When Miss Ross and Miss Ross arrive in San Francisco they move into a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts. After a few months, one of them drives the Packard north, through Oregon and Washington, to the border. Waved past customs, she drives to Vancouver and buys a house in a venerable suburb. Because she has a suitcase stuffed with $100 bills, she's able to pay cash on the barrelhead, stash the rest in the Bank of Vancouver.
She's thought to be a good neighbor, easy with a smile and a good word. She buys cookies when the Girl Scouts come to the door, and has a subscription to the local paper, tips the boy generously at Christmas. Miss Ross can be seen on her screened-in porch reading a magazine, a Motorola at her side, a beautiful music station tuned. On Valentine's Day she indulges in a small box of chocolate-coated cherries. She has a gentleman caller, Ernesto del Goya au Boya, he of royal Spanish blood. Or so he claims. Regardless, he's rolling in moolah, so who's to contest his tale?
Back in Trottsville, Beeks decomposes in what amounts to his grave. In good weather, a gardener mows the lawn, trims the hedges, and come autumn, rakes and burns the leaves. The mausoleum of Beeks is well-maintained.
Just before he died, just before his heart burst, Beeks stopped screaming in that black pit when he realized that this wouldn't be happening if he'd just let Miss Ross shoot him. Then he busted out laughing, howling so hysterically, that his ticker blew.
No one is seen coming and going to the pale-yellow ranch house except, rarely, a man in a suit and tie, a fedora atop his blond head. If he's spoken to, he replies in a voice that's calm yet authoritative. He makes no waves; neighbors would be hard-pressed to tell you his name.
I’m in hot water with Bonnie Fairchild. Yes, she'd knows about Yoko.
"She's just the maid! A live-in maid!"
"Who’s paying for her? Or this house? Or your new car? A Thunderbird! You never go to work! You never told me what you actually do. What do you do!"
"I'm in finance. And, as long as we're holding an inquisition, how old are you?"
"What the hell does that have to do with anything!" She leaps at me, fingernails about to claw my face. I brush her aside, she lands in the easy chair, does a slow burn. "I'm 22, if you need to know!"
"22? Or 122?"
"What! Are you out of your ever-lovin' gourd! Why I oughta..."
She's on her feet again, a furious tigress, kicking, snarling and spitting. I grab her wrists, good and tight. Then I flip her around, bend her over and wallop her behind enough times to stifle her rage. She goes limp, arms hanging. I carry her upstairs, across the threshold of my bedroom, a veritable newlywed couple, toss her on the bed. She bounces, once, has lost all fight. I rip open her dress, strip her bare, slap her face, twice, backhand then palm. She smiles a distant smile while her head lolls like an imbecile's. She gurgles like a baby with a belly full of mama's milk, warm and sweet mama's milk, the warmest and the sweetest in the entire history of the world. Good girl. Hold that pose.
I kick off my loafers, hang my shirt and pants, neatly, on the back of a chair. Boxers drop to the floor.
After we've done our business, she rasps, "Th-thank you, oh.... thank you... I'm not 22. Or 122. I'm 522... The curse has been... lifted... Thank yourrrchxserrr..."
Her skin wrinkles and shrivels, her hair goes from youthful, sleek, to iron gray to bone white, and falls out in fetid clumps. Her lovely eyes desiccate, shrink to dried peas, rattle in her skull.
She collapses to a pile of dust. There's a stench of burning sulphur.
I jump out of bed, screaming like a banshee.
"Miss-tuh Jim! Miss-tuh Jim!" Yoko's shouting, running up the stairs, into the room.
"Get out! Get out! Get out!"
"Ah so! Yes, Miss-tuh Jim! So solly!" She scoots back downstairs to the kitchen.
I throw open the windows, let in clean autumn air, take each corner of the sheet and tie them together, containing the putrid remains. I put on my bathrobe and race down the stairs and out the kitchen door, holding the foul bundle at arm's-length and drop it in the burn barrel. Back inside, I grab a tin of lighter fluid and a box of wooden matches and do what needs to be done. Orange flames shoot up to a clear blue sky.
Orange and blue. Something clicks. Those are my high school colors! Orange and blue! A clue? Or just a scrap of useless information? Or a glimpse of returning memory? Did I need this shock to knock me to my senses?
Back inside, I shower in scalding torrents, scrubbing with a bar of Dial, until I feel the filth cleansed. I dress, a fresh pair of charcoal gray slacks, a dress shirt, a blazer, but no tie. I hop in my Bird and fire the ignition.
Yoko races out. "Where you go, Miss-tuh Jim!"
"I... I dunno..."
"Me come along! We go to mountain! Make the bang-bang!"
"No! No! Just go inside, damn you! Why don't you chop some vegetables or something! Just leave me alone, damn you!"
Screeching out the driveway, down the road, I bolt to the highway. "Man, oh man, oh Manischewitz! What the hell happened back there!" My hands are shaking and my knuckles are white as I grip the Bird's wheel. I look at the speedometer. I'm doing over a 100, but it feels like 20. I slow way down, don’t want to attract attention, especially that of a cop. I don't have a driver license, just a Diner's Club card, for crying out loud! A traffic cop would toss me in the hoosegow, toot sweet.
