The Nirvana Blues (80 page)

Gloom. “This is Natalie's holler haven.” Iréné was panting. “She's into Primal Screaming, you know.” He couldn't see a thing. His heart raced uncomfortably. The evening had traveled so fast. Her hands reconnoitered his body like professional spiders, unbuttoning, unbuckling, unzipping.

“God, Joey, I'm wet. It's like a
swamp
between my legs!”

She dropped to her knees; her lips rolled over him like a combine harvesting a wheat field. Joe teetered but balanced himself by digging fingers into her hair. The pitch-black darkness unnerved him. He wanted something, if only starlight, defining her skin. The blackness was suffocating and airless, like the devil's womb. Joe wavered slightly, listening to her crude sounds. Alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana had numbed him to the point where he wondered if he had a hard-on or not. He looked down, up, all around—but could see nothing. Darkness had even occupied the spaces between his teeth, making him wish for a toothpick. He kept his mouth shut, praying this feral blackness wouldn't surge down his throat, drowning him in thick velvet. It was stark and surreal. Joe said, “I can't see you.”

“You don't need to see me.” She gasped for air, then attached herself again, suckling to beat the band.

Iréné started chanting, moving in and out on him, her voice muffled and gargling: “Gmphf ill tummy … gumpf ill tummy.…”

After a while he realized she was saying, “Give it to me … give it to me.…”

But did he have it to give? Joe had no sensation down there. With his hand he touched her nose, her cheeks, her lips … yoiks! he was erect! He mixed his fingers in her foamy mouth and she moaned … fiddled with his balls … teased his anus … and mumbled her refrain again.

Then her voice was coming through loud and clear: “Joe, take me in the helicopter with you tomorrow.”

“What?”

“Take me in the helicopter,” she hissed, softly twisting his balls.

“I'm not going in a helicopter.” He fumbled for her face, seeking to guide his penis back into her mouth.

She sucked him briefly, then tried again:

“I know all about it—don't worry. You can trust me. Give me a ride, and I'll tell you their plans.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he whimpered. “Let's make love.”

“Oh yes … please … give me your pud.…” She sucked him in, all the way down her throat, gagged, but held him there.

Spooked by the dark, Joe floated earthward, needing more tactile reference points. She gave a protesting cry as he pulled clear of her mouth. Abruptly, he got his bearings, moved smoothly, thrust into her. Her lips slapped his face. Her mouth was as large as that of those strange, depth-dwelling fish they occasionally pulled from the ocean. Her body, in his grasp, under his weight, squirming against the midnight rug, seemed terribly fragile. Bursts of tortured sound escaping her throat made him feel sorry for her, for them both. “Oh love me!” she cried. “Fuck me to death. Don't ever stop! You can scream if you want, nobody can hear us! Don't ever leave me! I love you! Murder me with it! Fuck out my heart! Cripple me! Tomorrow we'll do it together in your helicopter! Shove it up my ass and pull the trigger!”

This last, in that frightening cloacal darkness, he did for her—but could not pull the trigger. She screamed, and her high-pitched noise reverberated in his eardrums, it threatened to crack open his skull. His balls swelled, and his penis strained, but still he could bring about no discharge to complement her howls.

“Oh Joey,”
she cried,
“I adore you!”

“No, Iréné. Please. No love…”

“Let me turn over. I want you in my mouth.”

“You shouldn't…”

“I want you in my mouth. I'll do anything you want, if only you'll take me along.…”

Though small, like an ant she was unbelievably powerful. Iréné contorted herself—twisting—and grasped Joe, actually lifting him King Kong-like, and placing him on her heaving chest. “Ah,” she said, guiding his cock between her teeth again. He smelled shit in the black air. It scared him. If only there were just a pinprick of light somewhere, anything to orient by. This was the most loveless thing he had ever done. And it was transforming his psyche, his heart, even the composition of his blood as surely as if he were committing murder. Her hands reached up, plucking at his lips. Then she forced him to ooze backward and out of her for a moment, whispering up at him with awe:

“My eyes are wide open, Joseph. They've been open all this time. I've never made it with
my eyes wide open
before!”

The music stopped with a crash.

*   *   *

H
E WAS GONE
—him and the wind and the stars—long before she awoke.

The swashbuckler sun leaped over the mountains like an actor playing the lead role in a Zorro film, unleashed a dazzling “en garde!,” and postured swordlike with its lucid golden rays: “Touché!”

