Everybody Scream! (15 page)

He flicked his gaze to Walpole. Twinkling. They were always glad to see Del, always welcomed him…because they clearly sensed how much he despised them. Perhaps they even realized what Mitch Garnet didn’t–that Del hated Roland LaKarnafeaux and his friends even more than he did.

“Well,” the words finally came after this too-long pause from a dependable mechanical portion of his brain, “Sophi really runs the show and she likes to…get to know people and foster good relations.”

“I guess she does,” Mortimer smirked, now drumming the fingers of one hand on the top of his top hat. Mortimer glanced over Del’s shoulder. “Nice shoes,” he said.

Del glanced over his own shoulder but only saw a boy in black clothes swept along amongst other people. He thought, they despise me too, in their amused way. Because Del had spoken out against drugs. Not too often, as often as he might have, because the recording company heads, his own producers and business managers, had strongly advised him against alienating too much of his potential audience. But he was still known for his stance. These men despised him for denouncing their god–it was nearly a religious conflict. It wasn’t that Del considered himself superior. He had tolerated his own wife’s occasional seaweed smoking. His brother had briefly been a small-time gold-dust seller, and it hadn’t made him happy but he hadn’t disowned him either. And Del had friends who had even tried snakebite and other extremes, who smoked weed constantly. But they had
souls
, they had respect for others and themselves–it was an attitude, a set of values and ethics and honor beyond the subject of drugs. Though he had firmly enforced a rule of moderation on his band during work and tours, his fellow band members all partied to some extent or another (but none extremely). He had fired some road crew people for extremes or for dealing, and this too had been publicized, maybe encountered by these men. But he didn’t feel superior for not taking drugs any more than he would have felt superior to a man who shoots himself in the temple with a pistol. It just wasn’t for him. Even little by little, the bullet of drugs could finally reach the brain, draining away too much life blood in the meantime. In his mind Del called back the horrifying face of the girl dead from vortex that Mitch had shown him, the insides of that shotgun-like wound still glowing with living, triumphant poison.

He looked at Walpole’s face. Gold-dust, cocaine and vortex corroded the mucus membranes first–how did he know what work these men might have had done behind their smug masks to clean out, repair, rebuild? At least they had the money for it. Del switched to the girl curled fetus-like on LaKarnafeaux’s ample lap. Peaceful smooth face, lips parted (though still with a disgusted curl of teenaged beautiful insolence).

“Where you headed this fall, if not down south?” Walpole inquired amiably.

“No place special. How about you?”

“Maybe to Diamondcrest for a couple months this winter. Lie in the sun, do some marsh fishing.”

“Don’t sleep with your mouth open.”

Everyone chuckled or laughed, though it looked like LaKarnafeaux was beginning to doze, his great shaggy head sagging.

“Why don’t you come down for a week this winter?” offered Eddy. “We have the room.”

“You and your wife,” said Ficklebottom.

“That’s a nice offer. I’ll mention it to her.”

“Del.” LaKarnafeaux lifted his head suddenly. “You had a song years ago–
Spirits on Wheels
.”

“Yeah, I remember it. Goldy oldy.”

“I liked it. It really caught the…ah…”

“The spirit of freedom,” Eddy completed. “The
Dozer
spirit. Moving around, not letting your roots take hold, staying
alive
. Damn good song.”

“Thanks. It was my first real hit. A little naïve, maybe, though.”

“Naïve? Why should alive be naïve?”

“I don’t know–maybe I just don’t feel the same way anymore.”

“You’re only thirty-seven, Del–I have an uncle a hundred-forty-two. He’s alive.”

“Well, then I have plenty of time left to work on it,” said Del.

“Well it’s last night, why don’t you get up on stage and do a song? Make a come back, man, do it tonight. Don’t think about it–if you think about it too much you won’t do it. One song. Do
Spirits on Wheels
, man–you’ll feel
alive
, I’ll guarantee you!”

“The kids would look at me and say, ‘Who the fuck is this joker? Why isn’t he wearing crotchless pants?’”

“So open your fly! Just kidding. Hey, the kids will look and say, ‘Hey, who is this new guy? He’s great! This guy is gonna be big!’”

“Sounds fun. Maybe next year.”

“Aww, Del.” Eddy pouted, but still smiled simultaneously.

He’s mocking me, Del thought. He knows how I feel. He knows I can’t do it. They love that I fell, they love my failure. I fell, they prosper. Their god is supreme, hardly scorched by my brief flare. They’re so observant. Why did I stop to talk, why am I still here, why did I leave my pride in the trailer this morning?

Could Eddy Walpole read his mind a little? It wasn’t that he spoke for LaKarnafeaux, finished his sentences, related his stories for him–he was simply the boss’s representative, front man. Business manager, agent, publicity man. Either he was just very perceptive or he took some kind of drug which boosted telepathy a little. Rumors about were that one of LaKarnafeaux’s other men, Sneezy Tightrope, who wasn’t present, could see the future in dreams, see things in your past and read your mind, and had even been a carnival fortune teller for a brief while. A sensitive, no doubt aided by some illegal military drug. The memory of such rumors made Del squirm inside his waxen skin-case. He had to flee. He tried to shut his mind’s emanations off, focus on Sophi or something. Mitch.

“Well, I’d better head over to the morgue and look into things.”

“Okay, Del, nice talkin’ with ya. You and the wife come by tonight at least for a minute, will ya?”

“We’ll try–things might be busy.”

