Why I'm Single

Chapter 11 of Carnival

Carnival

Chapter 11

Why I’m Single

Getting back into the highway groove was the quickest way out of his funk, and the best way to override the acid’s lingering effects. Kevin pedaled with a will, concentrating only on that next downward pump of the leg. Yet for several hours and many miles the ghosts pursued him. The phenomenon of “flashing back” continued to nip, as if insanity, an eager demon, rode puffing just behind. He was afraid to turn and confront this demon, but in his mind he could visualize its face. It would be grinning and bathed in blood, with jagged chunks of plaster protruding from its forehead and cheeks. Kevin scrunched his neck and pumped his legs like pistons.

At one o’clock he broke for lunch in the tiny seaside resort of Harmony.

The exertion had all but cured him. Kevin’s demon, unless it lay ahead in patient grinning ambush, had at last been given the slip. He felt so much better, in fact, that he could smoke a whole joint with only the slightest discomfort.

He scouted around, bought a new lock and chain for his bicycle.

Kevin coasted along the strand, enviously watching the happy beachgoers. He found a vacant bench along the promenade, sat and rolled another joint, drew on it hard as he could. He began to doze, snapped out of it. A weird sense of alienation overcame him as he took in the casual parade of passersby. Everybody seemed absorbed in participation, as opposed to observation. He felt he could expire right there, in plain sight, and the parade would go on as ever.

And while he sat, intoxicated, Kevin was treated to a haunting insight.

First came three young women wiggling by in their most provocative summer sex costumes, aggressively jiggling their tits and swaying their asses--exhibiting these unbelievably affecting parts, it seemed to Kevin, solely to provoke his rolling, burning eyeballs--while giggling nervously, their own eyes flashing as they pretended to not be inflamed by the four whooping and whistling young men who were hungrily pursuing, no less mesmerized than the lonely fat boy craning on the bench. The horniness was so intense it was almost palpable. Everyone involved was drunk with lust.

Behind this barely restrained aspect were two couples in their late twenties. The women were doing all the talking and gesticulating, at this age still giggling, clinging to their goofily blushing and occasionally mumbling men as if they were life itself, shrieking with brainless vivacity while slapping the men on their behinds. This phase of mating was somehow even uglier than the lust phase.

Next in line came middle age: the pot-bellied, Bermuda-shorted, wingtips-schlepping males shuffling along vacantly, hands in pockets. Their females waddled beside them, hanging on as though they were the jealous guides of blind gods, their tits and asses now nauseating masses of funky flopping fat. Their infants they fondled obscenely, slipping readily into baby talk; their growing children they berated almost casually, snapping and scolding and threatening. These women would then effortlessly glide into yammering at their hubbies, whose minds were clearly elsewhere.

Finally came old age; senior citizens looking desperately alone, desperately deprived. Nobody was giggling or blushing anymore.

And subsequent to the seniors came…

Nothing.

Suddenly there were tears rolling down Kevin’s cheeks, and he didn’t know why. He kept waiting for somebody, for anybody, to follow the procession. But the promenade was deserted. For some reason Eddie’s face came to mind, and now Kevin could clearly discern what before had been only a vagabond impression. Eddie had wanted something too badly. He heard Eddie’s voice: “You’ll never meet your maker, but salvation’s waiting for you with open arms.” Kevin mounted and rode on without looking back.

The highway became progressively desolate after Harmony, the road’s regular tenor giving way to long murderous climbs and to brief, exhilarating descents. Kevin removed his vest and peeled off his reeking shirt, once again exposing his upper body to the brutal July sun.

It was always one more climb. From the top of the next grade he was certain to gaze over the panorama of a little green valley where children splashed in crystal fountains. But time and again he found himself commanding a most lonesome view of an unending highway shimmering in waves of heat, often snaking well out of sight of the ocean, only to return, inevitably, to this backbreaking range. He broke his climb to study his crumpled map of California, certain that Gorda must be very near. But either exhaustion had addled his sense of distance or the map was a liar (Gorda, it turned out, was nothing more than an old house with a rusty gas pump. Maps don’t lie so much as tease). He coasted down the opposing grade barely enjoying the cooler rush of air.

Just one more climb! When he reached the top he was going to stop and find shade, or make shade, and perhaps snooze until the sun had eased low enough to make this kind of exertion reasonable. Maybe, he thought, maybe he should henceforth travel only by night. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to see San Francisco any longer, or catch the great concert. He was pretty sure, with almost four days left, that he’d arrive in time, but his mind no longer soared with grand images. The struggle was now automatic, his game plan confused. His basic motivation had become a soporific, singsong mantra on the benefits of rigorous exercise, which only seemed to be killing him, and on the ideals of Love and Peace, concepts which were only applicable in the half-world of his Shangri-la waiting just beyond the next climb. The whole trip made much less sense without his buddies. Guilt made him bitter and defiant. Kevin repeatedly visualized them at home, smugly expecting him to come whining into Santa Monica at any time.

Just one more climb!

But this grade seemed to rise forever.

Grunting, he closed his mind to it and labored up the highway mechanically, his head bowed. The sun was vicious. Kevin once more donned his ragged shirt against the rays. The rough fabric scraped maddeningly on his back with each forced pump of a leg. Sweat soaked his hair and collar. Traffic picked up. He thought of stopping halfway to the top, but to arrest his painfully slow progress would kill it. He’d never get going again.

The highway began to wind. And wind. The yellow caution signs became redundant. “Jesus,” Kevin said. Dismounting, he almost lost his feet.

