The yard boss gave the truck a more thoughtful appraisal. ‘Don’t look like much of a pussy wagon to me.’ He shook his head. ‘But what the hell – if you got the pink slip and the registration’s in order, I’ll give ya a coupla hundred for it. Maybe take it for a drive. Fuck, ya never know, maybe something sweet’ll jump my bone.’
Daniel thundered, ‘I want it destroyed! It is possessed by Creatures of Filth!’ Daniel raised his fist and slammed it down into his palm. ‘The Creatures of Filth must be crushed!’
The yard boss stepped back and folded his arms over his protruding gut. Tilting his head, he inquired with a trace of derision, ‘What are you, some kinda fucking wacko? You can’t be for real. The real gets weird, sure, but not this weird. Huh? How about it? You for real?’
With an extended index finger, Daniel began thumping the center of his forehead. He smiled at the yard boss. ‘It appears I am.’
The yard boss considered a moment. ‘Ya got the pink slip and reg?’
‘The demons covered them with a green slime that sucked off all the ink. Turned that pink slip blank and snowy white.’
‘Get outa here,’ the yard boss muttered, pointing with his chin. ‘We don’t touch fucking nothing without clear title, and especially from loonies who seem to have blown their mental transmissions but are still coasting to a stop. No title, no deal.’
Daniel reached into his front pocket and took out the roll of bills. ‘Would a thousand dollars change your mind?’
‘Completely,’ the yard boss said, counting it quickly before shoving the roll in a back pocket. ‘Get out what you want and pull it over. I’ll go tell Jake there, running the crane, that you’re next. And Reverend? Any more demons get to haunting your vehicles, bring ’em on in and we’ll give them a Monster Mash that’ll pop their little black hearts like rotten cherries. Same deal, same price.’
‘Bless you, son,’ Daniel said fervently, spreading his arms. ‘May you flow with the River of Light.’
Daniel watched smiling as the cable-lowered magnet locked on his truck with a solid clank, rocking it on its springs. Cable reversed, the truck jerked free of the ground, sunlight exploding on its twirling chrome as the crane swung it toward the crusher like a fish being lifted from water to land. The magnet released and the truck dropped into the press, windshield shattering on impact. Then, with a breathy hydraulic hiss and the dry shriek of buckling metal, the press reduced the truck and its contents to a gleaming four-foot cube.
Daniel was impressed by this model of concentration, and fought a merry urge to try the crusher on his brain. He lifted his arms heavenward and cried out in joy, ‘Free, free, oh Blessed Light; free at last!’
He slung the day-pack over one shoulder and stooped to pick up the case and bowling bag. He hefted the bowling bag, imagining the Diamond burning inside. ‘How about it, huh?’ he mumbled to the Diamond. ‘Free at last sound good? You and me together, baby, both of us, nothing but dense, wild, diamond light, stone solid and loose as flame. Marry me.’ He started giggling uncontrollably at the thought of giving the Diamond a diamond ring. It would be like giving Venus a rat’s asshole for a wedding band.
Still giggling, he walked through the gate, turned west, and stuck out his thumb. From the churn of connections, he realized he hadn’t slept with a woman since he’d been on the road with Bad Bobby. Over a year. With Jean Bluer he’d been absorbed in other identities, and after that all his energies had gone into vanishing, consumed in being nothing at all. He remembered thinking after he’d first vanished that he might be able to make love with the same woman twice, but he hadn’t thought to try. His body, however, hadn’t forgotten. A heavy current swirled through him. Bursting into tears at Wally’s mention of loving his wife. Exceeding the demands of effective characterization with his description of all those lust-struck nubile teen-angels. Marriage. Conjunction. He was horny, so horny he could feel the Diamond’s warmth against his thigh, or so erotically ripe he imagined he did. He let his arm drop to his side. He squared his shoulders; took a slow, deep breath; closed his eyes. He tried to imagine the spiral as a woman, see her face, gather her body from the spiral’s burning curve, feel her opening with him, feel her heartbeat real against his palm, both of them bathed in light.
A deep male voice called, ‘Ya dreaming there, kid, or looking for an actual ride?’
An old Ford flatbed, dusty and dinged, rattled at idle where it had pulled over next to him. He hadn’t even noticed. The short leather-faced man at the wheel pushed up a cowboy hat older than the truck and said, ‘You riding or hiding, son? Ain’t going further than the Juniper Mountains, but you’re welcome along if that’s how your stick floats.’
‘What’s that mean?’ Daniel said.
‘Old mountain-man lingo, from beaver-trapping. Means which way you’re going, how you’re inclined, what you hanker.’
For a moment, Daniel thought of waving him on and waiting for a woman to stop. He wanted to be with a woman. But the old cowboy in the flatbed looked like he might know something. Daniel picked up the attaché case and said, ‘I’m riding.’
THE FIRST NOTEBOOK OF JENNIFER RAINE APRIL SOMETHING (7TH? 9TH?)
A long way from last night. I just hit Reno and things are good and bad, and probably that’s ‘normal’ if you’re ‘sane’ and ‘mature,’ but maybe because I’m none of the above, I’m down with the blues. Not depressed, Doc – blue. A touch of postpartum blues, the adrenaline of our delivery from confinement to liberty fading, from thrilling act to a new set of mean facts. It’s tough to live in hiding or on the run.
I’ve got the mama-blues working on me, too. Mia woke up screaming last night in the barn. She had a terrible dream about fire-snakes falling on her in the darkness, their sizzling venom turning her to stone. I couldn’t console her. I rocked her for hours, humming lullabies, but she just kept on sobbing until my helplessness overwhelmed me and I wanted to smother her to silence her cries. Instead, I left her weeping on the straw pallet and went outside to look at the moon and stars until I was small enough to go back in and rock her in my arms again and let her weep. I can’t feel where she’s hurt the way I could before; her pains have become too complex. I can only love her and hope she heals. Women hurt and heal differently.
I don’t know about men. They seem to confuse permission and plunder. In my cosmology, the sun created itself and imposed a single rule of existence: Everything created had to create something in return. The sun, to demonstrate, created Earth. Earth created a mighty river fed from a bottomless spring. The flowing river hit a mammoth golden stone and forked into freshwater and saltwater, into rivers and oceans. At the exact point where water met stone, men and women were created. Men created the clock. Women created the moon.
See, Doc, I’m not crazy. I just know what’s going on.
I have to admit some of my blues are the rejected kind. The only good news today was a ride from the barn to Reno, courtesy of an Alaskan fisherman named Billy Krough. I halfway fell in love as we rambled along. Billy, alas, was tall and strong, and while he wasn’t really handsome, his face, especially his deep-set, sky-blue eyes, had character. Smart, too. I require intelligent men. Bright Billy knew where Jim Bridger’s grave is – eastern Wyoming. I’d instinctively run in the right direction. The brain isn’t the only organ that thinks.