Burn Down The Night (6 page)

"I just wet
myself" I said, looking down at my lap.

Gail laughs. "No
you didn't. You had a bottle of something between your legs and when you moved over on the seat
it spilled. I saw it."

"Oh," I
say.

"You got matches?"
That was Morrison talking to the chick in back.

Sandy starts
digging through a rabbit-fur purse she's got slung over one shoulder. Really digging deep. Must
be twenty pill bottles in there. She comes out with a silver cigarette lighter. "Will this
do?"

"All right! All
right!" Morrison takes the lighter and fires up the joint. Has a hard time getting it lit. But
does. The sweet, tasty smell of dope fills the car.

The chick who's
driving turns off Van Nuys onto Victory Boulevard and we start going toward Laurel Canyon. Smoke
begins filling the car. Morrison lights another joint, puffing like crazy to get it
going.

A joint gets
passed and I take a hit, a big one.

I'm drifting out
of my acid state, going into that speed-like energy glow that you get on the down side. I look
back at Jim. That maniac is lighting up a third joint. Enough smoke in the car to stone a troop
ship. Morrison's got to be getting a real burning glow by now, a real acid roller-coaster rip, if
he doesn't drown it completely with wine and smoke.

I end up with two
joints in my hand, hyperventilat­ing like crazy. I pass one to Gail. She smokes weird, puffing on
it like an amateur, surrounding herself in a cloud of smoke. Doesn't matter. There's enough smoke
in the car to get the upholstery stoned.

I suck in a wind
tunnel full of smoke, look back to see how Jim is doing. He and the chick are trying to occupy
the same space in the back seat.

Whispering secrets
to each other's tonsils with their tongues.

There is a big
bump under Sandy's T-shirt. That bump is Morrison's hand. The squeeze that pleases.

I sigh. Stare back
out the front window. Not going to get the good time this time around. I look over at Gail the
Whale for a second and turn away quick before I go blind.

I wind up with two
joints, put them both in my mouth and take a hit that destroys my chances of ever becoming an
opera singer. Inside of my throat feels like a scratched record. Maybe I'll get lucky and pass
out.

I feel something
creeping up my leg. Feels like a ta­rantula wearing overshoes trying to give me a knee
massage.

I look down and a
hand that's probably been a tradi­tion with sailors since 1946 is creeping up toward my better
half.

Poorly hidden
behind the smoke from two joints, I feel like crying. Take the joy sticks out, cough half a lung
out.

"Where are we...
uuuuuh... going?" I ask, afraid to take her hand off of my leg. Touching her intention­ally would
be like kissing a mad dog.

As the hand slides
up toward my lap, I keep creeping up the back of the seat until my head is touching the roof of
the car.

My voice keeps
cracking. I'm as nervous as a virgin trying to give a hickey to a rattlesnake.

"Hey!"

It's the girl in
back, momentarily resurfacing. "We know where there's a party down by Sunset off Laurel
Canyon."

"That's right,"
says Gail. "Let's go there. Okay with you guys?"

"Sure," says
Morrison, speaking for us both.

A traffic light
turns red and Gail lets go of my lap to handle the gear shift. Thank God for small favors and
manual transmissions!

I seriously
consider jumping out of the car and run­ning like hell. I get my hand on the door handle but the
light changes and we start rolling again. Damn! Missed my chance.

Maybe just as
well. I haven't told Morrison my one special secret about this car. Don't want him biting the
bullet. The chicks could go hang but I kind of admire him. He is crazier than I am. But with more
style.

Morrison says
something. I think it's French. I turn around, thinking he's talking to me, and see a tight
T-shirt disappearing over a honey-blond head.

Squeals of
delight. Throaty breathing. Clothes com­ing undone. Oh flaming frigging frying flying
horseshit!

I face forward,
quietly bash my head against the dashboard.

Sounds of
struggle, clothes resisting. Lip sounds, hip sounds. Rip-her-zipper sounds. Inhibitions leaving
and hot breathing.

