What We Do Is Secret (24 page)

Which sounds just jawja peachy to Tim and David, but before their agreeable murmurings have a chance to turn flat-out eager she says, “Just drop us at La Brea, we’ll walk, that way they can check out Yukon Mining Company and look through the Hunter’s window at least. Then park in the neighborhood, on Gardner someplace.”

Blitzer says it sounds like a plan, and pulls over. And while they’re bailing it hits me that I’m saying goodbye to everybody, except I can’t, all I can do is button my jeans and claim shotgun. But next thing you know Siouxsie’s back at Blitzer’s window, flowing him a bill.

“For that high-class rescue,” she says. “It was worth it.”

It turns out that even with the door open back at the brewery the ride wasn’t free, not with the strict one-plus-one admission policy, creative envelope or not, Natalie or no Natalie, with five total and two guests credited to the member roster that would be three, please, as in bills, dude, yes way, a hundred apiece, before they actually got to step right up to the fashion plate and ogle all those faces with that famous lift, skin smooth as butter for the next clicking shutter.

But with the cholos up the fire stairs by then, slinging Spanish on the far side of the alarm-system door and the top hat boys eyeing Mr. Main Man again for the clue on what to do, and with knowing there wasn’t room in any envelope for the vato look, or even brown boys period, you know how you don’t wear brown shoes with a black suit, well, you don’t, it’s like common knowledge and they don’t mix people-wise, either, so with safety sure as the lock on Debby Boone’s chastity belt if they paid to stay, then what hey, there went the tab money, Blitzer just told himself don’t lose your nerve, it’s only Merv, and handed it over as casual as you please, you give me the diamonds, I’ll give you disease.

Then Siouxsie asks what he said to that dude anyways, later, the Mexican who bribed the bouncers for a well-guarded word, one minute his boys were using us for target practice and the next—

“All I said was I wasn’t who he was looking for. And I didn’t even have to say that. He said he knew I wasn’t as soon as he got a good look at me.”

“That makes sense. Tell you what. I want you to have this, but it’s the last of
my
cash, you know? And I’m not in the mood to ask
her
. So if you’ll bring me back a pack of smokes I’ll make some intros at Oki Dog so you two can slip away. Right away.”

“Intros?” I ask.

“Tim and David. To like Tony, if he’s around. Stickboy. Dudes with both prices
and
places.”

Blitzer says Sure, no problem, Vantage, right, for the circle?

“For the circle.”

47

We turn up La Brea and Blitzer sighs. He says It’s like flypaper, isn’t it?

“We’re going back?”

“Dude, she gave me a bill. She didn’t have to. I won’t jack her for a pack of smokes. I’ll break it and give her like fifty anyways.”

“We’ll think up something else.”

“I already have. Some kind of ointment we have to go all the way to Walgreens for. But first we check back in.”

“Cool.”

He reaches over and palms the top of my head.

“That fuckin
ranked,
whipping it out like that. How’d you think of that one? They’re back in sex boy mode, sure they are, coming off that fry. Did they try anything back there?”

“No way. With Siouxsie right there?”

“Dude, after how she talked up Rory on the letter
H,
it could have been
her
getting fresh.”

“That was just getting Squid jealous.”

“No, I don’t think she planned it. Remember how dreamy she sounded? Siouxsie’s not a planner, you know? Not like details. She wanted to set it up so Squid could tell her about the mystery deal, sure, and if Squid didn’t so she could act all superior, but she didn’t control anything. It’s Squid that’s behind it all tonight. Somehow. That Mexican dude said he had bad information, but someone didn’t like me, that was good information, I should be careful.”

Back into the Mayfair parking lot.

Lights! Glamour! Action!

Everything goes in circles.

Blitzer says no more leaving me behind, that shit’s history. The night checker’s the flamer one who’s been known to trade multiple cases of Lucky for some down-on-his-knees time in the stockroom. He asks if the first-aid stuff means we’re not having fun anymore.

“We’re punk rockers,” I say. “It means we
are
having fun.”

He laughs way too hard.

“You should get your own show,” he says.

I ask him if he’s got a dog that needs grooming, but he takes it the wrong way. And there’s no way to explain. Walking back to the van Blitzer says I’ve done it now, Princess Alarming won’t ever leave me alone, good job we’re bailing.

