Passing Through the Flame (6 page)

“The little lady....” He portioned out some coke for Marlene. When Marlene had snorted hers and handed the spoon back to him: Rory dipped it deep into the bottle and came up with a huge heaping spoonful.

“And a double portion of happy dust for the lady who sends us all to the moon,” he said, holding the spoon under Susan’s nostrils, staring straight into her eyes. Horvath couldn’t see his face from this angle, but something there made Susan’s lower lip tremble, painted that familiar nervous smile across her face. She took up half the spoon in one huge convulsive snort and coughed.

Rory held the spoon under her face, waiting for her to take the rest. “Enough for now,” she said, again with that little pained smile that the Rorys of the world always took in the worst possible way, as emphatic communion with their own throbbing bummers.

Rory carefully poured coke from the bottle into the spoon until it was only a shade less full than before. “For the man who makes the words that fly and the sounds that sing,” he said, holding the spoon under Horvath’s nose.

The pain in his eyes, the worshipful sincerity in the set of his mouth, that sickly glow of a man in the presence of his fantasy saviors jelloed Horvath’s guts. Even the Pope must get sick of having people slobber on his ring, Horvath thought. Even he must get tired of feeling their pain. And if Rory’s pain is doing this to
me
, what must it feel like to Susan? He snorted up the coke in two tremendous drags, feeling it blast into his head, leaving a foul bitter taste in the back of his throat as the glow came on.

Rory poured a smaller spoon for himself, snorted it with his left nostril, then did another level spoon with his right. Jesus Christ!

“Man, I needed that! I
needed
that!” Rory stared straight at Susan, making it a terrifying and disgusting open plea for help. The dude had no balls at all! “I needed to see you here tonight, Star, I’ve got every Velvet Cloud album there is, and I’ve been at every live appearance of the Velvet Cloud since 1968: and I’ve dreamed about this moment for years.”

He reached out for a piece of chicken, contriving to ooze closer to Susan in the process. “Actually meeting you. Being close enough to touch you, shit, you’re my last hope, Star.”

Marlene and Duke squirmed in embarrassment, but the way he said “Star” triggered that terrible and inevitable thing in Susan, and out came that smile, the big one, the Star smile that it had taken Horvath and Jango six months to teach her. The mouth wide, the nostrils flaring, the green eyes glowing, the slight frown lines in the eyebrows and almost imperceptible tilt of the head that implied acceptance of and triumph over the pain of the world.

“You really hurt, don’t you?” she said. Horvath could feel Rory’s pain reflected and amplified in Susan’s voice speaking in the inflections of Star, that boundless loving sincerity they had drilled into her till it became part of her soul.

“You know, I think it’s really true, what they say about you,” Rory said, leaning forward just enough so that his knees now brushed Susan’s.
Star’s.

“What’s that?” Susan said.

“
You
know,” Rory said, swiveling his head around to speak to Horvath. “You’ve written songs about it. ‘I will warm you, I will love you, I will flash you through the fire of my flame....’” There was such total helpless puppy-dog pain in those bloodshot eyes as he said it, such an overwhelming gush of despair, such an utter commitment of his last resource of hope, that even disgust was driven out of Horvath by it, leaving only pity and a memory he no longer trusted.

Back there on stage in Jango’s first place in San Francisco, in the Haight, in the Summer of Love, 1967, the night they first did “Take This Body.” The place was filled with speed freaks, bad acid, bummer vibes. Star was wearing sheets of veil that whirled and swirled, strobing through the complexity of the spectrum as she sang and moved in front of a rotating color wheel, her voice filling the place, washing over the bad vibes with what had really seemed like love....

Take this body, ease your pain

Let me take you on a trip

Back to yourself again....

The sunshine changes coming over all those bummed-out faces, the love vibrations coming out as his guitar made love to her voice, a love that reached out to all.

Take this body, I am yours

I will warm you, I will love you

I will flash you through the fire of my flame....

Oh God, it had seemed real, they had made it real that night! It was the Haight, it was the Summer of Love, and they had sent the people out into the street dancing. And afterward, when that poor pathetic little speed freak attached himself to them, begging and whimpering for the creature in the song, it had made Horvath feel like a Prince of the New Age to let her grant him his wish.