Kevin pushed his bike along. The space between road surface and cliff tapered until he was almost in competition with automotive traffic, and suddenly there was no space. Ahead, he could see cyclists and hikers darting to the road’s other side, which didn’t look any better. Traffic intensified.

“Jesus!” Kevin gasped.

He stopped at a cliff depression, squeezed himself into the niche. Even the sea breeze was hot. Eventually traffic abated and Kevin made his break.

He took three steps and stopped dead in his tracks. What was he doing? Who was he kidding?

A close call from a passing flatbed got him moving again, inching along, until he reached a roadside emergency turnout.

Kevin pushed himself to the far end of the turnout, where a slight overhang crowned by a few stunted shrubs provided a bit of relief from the sun. He wearily swabbed the lenses of his glasses with his shirt’s tail, elevated his feet.

Came hiking round the bend one of the oddest people he’d ever seen.

This guy was dressed in a pair of tie-dyed corduroys eighteen sizes too large for his gaunt frame, held up by green-checked purple suspenders. Dangling from these suspenders were several shells, a starfish, various found oddities, and an unopened summer sausage. His left foot sported a scuffed brown wingtip, his right a filthy pink slipper. Painted ventrally on his naked torso was a serrated black swastika, superimposed on a stars-and-stripes field. Atop his long, wildly disheveled hair perched a tall dunce’s cap featuring, as on a barber’s pole, a bright red corkscrew spiral. Additional odds and ends were pinned haphazardly to this cap, and he’d topped it off with a slinky toy which bobbed and lunged as he moved. Perhaps most arresting of his paraphernalia, however, was the miniature purple plastic hula hoop suspended from a hole pierced in his nasal septum. Rattling about on this hoop were large mahogany letters spelling out P-E-A-C-E. He was pushing a bashed and battered shopping cart filled to the brim with a variety of found junk--rocks, shells, hubcaps, etc. The cart was candy-striped with red, pink, and white paint, and bore on its front a sloppily painted sign that read FREE NUTS; apparently less an advertisement for pecans at no cost than a timely plea for the wholesale liberation of lunatics.

Kevin watched this character schlepping along, fascinated. Now there, he thought, is one together dude.

When the guy reached the turnout he stopped pushing his cart to survey the winding grade ahead. He closed an eye and positioned a thumb in front of the other eye like a painter judging perspective, then slowly pivoted round in the manner of a toy drummer. He was now facing traffic with his thumb displayed for the purpose of hitching a ride.

Immediately three cars pulled over. The freak took his pick--a late model Mercedes Benz driven by a voluptuous redhead in a nude body stocking, who helped wrestle the shopping cart onto the back seat with squeals of delight--and was last seen being happily shunted along.

Kevin considered this transaction for a few minutes.

What the hell.

He stuck out his thumb.

The response was not so immediate in his case. He tried various poses, including lost and lonely, seasoned and aloof, personable and eager. Zip.

Finally his nymph arrived.

She was of indeterminate age--sixty to be generous, eighty tops--wearing a frayed black halter top, faded blue slacks, open white sandals. She had come for him in a 1960 Chevrolet Impala convertible, which shakily produced all the racket of Rommel’s Egyptian campaign and enough black exhaust to obscure whatever lay behind it.

Oddly, each toenail was painted a different shade of pink, and there were what appeared bite marks all over her feet and hands. Her face possessed the singular property of apparently having its contiguous parts in a state of flux. It took Kevin a minute to realize she wasn’t melting after all, that this effect was produced by the woman’s liberal and reckless application of makeup. Her scarlet lipstick, for instance, careened off the right side of her mouth and down her chin, while lumping up under the left nostril. Massive amounts of cobalt-blue eye shadow stained her upper lids and parts of her forehead, where a pair of black squiggles had been drawn to hide the fact she had no eyebrows to speak of, and some weird dark goop had been applied to her lashes so as to produce a few uneven spikes. Handfuls of pancake makeup made her face a bone-white mask, except for those areas where rouge had been carelessly smeared across her cheeks and into her black-dyed, alternately snaking and crimping hair. Eczema was evident in a few bald patches, on the right ear, and on her throat. She now placed a trembling hand on the seat for support, leaned toward the boy, and smiled boozily. “Goin’ my way?” she asked, in a voice that would nauseate a grackle.

“Umm…” Kevin said hesitantly, “this…this is my bike,” half-hoping she’d change her mind after considering the extra cargo.

“Pleased ter meetcha,” she replied, addressing Kevin’s bicycle. There was a pause. Finally she said, “Well, do you expect me to load the damn thing in for you, too?”

Kevin lifted his derailleur and placed it in the back, brushed aside some of the trash on the front seat to make room for himself. The crone took off hurriedly, barely giving him time to shut the door.

“My name’s Nefertiti,” she said, once the car had settled in traffic.

“I’m Kevin.”

Another pause.

“Pretty coastline,” Nefertiti said.

“I’m hip.”

The driver of a white sedan, peeved at having to suck down the Impala’s jetting black exhaust, sounded his car’s horn sharply. Nefertiti flipped him off. The sedan then swerved into the opposing lane and passed the Chevy easily. Nefertiti came half out of her seat. “F*****g showoff a*****e!” she shrieked, and hammered her fist repeatedly on her own car’s horn plate until the sedan had rounded the next bend.

“Oughta be a law preventin’ creeps like that from obtainin’ a license in the first place,” she declared. She hunched her shoulders and swiveled her neck to get out some of the road stress. “Anyways,” she said. She hiccoughed. “So where you headin’, sweetheart?”

“Oh…” Kevin answered nonchalantly, “just up the coast.”

“Ah, c’mon now, don’t give me that. You can’t fool Nefertiti. I been doin’ readings since I was half your age.”

