Part 21 (1/2)

The day John Kennedy got killed, Dothan Talbot beat me up. Technically, I threw the first punch, but I maintain to this moment that Dothan had it coming. After we heard the news, Dothan and that idiot sister of his raced around the playground taunting the way kids will who have been raised by redneck ignoramuses from Alabama.

I wasn't in the mood. So I decked him.

American folklore considers it quaint when a thirteen-year-old girl hits a boy, he hits back, then they go steady. By Critter's age, at seventeen, the same scenario is sick. Boys who hit their girlfriends are abusive apes, and girls who stay with boyfriends who hit are spineless chickens.

Dothan never hit me again. After I got old enough to realize the humiliation of violence I always swore that if he ever laid a hand on me I'd be out the door, but that's one of those blank declarations almost every woman makes while the situation rests in theory. I'm done with blank declarations. Like the death of a father, or alcohol addiction, no one knows for certain how they'll behave when reality rears up and blows theory to the wind.

Critter, obviously, had given herself an excuse to stay. I'd created an excuse for Dothan to make the decision for us.

We, Critter and I, were supposed to be the vanguard of the first generation of smart women. I was the Be-Here-Now chick of the sixties, she the free-soaring spirit of the seventies, yet neither of us did squat about our cheating, controlling men. It took Marcella, the Betty Crocker of the fifties, to stand erect and shout, ”f.u.c.k you, jerk, I'm outta here.”

Or whatever was the cookies-and-milk equivalent of ”f.u.c.k you, jerk” in Amarillo, Texas. Maybe she called him a lout.

Whatever she called him, it worked when our way didn't. Hugo was following like a puppy who'd been slapped in the nose with a newspaper. Where was Hugo now? Had he given up and returned to Amarillo and the cotton flowers of Annette Gilliam, or, like the Shadow, had he simply faded into the night?

I kind of hoped he was lurking in the darkness; I don't know why. All cheating men should be castrated-the cynic could make an argument that all men should be castrated-but the thought of Hugo Sr. hovering somewhere out of sight, never with us yet always nearby, struck me as kind of sweet.

The music changed from Doobie Brothers to Deep Purple-”Hey, Joe,” a song about a man with a gun in his hand. One una.s.sailable truth, Freedom held Critter, not me. Time to get the h.e.l.l out of Dodge. More coffee-coffee would knock me off my natural state of high center and give me the impetus to get Lloyd and Shane on the road. I needed a liquid impetus.

Inside, Shane was bent over his harmonica, blowing blues notes that didn't match with Deep Purple. The tanned girl, who'd put on a tank top, sat at his feet next to a very intense-looking young man who held the baby. The others still sprawled in various postures of decadence, but you could tell from their body language that Shane was center of the deal.

Midway through a riff, Shane broke off and said to the intense young man, ”Don't throw your blame for the uptight bearings of Christianity on Jesus. Jesus was cool, he taught love your enemies, love your neighbors, love yourself. He never said a word against mixed swimming. Or getting high.”

The young man clenched his eyes. ”But the Buddhist theory of nurturing negates my Nazarene upbringing. I'm left with emptiness.”

Shane raised himself on his hands. ”Christianity was n.o.ble for one hundred years, until that a.n.a.l repressive St. Paul started writing letters. He's the one took s.e.x off the cross.”

The tanned girl raised a fist. ”Right on.”

Dog Whiffer twirled in her corner. ”Tell it like it is.”

I had a doll once that talked with more creativity when you pulled a string out her back.

”Andrew and Thomas were gay,” Shane said. ”Jesus didn't care.”

”Who were Andrew and Thomas?” Dog Whiffer asked.

In the kitchen a kid with a totally bald head and hoop earrings sat staring at the closed refrigerator door. As I poured coffee, he exhaled. ”Heavy, man.”

”What?”

”Listen to the rhythm. It's like Africa. I'm really into black people.”

I listened. ”The refrigerator motor?”

”Very heavy.”

”No, it's not.”

He looked at me. ”It's not heavy?”

”It's a refrigerator motor.” I narrowed the s.p.a.ce between our faces to four inches. His pupils were huge, unfocused pits. ”Listen, my son. I am a messenger sent from G.o.d.”

He nodded. h.e.l.l, he was on mescaline. People on mescaline are like old Blackfeet, they expect messages from G.o.d.

I p.r.o.nounced distinctly. ”G.o.d said to tell you: Grow up.”

The boy repeated. ”Grow up.”

”Stop taking drugs. Get a job with the post office. Plant trees. Buy a lawn mower.”

”I don't know if I can remember all this.”

”Say it aloud so you don't forget.”

He licked his dry lower lip. ”Who did you say you are?”

”I am the Virgin Mary.”

”A real virgin?”

”You better believe it. Say the words.”

He licked his lips again and chanted in a near whisper. ”Stop taking drugs. Get a job with the post office. Plant trees. Buy a lawn mower.”

”Very good. Now, do it.” For the first time since Dad died, I felt proud of myself.

Back in the living room Shane was doing his Socrates-to-the-students thing, sort of what I did in the kitchen, only I did it from good motives to help the poor kid while Shane did it because he got off on adoration.

”'Love your neighbor as yourself' means it is proper to love yourself,” he lectured. ”Jesus often practiced masturbation. It was a regular ritual of early Christian ceremonies until the fourth century, when Pope Pius the Second dried his stem and proclaimed self-love a sin.”

The intense young man gazed at Shane. ”You know so much information.”

”Hey,” I called over the loadies, ”when Lloyd comes back, we're leaving.”

His chins formed a frown. ”I like it here.”

”You would.”

The tan girl leaned back on her hands to look straight up at me. I could have poured coffee down her cleavage. ”Father Rinesfoos is explaining the smooth-side-up, rough-side-down balance of astral perspective. It's totally amazing.”

Captain Beefheart must not be as deep as Hank Williams. ”Father Rinesfoos?” I said.

Shane said, ”I am a priest of the One Day at a Time Chapel. Where's Lloyd?”

At that point confusion broke out on the porch. What sounded like lawn furniture hit the side of the house, Freedom's voice rose, then Owsley's above it, then Freedom's, then the door opened and Lloyd popped through.