It’s so hard to believe.

The bailing part.

I mean I feel like I don’t know anything, but LA is all I know at all.

Back in the van Blitzer’s all, We have to get those last three, Rockets. Though not the way Siouxsie would have said it, like we have to and we will. More like we have to, I guess, sometime. I just say Yeah, if I’m already infected, we better. And there’s something sly in his chuckle afterwards, oh most defiantly.

“So how are you feeling? Overall? Still on the upswing?”

“Fully. After the taco stand, I like turned the corner.”

“With a little help from a couple friends. One you know about. One you don’t.”

“Who? When?”

“You’re looking at him, Rocketman. Parked behind the stand. Remember when I missed?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I squirted that hit in my mouth. And you know what I did with my mouth after that.”

I don’t get it, not at first.

“What do you mean?”

“Dude, any mucous membrane! That’s like every body opening. Well, I don’t know about ears. Back in the day, people put windowpane L in their eyes to speed up their flight departure, frying the friendly skies.”

“So—but was it that much?”

“Hell fuckin na! I ground up so many! It was like syrup practically! It’s why you’re all rosy cheeked. It ain’t no infection. Not this soon.”

“But why?”

“Because of all you’ve been through! That gun deal! To lift your fuckin spirits. It did, didn’t it?”

I can’t lie about that.

“Yeah, I mean, of course. I just wish—you’d told me.”

“I just did! It hasn’t been that long ago, not half an hour, even.”

True. And once I say I just wished he’d told me, how can I back up and say I wished he hadn’t done it in the first place?

If I do wish that.

Do I?

Maybe Siouxsie was right, playing trolls at the drawbridge.

About getting serious with a user.

Of course she was.

Look at Darby. When he got into heroin. The heroin friends took over. And he wasn’t even that brand of serious with them, whatever Amber says.

“I could feel it through his jeans.”

Darby’s dick! That’s what she told a fuckin newspaper! His hard dick!

“He penetrated my vagina. On more than one occasion.”

Or some shit like that, out of a fuckin medical book. Like testifying in court.

The Moral Majority of Los Angeles Versus the Perversion of
Darby Crash.

God, I hate her.

I remember Gerber saying if you’re sick and in need you’ll do anything for drugs. Give Amber head. Give her real boyfriend head. Give her dog head.

Maybe. Fucking’s different, though. For males. Your body speaks so much louder than your voice. You can’t fake what it takes.

I guess I do know something.

Not bad for lucky thirteen.

48

I know something else.

I should leave in the twelve and one staples anyways.

To honor the occasion.

“Just help me pull out this one here at eleven then, if it’s no big deal, the infection shit.”

He asks why not the others and I tell him because they add up to thirteen.

“Dude, you can’t leave them in permanently! Or like what are you thinking, a year? They’re not surgical strength or whatever. They’re the opposite, the full opposite. Old and rusty as fuck. Let’s just do it now. Once that little pick-me-up wears off, you won’t be such a brave little Indian.”

The thing with Blitzer, as soon as he touches me it’s like his fingers really are talking, in words I mean, I’m not really sure he’s saying out loud what oh yes I hear, oh most defiantly.

Mmm, more like prick me up, wasn’t it, hmmm.

Fuck.

Mmm, better forget I said little then, hmmm.

Like up at Candyland.

Wanna?

I reach for him while he’s dipping the tweezers in the peroxide we bought.

“What hey, you slay.”

Me. Agree.

Hate. Late.

Still. We’ll.

Room. Soon.

Close but no.

Though actually.

“Is that a cigar in your pants or are you just glad to see me?”

Mae West said that.

“I thought she was a writer, that hocus-pocus book they were talking up earlier, on Beachwood.”

Writer? Actor?

Write? Her?

Act? Her?

Pull it out!

To borrow night may be to wait.

Pull it out!

Both spoons are dull thirty bright drying.

Pull it out!

Strike a lovely suicide my darling.

He’s shaking afterwards, worse than me, what’s that word,
scrupulous
?

No, that’s
scruples
.

You say
scruples,
I say
staples
.

Squeamish,
that’s it.

I try to say “You’re squeamish,” but it doesn’t come out right.

He presses down on my chest to keep me still.