But that was the Summer of Love, four years dead, and maybe that was the night Susan started to die, the night that Star had first been born. At the end of that Summer of Love, something had already gone out of the world. But the Rorys still believed she could bring it back.

“Yeah, I guess I do know,” Horvath said. “Like you say, I’ve written songs about it.”

Muttering something, Marlene got up and split. “Think I better go fill Tim’s hookah,” Duke said.

And then there were three.

“Look, man,” Rory said, “I hope this isn’t going to gross you out, but I’ve got a problem, a real problem, and I thought... I mean... I need...
oh, shit!”
He poured himself a hit from the coke bottle, snorted it up. His hands were shaking, and his body began to bob back and forth. A bolt of anger flashed through Horvath’s pity at this slimy performance.

Staring at the floor, Rory suddenly began talking in a tumbling speed freak gibber. “I wouldn’t tell this to anyone else, but I dig you, and I think you’re real, and I think I can trust you, thing is, I can’t get it up! Tried all kinds of chicks doing all kinds of tricks, rubbed coke on my dick, meditation, macrobiotic diet, even did a month eating nothing but meat, I mean I’ve tried
everything
, and I just can’t make it. Once in a while I get a hard-on, but.... my head’s all twisted inside.... So I thought... so when I heard you were going to be here....”

Anger chased hate in a yin-yang spiral in Horvath’s mind, and his insides roiled with pity mixed with disgust. Self-disgust. This poor nerd wormed his way in here as if he were crawling to Lourdes, convinced that Star’s touch could save his crummy life, put backbone into his limp pecker. And who is responsible for that? I am, wasn’t it Jango and me who built up the legend with the songs, and the performances, and the album covers, and the image?

Bill looked at Susan, sitting there staring at Rory with that pale little smile on her face, the smile that Rory was reading as confirmation of everything, that only Horvath knew was pain. His pain. Rory’s pain. Her pain. For Susan knew what Bill knew, that impotence was strictly a head trip, that it would be cured by anything its victim believed would cure it. How many times had she seen belief in Star break a bummer? She could feel Rory’s pain and know that the power to remove it was hers, that therefore the guilt was hers if she didn’t. And she can feel my pain and know what pain I’ll feel if she does. And either way, she hurts, that’s the real hell of it.

That’s what Susan knows. That’s what Susan lives. That’s where I put her. And I’m the only one who can take even a little of the pain off her....

Horvath looked at Rory. His eyes met Susan’s, and they shared the love, shared the pain. Susan’s lower lip trembled. Chill fingers danced up Horvath’s spine; his eyes stung and watered.

Rory lifted his face and looked at Horvath, those wasted redeyes filled with tears of gratitude. “Oh, man...
oh,
man....”

Horvath touched him on the shoulder, hating himself for playing this scene, hating the hint of ego boost he was beginning to get off of it, hating himself for hating himself, and loving his own pure fucking wonderfulness. Who could tell where ego trip ended and saint trip began? Only Susan—if there was a difference at all.

“Oh, Bill.” Susan sighed, touching his hand. The “I love you” did not have to be spoken....

Rrrrrrr-yeeow!
The rainbow-colored Porsche rounded the final bend in the drive, flashed into view for a moment, Susan’s loose hair billowing in the breeze, then followed the drive back out of sight around the front of the house and into the garage. When she killed the engine, the silence created a hole in the night sounds, her audible shadow.

She walked through the house toward him, pushing that wave front of cool silence before her. He could feel the pressure of her presence before she emerged onto the deck, Susan vibrations filling the hollow places in his soul, unwinding the coiled springs in his belly.

Then she stepped out onto the deck, her hair tangled and matted from the drive in the open car, her clothes crinkled and grubby, her face gaunt and drawn, her tired eyes sunk back deep in dark sockets.

“Bad?” he whispered inanely.

“Horrible.”

“I shouldn’t have let you....”

“Oh, Bill, Bill,” she said, bursting into tears, “when I’m
her,
I don’t think you could stop me. I’m not even there.” She ran barefoot across the redwood boards, and he caught her in his arms, hugging her to him, kissing her long and deep, telling her how much he loved her for a long, long time.

