Already Dead: A California Gothic (54 page)

He tried the front doors. Locked tight. He went to the building’s corner and saw no cars in the open garage.

The door to the residence opened, and the reverend called, “I’m over here! Hi!”

Clarence lifted his hand in a tentative greeting as he hiked the long porch.

“Good morning!”

“I’m Clarence Meadows.”

“Of course, of course—Clarence. Come in.” Reverend Connor, though at home, looked dressed for business in a western shirt and string necktie and dark slacks, his paunch divided by a wide rawhide belt and buckled fiercely with a Stetson buckle. Meadows knew him to have come from Buffalo, or maybe Albany. “I’m afraid we’ve got fire in the county,” he said.

“I’d say so.”

“It’s a shame.” For a few seconds he studied Clarence’s face. “Is that LP land over there? It’s due east, isn’t it?”

“Georgia Pacific.”

The minister shut the door behind them and led the way to the living room. “What a waste. And it’s mostly blowing east?”

“I haven’t heard.”

“I heard it was. I guess we’re spared, but what a terrible, terrible shame. But it was lightning. What can you say to that? Sit. Sit. Would you like some tea?”

Clarence sat on the couch and said. “You know me. Of me.” The Reverend Connor seated himself in a leather easy chair and continued looking Meadows over, openly puzzled. “Well, of course I know you, did you expect me to forget? You helped Cassandra when she hit that poor sheep.” The minister had a teenage daughter, unlucky behind the wheel more often than just the once, and a beautiful dark-haired wife who seemed entirely nice but to whom Meadows, on nothing but a hunch, attributed the Reverend’s secret apostasy.

“I guess you know what kind of sinner I am.”

“Now, wait a minute, Clarence. I don’t know what kind of sinner you are. How could I know? It’s between you and your conscience. All I can say is—and I’m not supposed to, they told us in the semi-Already Dead / 359

nary not to act surprised—but I was surprised to see you coming up the walk. Well.” He smiled, lifted his hands. “It’s God’s world. Anything can happen.”

“You deal with sinners of my type.”

The Reverend nodded and shrugged, both smiling and attempting to smile.

Meadows added nothing.

“Did you say you’d like some tea?” the Reverend asked, and stood up.

Clarence shook his head. The Reverend sat back down.

“With all types,” the Reverend said, proceeding with a studious frown. “Nobody is so lost, so…
lost
—”

“With my particular type.”

“Well—” The Reverend stopped and thought about this. “I don’t get it.”

“I don’t know. Maybe you don’t.”

Meadows added no more. The Reverend seemed to accept this silence as significant. He joined his fingertips together across his belly and then lifted them to probe gently at his double chins. He had delicate hands and a very white face and thick red lips and was, to Clarence’s eye, a man created very much in the image of his childhood, a good boy, a pudgy boy. “I don’t like that kind of rumor floating around.” Clarence leaned forward. He couldn’t read the whole inscription tooled into the Reverend’s belt, but he saw enough to understand that it said, THEY CAN HAVE MY GUN WHEN THEY PRY IT FROM MY COLD

DEAD FINGERS.

The Reverend said, “Is it floating around?”

“Not around here. But I know Herman Hayes in Long Beach.”

“Oh, shit.”

“And this guy, Tony, I can’t remember his last name, dude used to roadie for the Byrds. He seems to know you. Some of those guys down there.”

Connor drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair and blew out a long breath. “Well, we have these mutual acquaintances. Maybe you’d better come right to the point.”

“It’s kind of a salvage opportunity.”

“That’s what we’re here for.” The Reverend laughed and immediately looked worried again. “This isn’t about a loan. Because I really—” 360 / Denis Johnson

“No sir.”

“I just can’t. That’s absolutely out.”

“I’ve got seven pounds of female tops picked too early. They’re going cheap.”

Connor raised his eyebrows and relaxed. “Well, cheap had better be damned cheap.”

“Ten even.”

“What are my people going to want with trash?”

“You dry it till it’s crisp and powder it up real fine in a blender. Bind it in little wafers, like two by three inches in size.”

“Bind it?”

“Bind it with a little varnish. Call it kief. Little green squares about a half inch thick.”

“And what is the return?”