“Maybe you are infected. You’re dripping sweat. I better go back in and get, like pills with the same shit as the ointment, maybe?”

“Wait. No. Stay.”

Voices outside. Dude-type voices. Right outside. At the back.

One says something about an out-of-state plate, another says there’s nobody at the checker inside.

“Quick!” one says.

“Go for it!” says another.

Metal mauls metal, verb and reverb.

Blitzer flying-tackles the back door release, shoulder slams outward into someone pulling, hard.

Someone damn fucking on the night air breezing, someone back falling with no breath left wheezing, spastic down flailing on the asphalt, freezing.

“Blitzer!”

“Stickboy!”

And Elliot fuckin Mess. That smelly dirty little fuck in the back of Casey Cola’s car while Darby bought the checkout China White, who heard them plan it all out sitting right there in front of him. Then Darby told him to get his ass out and he started leaking air from the tires so they couldn’t go cop but pissed himself scared before doing damage and ran back into the Oxford house. He didn’t know what to do. That’s what he told us the next day. He said he wanted to call 911 but thought, what if he ended up getting them busted and they didn’t actually do it?

Fuckin 911.

I didn’t know what to do.

There’s a whole drawer full of kitchen knives in that house, I know what I’d have done, ran back out and slashed every fuckin tire over and over till my knuckles leaked blood and my wrists gave out. And threatened Darby with the blade and even stabbed his arm or whatever if he tried to stop me.

And the next day he’d have thanked me for it. Oh most defiantly. He was always almost-doing things he didn’t really want to do, and we always almost-stopped him from the worst ones. But we weren’t around always anymore like before. I was around that night but I didn’t go to the Hong Kong, I was tired of Blitzer versus Rory versus Gerber versus Darby and all of them but Darby versus Amber and Casey and I just needed a night off to myself in that mostly empty quiet for once Oxford house, or half a night actually, I meant to stay up for them.

But I only slept.

And by the time I woke up.

I won’t even talk to that kid. He’s not there. He does not exist.

They allaboard and Blitzer closes the door. They’re super-amped, vibrating, breathing hard. Stickboy says they just saw the coolest thing we’ll never see in our whole lives, neither one of us.

“Two cops getting chased down the street by like two hundred raging punks! Cops running scared. LAPD! Oh, fuck, man, I got hard down to my fuckin kneecap! Seeing those cops totally outnumbered! With bottles bouncing off their heads! Running for their lives! Towards the only place with lights on, that McDonald’s on Argyle, like a block away, and the manager’s behind the glass doors all insane and frantic rushing to lock ’em tight! To keep it all outside! To keep the cops out! With us catching up!”

Then it hit him.

Two cops then, two hundred soon.

Way soon.

He could already hear the helicopters.

The only way to get away was turn around then and there, that very moment, and run the other way.

Un-fuckin-fortunately.

Sad but tall too true.

On Cahuenga they got a ride this far with some posing val who realized too.

And now, knowing where all the cops were occupied, they thought they’d take ad—

Stickboy interrupts himself and pulls my elbows out away from my sides.