The world, as seen from Joe Miniver's perspective, recoiled from such an abundance of cloudless joy. The acrylic-blue sky seemed unbelievably corny. And electrified. Invisible archangels flashing trumpet-shaped hair dryers had quartered the valley, fluffing and feathering all tree leaves, which appeared to be etched against a superelegant fourth dimension. Every ridge on every mountain seemed to pop out in a totally false but stunning clarity reminiscent of Edward Weston and Eliot Porter. He could not help but tingle from the effects of such a primal lucidity!

It was six o'clock on a serene spring morning. Joe drove through the vitreous ether of a town not yet aroused. Though he piloted a vehicle, he had the sensation of cruising through a dementedly gossamer atmosphere in a structure no more prepossessing or weighted or technological than a chiffon cloud. All night he had rested unhappily in the arms of a fitfully twitching woman who uttered frightened cries and clung tightly, robbing him of sleep. He had cooed and tried to soothe, afraid to wake her, desperately wanting to atone. His arms, torso, and neck were littered with small yellowish bruises from her anguished pinches. The backs of his thighs burned bitterly from fingernail welts. Fatigue had him worse than light-headed. Not only did he want to withdraw from the world, but hibernation until
all
his wounds had healed was the only answer. All night he had assured her: “Hush. It's gonna be okay.”

Oh, for a long time in his life Joe had cultivated an erotic curiosity, but already, only moments after launching the quest, he had burned out, unable to take it. Curses on that sexual drive leading people into these arenas where they paid for their tits and ass in priceless emotional coin!

The sun was an enormous Smilie. The world seemed scrubbed up for visiting Grandma. Joe half expected a few sprites in diaphanous veils to prance across the road. Flurries of cottonwood fluff swirled by. A magpie swoop-swoop-swooped ahead of him like a pilot tugboat leading a liner into the harbor; then it veered leftward. On such a glorious day as this he had never felt worse. His head, his eyes, his entire body throbbed. His brain was damaged—no doubt permanently. His soul was in shreds. He had forged an irrevocable distance between himself and his wife and children. A hundred thousand dollars worth of cocaine lay on the seat beside him … but so what? Why hadn't they killed him for it last night, ending his misery? “What kind of joke is this anyway, God? Turn me into a pillar of salt, you mother! Drown me! Drive nails through my heart! Fill my car full of man-eating grasshoppers!”

LORD IGNORES MINIVER PLEAS
!
THUNDEROUS CACKLE
,
TEN TIMES LOUDER THAN SONIC BOOM
,
STAGGERS CHAMISA VALLEY
!

His penis was raw and sore—had he shoved it into a mammoth electric pencil-sharpener last night? His blue balls, bursting with unrequited semen, cried out in pain. “I'll never make love again!”
Thank God!

Then …
eureka!
A brainstorm!

Joe braked so abruptly he would have erased the windshield had not the steering wheel slammed his chest. Why hadn't he thought of this earlier? “I'll commit suicide by gobbling that whole box of cocaine!” A teaspoon of pure garbage could kill him—right? Sure. Hot dog! Eager fingers scrabbled to open the carton. Dream powder winked at him in all its unadulterated malevolent whiteness.

MINIVER AUTO, PLASTERED IN TINY PIECES OF FLESH
,
FOUND PARKED ON SHOULDER
!
CORONER RULES DEATH
FROM HUMONGOUS COKE OD
!
LEGEND IS BORN
!
LOCAL GANGSTERS—AWED—ATTEND FUNERAL
!

Two fingers scooped out a heap and slapped it onto his tongue. “So long, world!” Giggling, Joe dug in again and sucked hungrily, chewed voraciously, swallowed. How sweet, how sugary—he hadn't noticed that last night. Frenetically, Joe gouged up another half-ounce and tossed it away. He must rapidly ingest enough to do the job before the effects blew his mind into gaga incapacity. Any second now, a horrible rainbow would shatter his cerebellum, a psychedelic burst of jungle erotica would crunch free of his dull skull, blooming with beautiful brutality into the blood-soaked air while naked leering chorus girls crowed Handel's
Messiah.…

Joe gulped one, two, three more crunchy fistfuls, gagged, chewed, and feverishly swallowed.

But nothing happened. What's this—you had to
snort
the dope to make it work? Not in a year could he inhale all that dry, grating goop! All the sweet granules had produced so far was nausea. Sugary crystals had sponged up his saliva; swallowing was difficult. The coke tasted more like powdered doughnuts than dope.