“Readings?” Kevin wondered.

Nefertiti swatted him with her free hand. “Now hush up!” She placed the hand on her forehead and looked grave. “So…” she intoned, “you’re in your late teens and you’re goin’ solo up north and you don’t wanna talk about it. You’re all dressed up incognito to be some kinda freaked-out hillbilly cowboy or something. The jollied-up bike’s just a part of the disguise. I’d say Uncle Sam’s just declared you’re 1-A and you’re scootin’ your a*s right on up to Canada ’bout as fast as you can.”

“Nah,” Kevin said. “I’m no draft dodger, not yet anyway. I’m only sixteen. With any luck, by the time I’m eighteen there won’t even be a draft.”

“Okay, sugar. Don’t tell me. It’ll just be our little secret. ’Cause y’see, honey, ol’ ’Titi’s never wrong. Never. It’s a gift. But you can forget all about this great big ornery horse takin’ you clear to the border. I’m only goin’ far as Big Sur.”

“Big Sur would be right-on!” Kevin said excitedly.

“Oh? So you wanna party with the animals, too?”

“Damn straight!”

“Then sugar, you got yourself some like company. Gots me two nephews and a grandson camping up there right now. Visited ’em during the hollydays an they invited me back for the summer. Hardly recognized ’em, but boy, do they ever know how to party. I didn’t realize how squaresville the world really was till I got out and decided to let my hair down. I gotta hand it to you kids nowadays. You can really get it on when you’ve a mind to.”

Kevin nodded. “It’s really evolving,” he asserted, eyeing the audacious array of freaks they were passing. “The world is, I mean. Kinda like having Halloween every day of the year.”

Nefertiti smiled. “Y’know, sugar,” she said, “all this reminds me of a big ol’ festival they have every year down in Rio de Janeiro. It’s called Carnival. Sort of a giant contest to see who can make the most obnoxious a*****e of hisself.” She laughed shrilly.

“Yeah,” Kevin replied. “I love America.”

Nefertiti swatted him again. “No, silly! Rio’s way down south, down in that other America. One year Hank--before he died, God rest his soul--I says one year Hank and I was down there on a business layover from that stupid computer company that couldn’t make a dime if you programmed it to, and Hank, well, he just got all dolled up in the cutest little Tarzan costume you ever seen, with his little round belly hanging out there and everything, so don’t you know I just had to go as Jane,” she gushed. “I mean I just had to. I mean me, Nefertiti, queen of the freaking Nile, for god’s sake! Isn’t that a scream? So I got out this smelly old wombat pelt Hank had wrangled out of some curio shop owner for next to nothing, sweetheart, and I fastened it in place with a buncha safety pins, and you know what? Honey, it worked! Even though it did smell like the devil, but whoever said Jane was supposed to be some kinda scent queen in the first place, if you know what I mean. And Hank, well he just looks at me with this darling little sarcastic look of his and he says, ‘Oh, you’ll really create a stir, Pinky, that’s for sure’, like he was supposed to be Mr. Fashion Plate or something and--Pinky’s what he used to call me, God rest his soul--and so I just looks him right in the eye and I says, ‘Stir?’ I says, ‘you want a stir?’ and I just took the top part of that smelly old wombat pelt and pulled it right down, like, like, like…this!”

To Kevin’s astonishment, she freed her hands from the steering wheel for an instant and yanked down the front of her funky black halter. Her naked, burned-out dugs flapped in the breeze.

“Jeez!” Kevin hissed. “Cover up, willya? You want the pigs to come down on us?” In spite of himself, he kept his eyes glued to the dashboard.

Nefertiti glared at him, deeply offended. “Ah, lighten up, huh, sourpuss? I’m just exercisin’ my right to expose myself, like it says in the--what the hell’s that damned thing--the Constitution. You’re not unAmerican, are you?”

“Of course not,” Kevin gasped, hyperventilating. “But I’m on the lam. I just don’t wanna end up in the slammer, that’s all.”

Nefertiti wagged a limp gnarly hand. “B’lieve me, sugar, y’gots nothin’ to fret about. If any copper tries to harass us, why, you just leave ’im to me. By the time ol’ Nefertiti’s done with him, he’ll have traded his six-shooter in for a pacifier. B’sides, wasn’t five minutes ago you was rappin’ ’bout how it’s all bully-bully and hallelujah to the good times you kids got goin’ for you these days. So what’s it gonna be? You gonna hide the goods or let it all hang out? S**t, I seen eunuchs got more balls than you got.” Then she whinnied mockingly, half to herself, “Cover up, willya? Cover up, willya? That’s just what that stupid son of a b***h Hank says to me, like I’m standing there in some stinking rat’s fur for my own freaking amusement or something, and…and…oh, Hank!” she cried, and the waterworks came on. “You know I was only doing it for you, baby; you know li’l Pinky never meant no harm to come to nobody, smoochypoo, you know I never meant no…

“Aaah--men!” she spat, and looked daggers at Kevin. “The way you act! Why don’t you listen to yourselves sometime!”

Kevin stared at her, speechless. Nefertiti gunned the engine and began taking the curves hard, braking halfway into the turns. It was all so very, very unnecessary. After a while she relaxed a bit, pulled her halter back up and said, “Oh, Christ.” Kevin sighed with relief. They drove on in silence for a few miles until Nefertiti said, “And I’m a poetess. How about that?” as if it were one fragment of an ongoing conversation.

“Huh?” Kevin grunted. He’d been thinking about maybe rolling a joint. “How about what?”

