Stone Junction (60 page)

Smiling Jack carried Volta’s body to the kitchen and covered it with a sheet. Then he went down to the barn to make some calls.

He called Dolly Varden first. He wanted her there as quickly as possible to help with Volta’s remains. He made the other calls, then took a shovel from the tool rack and began digging a grave for Shamus.

Dolly, exhausted from the all-night haul from Portland, arrived at dawn. They cut off Volta’s blood-stiffened magician’s robe and had silently begun bathing him when Dolly said, ‘Holy shit. This for real?’

Jack didn’t see it. ‘What?’

‘This.’ She lifted Volta’s arm slightly, pointing to his wrist. ‘Unless old age is eating up my brain, it looks to me like a baby goldfish glued to his wrist here.’

Jack came around for a closer look. ‘Yeah – a baby goldfish. Don’t know about being glued, though. Its own slime or maybe some blood – that could make it stick.’

Dolly looked at Jack. ‘So, what do think? Scrape it off or leave it on.’

‘Leave it, I reckon. Volta always said, “Trust what’s there.”’

‘I’ll go for that,’ Dolly said.

When they had finished bathing Volta’s corpse, Smiling Jack slung him awkwardly over his shoulder. With Dolly leading the way, he carried him down to a shady alder flat along Laurel Creek, right above where it began its steep drop to the river. They left him face up in a clearing, arms folded on his chest, as Volta had requested years before.

Smiling Jack and Dolly continued on to the creek, stopping at a slow, deep pool. They stripped off their clothes and, with lung-cleansing whoops, plunged into the cold water.

THE SECOND NOTEBOOK OF JENNIFER RAINE MAY DAY

My name is Jennifer Raine.

I have come to an end I recognize but haven’t begun to understand. I
left St Louis this evening without a destination. For the last two weeks I
waited faithfully at Jim Bridger’s grave, entertaining myself with hopes,
dreams, wishes, fantasies, yearnings, and the last of the drugs I brought
from Reno. I’m glad they’re gone.

The DJ never showed. Daniel never came back. I can’t imagine Mia
anymore.

I think Daniel may have been the DJ. I know he kissed my scar.
I know what passed between us was us, a warm-rain moon waltz,
everything joined and hurled at the stars. I know I imagined Mia, but
Daniel was real, real enough to imagine me.

I kept the Diamond until today. I was convinced that Daniel was and
is real and that the Diamond was not. I never looked at it once. But I
did pick it up in its sack and caress it, because everything round invites
caresses. Every day the Diamond seemed to lose weight, grow lighter but
not smaller, and then I got scared that if I kept it, it would gradually
exhaust itself, collapse into emptiness, and Daniel could never find his
way back.

The Diamond, in an odd way, was all I had left of us, yet I didn’t
believe it was real. So this evening at sunset I carried the Diamond out
to the center of a bridge over the Mississippi River. I married Daniel. I
honor vows, keep my promises.

I slipped the Diamond from the sack and looked into it as deeply as
I could. I wanted a sign, a vision in the crystal ball, something to keep.
I saw nothing, felt nothing.

I opened my hands and let it go. I watched it fall, utterly certain
it would hit the water and sink without a ripple, like a breath
entering the air.

The Diamond hit the river like a comet, half the Mississippi erupting
in a geyser, a magnificent fountain turned golden by the setting sun.

I don’t know a fucking thing. That must mean I’m finally sane. And
that’s an excellent place to start going crazy again.

Also available from Canongate

NOT FADE AWAY

By Jim Dodge

Introduced by KEVIN SAMPSON

Floorboard George Gastin is part of an insurance scam to wreck a pure white, mint condition ’59 Cadillac originally intended as a present to The Big Bopper from an ageing admirer. But in the name of love, Floorboard George has other ideas, and disappears with the car, gangsters and cops in hot pursuit.

On the road, the crazy characters and demented hitch-hikers he meets provide high-octane entertainment as Floorboard George covers many miles – and states of mind – in his quest to find the true spirit of rock ‘n’ roll.

“The best road novel never to be adapted for the big screen …
Vanishing Point
with a point,
Easy Rider
with no hippies and a sense of historical depth.”
Guardian

“… a potent mix of bawdy folk-tale, philosophy and principled techno-awareness. Strong threads of humanism work within a fabric of vibrant characters, hillbilly landscapes and cathartic wit.”
Dazed and Confused

“[Jim Dodge is] in an affectionately satirical tradition that stretches back to Twain … he also happens to write snappier dialogue than anyone this side of Elmore Leonard.”
Scotland on Sunday

Acknowledgements

My gratitude to the following people for their help, encouragement, and forbearance:

Victoria Stockley (first, foremost, and more), Patricia Sinclair, Leonard Charles, Lynn Millman, Richard Cortez Day, Jeremiah Gorsline, Gary Snyder, Freeman House, Jacoba, Jack Hitt, Melanie Jackson, Robert Funt, Jack Gilbert, T. J. Mullen, Jenny Berry, Morris Graves, Gary Fisketjon, and Anne Rumsey (tune and tone).

About the Author
Stone Junction

JIM DODGE is the author of three books of fiction:
Fup,
Not Fade Away
and
Stone Junction. Rain on the River
, his collection of poetry, is also published by Canongate. He lives on an isolated ranch in California’s Western Sonoma County.

Copyright

First published in 1990 in the USA by The Atlantic Monthly Press

First published in Great Britain in 1997 by Rebel Inc.,

an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,

14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE

This digital edition first published in 2011 by Canongate Books

Copyright © Jim Dodge, 1990

Introduction copyright © Thomas Pynchon, 1997

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 84767 724 2

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