Burn Down The Night (4 page)

A boat passes me,
a blue-and-white cabin cruiser with twin outboard engines.

I shake my head to
clear it. Don't know how I did it, but the car seems to be on the San Diego freeway, heading into
the black heart of L.A. That doesn't ex­plain the boat.

Morrison is
unconcerned, searching the car for matches, unlit joint still dangling from his mouth.

"A boat just
passed me," I say, trying to be calm. Sweat on the palms of my hands, a cold, heavy weight in the
pit of my stomach. Feels like I am trying to give birth to an anvil. Driving in my destroyed
state is making me nervous as hell. My guts tighten up like coiled ropes. I want very much to
pull over or scream or both. Morrison just ignores me.

"I said a boat
just passed me!" Near hysterical. I look at Morrison, pleading for some kind of help. I know I am
weaving all over the road but Morrison isn't the least bit interested in how badly I am
driving.

"Speed up," he
says, dragging stuff out of the glove compartment. "That'll keep the boats from passing
you."

"Terrific," I say
and just miss sideswiping a black pimp in a white Cadillac.

I am getting
worse. Car going all over the road. Windshield starting that damn flowing-in-and-out rou­tine
again. I grip the wheel tight, try to get my mind on flowing with the car. Every time I try to
turn the wheel the car makes a sickening sideways plummet. If Morrison doesn't care about bailing
me out, if he isn't worrying about getting multiply mangled, why should I? I say the hell with
it, lean back against the seat, watch the windshield flow in and out and relax.

Best idea. The car
stops weaving. Shit! Let the frig­ging car drive. This far gone, it's the only way. I go off
dreaming.

Next time I look
up from some kind of vehicular dream state, miles have passed by as quick as blips on radar. Must
have made an exit off the freeway some­where but don't remember making it. Car is back on surface
streets again, lost in the horse latitudes of L.A.'s back streets.

I slow down, get
with the other traffic on the street and flow with it, windshields streaming.

Sometimes I turn
right, sometimes left. Sometimes I go straight for miles. No pattern to my driving or to us.
We're just drifting through a highway night.

I don't have any
idea where we are or where we're going. To be on the way to somewhere is all that
counts.

Morrison asks,
"Hey, man, you got a match?"

"Your face and my
ass," I say automatically.

"That's an old
one. I think Cleopatra said that to Marc Antony. You got a match, asshole?"

"Use the cigarette
lighter."

"There isn't any
cigarette lighter."

"Then don't use
it."

"Good idea. You
got a match?"

"There must be an
echo in here. Everything you say sounds like 'You got a match?'"

"Your face and my
ass," says Morrison.

"That's an old
one. I think... uh... " I start to say but stop because I can't remember who he said said it to
who. I think about the original question. "Uhm, no. I don't think I got a match."

I try digging in
my pockets. Car weaves across the center line and we almost smash head on into a
semi-truck.

"Shit!" says
Morrison, grabbing the wheel and swinging us back into our lane. The truck roars by, horn
blaring. "Take it easy." Morrison crawls across the seat, lets go of the wheel. "I'll look, you
just drive, for crissakes!"

I nod dumbly and
slow up for a light. Morrison digs into my tight pockets but I don't have any matches.

"What a bitch!" he
says, touching the unlit joint hanging from his mouth.

"I got to get this
mother lit."

"I could stop at a
store and get some matches," I sug­gest. I reach down on the floor between my legs and snatch at
another bottle of Little Kings Cream Ale. The car careens off to the right and takes a long strip
of chrome off a parked car.

"Pretty neat,"
says Morrison, looking back at the damage I've done.

"Open this for
me." He opens the bottle and hands it back. "Thanks. I get a few more bottles of Little Kings Ale
in me and I'll be fine. This stuff always mellows me out, if I don't pass out first."

"Too simple. It
lacks class," says Morrison.

"What?"

"Store-bought
matches. They are without soul."

"Oh. "

Morrison sticks
his head out the window and waves at a foxy girl coming out of a bar. "Give my rhino head!" he
shouts. At least that's what it sounds like.

"Like I said,
stores are too simple. Stores and the products therein. Civilized fire is the worst kind. Like in
the invention of porcelain. That's really corrup­tion."

I look at
Morrison. "Is that supposed to make sense?"

"No," he
admits.

"Good. I'm glad to
hear it. For a second there, I thought I might be wrecked on some dangerous
chemi­cal."

The girl he yelled
at gives him an up-yours gesture, turns her back on him and walks away. If she yells back, I
don't hear it. She's strutting off doing that phony L.A. model/waitress swivel. Like she's got a
tuning fork up her ass and she doesn't want the insides of her legs to touch for fear she'll
strike the wrong note.

"What was that all
about?"

"Cecil B. De
Mille," he says. "Without tights."

That makes perfect
sense to me. His mind is fried.

"I'm sorry you
didn't get off" I tell him. I try stop­ping for a stoplight. Perfect smooth stop. Unfortunate­ly
I'm still fifty yards from the stoplight. I'm in no shape to pass any driver's license
tests.

"Didn't get off?
Are you out of your frigging mind? As Black Lazarus said, I am getting off like a mother­fucker!
What was that shit really? I'm getting rushes that feel like they're gonna break my
bones!"

The light changes
as I inch up on it, gears grinding as I miss a couple of shifts and finally stall the car out. I
look over at Morrison. His eyes are chasing each other. He looks like a truck is parked on his
mind. "That stuff is baby laxative," I tell him. "Absolutely pure and guaranteed to be undiluted.
You'll know when you get ripped 'cause you'll pass out with a diaper on your nose."

"Far
out."

