I don’t have to go anywhere, he thought. I’m at the center of this circle, and this circle is at the center of the universe, because every point is equally the center.
The vertigo passed. He opened his eyes, half expecting to see the line of white fire burning and sizzling around him in the damp weeds. He was several feet from the cliff, lying in the drag marks his body had made between the tire tracks. Merely raising his head seemed to call up the astral wind again. It tried to catch him by the jaw and pry him up and pull him all the way over….
He concentrated on the circle, concentrated on hanging in suspension like a compass needle—or like a weather vane, pivoting to keep aligned with the wind but unmoved. Gradually he got to his knees, and then to his feet, crouching, hunching, rising upright. Nothing else seemed to be affected by the wind. The branches of the shrubs and trees bobbed gently in a normal coastal breeze. The “wind” he felt would have torn the needles from the pines had it been real. The thing to do now was to move straight into it. He bowed his head, thinking of the circle, and pushed forward. In this manner he came to the asphalt road and crossed that; then climbed an embankment leading up into parkland, the cat-piss smell of eucalyptus enveloping him. It got easier as he went on, and he began to mistrust his navigation. The wind might read his intention and still steer him into disaster.
He veered off at a shallow angle, as an experiment, and found that he could deviate slightly from directly opposing the force. He lurched a few yards and clung to a tree; from there he dashed to the next, and then to the next. Eventually he crossed another road, staggering. Several cyclists whirred past, politely averting their eyes. But by the time he reached the edge of the park, the worst had passed. He could walk steadily whichever way he chose. It was easy to find the way he was not supposed to go, for that remained the most difficult. But by zigzagging across the streets and sidewalks like a meandering drunk, he managed to tack against the resistance; and in this manner he passed among apartment buildings and shops, down a long avenue that brought him once more to parkland. He feared he had circled around on himself somehow, but this place was different, full of people.
He came across a party in a grassy grove, a ring of people dancing to music played on a bone marimba. Michael’s path, the safest path, led right through them, and he followed it in a trance. They parted for him, spiraling around to close him in again, unwinding to release him on the far side of the grove. He went on through matted ivy clotted with trash, a man sleeping in a blanket caked with dried mud, and came out of the trees to see buildings again, and above them a distant row of hills. Atop those hills stood a strange geometrical skeleton, all in fine red and white, straddling the city, shredding the mists. He remembered it from earlier that day, rising above the occult store. He realized then where he must go.
Michael headed down the street, with the cold sea wind at his back and the not-wind at his cheek. He felt cut loose, floating free as a piece of debris blown skipping down the avenue. He moved in wide arcs, spiraling in on his destination. He advanced while appearing to avoid. Thus he slid down the sidewalk until he finally glanced up to discover he was on Haight Street.
Punks and hippies and grungers and bikers and beggars crowded the street like guests at a great masquerade party. Faces drifted toward him, mouths muttering, wild eyes watching, and then past. At first he only stared at these apparitions as if they were weird balloons blowing by; but gradually he realized that they were speaking to him: “Greenbud-acid-crystal-meth-crack.” All run together, like the faces themselves. He grabbed a bearded kid by the sleeve, searching the air above his head for something he didn’t really expect to see, although he knew by now that to see nothing meant nothing. He didn’t have the eyes for that kind of sight… not always.
“Hey,” the guy said, “what, you want meth? Best on the street, right here.”
“I’m looking for some rocks,” Michael said.
“Oh, sure.” The kid looked around briefly, then nodded toward a doorway. “I can get you rock. Show me your cash.”
“No, rocks. I saw them on a hill, a bunch of big rocks.”
The kid looked at him in surprise. “What? You mean, like, rocks? Rock rocks?”
“Yeah, red rocks. Sort of like Stonehenge.”
“You must mean Corona Heights. Indian Rocks, sure. You going up there tonight? Watch out for poison oak. You want acid? I got a few tabs of Hello Kitty.”
“I want to get to the bottom of that hill, under those rocks.”
“Yeah, okay. Take Haight down to Divizz—take a right. Go a few blocks and you’ll see ‘em.”
“Thanks,” Michael said, moving on.
“Sure you don’t want anything? Even a joint?”
“I have to stay pure,” he said, and he was flying again, through the street party, through the violet dark, everything luminous and laughing. Despite his fear and his dread of what might have become of Lenore, he felt a strange exuberance. He descended a dark grade to a street called Divisadero, turned right and followed it along a tall cement wall. He stopped dead as the headlights picked out an enormous mandala stenciled in spray-paint above the street, with two smaller circles flanking it like sundogs. Under them, someone had painted an elaborate, stylized “37.”
He nearly stepped back into traffic. Horns sent him running.
When he looked up again, he saw the dark bulk of the hill above him and the jumbled shadow of its rocky crown. He looked downhill toward a distant crossroads, and there he saw the corner beam of a Thai pagoda.
He realized he couldn’t feel a breath of wind.
35
In a still moment, as he lay on his bed drinking (not having called the police, the answering machine shut off in case anyone should call, such as Bob Maltzman, expressing concern over this latest threat to the popularity of the mandalas), Derek could hear himself crying: May….
I love you, May….
But that really meant nothing now. Soon he would get to stop crying. If trouble wanted him, he would give himself up to it completely. If he didn’t survive the reckoning, then at least the pitiful voice inside him would be silenced. The whimpering thing that had made others suffer would itself be put out of its misery.
“Come on, then,” he said. “Come on!” Staggering upright, going to the closet, and kicking hard at the box inside. “Come and get me!”
His foot tore through cardboard. The old carton burst along its seams, and the black and red notebooks spilled out on the floor; but the skin still hid within. It was shy and had to be coaxed.
“Come out, you ugly bastard,” he said, reaching down into the box. Picking it up and shaking it, literally, by the scruff of the neck. “It’s just you and me now. This is between us.”
And then… and then… he was standing before the mirror on the back of his bedroom door, listing slightly in the poor light, wondering how it had gotten so dark, how long he’d been drinking, why he was so fucking cold….
Oh, yeah… he was naked. He had stripped off everything except his black stockings. Notebooks lay scattered all over the room, but there was no sign of the skin. He was swimming in murk; ugly gray things stirred the air near the ceiling. He’d drunk enough to destroy his vision. Drunk so much that the spots danced before his eyes, whirling and spinning and having a wonderful time. When he moved, spots came down and clung to his skin.