“Dude! Lemme see! Awesome! I heard about this! Me and El couldn’t get out there, we had like business with A.R., you know, paying our way. But we went to the afterparty. That’s where it went down. Outside Slade’s party, in the Cathay basement. They’re renting it for practice now. Vicious Circle. And these cops saw a few punks on the street and didn’t know how many were downstairs, must be they didn’t know there were any at all, they didn’t call backup, just started wailing on that tall-ass Sherman Crank dude who works in the back at Astro’s and two of Slade’s posse just happened to walk up to the street door right when the bullet boys jumped him and yelled down the steps all, Fuckin man your battle stations, revenge! Now! Revenge! And next thing you know, cops on the run from punks, dude, I’ll never forget it, fuck, you’ll have that circle scar, all two-pronged, Slade was on fire at the Cathay telling everyone who missed it, life regrets, life regrets, right up there with the greats like Tomata with the Screamers at the Masque and the Pistols at Winterland, it went on forever and you just kept singing and stapling, blood spurts everywhere, half the pit was like on hold standing there mouths open staring, Slade kept going off on how you kept it totally together beginning to end, he was saying you’re the star around here, just we wait, you ask me, Slade’s craving dude, craving why oh you, his face lit like fuckin Crystal Cathedral talking you up, and Dude! Listen to this! He fuckin left an OC poseur spitting teeth, right before the cop chase! For talking shit about you! This fresh-crop skate kid telling people he saw it with his own eyes, afterwards at the keg table you had like five or six dudes whip it out and tap their kidneys dry hosing you for like antibiotics or whatever, I didn’t hear him say it myself and neither did Slade but somebody else asked Slade if he knew about it, since he was back onstage by then, and he was all, Who the fuck said that? Point him out to me! Now! And he stomped over to the guy who had his back turned and tapped his shoulder and dude, blood and teeth, blood and teeth, the whiplash practically snapped his head off and that was just the first punch, Slade was setting him up for mass antibiotic action himself, yelling for people to start drinking up to flow the dude the flow, drown him in the fuckin Yellow Sea, but then the shit came down outside so he lucked out, or maybe not, I bet he got thrown to the cops and they put a professional finish on the job, no shit, that sounds like Slade all right. But,
damn! Rockets!
Slade!
He’s a fuckin wild man, he’s hot as hell, that’s one dude I’d turn for, dude I’m serious, you can tell the world, even Stickboy goes for
that,
take it anywhere any way that I can, I’m the fuckin son of a superman, maybe word’ll get back to Slade, I fuckin hope so, bring it fuckin on, good for you, Rockets, you fully deserve it, it’s past time to move on, you did right boy, I mean did you set the penis fly trap tonight or did you set— whoa! Check these! These are the fuckin originals! Check these pulled-out ones, El, the flesh bits and blood clots, little scabby hairs, these are fuckin
gnarly,
dude, they’re like half inch, can I have one like to weld on a chain or whatever, you know what you should do, is don’t shower or nothing, let ’em get all oozy and purple and pus-filled, so it leaves the raddest fuckin—”

“Those sirens!” Blitzer says. “Why are they closing in this direction if the action’s on Argyle?”

“Oki’s,” Stickboy says. “You know they’re there yesterday once everyone’s beat all to fuck and busted on Argyle. Gettin’
their
revenge.”

“Our friends,” Blitzer says, “we just dropped them.”

And his voice, it’s like electroshocked, zombielike, walking wounded, walking dead. Except he’s not walking. He’s paralyzed.

And then he’s not.

“Don’t even!” Stickboy says. “It’s too late!”

Sirens right past us now, engine thunder down La Brea, screeching tires somewhere close,
thwock-thwock-thwock
ing helicopter blades, east behind us, closer closer.

“Jump out!” Blitzer says, but they don’t, it’s that fascination of watching an accident, maybe.

We peel out of the Mayfair lot like a moonbound Saturn Five. But there’s no taking Santa Monica.

Shut down one block west.

Cops swinging flashlights.

Flashing reds forever.

Copters on top of us.

Paddy wagons behind us.

“Just get down to Melrose,” Stickboy says.

“Romaine,” Blitzer says. “It’s dead. It goes through. Cops won’t be there. That’ll get us closer.”

“Closer! We’re too close now! Let us out, then. No, fuck, not here! They’ll just nab us! A couple blocks at least!”

Stickboy tells me I’d better head east with them, Slade’s supposed to be kicking it at a house on Mansfield, he doesn’t have the address but he knows the block, we can—

“He’s with me,” Blitzer says, and hits the brakes, hard. “Rockets is with
me
. Got that?”

Stickboy mutters something, then says, “Whatever, I got who you think’s with you and I’m cool with it, no arguing that, just remember, Rockets is my bro going back a year at least before—before anybody else in here right now showed their face in the scene or walked the walk around the block. So I’m asking him who
he
thinks he’s with, just checking up.”

Stickboy puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Is that right?”

I start to say I guess so.

Then I think, What would that little puke Elliot say?

At his very very bravest.

“I guess so.”

No doubt about it.

So what do I say, my voice as hard as I can make it.

“Fully.”

Stickboy slides the door and says he tried, what fuckin ever.

“It’s your funeral.”

I spit, not at him, I got no quarrel with Stickboy, I spit hard to one side on the floor of the van, the Elliot side.

“In case it is maybe you better let like two seconds’ worth of air from our tires,” I say. “Then just show in your blackest black and tell the world you tried to stop us.”