
bull’s lip. I can’t recall.

—Well,
you’d remember if I did, wouldn’t you?

—I
s’pose so. Yeah. He lowered the pistol and let out a soggy, rueful snort of
laughter. Fuck, man. Y’know, I...just people been fucking me around a lot
lately.

—If
you can’t find it, don’t come back in here busting on me about it. You know you
gonna find it sooner or later in that mess. Someday you run out, you gonna be
stumbling around and it’ll turn up under your big toe. Be like finding a
diamond in a cornfield.

This
fairly brightened Rickey—he nodded energetically, seeing a vision of that
glorious day. I noticed Leeli cowering in the corner, looking extra fine with
her breasts gathered above her arm and her ass sticking out from the sheet.

—Hey,
Leeli. Get your tail over here, I said. This here’s my ol’ pal Rickey.

I
tried to move Rickey on out of there before he could get paranoid again, but
his eyes were leaving tracks all over Leeli, even after she covered everything
up, and he kept hanging around. He began asking why we needed to hide and such.
I told him some lies and when that didn’t stop his questions, I said I wanted
to borrow his car so we could buy food and stuff. The best way to derail
Rickey’s suspicions always was to beg a favor. If he could deny you something,
he’d start feeling masterful and forget whatever was bothering him. I argued
and pleaded, but he was resolute. Nobody drives my car but me, he said. Like
everyone in the world was dying to park their behinds in his funky-smelling
shitbox so they could race off to Monaco and display this automotive jewel
before graceful society. It ended with Rickey agreeing to bring us food himself
and stalking off to search for his missing Dilaudid with head held high.

—That
was sly, way you managed that, Leeli said, giving me a smooch. You’re pretty
smart for white trash.

—Guess
what that makes me in the real world, I said.

*
* * *

Rain and guns. I think it
must’ve been raining when the first gun was drawn hot from its tempering fire,
because when it comes rain, I get a itch to handle a gun if I’ve got one. Which
is a roundabout way of saying it rained and Rickey went for food, Leeli
hunkered beside me on the bed fixing her nails, while I sat turning Ava’s Colt
in my hands, picking at the plaque on the grip, rubbing a little raised, rough
patch alongside the chamber, thinking gun thoughts, testing its heft and
balance, knowing that if I was really pretty smart I would walk down to the
water’s edge and toss it on in. Having a gun was not in my best interests.
Without one, if I was at a beach party, let’s say, and some worthless drunken
individual tipped over my beer and said diddley dog about it, the worst could
happen was busted knuckles and a hospital trip—but I had a gun, God knows, that
beer might seem like the very selfsame beer for which the Founding Fathers
sacrificed their lives, and I’d be called upon to uphold its sacred honor.

It
was an uncommon hard and lasting rain. A drizzle started about ten o’clock and
five minutes later it was like a billion hailstones were bouncing off the roof,
filling the house with a roar. A weird slivery darkness ensued. The cloud
bellies passing over us were black as Satan’s boot soles and the wind flattened
the marsh grasses with a constant rush. The rain slacked off many times during
the day, a couple of times it stopped altogether and the land yielded up a
sodden, animal smell; but it kept returning in strength. Rickey drove off to
buy food. Carl and Squire sat on the porch playing a hand-held game of some
kind. Leeli got a little closer to her new best friend, Mr. Dilaudid, and fell
asleep. I wedged the Colt in my waist and paid a visit to Ava.

Her
door was open a foot and I stuck my head in without knocking. She was standing
at the window, stark naked, arms folded beneath her breasts and hair loose
about her shoulders, gazing out at the rain. She must have felt me there,
because she turned her head and delivered me a flat, unsurprised stare. What do
you want? she asked.

—A
few words would be good.

—I
guess it’s inevitable.

—I’ll
wait out here while you throw something on.

—No
need. We’re like family now.

Ava
went back to watching the weather and I let my eyes out for a run. Though her
face was hagging out, her body belonged to a woman in her prime. She wanted to
give me a show, it didn’t bother me none. The door proved to be stuck open. I
eased in and perched on a straight chair set next to a dresser with its drawers
stove-in. Her room was shabbier than ours. Rat turds speckled the boards along
the molding and spiderwebs spanned the corners. The bed was so swaybacked, some
of the springs were flush to the floor.

—I
sneaked a look at your photograph album last night, I said.