Nefertiti reached over and slapped her palm against the glove compartment’s door, causing it to pop open. A half-full pint bottle of local rotgut in a brown paper bag fell out, but Nefertiti caught it before it could hit the floor. Instead of gripping the cap with her teeth while turning the bottle, she held the bottle steady while unscrewing the cap with her lips--not a pretty sight--and chugged the contents without blinking, all the time dead-eyeing the road. She then tossed the empty bottle over her shoulder onto the back seat, maintaining a grip on the bag with her forefinger and thumb. Now Kevin could see that a number of lines had been scrawled on the bag in pink ink. She smoothed it on the dash, slapped it once for good measure, and stuck it in the boy’s face.

“Here. Digest this.”

Kevin read:

Ah, the tenable lie, the ready pique/the cool denial, the dire eye/ Conscience be still and/quarry be damned; you just can’t help it, it’s/ “human nature.”

Cheat, compete, sweet the blade/in the back of the dog your friend/Your vile pride is justified:/it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, it’s/“human nature.”

O Irony, worm! Cerebrate;/in the ooze and ashes/of time’s distemper fly/headlong into madness. Impostors!/How must it grate: forced to primp and posture/and all because of The Whip,/that loathed and unflagging fiend you call/“human nature.”

No rest, no peace,/no recompense--On:/you struggle on/for honesty, for honor, for equity/only to be foiled, alas, alack,/ever soiled by that accursed demon you deem/“human nature.”

What pain must you endure in the keeping of your/ crimes!/ Ah, how insufferable must be the consideration of your/profits,/the memory of your slanders, your hypocrisy,/your double-dealing endeavors/as you valiantly strive to overcome your lust,/your greed, your mendacity/only to be so predictably drubbed/by that crazy dragon you call/“human nature.” Rust not, brave warrior now fallen./Your rest is/prosaic./Your camp/is/populations-deep/and/generations-wide./Upon your common,/ gilded headstone/thine epitaph shall read,/with veracity, yea, with humility:/I’M ONLY HUMAN.

“So whaddaya think?” Nefertiti begged. “I mean, it’s important for a writer to get all the honest viewpoints she can. I worked my butt off so that every line, every stanza is just…right. D****t, I did my damnedest to communicate my insights in a way what clearly addresses man’s place in the world, using equal measures of, like, cynicism and compassion.

“So, baby…so, my great big strapping, wise and generous lover man…passionate, critical feedback, is Everything. Don’t matter if it’s positive or negative, so long as it’s objective and free of what they call ‘authorial influence’.”

Kevin gawked her. “Um…what does ‘drubbed’ mean?”

“It means,” she hissed, “it means you can get your big fat a*s outta my car!” Nefertiti whipped the Impala into a dirt turnout and slammed on the brakes, sending the car into a tailspin in a choking cloud of dust, jumped to her feet and began kicking at Kevin’s head. The boy somehow got the door open and tumbled out. Nefertiti lifted his bike over her head and hurled it at him, threw the car in gear, and roared away in a storm of dust and black exhaust.

Kevin picked himself up slowly, uncertain whether to (A) shake fist and shout obscenity or (B) stand with hands on hips while wagging head and smiling wryly.

As no one on foot or in passing cars seemed to be paying him the least mind, he simply (C) swatted dirt off clothes, picked up bike, walked away with dusty head held high. He wasn’t about to do any more hitchhiking, that’s all there was to it. Chalk it up to experience. It was time to roll a joint.

After he’d embroidered his gray matter he resumed the mechanical upward climb. It just seemed to get hotter and hotter. When the grade became workable he stopped pushing and remounted, determined to prove himself. He came to a section of highway that was relatively straight, but murderously consistent: up, up, up. So he put his head down, down, down, and threw himself into it, becoming woozy and colicky, but refusing to give in.

Finally he raised his eyes to search through sweat-streaked lenses for the top of the grade. Perhaps a hundred yards ahead it did seem to level off somewhat. Kevin could see something like a red handkerchief about half that distance, motionless at the side of the road. As he slowly drew closer he could distinguish white polka dots on the material, and then that it was a scarf, and then that the scarf was connected to the head of a sitting form. The person was hunched forward, exhaustion embodied; face buried in the arms, elbows resting on raised knees. Nearing, Kevin made out a nest of fine chestnut hair escaping from the scarf and falling about the arms. Closing, he saw the firm brown shoulders and abdomen of a slender teenaged girl. Stopping, he saw long, tanned legs emanating from a sun-bleached pair of cutoff blue jeans.

The girl raised her head and stared at Kevin out of astonished brown eyes, her forehead white from resting on her arms. She was sweetly pretty, maybe seventeen or eighteen.

“Oh, thank goodness! I thought I was the only living person on this road.”

Kevin stared blankly at the mirage, marveling its precision, its realism. The girl stood quickly.

“Oh, you will help me, won’t you?” she decreed excitedly. “My bike got a flat, and I’m so…so helpless with these things.”

Kevin’s stare dropped from her face to her chest, where he could see she wore a fringed halter of the same color and pattern as the scarf over her small breasts. His gaze oozed along to her shoulder, followed her brown arm until it came to her bicycle leaning against the rough rocks of the hewn hillside. It was an old, clumsy, three-speed bike, sporting a plastic basket adorned with artificial roses above the front mudguard. A rickety affair like that should never have been used on these hills. Kevin gasped. He shouldn’t have stopped. Every muscle ached. His legs screamed with pain. He awkwardly dismounted and limped over.

“Oh, thank you,” the mirage gushed. I just knew you’d help me.” She moved up close, and as he sat he bumped into real flesh.