“Try.”

“Don’t forget the wife. We’ll all be here. Johnny and everyone,” said Mortimer Ficklebottom.

Del ignored him, looked to LaKarnafeaux. He was deeply asleep. Reverently, the boy Cod took away his smoldering cigarette and his beer.

Perched atop Pearl Mason’s small, egg-like pink plastic trailer was a nicked and worn pink plastic lion, resting on its belly with its maned head held proud above its front legs. The two, trailer and lion, looked to have been formed as one, but in actuality the pink lion was one of two which had once flanked the entrance of pink plastic stairs that led into the apartment building where Pearl had spent much of her childhood. The old tenements were to be torn down, Pearl had found, to make way for a parking garage, and she had purchased the better of the two lions–the other, more battered and spray-painted, went to a playground. It hurt Pearl to have the two separated–they had been brothers, to the child. But one could save only so many discarded animals. She’d already owned the trailer, but it was pale yellow; she’d had the new pink coat of plastic applied. It had since buckled in a few places and two seams had split open to show the yellow inside. That bothered her, she’d have to tend to that. This was her home, it was her. She had to be happy with it, proud of it. Yes–a person’s home was a reflection of who they were.

Pearl let Mitch in. There were only attempts at partitions; except for the toilet it was all pretty much one room. A chipped old horse from the miniature merry-go-round hung on the wall of the livingroom section, a birthday gift from Sophi and Del Kahn. Pearl made Mitch a coffee at the kitchenette counter, her back to him.

She wore a loose-fitting, short-sleeved and knee-length dress, soft pink covered with a black web-like cracked pattern. Her skin was the smooth, unblemished white of alabaster, her upper arms plump and soft and hips and bottom ample inside the dress. Her shoulder-length hair was a thick and crazy nest of frizz and tight curls, a sparkling dark-blonde–natural, amazingly enough, though maybe courtesy of a recessive gene from some ancestor who had had their blonde hair chosen for it by its parents.

“I heard a lot of shooting earlier,” she said. Her voice was a high, cutesy squeak, but not affected, and not inane-sounding, with an additionally cute stopped-up nasal quality. Natural, like her hair, like her skin, her full bottom, but she had put them all to her advantage. One had best utilize one’s inborn qualities.

“A bunch of punks killed a mutant and accidentally killed a little boy with a stray shot. I had to shoot three of them.”

“Great. Was that absolutely necessary?”

“Absolutely necessary? No. No. I could have smiled and walked away. I guess it’s not necessary to stop anybody from killing somebody, so long as it isn’t you…and hey, you don’t even have to stop that if you don’t want to, right? We’re all gonna die anyway, right?”

“Me and my big mouth.”

“I’ve got a twelve-year-old raped and strangled in the ice box and everybody thinks I’m the fucking psycho mad-dog–even you. That’s what I get for risking my life for other people, huh?”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I trust your judgment, okay?”

“Then why’d you give me the old clichéd, ‘Great–was it necessary?’”

“I just don’t like to hear it. It’s scary.”

“Then don’t bring it up next time. You don’t want to hear it? Nobody wants to hear it…that’s why they’ll have to go on and on hearing it. ‘Cause they don’t wanna do anything about it. That’s the thanks I get. I always hoped people would be proud of me.”

“It might be necessary for you to kill, but we’re supposed to be
proud
you kill?”

“No–proud of my job, of which killing is a part at times.”

“I am proud of your work.”

“Then don’t start on me. You’re in a cold mood. Why?”

“I’m not in a cold mood. I’m a little blue. It’s last night; it was a good summer, I had fun, now it’s over.” The coffee was ready and an herbal tea for herself; she turned to face Mitch and he took his drink. Pearl leaned her back against the counter while she dunked her tea bag in her mug. Mitch tried not to let his eyes drop but they half-flicked–it was a near unavoidable instinct even now. She had kept her back to him an extra prolonged time, until it was no longer feasible–a habit she took on when she was in a cold, or angry, or blue mood.

“You have all these club dates lined up.”

“I know, it’s exciting, but I’m sacred. It reminds me of the old days.”

“Fuck the old days–they’re over. Nobody up here knows about the old days…that was another life.”

“And your old days are another life, huh?”

Mitch started to get mad, but broke a smile and had to look sideways away from her eyes. “I know, yeah, yeah. But it sounded good.”

“I’m excited but I’m scared. Here I’ve got so many people I know around me, so many friends. I’m part of a big thing. In clubs I’ll pretty much be alone.”

“I can understand that–it’s always weird starting a new part of your life, it’s traumatic…starting a new job or moving or getting married or whatever. It was hard for you giving up your old life and coming here, but now look.”

“It wasn’t hard giving up my old life,” Pearl corrected, “it was just hard starting my new life.
Stage
of life,” she corrected again.

“It was hard for me giving up the force. I loved my job–what I hated was the fucking disrespect and apathy and lack of compassion and fucking
evil
I encountered. No thanks, we got, no thanks. I had friends die in front of me…and no thanks. They say Car Thirteen men are martyrs.
All
forcers are martyrs now. Being a forcer in Punktown is the most thankless job around.”

“So what’d you love about it–getting even?”

Garnet gave Pearl a long cold look. “Getting even? I was
protecting
people, not getting even. I can’t even bring up my work a minute without you jumping on the mad-dog thing again, can I?”

“I just can’t imagine what you
loved
about it.”

“The challenge of doing good. Okay?”