I open another
cream ale, warm as piss by now, and down it all in one gulp. Tastes like donkey whiz. Open the
window and throw it at a parked car. Miss the windshield, bottle smashes against the
roof.

This is gonna be
one of those nights. If I want decent action tonight, I'm going to have to take advantage of
myself.

Fat chick driving,
still shifting, thank God. She's got one eye on the road and the other eye on the action in the
back seat. She's getting hot, licking her lips ner­vously.

Heading down
Laurel Canyon, a mean twisting snake of downhill road. Beginning to whip down some steep turns.
Soft pleasure moans from the backsexcy­cleseat.

A pair of black
lace panties drifts out of the begin­ning of a nudist convention in back, landing on my left
shoulder.

My fault, I tell
myself. Shouldn't team up with this kind of guy. He gets more ass than a toilet seat.

I can smell the
sweet girl smell on those black pant­ies. In sympathy, my lap begins to ache, my tight pants
getting too tight.

Gail beside me is
panting like a dog sitting on a hot plate. Getting hotter all the time too.

I slide as far
away from Gail as I can get without ac­tually falling out of the car. I open another Shoenling
Little Kings Cream Ale. Rim of the bottle breaks on the edge of the ashtray. Get glass in the
beer. Shit. Drink it anyway.

Like a horror
movie that follows you home in your nightmares, I see Gail's hand begin creeping across the seat
toward my crotch.

I think about
opening up the window and diving out. I'm beginning to sweat, half frightened, half fren­zied.
Glance in the rearview mirror. Everybody back there has gone horizontal and parallel. Two of the
nic­est girl legs I've ever seen. Look like two swizzle sticks made out of pearl. Wicked-looking
legs thumping against the car roof.

I have to look
away, resist the impulse to dive into the back seat and mingle like a mad dog. My blood is racing
like the Grand Prix. Soft pleasure sounds come from the back.

Gail is so excited
she's gunned the accelerator. We're flying. She's just barely watching the road. Big hills coming
up and tricky curves.

I can see us at
the bottom of a hill, a tangled mass of bleeding meat. Me on the bottom, flatter than a circus
strong man's paper drinking-straw and the Betty the Boop blimp stretched out atop me like a
beached whale. Morrison and the beach baby on top, still fuck­ing like bandits.

"Watch what you're
doing!" I yell, batting her hand away. We glide into a curve marked thirty-five miles an hour
doing about seventy. Gail hits the brakes, hard. My head smacks into the dashboard. I say
some­thing obscene, collapse back against the seat.

Gail's got her
hands off me, concentrating on getting us through the curve in one piece.

A leg appears as
if by magic across my left shoulder. A soft, warm girl's leg. I figure they're doing Numbers 17
through 26 in the
Kama Sutra.

Hot leg brushes
across the side of my face, like touching a live wire. I almost got to sit on my hands to keep
them from grabbing onto the leg and dragging it up front. My pants are so tight on me my eyes are
swimming.

Somehow we whip
through the curve, still on four wheels, straighten out and ride into another one. Driv­ing is
tricky here, takes her mind off me.

A cop car goes by
going the other way. Morrison groans. I quietly go mad. I'm hornier than a hot rabbit with socks
on.

A very married
looking couple in a blue car pull up level with us as we slowly dip into another turn. Mr. and
Mrs. Straight America.

They stare at us.
Both about fifty and constipated. He's driving, both are staring. He's pop-eyed, looking at our
colorful back-seat window display. He must catch them changing position or something. Mr.
America's got his mouth open in an imitation of the Grand Canyon.

We make the turn,
then make another one. Mr. America, eyes still on our traveling exhibition, plows straight ahead.
Misses the curve completely. I turn around just as they leave the road.

Don't see the
crash but have lots of fun imagining it.

"You're
frightening the horses, for chrissakes," I mutter under my breath.