That opened his eyes. Kevin looked at her closely. She was anxiously wringing her pretty brown hands. He closed his eyes and let the crimson waves of near-nausea rock him, let his respiration slow. He could feel the sweat seeping from his hairline and crawling down his forehead. He ran a hand over his face, gently massaged his brow with pudgy fingers, slowly reopened his eyes.

She was still there, hovering like a hummingbird eager to get at those slow drops of sweat.

“Are you okay?” she asked in a faraway voice. “Do you feel sick?”

He held up a fluttering hand for patience, and in a moment said, “No. No, I’m all right now.”

Her wings quit beating. She sank with relief.

Kevin, closing his eyes again, wondered if he was correct. The world behind his eyelids was blood-red and in constant swirling motion. Every few breaths the redness deepened. Now he was really sweating. Weren’t fat people more prone to heart attacks than thinner people? Hadn’t he been overdoing it lately? He imagined his parents reading, in a matter of days, a form letter from a remote Highway Patrol office. Their unappreciated son had been discovered dead on some dismal foggy cliff. Cardiac arrest. Serve them right if it broke their hearts.

But suddenly his forehead was cool. He opened his eyes and saw that lovely mirage girl again, now holding a damp cloth. Her face was both worried and comforting, and Kevin’s juicy scenario of masochism and self-pity was quickly dissolving.

“There, is that better?” the hummingbird wondered. “You shouldn’t overdo it in this heat.” She had a plastic quart jug half-full of water in her hand, ready to re-saturate the cloth.

“That’s okay, I’m fine now. Save your water.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” he said, pretty sure. “Thanks for cooling me off.” He blinked at his surroundings. “What’d you say happened to your bike?”

She dropped her arms. “Oh, it’s awful! And what a place for it to happen! There probably isn’t a gas station for a zillion miles. I was walking my poor bike when--bang!--the tire popped.” She placed a hand on her chest and her wide eyes opened wider. “Did I ever jump! I thought someone was shooting a gun.”

“But what are you doing all alone out here? This is pretty tough terrain for a chick.”

“You’re telling me! I was with some friends, you see, and we were all riding up to Monterey on our bikes when Linda (she’s kind of square, but she has a darling figure) got ill and had to go home. Then Marcie and Paula and I thought that was pretty much the end of the trip, but we kept going anyway. Then these two boys tried to pick us up down the coast a ways, last night on the beach. They were disgusting! They had this pickup truck with one of those little camper houses on the back, and when we were all inside they got drunk and started pinching and grabbing. I guess Marcie and Paula were getting drunk too, because they actually stayed inside. I just crossed my arms and said, ‘Well, you girls can stay in here if you want to, but I’m not going to hang around boys with no manners.’ Then one of those boys, Robert (he was very rude, and, besides, he wasn’t that cute), made an obscene noise and started tearing off my clothes. Can you believe it! Well, I just slapped his face (not too hard, he was such a sweetheart when he wasn’t drunk) and jumped right out of that old truck. I grabbed my bike and slept by myself on the beach. It wasn’t cold at all. All my sleeping bag and stuff was in those boys’ truck, and when I woke up this morning it was gone, and so were Marcie and Paula and their bikes. Well I hope they have a good time! I can ride up to Monterey by myself.”

“You shouldn’t try doing that,” Kevin said, breathing steadily now. “I mean, there’s all kinds of strange people on this road. Look at those guys your friends ran off with.” He shook his head. “What a trip. I was riding up to the Haight with a couple friends, and we all got separated too. I’m by myself for the same reasons you are.”

“Ooh. That is weird. Just like in adventure stories, like when Nancy Drew lost her secret ring just before she met this handsome gynecologist.”

“Yeah,” Kevin said absently, his mind retreating into gloom. He was sure this girl’s standards concerning males were inflexible, never dipping below fantasy handsome nick-of-time do-gooders; brawny toothy yodeling professional men in sleek, gleaming roadsters. By contrast, he saw himself as lowly and foul, ratty and malodorous--the Bad Guy. But, perhaps because the girl seemed so concerned with his present physical condition, he was able to don the white hat of the selfless protector. This girl was a damsel in distress, or soon would be. And, he thought, glancing quickly at his expensive customized ten-speed bicycle, he did have quite an impressive steed. Excitedly he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Oh, excuse me. I’m Janet. Janet Campbell.”

“And I’m Kevin Mikolajczyk.”

“Kevin who?”

The boy blushed. “Kevin Michaels.” He looked away, out of words. “Well,” he managed at last, “let’s have a look at your bike.” He rose painfully, but careful to not let it show. Bending down, he saw repairs would be no problem. The tire itself hadn’t blown, though it was very worn. It was just a matter of taking off the wheel, patching the inner tube and replacing the wheel. He had the patch kit in the pouch behind his seat, and the pump to fill the inner tube strapped to his bike’s frame.

“Can you fix it?”

“Well,” Kevin replied, his brow furrowed in apparent deep concentration, “I can give it a go.”

She clapped her hands delightedly. “Oh, could you?”

As he’d supposed, fixing the flat was a cinch. While he worked--zipping off wing nuts, prying the tire off its rim--he picked up details of the girl’s life from her monologue. She lived in Morro Bay, and wondered why he flinched when she told him. She was seventeen and would be a senior in high school come September. She didn’t seem to like her parents very much, and Kevin had a strong suspicion Janet and her friends were runaways. He gleaned from her expressions when she spoke of her parents that they pampered her to a fault. Kevin could understand why. She spoke vaguely of relatives in Seaside, and meant to stop there, hoping the other girls, knowing, might be waiting for her. Yes, she had heard of the big Golden Gate concert, but wasn’t San Francisco a pretty dangerous place nowadays, what with the police busts and general unrest, and all that trouble so close by at Berkeley?