“Retail? Seventy per unit, minimum. You’ll get four gross out of the plants. They’ll bring ninety apiece if you just don’t push. Exotic invent-ory. Just say, ‘Oh, incidentally,’ to your more sophisticated customers.”

“Varnish.”

“Or whatever works.”

“But varnish works, you’re saying.”

“If you want to move it, ask five grand per gross. It’s off your hands, and you double your outlay.”

“And if somebody comes back about, well…varnish.”

“If they do—tut tut. Those fucking Arabs. They actually do bind hash with varnish anyhow. Some of it.”

Connor hitched forward and half stood and looked out the living room window toward the church. “I’m wondering now about your vehicle.”

“Down by the Safeway. I came up the hill.”

“We’re unobserved.”

“I’m not a fuck-up. Check with Long Beach.”

“And why me?”

“Because you can move. You can talk to the bank if you have to. The thing is,” Clarence said, and he leaned forward now, aware that he was pushing, “it’s the fire. The plants are up, and I’ve got no home for them.

Now’s the time.”

“A victim of the drought?”

“I was in the wrong place. Let’s say this: You take the night to think Already Dead / 361

about it. Check with the folks in Long Beach. They’ll tell you I only make bargains to the benefit of both parties.”

“Have you actually ever cooked up this kief yourself?”

“I’ve seen it done. A buddy of mine in the service, in the navy, and this was light-years back. He got home from Lebanon totally empty after making some serious promises, so he came up with this inspiration, these wafer things. Everybody went away happy.”

“Surely. But. Clarence…” Connor waved a hand and shook his head.

He sat back in his easy chair and looked Meadows up and down, long and carefully, in a plain attempt to make him uneasy.

So close to the sea Meadows wore an open flannel shirt over his tank top. He raised the undergarment to his neck by its hem and bared his middle and also, evidently to the surprise of the Reverend, unzipped his fly. “No wires, no mikes. Nobody’s hot, I’m not up a tree. And we’re structured here so it would constitute entrapment anyhow.”

“I’m not interested in legal constructions. The first time somebody narks me even to the neighbors, there goes my program. No, no, no,” the Reverend said—and now, by a certain shift in the Reverend’s manner, Clarence felt his instincts in coming here exonerated—“this is really unorthodox. The way you’ve arranged this, I can’t help but feel intimidated. I think maybe it’s completely unacceptable.”

“I guess I’m giving you a jolt,” Clarence agreed as he rearranged his clothing, “but I’m forced to improvise.”

“I’d expect you to offer some adjustment in the price, considering the nuisance of it all.”

“I’ve adjusted the price already. It’s killer shit. The only problem is the bitter taste. So you change the packaging and make that a selling point.”

“At the very least, it’s a form of harassment.”

“No way. If you pass, I was never here.”

“I pass.”

“Why not have a look? You can always pass later.”

“I pass.”

“Eight-five.”

“Pass.”

Clarence stood up. “I can’t go lower. I’ll take the hill back down.

Don’t sweat it, I was never here.”

The minister didn’t rise. He waved a hand between them, whisking 362 / Denis Johnson

away any shreds of unpleasantness from this encounter. “In that case, I’ll take a look. Eight-five is good. I just wanted to know where you were coming from.”

“Good enough.”

“We’ll see,” Connor promised, “we’ll see if we can’t get you straightened out in some manner. I’d like to help.”

“Check with Long Beach.”

“I’ll make some calls. If Herman likes you, I like you.”

“He’ll put you at ease.”

“If it’s primo, we’re on. If not, no hard feelings?”

“Not a one. It’s your call.”

“Yes, Clarence, it is.”

“I’ll give you a few hours in the morning to get the lay of things and do what you need to do. I’ll turn up after lunch. You expect to be around?”

“Of course.” The Reverend Connor nodded. “Here is where we do our work.”

Late that afternoon Clarence made a crest on Shipwreck that opened onto the distant east and watched a modified DC-3 floating above the fire. As it banked away and vectored low over the hills of smoke, too far off for the sound of the engine to reach him, an orange spoor of chemical retardant exploded from its belly. In the next instant he was forced to run the Scout’s tin hide against the rocky road-bank as a pickup came at him too fast around a curve and they entered each other’s dust clouds. A black Silverado with a camper shell.