I glance in the rearview mirror. My God! My eyes are the eyes of a lunatic.
At Wolverton Mountain, I park the car, hop out. toss my jacket onto the seat, and sprint to the top of the mountain, then back down. I vomit in some bushes, and sprint again, up and down that ghastly mountain.
Winded, I sit at the wheel, light a smoke, inhale deeply, hold it, then exhale through my nose. I close my eyes and see orange and blue. A pennant. Some fuzzy faces in a high school yearbook. I see a building, my high school, Dawson High. And a brunette, movie-star gorgeous, in a pencil skirt. Her name comes to me. Judy. A little bad, but not evil. She was my girlfriend.
I sit here for a long time, the sun setting. For no real reason, I open the glove compartment. There's a legal envelope, fat with something. I open it. It's stuffed with $100 bills. I sit here until dark, thinking, thinking. Then I start the car, drive to the Esso station. While the boy fills the tank and cleans the windshield, I snatch a Coke and a map, study the map. The icy Coke burns going down, but it's a good burn. Refreshing! I practically inhale the nectar, place the empty in the rack. I pause and reflect on that rack. Once upon a time it was a useless tree. Now it's a rack, serving mankind. Kind of a miracle.
I think about the hearty lumberjacks, felling those big babies, probably in the Northwest. Truckers haul the trunks to lumber mills where they're planed into boards. This operation is noisy as hell, sawdust spraying all over the damn place, maybe some poor slob slips up and loses an arm. Boards are shipped to a factory where they're cut and sanded and trimmed and pieced together, Coke logos, red and bold, painted on, the whole shebang varnished. Then one of 'em is shipped to this lousy Esso station in the middle of dusty nowhere. Just so a chump like me can place an empty into it. Yep! A miracle! Think of all the people, red-blooded Americans, employed! And that fella who lost his arm!
The pump jockey's young, has a blond ducktail and, most oddly, an eyepatch.
"Son, if'n I'm not too nosy, how'd you lose a peeper?"
"Cherry bomb. Went off 'fore I could chuck it."
"That's rough!"
He shrugs. "Life." He zeroes me with his one eye, brilliant blue. "Kids at school made fun of me, called me Cyclops. So first chance, I dropped out, got me this job! When the boss ain't around, I swipe a dime from the register and buy me a pop. Cola, root beer, orange. Got me the pick of the litter. Free!"
He continues, "I got me a good job, a room in town, a TV. And no more stinkin' school, no more stinkin' teachers, no more stinkin' books. And free pop! So, it all works out." He lifts his chin, not quite a challenge for me to contradict him. Not quite, but quite close.
I pay Cyclops and drive off, head for Route 66, west to Los Angeles, to Dawson High, to the old neighborhood and a girl named Judy. The night is black, but my brain is lit. It occurs to me that whoever the ess oh bee is who phones me, he must be able to track this car. In the morning, at Honest Abe's Used Car lot, I trade it, even-steven, for an MG much like the one Bonnie owned. Call it an homage of sorts.
Bonnie Fairchild. I shudder. Life can be a dream. Or a nightmare. Sometimes, both at the same darn time! 522! I'll bet she had some tales to tell!
At least I got in her pants. So, it wasn't a total wash.
It's a smoggy dawn as I approach the City of Angels. I spot a Howard Johnson's, rent a room for a week, make a beeline for the restaurant. At the counter, I order bacon and eggs and a coffee. I chat up the waitress, Cheryl, 36-24-36, ginger, freckles. Cute little monkey. She looks to be fresh out of high school. I ask her if she went to Dawson. Bingo! I quiz her about teachers. Some names ring a bell. But for her, my young teachers are her old-timers. In my mind's eye, I see faces come into focus: Mrs. Archibald, Mr. Dorsey, Miss Clayton, Mr. Conklin. Things are returning. Feels good, man. I leave a fiver for a .59¢ meal, go to my room, undress, get in bed. The drapes are pulled close, no light can enter.
I think of the phone. Dammit, I'm gonna tempt fate, won't do anything to muffle it. We'll see if I'm still being watched, or if I've thrown that bastard off my trail.
I fall asleep and I’m out like a dead man for eight solid hours. I dream that I'm in a two room apartment. There are no windows, and no door out, just a doorway connecting the two rooms. I walk back and forth, from room to room, wondering how I got into a place I cannot leave. It makes no sense. But it's so vivid I think it's real, not a dream.
There's no furniture in this dream apartment until I walk into one of the rooms and see an old friend sitting on a Danish modern chair, reading a book. I say, "I have a story to tell. You can take my story and present it to the world, it could be book! Like the one you're reading. Will you do this? Please."
"Sorry, chum," he scoffs, as if doing me a favor is too nutty a notion. "Nah. No can do."
The phone doesn’t ring. I wake early in the evening, shower, and get in my MG. LA is a big sprawling mess of a city, but I know how to get to Dawson High, to my old neighborhood. I just know how, almost instinctively. Cobwebs are clearing, disappearing. I'm happy as a baby with a belly full of mama's milk.