Slowly a glorious scheme took form in Kevin’s mind. If only his mouth would say the right words, and for once not betray him.

“Look, like I said, you never know what kind of weirdos you’ll run into on this road. But tell you what; I’ll ride with you as far as Seaside and make sure nothing happens. When we get up there, if you can’t find your friends, you think maybe you’d like to keep going, catch the big jam in Frisco? It really should be a happening; lots of dope--Jefferson Airplane…I mean, San Francisco, the Haight, is where it’s at this summer.”

Kevin felt his stomach flutter. She was looking at him quizzically; he’d been making waves. He should have at least got to know her better first. Make sure nothing happens, indeed. It sounded like he was trying to lure her into his confidence; like he was trying to set her up for the big moonlit rape scene.

“Well…” she said, “I really don’t have any plans. I’ll figure out what I should do when I get to Seaside.”

“Listen, I know how that sounded, but it’s not what I meant to say. I mean it’s not how I meant it to sound. I’m really not like that, like how I must have sounded. Anyway…what I mean is you don’t have to worry.”

“Whatever in the world are you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing. I guess I’m just spaced out.” He had the repaired tire back on her bike. A minute later he had pumped it firm. “There.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful! You really are a wizard.”

Kevin stood before her, confused and queasy. It was the make-it or break-it moment. Would she give him her hand to shake, leave him to pedal alone and lonely up the coast? She cleared her throat and looked down.

“Well,” he mumbled. “I guess I’d better hit the road. It was really nice meeting you, Janet. I think you’re a really nice girl. I hope you find your friends.” He straddled his ten-speed.

“You’re not going to leave me, are you? After all you said about riding up with me and watching over me--”

“No, no, no,” Kevin said quickly, unbelieving. “I was…like I said, I’ve been spaced out lately.” His heart was pounding. He shook his head. He’d almost blown it again.

So they walked their bikes the fifty yards or so to the top of the grade. They paused to look down.

“It’ll be so nice to just coast down this hill,” Janet noted. “It must go down for miles.”

“Really!” Kevin said. “By the way, um, do you get high?”

“Well, a little bit, sometimes. Doesn’t everybody?”

“That’s just what I mean. Want to smoke a joint?” Before she could reply he’d dipped a hand in his shirt pocket, secured a marijuana cigarette and a book of matches. His intention was to get their minds on the same plane, to relate. Already, as he saw it, they had one very bonding appreciation in common. But soon as he fired it up he began second-guessing himself.

And sure enough, after they’d passed the joint twice he found his tongue tied again. Lance’s weed seemed to have a contrasting effect on the girl, and she rattled on and on about this and that, tirelessly. This standing, however, gave him opportunity to study the girl as an uninvolved observer, and to try to pinpoint his true role in their slowly growing relationship. From the beginning he was jealous and easily hurt. Several times as they covered the miles a painful scene would be repeated: from a passing car would come wolf-whistles and whoops--coarse compliments on Janet’s slender sexuality. The girl, annoyingly, was not put off by these vulgar displays. She would always smile in response--a budding young lady accustomed to flattery. Kevin had an urge to shout something not-so flattering at these fleeting busybodies, but was it really for him to do? Under no circumstances did he feel she was his girl, rather that he was her temporary harlequin; and, if she enjoyed what they were so crudely shouting, was it any of his business to throw a cloud over her pleasure? Kevin felt he wasn’t gaining any ground by keeping his mouth shut, but at least he wasn’t losing any.

And, not long after sunset, the natural romantic ambiance of the summer shoreline began to subtly color the ongoing moment. Odd patterns of crest and swell played dreamily on the Pacific. Not far offshore one could see craggy black islets skirted by swirling eddies and the shallow funnels of sea dervishes. Monster colonies of kelp rose lazily with the waves, settling momentarily to appear as blood-red shoals in the twilight.

But to return to Kevin’s status as observer: after several miles of riding alongside he was able to compare his present fortune against his ideals. This haze of warm summer twilight on the gorgeous coast highway, en route to his paradise with a pretty girl riding beside him, seemed the perfect backdrop to any number of his lonesome, hopeless daydreams--he never would have believed it could really happen to him. The fictitious hero he’d created of himself now seemed plausible, and the most vital element of the fantasy was riding at arm’s-length. For the first time he could remember, he felt…right. And yet a strange pain was riding with him. He knew that each jab of this soft pain was of desperate importance to his being, could not imagine having ever felt otherwise. Home, school, possessions and wants; suddenly these things were all ancient history.

The restlessness, the pain were sweet, yet at the same time nearly unbearable. He had a feeling of helplessness so acute he wanted to grab her, hold on tightly and never let her slip away. But all he could do was ride alongside, gawking, letting the sweet flow of idle chatter wash over and suck him in like an undertow.

Thank God she kept talking. Her stream of laughter, of gossip, of stale anecdotes seemed inexhaustible. Kevin had long since lost the thread of her monologue, and was now suffering pangs of anxiety, knowing he was only being talked at, not to. The feeling vaguely reminded him of a recent occurrence, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Something about a girl with a bewitching superstructure…

Out of a fog his vision of the raven-haired girl returned, a Debbie Somebody-or-Other. But now the vision had no expressiveness, no life. How different was that passionate beauty of his fiery past, compared to this sandy, girlish treasure of the tender present. Love is vertigo. All women are beautiful, and each possesses an allure, and an inscrutable quality, peculiar to their gender.