Then Sandy starts
having an orgasm. Excited, throaty little bursts of pleasure. Jesus! I can't stand it! I should
have jumped out the window and lacerated my­self to death.

Can feel her
pleasure pumps all up and down my spine. That same hard kick you get from rock and roll. That
same hard kick I first got on the seventeenth hole of the Northmoor Golf Course, me fourteen, her
thir­ty-eight. Ah, sex, where is thy stain?

Why didn't I move
faster in getting into the back seat? Could have been me back there. Should have been me. I open
another bottle of beer, lift it to my mouth, making a mock toast.

"And here's to the
boys in the back."

Gail squeezes my
lap, most painful grip I've ever felt. Damn near went through the roof. Head slams for­ward,
crotch spasm. Tears in my eyes. Who was the bastard who invented tight pants?

Gail is panting, face flushed. Somehow
she's managed to unbutton the top three or four buttons of her shirt. Three hundred pounds of her
is hanging out.

"Maybe I should
pull over," she says, reaching for me.

I sit up straight,
beating her hand away with a frantic flurry of blows. "No!" I shriek, hysterical. "I mean
no!
"

"Let's get
down!"

I have to do
something quick. "I... I... Hey, listen, we'll be at the party soon. I'll get you at the party!
Yeah! See I need lots of room. I don't like quickies ei­ther. Uh, yeah, get you there, then I
promise I'll screw all night long!" I'm talking faster than a Speed Queen dishwasher.

Gail blinks a
couple of times, processing the infor­mation through her fat or something.

"Okay. Beds are
better anyway," she says finally.

Background, those
tense hot little come sounds.
Unnnnh! Unnnh!

Gail looks
feverish. "I can hardly wait. We're only a couple of blocks away." Another crotch squeeze and I
double up.

Unnnh!
Unnnh!

"We get to that
party and..." Gail leaves the sen­tence hanging, just pants at me, looking like a bullfrog with
hormone problems.

The loudest one
yet.
Unnnnnnnnnnnnh!
Sounds like the big casino.

I quietly tear my
fingernails out. If I get any hornier, I could defy gravity.

Silence from the
back seat and exhausted breathing.

Let's hear a big
wet cheer for Saturday Night L.A. Sex in cars and topless bars. Big-breasted chicks who dance
taps on the tops of tables in the back rooms of racing stables. Chicks who drink and smoke big
cigars and get it on in double-parked cars. Let's hear it for too much dope, too much booze and
all the chicks you'd make if you could choose.

Horny!
If I tripped trying
to get out of the car, I'd pole-vault clear across the street!

Morrison
reappears. A hand comes out of the back seat, taps me on the shoulder. "Got a joint?"

I turn around and
look back at them. Two inter­twined bodies like a pink worm farm.

"Go fuck a
biscuit!" I say, opening the glove com­partment. I get a bag and pull out a couple of joints. I
pass them back, keeping two for myself. I light them both. I need it.

"I just did," says
Morrison, putting a joint in his mouth. "Did somebody mention a party?"

The car, still
full of smoke, gets fuller.

Gail, the
fearlessly fat driver of our moving viola­tion, makes a turn off of whatever street we're driving
on and we go up a drive with big mansions. We are among the habitats of the rich and
playful.

I toke furiously
on my joints. I've got a definite plan. I'm going to pass out and to hell with everybody else.
Gail especially. Let's see the dumb bitch messing with me when I'm in a coma. Maybe I'll even
throw up on her just before I slip into unconsciousness. That'll teach her to maul my family
jewels.

One mansion at the
top of a hill is lit up like a Satur­day night drunk. Cars parked every which way, on lawns,
driveways, sidewalks and a couple of dented ones sticking out of hedges. One parked on top of a
rock garden, a jazzy-looking Jaguar with the wind­shield smashed, has half of a tree laying
across it.

Loud noise
masquerading as music blasts out into the late night air, probably sterilizing everybody and
everything in its path. This looks like my kind of party.