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“I need to now,” Do
“Opium,” he repeated. “What’s hash sell for now?”
“About ten thousand dollars a pound,” Do
“Christ! As much as smack.”
“I would never use a needle. I never have and I never will. You last about six months when you start shooting, whatever you shoot. Even tap water. You get a habit—”
“You have a habit.”
Do
“You ever seen pictures of an old opium smoker? Like in China in the old days? Or a hash smoker in India now, what they look like later on in life?”
Do
“You are a Catholic.”
“We’re being punished here, so if we can get off on a trip now and then, fuck it, do it. The other day I almost cashed in driving my MG to work. I had the eight-track stereo on and I was smoking my hash pipe and I didn’t see this old dude in an ‘eighty-four Ford Imperator—”
“You are dumb,” he said. “Super dumb.”
“I am, you know, going to die early. Anyhow. Whatever I do. Probably on the freeway. I got hardly any brakes on my MG, you realize that? And I’ve picked up four speeding tickets this year already. Now I got to go to traffic school. It’s a bummer. For six whole months.”
“So someday,” he said, “I will all of a sudden never lay eyes on you again. Right? Never again.”
“Because of traffic school? No, after the six months—”
“In the marble orchard,” he explained. “Wiped out before you’re allowed under California law, fucking goddamn California law, to purchase a can of beer or a bottle of booze.”
“Yeah!” Do
“Listen to me,” Bob Arctor said, taking hold of her by the shoulder; she instinctively pulled away.
“No,” she said.
He said, “You know what they ought to let you do one time? Maybe just one time? Let you go in legally, just once, and buy a can of beer.”
“Why?” she said wonderingly.
“A present to you because you are good,” he said.
“They served me once!” Do
“Then I guess,” he said, “you have your present. Your one present.”
“I can dig it,” Do
He said, “You have to save up for that. Save all your money. It costs.”
Glancing at him, suddenly shy, Do
“Who?”
“You know.” Her voice was soft, sharing her secret. Imparting to him because he, Bob Arctor, was her friend and she could trust him. “Mister Right. I know what he’ll be like—he’ll drive an Aston-Martin and he’ll take me north in it. And that’s where the little old-fashioned house will be in the snow, north from here.” After a pause she said, “Snow is supposed to be nice, isn’t it?”
He said, “Don’t you know?”
“I never have been in the snow except once in San Berdoo up in those mountains and then it was half sleet and muddy and I fucking fell. I don’t mean snow like that; I mean real snow.”
Bob Arctor, his heart heavy in a certain way, said, “You feel positive about all this? It’ll really happen?”
“It’ll happen!” She nodded. “It’s in the cards for me.”
They walked on then, in silence. Back to her place, to get her MG. Do
“Hey, man,” he said, “can I go with you to Oregon? When you do take off finally?”
She smiled at him, gently and with acute tenderness, with the answer no.
And he understood, from knowing her, that she meant it. And it would not change. He shivered.
“Are you cold?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Very cold.”
“I got that good MG heater in my car,” she said, “for when we’re at the drive-in … you’ll warm up there.” She took his hand, squeezed it, held it, and then, all at once, she let it drop.
But the actual touch of her lingered, inside his heart. That remained. In all the years of his life ahead, the long years without her, with never seeing her or hearing from her or knowing anything about her, if she was alive or happy or dead or what, that touch stayed locked within him, sealed in himself, and never went away. That one touch of her hand.
He brought a cute little needle-freak named Co
Ski
This was obvious just watching her. Co
Maybe she couldn’t tell the difference. Maybe, to her, a longtime needle-freak, sex and zits had similar or even identical qualities. What a thought, he thought, this glimpse into a hype’s head for a moment.
“Do you have a toothbrush I can use?” Co
“Do you know where the bathroom is?” he asked her.
“What bathroom?”
“In this house.”
Rousing herself, she resumed reflexively combing. “Who are those guys out there this late? Rolling joints and rattling on and on? They live here with you, I guess. Sure they do. Guys like that must.”