The sky was rapidly darkening, and in the twilight of his introspection it occurred to Kevin that somehow, apparently, he was going to be sleeping with this girl tonight. The realization excited him, but that excitement quickly gave way to the gnawing presence of doubt. His virginity, so long a burden, might be done away with this very night, his masculinity put to the most crucial and telling test. And it was a test the boy realized he was absolutely afraid to face. Failure seemed so imminent. Then he remembered his earlier statement: “I’ll ride with you as far as Monterey and make sure nothing happens.” Well, shouldn’t something happen? Wasn’t it his obligation as a male to be aggressive, and to assert his masculinity in the one manner that would leave, in her eyes, no room for doubt? As if reading his thoughts, the girl began to slow.

“Gee, it’s really starting to get dark. I hadn’t given a thought about a place to crash tonight.”

“Don’t worry,” Kevin said quickly, way too quickly. “It’s still early. Way too early.” His nerves were going. “You’re not c-cold or anything.”

“No, but I am getting a little tired. But listen to you! You sound like you’re freezing.”

“N-nah!” And suddenly he was shivering out of control. When he closed his mouth his teeth chattered, his flabby jowls jiggled. “Well, l-let’s stop for a while,” he gasped. “L-let’s take a breather.”

They pulled to the side of the road. Kevin’s hands were shaky enough to jerk the handlebars as he stopped, so instead of dismounting with a semblance of grace he lurched off the bike and rolled, adding a few more contusions to his scores of bumps and bruises. He swiftly found his feet. “Didn’t see that rock.”

“For goodness sake,” the girl cooed, “be careful. Did you hurt yourself?” She kicked down her bike’s stand and rushed over.

“No! I mean, no. I mean I’m--I’m fine. Just fine.” This was maddening. He thought: Get a grip on yourself! But trying to control his nerves only made the situation worse. The grass, he thought. It must be the grass that was responsible.

“Here. Sit down here. Let’s check you for injuries.”

Kevin obeyed timidly, slouching on a chalky boulder while she inspected the abrasions on his forehead in the failing light. His nerves took a turn for the worse as she thrust her knee between both of his. Her soft warm breath brushed his eyelashes. He was conscious of a delicate fragrance; an altogether feminine emanation wafting up his nostrils and flitting through his mind. The urge to rest his head on her bosom was so difficult to control that it set his crass knees knocking against her sweet, insinuated leg.

“Poor cold Kevin,” she murmured. “My hero got a scrape on his head.” Then she leaned back, one hand on his shoulder for support while the other fanned her pretty face. “Phew!” she teased. “Do you ever smell! Haven’t they invented soap where you come from?”

Kevin hung his head.

The girl sprang back and ran to her bicycle. She began fumbling through her purse, and in a moment returned with a tiny vial of Mercurochrome and a huge, square, flower-patterned bandage. He clenched his fists, but tears squeezed out at the antiseptic’s sting. When the bandage was in place he popped to his feet and looked away.

“Thanks. Listen, we’d better get going if we’re gonna find a decent place to crash. There’s got to be a stop coming up pretty soon, what with all we’ve been riding. Then we can dig up something to eat.”

“I’m not really hungry.”

“Well,” he stretched, “maybe we can get us some cocoa or something.” As they remounted he fired another joint, hoping it would open her up again, and spare him the torment of trying to communicate. There were plenty of things he wanted to say, but his mouth just wouldn’t respond. Unfortunately, this time the weed seemed to stifle the girl; she kept quiet and rode with her head down, as if embarrassed. The silence soon became intolerable, and Kevin was reminded of that chilly, soggy night in the garage loft eight months ago--what seemed now like eight years ago. He and Eddie had suffered through this same verbal paralysis, intensely aware of the situation’s absurdity. And the rain’s meaningless Morse had made them jumpier still, hammering away at their nerves until, no longer able to deal, they’d simultaneously jerked their heads to face the warped and rickety loft doors, which after a moment were yanked outward with terrifying abruptness to reveal the mammoth, preposterous bulk of Kevin’s father in all his towering wrath. Eddie had paled as his system prepared itself for a torrent of banshee-like screaming. And in those breathless pinging seconds Kevin had shrunk into himself while, in steady contrast, Big Joe dilated like a weather balloon, trembling and growing darker and darker, until, just when it seemed the tension would escalate forever, he’d trumpeted like a wounded bull elephant and torn Kevin out of the loft, thrown him clear across the garage. With Eddie’s nightmarish shrieks in his ears, Kevin had crawled away, his scalp afire, his skull and left elbow howling with pain. Big Joe, his face a hellish purple, had impaled little Eddie for a moment with great, bulging, sightless eyes, then turned slowly and mechanically to search for his son. Kevin had seen the opacity of his father’s eyes change to the bloody glow of anticipation, as Joe thrust out his great meaty hands and began stalking him with ponderous, earthshaking steps, his breath rattling venomously. Before Kevin could successfully crawl out of the garage, Big Joe snatched him off the floor and shook him in the air as if he were a toy, softening him up, bent on squashing him to a writhing pulp. Giving vent to another mindless roar, he’d hurled him down with all his force, the boy’s head again cracking hard on the cold cement floor. Then Joe had just snapped; he’d begun stomping on his son, roaring insanely. Kevin had crawled away desperately, and the chase had gone round and round in the garage, Joe trying to stomp him as if he were a scurrying spider, Kevin scrabbling frantically to avoid those huge feet as deadly as pile drivers. Finally Kevin had cornered himself below the loft. Above him Eddie was scrambling like a hamster in a cage, blubbering and whimpering, the doors tightly shut. Kevin had heard a strangled change in Big Joe’s stertorous breathing, and, turning with a wail, all set to be exterminated, had seen his father gone completely berserk, stamping his right foot repeatedly on the garage floor as he pivoted on his left foot centripetally, finally losing his balance and, recovering, jerking back his head with a bloodcurdling shriek that shook the rafters. Both hands had shot to his chest and he had torn wildly, as if trying to rip out his heart, and abruptly he’d gone deathly pale and fallen slowly, like a mighty sequoia, to crash on his back with an impact so tremendous it had cracked the cement floor. There he’d remained, eyes rolled up in his skull, only his fingertips moving, dancing an erratic, waning jig. The tapping of fingers tapered. Slowly one of the loft doors creaked open and Eddie peeked out tentatively, whining less anxiously now, big tears dropping from his shivering chin onto Kevin’s palm. And Kevin began a laborious crawl toward the garage’s gaping doorway, for he’d noticed that Big Joe wasn’t quite dead. All that revealed this stubborn vitality were those petering sounds of the fingers’ tap dance and an occasional guttural gasp--but Joe was a terrible, powerful man; not the sort to leave an aborted murder without a final go. And Kevin’s mother had come stumbling in like a headless chicken, prepared by some old presentiment for the scene she would face and therefore already in hysterics. She screeched and tore at her hair before transferring her throes to big supine Joe, hammering her fists on his chest. If it hadn’t been for the trauma of the situation she would have looked supremely comic, with her Medusa hair-pile in electric disarray, her spectacles hanging from one ear at an awkward angle, her dumpy body a flurry of spasmodic activity. But then she’d seen her cowering son and a look of satanic rage had darkened her strikingly hideous face. Having spent countless hours watching daytime soap operas, she had known exactly what to do, and with an appalling scream had launched herself atop the boy and pummeled him relentlessly with her pudgy fists, even as, safe above all this activity, Eddie slammed shut the loft door and renewed his wailing and scampering. The garage’s doorway had miraculously filled with an assortment of dumbfounded neighbors who, supposing Kevin’s mother a deranged murderess, had run inside to break up the mess as others scurried off to phone ambulances, the police, the fire department, the F.B.I, and the local Y.M.C.A.