“Sugar…?”

Joe enticed several sensory faculties back into his mouth, activating taste buds, and ran a quick chemical analysis. Concentrating, he soon realized that only a real moron would fail to reach the conclusion he finally stumbled upon.

It
was
sugar.

MINIVER DOUBLE-CROSSED AGAIN
!

Burned by his Philadelphia pal! Twelve thousand dollars for a two-bit mix of granulated and confectioners' sugar!

Joe spat out some crud against the dashboard, and wondered what to do now except sputter hysterically at the horrendous humor of it all.

“Curses, foiled again!”

At which point Joe glanced up: and here they all came, girded for an epic battle. While he'd been busily catering to a sweet tooth, their cars had quietly glided in, surrounding him. Ray Verboten and Angel Guts, Jeff Orbison and the Chicken River Funky Pie van chauffeur, Tom Yard from the First State People's Jug, and a tall, rawboned geek, probably Algernon from the Joe Bonatelli Phalange of Lisping Freaks. Guns drawn purposefully, they had him surrounded.

“Give it here,” Ray said quietly, sighting along the glistening blue barrel of his elephant pistol. “That coke belongs to the people now, Joe. No more fun and games.”

Meekly, Joe passed his carton through the open driverside window. “It's all yours, Ray. I give up. But it ain't worth much, believe me.”

“That's a good boy.” Gently, Ray relieved Joe of his burden. Instantly. the carton's weight, the look and texture and smell of its contents, tipped off the pusher. Tucking his mammoth betsy into an armpit, Ray licked a finger, dapped up a touch of powder, and tasted it. His wry face said it all. In unison with Joe, he cried:

“It's sugar!”

“Jinx, touch blue!” Joe lightly slapped Ray's shirt. “You owe me a Coke.”

Lips contorted in a puzzled snarl, Ray glowered at Joe, then frowned into the tea box, then lifted a confounded countenance to question Joe again.

Face drenched in a wimpy smile, Joe shrugged. “I'm sorry. My East Coast buddy burned me in the deal. I just found out myself. What can I say?”

Ray dug into the box, scooping sugar off the top, splashing it onto the roadway. Every few seconds he ventured another taste, spitting it out disgustedly, and kept on digging. Fascinated, Joe watched the pusher analyze his way swiftly to the bottom—but no dice. Two thousand miles away, Peter Roth must have been yukking up a real storm. Twelve free Gs he had prestidigitated on a $2.98 box of Shurfine concoction!

Well, well, life sure had its little ups and downs.

Ray locked into Joe's bloodshot eyes, searching for telltale quivers, a glint of mendacity. Joe had nothing but the truth to give him, and, practiced in such arts, Ray could tell. All of them had taken a flying douche.

“You dumb motherfucker, Joe Miniver.”

Ray pitched the empty box through Joe's window. Then, with a toss of his head, he summoned the troops: they retreated dispiritedly and, angrily spitting blue exhaust, departed for once and for all.

Sunshine cuddled Joe's ears, playfully tousled his hair, warmed the tip of his nose. Dazedly, he started the bus. Most desperately, he desired a drink of water.

*   *   *

J
OE YAWNED
, though not from fatigue. Something was happening to the incredible tension inside his body. Molecules hummed and a crazy sensation attacked his blood. Light and floaty muscles seemed to have lost their tethers. Had he miraculously received an injection of zero gravity? His foot wanted to levitate off the gas pedal. If he released the steering wheel, he might float like an astronaut in a space capsule, weightless, euphoric. Squeezed sensations in his bowels felt like tentative orgasm embryos. An alien electricity, not exactly unpleasant, coursed through his nerves. Maybe, like a sky diver, he had been launched into a free fall, twenty thousand psychic feet above his own nebulous insanity. Plummeting at a disquieting rate, with no markers to measure by, Joe could enjoy a brief, extravagant freedom beyond the pale of rational restrictions. Entranced in a soporific calm, he did seem—in short—to be losing his marbles.

A lone jogger up ahead, in a powder-pink warm-up suit with a Day-Glo monkey on the back, caught his attention. From the rear, she looked provocative. Her buttocks jounced enticingly against the tight material of her pants. Blond hair fluttered youthfully at each step. Joe snarled, whimpered, and accelerated a little to catch up and ogle her no-doubt-pretty face, tormented by a lustful twinge—in him whom he had just thought might never lust again!