“I think,” Sativa said in an amazingly unmystical tone, “I’d best go to the John and fix my diaphragm.”
I goggled. She split. I suspected I knew where she meant to use that device. Sativa had four cats, a dog, three roommates, and two rooms — a standard Village hangup.
Sean came back, registering absolute dismay at the absence of Sativa.
“She’ll be back,” I comforted him.
He sat down. “You know,” he said, “I think she kinda Likes me.” He was announcing miracles.
“You may be right.” Then Sativa returned and I lost track of them.
Somewhere later I hunted around for my current notebook and found it in front of Mike, being filled with left-handed illegibilities concerning the Reality Pill project.
“What the hell are you doing?” I foolishly inquired. I’d meant to do some scribbling in that notebook myself.
“It’s really very simple,” he beamed, waving a page at me that I couldn’t’ve read with the aid of a computer.
“Oh yeah?” I’d heard him say those words before, and so far they’d never been quite accurate. One of Mike’s famous simple plans’d involved installing ten illegal phones and three bookies in our living room, resulting in a noisy police raid that coincided with my finally taking to bed a chick I’d lusted after for more than a year. I never saw her again. “Simple, huh?”
“Right. Look, all you have to do…”
“Later.” I didn’t want to know all I had to do, but Mike happily misunderstood.
“You’re right,” staring quickly everywhere. “Somebody might hear us.”
“Groovy.”
Later Sean borrowed my keys and he and Sativa vanished. Later yet, with no intervening events I could remember, Mike and I were walking east on Eighth Street, heading home, I became aware of this in the middle of a sentence: “…but the thing to remember is that the power behind Laszlo very strongly does not want to be discovered, and might even try to kill us if they notice us. Might even succeed, in fact.” It was one of my sentences.
“Right, but as soon as we find Laszlo’s connection, we call in the FBI. We’re not doing anything really dangerous.”
“No?”
“Nuh-uh. All we’re gonna do is follow Laszlo. See?”
“Oh yeah? Who you callin’ we, white man?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I do.”
The rest of the way home I worried about tomorrow. Following Laszlo was bad enough, following him into possible danger was just ridiculous; but tired as I was, I couldn’t think up a dignified way to chicken out. Maybe it wouldn’t be dangerous. And maybe the sun would rise in the south. Sure.
The guest-room door was closed when we got home, but the noises from behind it were sufficiently explicit. Sean was learning fast. He had a few Texas practices — yelling “Yippee,” for instance — I hoped he’d get over in a hurry, but by and large he seemed to have a lot of (call it) talent going for him. Sativa sounded pretty happy, too, which pleased me, for it meant she’d sing a lot better than usual for a while.
“Well, good night, Mike,” I whispered, privily hoping my closed door would muffle the Sean and Sativa sinfonia.
“Set your clock for seven-thirty, right?”
“Seven-thirty!?”
“The early bird routine.”
“Worms?”
“Good night.”
Sean’s noise ignored my door completely. I might as well’ve been in the same room. I halfway wished I were, but I set my alarm as instructed and went to bed like a good boy.
Noise and all, I fell instantly asleep, still half dressed, and dreamed all night of a million Laszlos trailing me on rancid butterflies.
8
MONDAY STARTED poorly enough. I staggered naked and disheveled out of my room at half-past heathen seven to find Sean and Sativa, mutually radiant, fully occupying the living room and wearing nothing but wide grins.
“Groovy,” I complained. “Let’s have an orgy.” Instead I stumbled back into my room to find a bathrobe.
Sativa, I noticed, took this collective nudity in her cool stride, but Sean blushed all over — an impressive sight in so tall a kid — tried with a wholly inadequate hand to salvage his modesty, gulped “Oh wow,” and fled awkwardly to the guest room: a complicated reaction I was quite unable to understand.
Decently robed and less than half awake, I fumbled into Michael’s room and tried to rouse the master planner. This was far too much work to start a morning with, but if I had to get up, I’d be carefully damned if he was going to sleep.
Mike asleep is a fairly charming sight. His mouth is full of his right thumb, his face is round and innocent, and he isn’t saying anything. Nevertheless, I pulled his thumb out of his mouth, shook his head and shoulders fairly roughly, and yelled, “Reveille! Reveille! Out of the sack, soldier!” much more loudly than I liked.
“Gargh!” His eyes flashed open, his jaw snapped shut (which is why I pulled his thumb out first), and he sat up like an overwound automaton.
“Good morning, Michael,” I regretted, dialing his lights to full.
“Morning?”
“Right. Up and at ’em, more or less. Busy day. Get up.”
“Oh yeah. Sure. I’m awake.”
This I rather doubted, but I let it pass. Leaving Mike’s door aggravatingly open, I set my wobbly course back toward my own room, intending to get shaved and dressed, or whatever seemed appropriate.
Sean was back in the living room, his native modesty satisfied by a pair of not quite transparent briefs that were little more than a token gesture. He was grinning a high-grade idiot grin and holding hands with Sativa, who was still wearing mainly Sativa.
“Morning, children,” I begrudged as cheerfully as could be.
“Morning,” they burbled, not looking at me. A shower woke me, shaving reconciled me to being awake, and dressing — inconspicuous loud silks, a paisley scarf, and high suede boots, bright green — pretty well sealed my fate for the day. The whole process carried me through to eight-ten, and I finished by dousing myself in patchouli. Then, I went in search of Mike and breakfast.
Sean and Sativa seemed not to have moved, but he was apparently getting excited.
“Cool it,” I told them. “Mike up yet?”
“Mike? said Sean as though he’d never heard the name, and, “Nuh, uh,” Sativa added, which might easily mean anything.
“Right.” So I returned to Michael’s room and there he was, thumb firmly in mouth, at beautiful peace with the world. I was not pleased.
“Michael!” I yelled in the bosun’s mate voice I picked up in the Navy in my puppy days. Windows rattled gratifyingly. Even Mike went so far as to pull his thumb out of his mouth and mutter something inarticulate and vaguely placating.
“Wake,” I bellowed, “up!” I knew I wasn’t going to be able to speak above a whisper for the rest of the day, but Michael, by God, was going to get up.
He stirred uncomfortably. Sean and Sativa, hand in hand, came in to see what might be happening. “Up! Up! Up!” I screamed frantically.
“Oh,” Sativa said. “I can wake him up.” She dropped Sean’s paw, flowed over to the bed, sat down on it, and put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. Sean began to turn a purplish red.
“Michael, poochie,” she whispered in his ear. Michael, poochie? She stuck out her tongue and did something to Mike’s ear with it. I grabbed Sean and held him back.
Mike sat up, opened his eyes slowly and wide, and reached out for Sativa. She, giggling, got off the bed and backed toward the door — truly an inspiring sight. Mike got out of bed and followed her. Sean, still fuming, and I stepped out of the way.
She waited until Mike was half an inch short of touching her, then turned, and, laughing, skipped out into the living room. Michael followed blindly. When he passed through the door, I slammed it shut, released Sean, and said, “Good morning, Michael,” almost as maliciously as he deserved.