The hot wind had been blowing in off the desert for nearly two days now, the Santa Ana that made the days hot and parching and the nights wild and weird. Velva Leecock felt that Santa Ana made Los Angeles even more Hollywood-like at night, gusts of blood-warm wind that shook the tops of trees, sent palm fronds tumbling, kicked up dust, but didn’t cool the night at all. There had been no wind like it in Nebraska, where wind was wind and felt like wind. The Santa Ana was a real Hollywood wind, straight from special effects, the perpetual blowing before a storm that never broke: keeping the tension in the air, turning all Los Angeles into a set for a romantic tropical movie, making her blood hum and her flesh tingle. Velva loved the Santa Ana.

And how perfect it was that the Santa Ana was blowing tonight! It even made up a bit for the fact that she was going to Jango Beck’s party in Paul Conrad’s ratty old Rambler instead of a sleek Jaguar or a dignified Continental. But there would be plenty of cars around, and nobody would notice who had arrived in what once they were inside the house. She was wearing her midnight-blue satin sheath that plunged to the small of her back in the rear and just managed to contain her perfect breasts in front. Between breasts and mid-thigh, the dress clung tightly enough to her body to outline the smooth muscles of her belly, draw the ghost of a line between her buttocks, and mold to her pelvic bone, revealing to the world that she was naked beneath it. From knee to mid-thigh, the dress flared slightly and was slit up both sides, flashing teases of more naked thigh. Just the dress and a pair of high heels; no jewelry, bra, stockings or underwear. The satin rubbed against her nipples, making her constantly aware of her own body. She felt as sexy as she looked and looked as sexy as she felt.

“You’re really loaded for bear tonight, aren’t you?” Paul said as he made the right from Sunset onto Fairfax.

“Do I look good enough to eat?”

Paul making a choking, laughing sound. “Shall I pull over and prove it to you? Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to get a chance later on.”

“You remember our deal, Paul....”

“Sure, a fat producer for you, and a rich old lady with warts on her tits for me. Hrmmm... wanna trade?”

“Huh?”

Paul held up his palm. “Joke,” he said. “Forget it.”

He sure is hard to understand, she thought. All those little things he says that don’t seem to mean anything. Maybe that’s because he’s a New Yorker—they seem to talk faster than they can think.

But he was nice. He was pretty good in bed, and he understood that her career was what counted, and what was more, he seemed to accept it without getting hung up over it. Which is more than you could say for most of the men in this town that I’ve gone out with for fun.

And she just
knew
that he was on the way up. Sure, all he had was this rusty old Rambler, and sure, most of his clothes were shoddy hippie kinds of things, but hadn’t he had the good sense to dress right for this occasion, and not embarrass her or himself? Paul had polished his old brown boots to a high shine and had even let her pick out a really sharp-looking pair of blue suede pants for him. Lacking anything fancier, and having blown most of his money on the pants, he had put on a clean white shirt and let her fix him a fancy-looking paisley ascot out of an old scarf she had. He had even trimmed his hair and sideburns. He looked like the young up-and-coming writer or director that he would be someday soon, and not like a pornie cameraman. He makes fun of me for being careful to look like a star, but he’s smart enough to dress like what he wants to be, himself.

They were a good-looking couple: a person of obvious star quality escorted by a mysterious young man on the rise. If only they weren’t arriving in this seedy old car, everything would be perfect.

Paul turned west onto Hollywood Boulevard. Farther east, the street was a main drag lined with movie houses, greasy restaurants, trinket and porn stores, poster shops, the Hollywood Wax Museum, Grauman’s Chinese, biker bars, junkies, weirdos, and male hookers. As far as Velva was concerned, the fabulous corner of Hollywood and Vine was the most depressing intersection in the world. “Hollywood and Vine” had always conjured up images of movie stars and searchlight premieres with white gowns and tuxedos; when she finally got there, there it was, greaser heaven.

But once you crossed La Brea headed west, Hollywood Boulevard became a totally different street—cool and tree-shaded, new high rises, and older, smaller California-style apartment courts, private homes, lots of ivy, shrubs, and palmettos. And to the right, you could see the southern slope of the Hollywood Hills, the border of the canyon country where people lived who had carved out at least some small place for themselves.