I restart the car,
noticing a street sign. We are cruis­ing Van Nuys Boulevard. That means we are lost in the swamp
of North Hollywood. How we got there, I have no way of knowing. Me, I thought we were in Santa
Monica or Pennsylvania, or someplace like that.

"How we gonna
smoke without matches? I got to figure this out," says Morrison, the joint still dangling from
one corner of his mouth.

I am up to the
intersection by now and it turns red. I stop for it. Right in the middle of the intersection.
Je­sus! I don't seem to be doing so hot.

A couple of cars
honk at us, perhaps in recognition of my superior driving skills.

Morrison looks out
the window at the cars whipping toward us on both sides. He just shrugs, grabs up a bot­tle of
wine, pops the cork and takes a big hit off of it. He seems bored by the whole
business.

And me? Me, I am
not bored. I am about to piss my­self with fright. Scared shitless is what I am.

I race the
restarted motor, let the clutch out, peel rubber and stall the car again, still in the frigging
inter­section. A red Mustang puts on its brakes and skids toward us.

At the speed of
light and some left over, I get the car going again, forgetting it is still in gear, and the car
lurches forward, just enough to be missed by the red Mustang as it skids sideways past
us.

"Pretty neat!
Pretty neat!" says Morrison, drinking some more wine. "I'm glad this is all a dream or I'd be
shooting shit all over my back pew." He held up the joint. "What we need to do is discover the
secret of fire."

He's beginning to
sound like a scratched record.

I'm busy. Stalling
the car again. I don't know how I do it but I do it. At least, we are almost out of the
inter­section. That counts for something.

I restart the
frigging car, shift, tell myself not to panic.

Morrison is
reading the wine bottle. Totally uncon­cerned. Love to wrap his head around the goddamn steering
wheel column.

I slam the car
into gear, but carefully, ease up on the clutch and depress the accelerator smoothly. We move
rapidly without jerking. Ah, success!

Unfortunately the
car is in reverse and we shoot back through the intersection. Amazing! Ah, failure! We pass
through the intersection and go beyond it. With the speed of an ice age, I realize my mistake and
go for the brake. I just ran a red light going backwards.

Morrison is
drinking wine when I slam on the brakes, me practically standing up on the brakes I hit them so
hard.

Wine splashes all
over Morrison's face and down his shirt.

"Shit!" Morrison's
wiping off his face and shirt. "What the hell are you doing! I got this bear piss all over
me!"

"Pixies and camel
drivers always drive backwards," I say by way of explanation.

"You're no pixie,"
says Morrison, wiping wine off of his neck. "You're a frigging caddy at a miniature golf
course!"

I look in the
rearview mirror and see a car behind us come to a tire-burning stop, turned completely sideways.
Looks like somebody slammed on their brakes trying not to hit us and went into a nasty skid.
Makes you wish other people could be more careful on the highway, doesn't it?

"You're really
full of shit, you know that?" says Morrison.

I notice that the
car is stalled again. Forgot to clutch it when I stood up on the brakes.

"You know
something, you're probably right," I agree, beginning the weary routine of starting the car
again. One thing I can say for this car: no trouble getting it cranked up.

I pull up to the
light. The light turns green and I shift, really concentrating. Please let me get it right, I
tell myself, but I got my hand on the turn signal indicator instead of the gear shift lever and
it snaps off in my hand. Frigging cars anyway!

The car stalls
again, bigger than shit, edged over a lit­tle bit into the intersection.

Somebody behind me
honks as the light glows a maddening green. Getting through this intersection is becoming like
sex for the first time.

"Enjoying the
view?" I ask.

"All right," says
Morrison, tapping his fingers against the wine bottle to some music only he hears.

Morrison looks out
the back window, then turns and looks out the front window. Has a puzzled look on his
face.

"Hey, man, isn't
this the same frigging intersection? What the fuck you doing? Making an epic?"

That pisses me
off. The guy behind me with the horn that won't quit has already got me pissed. Now I'm really
pissed. "Why don't you fucking drive then? I'm doing the best I can."

"Show me your
worst and I'll sell tickets. You drive like a virgin on roller skates."

"Just for that,
I'm gonna start driving with my eyes open from now on. I'm better at head-on collisions when I
can see what I'm aiming at."

I get back to
concentrating on my car routine. Get­ting it started again, getting it in gear, waiting for the
light. This time, goddamn it, I'll get it right!

"Turn around! Turn
around!" Morrison has his head out the car window, waving the wine bottle like Cus­ter's personal
bugle at the battle of Little Big Horn.

I turn around in
my seat, figuring the back of the car is on fire or maybe fifty thousand angry drivers are coming
up on us on foot with mayhem in mind. I don't see a fire and, looking out the back window I don't
see a lynch mob or room service or what have you. Whatever is behind us stays a mystery to me. I
can't see doodly squat.

"Turn this monster
around! Pull a U turn. Now!" urges Morrison, in a fever.

"What for?" I want
to know. "Christ! I can't make no goddamn U turns! I can't even get through this frig­ging
intersection, for chrissakes! Now you want me to make a U turn?" I threw my hands in the air.
"Jesus, you got a lot of balls, asking me to—"

"C'mon, turn it
around. Get this iron mother turned, man! There's some matches, I know it, and the girl with the
graveyard heart. Poon from the moon!" Morrison is suffering from mental sunspots. Or maybe just
suffering.

I shake my head.
"No way, man. We're gonna get ar­rested bigger than shit." I put my hands back on the wheel,
stare straight ahead, waiting for the light. Then I think about it. "Did you say poon from the
moon?"

He nods,
crazed.

I don't know what
poon from the moon is. I sigh, watching the red light. "Is it okay if I wait for the light to
change before I hang this illegal U turn?"

Morrison has this
wicked laugh. "Didn't stop you before, why should it now?"