Читать книгу Shallow Graves - Rev. Goat Carson - Страница 9

I BLEW A HOLE in the afternoon with a .38 caliber dream. Its blood soaked my pillow purple and bits of my brain went swimming in the vision-wine, while sunset wrote with shades of brown and electric pink on the wall beside my bed.

I woke up shivering, terrified by things I’d seen with my eyes closed. My tongue was clicking like a cricket in my mouth as my now open eyes danced from what I was sure was blood on my pillow to the dark ghosts jumping out of the sundown shadows. It took a bit to pull myself together. That’s not blood, that’s wolfman make-up; my mind was working again. There is a strange voodoo in pain, present or remembered, and I was still coming out of its spell.

When the phone rang I ducked. It took a minute or two for me to realize the sound I was hearing was not necessarily life threatening. I crawled out from behind the bed, still shaken, and slowly lifted the receiver to my ear.

“Ah, Professaur you’re home at last.”

It was Speedster. He always pronounced “Professor” as if it were “dinosaur” because he felt both species had died out a long time ago.

“Speedster, my old friend.”

I called him “my old friend” because of his age not the length of our friendship, though I felt, in an odd way, that it was true in both senses.

“You sound like shit! Whatta’ you been doing, going to A.A. meetings?”

“Worse, I think a coven of witches are after my ass—I just woke up from a nightmare that left bloodstains in my underwear—and then you call—Things couldn’t get much shittier.”

“You know better than that, things can always get much shittier.”

“What’s that? Speedster’s Law.”

“Right. What’s this about witches?”

“I dunno, I think I’ve uncovered a coven of witches who sell their children’s souls to the devil to get even more of the things they sold their own souls to get. Am I making sense?”

“That’s an old joke professor.”

“What joke?”

“You mean you’ve never heard the one about the agent who’s sitting in the Polo Lounge and the devil walks up to him and buys him a drink?”

“No.”

“Well, the devil buys the agent a drink and tells him, ‘I can get you Cher, Meryl Streep, Robert DeNiro and Jack Nicholson, all on exclusive contract but I want your soul, your wife’s soul and your children’s souls.’ The agent looks around the bar then turns back to the devil and says, ‘Okay, but what’s the catch?’”

For some reason the joke seemed hysterical to me. When I’d stopped laughing I told Speedster that I really needed a shower and a cup of coffee before I would be in any kind of shape to discuss the events that had my life so uncharacteristically morbid. He agreed to call back in an hour.

I spent half that time in the shower trying to get Halloween off my body. Images from my dream kept buzzing in and out of my head. First the blackness that was pierced by this strange pinhole of light and the sound of voices chanting—Then a severed arm with a knife in its hand floating down a tunnel of dark clouds toward a candle—Then a circle of naked people wearing strange masks gathered around that candle passing a photograph from my book of Rabbit, Goat and the iron horse, from one to the other, taking turns stabbing the picture with a ceremonial blade. Then Jimmy, in the hot Texas night, with the file through his head, staggering around in his death rage as his attackers laughed and shouted, “Toro, Toro!” and slashed him again and again with their knives. Then the photograph again, being held over the candle and burned. Then Jimmy again, but this time all clean and glowing and smiling with his wounds turned to jewels. He’s sitting in the blackness with the pinhole of light behind him. He raises a finger to his lips then touches the pinhole sealing it over and leaving me alone in that silent night.

I was having my third cup of coffee when the Speedster called back. I told him about Paps and Burns Sawyer, Big Ed and Chris Boone, and about my Halloween dream. He listened patiently and made only five or six wisecracks during my whole spiel, which must have been a real record for the Speedster, who usually has a field day with other people’s problems. He did let me know right away when I’d finished that he thought everything I’d told him was a crock of shit.

“You’ve been in Hollywood too long. Your imagination is dying of starvation. Is this the best you can do? This is B movie stuff.”

“Yeah, well believe me, I’d love to get out of this town. Are you inviting me to Sag Harbor?”

“Speedster’s Law number two: no house guests, sorry. But there is a young actress who’s wintering in the neighborhood—all I can do is introduce you, and she won’t be back in town here for a month.”

“I could be dead in a month.”

“Bullshit. You want my advice?”

“I’d rather have the young actress.”

“Listen, stay in L.A. Face these fantasies you’re having. If you need help there’s a friend of mine who teaches at U.C.L.A. who’s got a Doctor’s degree in this occult stuff. I could turn you on to him; he’s a great character, face like an elephant and the mind of a poet. He’ll straighten your young ass out. Then, in a month, if you still want to come up, you can rent a room at that motel on the backside of town and I’ll introduce you to Sharon. That’s the best I can do. But seriously, what are you gonna’ do in Sag Harbor, the place is dead in the winter and a tourist trap in the summer.”

“Well, I thought I’d sell my car, buy a boat, then sit in that boat with a rod in my hand and a line in the water till my pecker hair turned gray.”

Well, Professor, I can tell you from experience, that’s a long time to fish without getting a bite.”

“Well, sometimes fishing ain’t about catching anything.”

“True enough, Professor.”

I took the name and number of Speedster’s friend and hung up. It was already dark outside. Dark. The word was starting to have too many meanings for me. I knew a Mexican restaurant down in Venice where a few dollars still went a long way and where the booths were dimly lit and quiet. I could feel the puzzle coming together in my head, growling like the emptiness in my stomach, demanding to be satisfied.