Immediately around the bend and out of sight, Meadows cranked the steering a half turn to the left, depressed the clutch, and yanked up the emergency brake hard. Headed now directly at the bluff’s edge, he dropped the brake, straightened the wheel, popped the clutch, jammed the gas, and accomplished a sliding bootlegger’s U-turn and went into pursuit.

F
alls dreams often of the moment he killed his father, put one in his heart during an argument. The killing had been completely unexpected, a shock to everybody, although one had been going to shoot the other for a long time. Only, and he was more and more certain of it the older he got, only his father hadn’t Already Dead / 363

quite realized this until the slug split his breastbone. Then his eyes had clouded out, turned to little bright stones in the sockets. Falls goes over this moment when he wakes from dreams of it, holding it carefully in his mind, pressing his fingers to his temples, staring at the face he’s just dreamed, intensely curious to find in those eyes a beat of light—shit, the light would say, I get it: We’ve been fucking with the ultimate…But the dream had been fading out over the years, the decades. He woke remembering, but you couldn’t say the dream had actually run itself through. It only signaled itself by scattered half-images, like stations ticked over as you spin the dream-dial.

Meanwhile Tommy gave up and turned off the radio. Falls said,

“Good. That activity irritates the shit out of me.”

“Nothing comes in.”

“Garberville’s got a station.”

“Not on this piece of equipment.”

Thompson managed to contain himself for a while, looking out at 101 and the tracks running in a ravine alongside it.

Falls tried to distract him by bringing up the Mexican girl again:

“Hey, you know that Mexican girl?”

“What about her?”

“She wasn’t half bad. What’s your opinion?” But Tommy gave out with something that combined a sigh and a laugh. They’d met the Mexican girl two days ago, and both had agreed at the time that she was an ugly dog. “Okay, Bart, back to the thing.

Straight, no bullshit.
Mano a mano
.”

“
Mano a mano
? You mean
hombre
to
hombre
.”

“Goddamn! Fine!”

“Okay—”

“No. Way to go, man.”

“All right—”

“Way to go.”

“Can I answer your question?”

“Yeah…”

“It’d be best in a war.”

“Were you in a war?”

“No, I’m really just guessing is all.”

“Okay.”

“But it’d be easier to lay it down later. You take off the uniform, and you lay it all down.”

364 / Denis Johnson

“Yeah, okay,” Tommy said, “I gotta lay it down.”

“That’s the message.”

“I just didn’t know how I’d feel afterward. Now it’s afterward and I still don’t know.”

“Man. I’ll never understand you.”

“You don’t have to.” Thompson watched things go by out in the world. “In fact I don’t want you to.” He wrinkled his nose. “It stinks around here.” A brown atmospheric haze had followed them down from the fires in Humboldt County.

They ate cold sandwiches at a picnic stop north of the Leggett turnoff. “We going to eat in a restaurant one of these days?”

“It wouldn’t be smart. I don’t wanna be remembered,” Falls said.

Thompson stood up and attempted a jump shot with his wrappings toward the rubbish can. “Two points,” he announced, although it hit the rim and went wrong. He sat down backward at the table and reached for his Michelob and told Falls, “We should be bringing back an ear or a finger.”

“He’s got a private swimming pool from which he looks down on the ocean. He don’t wanna see nobody’s ear.”

“Shit, man. Why are you keeping that thing?” Falls had taken out the pages again and begun shuffling them around in his lap. “This is like a hundred pages long,” he said in wonder.

“Why’d you keep it in the first place?”

“You can’t leave it to fly out all over the world like when they let down leaflets out of a plane, man.”

Thompson said, “You’re in a mood.”

“I knew that before you did.”

“I don’t feel nothin’.”

“Look. It’s not about that.” Falls bent close over the pages in his lap.

“I think it’s in a foreign language. Or I think it’s in code.”

“I’m gonna get a fire going.”

“Be my guest.”

“Gimme some of that diary to get her lit, please.” Falls said, “Here’s some good shit. This bark is dry.” He was putting it back in its envelope in the morning when Thompson woke up and said, “So. Breakfast is not served, I guess?” Already Dead / 365

“This thing,” Falls said, “is as good as a finger or ear or whatever.”

“I think this conversation started before I joined in,” Thompson said.

“You can get an ear just about anyplace.”

“Excuse me? Did you say something stupid again? Did you say you could get an ear just about anyplace?”