Now night had settled on Kevin and Janet like a black blanket, awash with stars. Still the uneasy silence persisted. The chattering of Kevin’s teeth was the only sound other than the breaking of surf and the soft squeaking of the brake heels wearing away on Janet’s bike.

To Kevin’s immense relief a cheerful haze of light waxed not far ahead, and in a minute he saw the road sign announcing that Illusion, with GASFOOD and LODGING, was a bare two miles away.

The advent of civilization loosened Janet’s tongue right up. With a mile to go she was piping. Half a mile and she was an animated tour guide. And by the time they’d reached the first shops she was downright silly. Kevin sighed with relief. This was the strange girl he loved again.

They had hot cocoa and pizza at a tiny diner. Kevin gallantly purchased several postcards for the girl, and left an enormous tip with the check. It didn’t go unnoticed. And as the ancient, papery waitress enthusiastically wished them an extremely good night, the girl linked her arm in his. This novelty--being arm-in-arm with an attractive girl in public--was a near-erotic turn-on for insular young Kevin.

But that unique thrill dissolved once they’d exited. Kevin knew he should be extremely aroused by her touch. He should be champing at the bit, but his hands were shaking as he and Janet quietly rode around the shops.

The girl patted her lips and yawned. “Hot cocoa always puts me right to sleep. You?”

“Yep,” Kevin lied. “Sure does.”

“Well, this is all new to me. I’ve never had to rough it before. I hope you’ve got some good ideas.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve had plenty of experience looking for a place to crash. I used to be a scout.”

“Oh?”

Kevin colored. “A Cub Scout. Of course,” he said, “that was when I was just a kid.”

They pedaled around a while longer. At last the boy said, “There!” Janet followed him to a nook behind a bowling alley. Beneath a salt-worn plywood overhang hunched a couple of steel dumpsters. Kevin dismounted and rolled the bins aside. He foraged about until he found a piece of plywood paneling large enough to lean against the wooden overhang, creating a narrow, inconspicuous shelter. The girl kicked down her stand.

“What about our bikes?” she whispered. From behind the wall came the sound of a bowling ball smashing into pins, muffled cheers.

“No sweat,” Kevin said. He unstrapped his sleeping roll and set it on the ground. “We hide ’em right here.” Kevin leaned his bicycle against the wall, then guided the girl’s to rest obliquely against his. After dragging the bins back into place he draped wheels and seats with newspaper, scraps of cardboard, and miscellaneous bits of trash. As he worked he could feel Janet’s eyes on him, and as he bent to unroll his sleeping bag he was hit by a wave of desperation.

She was going to get in the bag with him!

Kevin knew he should be exultant, but something was upside-down here, something was inside-out. His mouth tasted like he’d been gargling with vinegar, his legs were rubbery stumps. To clear his thoughts he tried to compose a quick letter in his mind:

jime

wl her i am ubowt 2 klim in thu sak with uh gorjus chik

et ur hrt owt

hr namz janut an shez gawt thez jiunt nawkrz an uh as wut wont kwit

man i kant kep hr hanz awf uv me shez so horne an shez in2 chanten an dop an asid rawk an thu moovmnt

And Kevin’s mind was reeling. He whistled shrilly, realized how foolish that was, and stretched out nervously on the open bag, up against the wall. In the ensuing silence came the whack of a bowling ball into pins. The girl slid in beside him, not quite touching. She zipped up the bag, whispering, “I hope we can sleep with all that noise!”

Kevin swallowed. Whispering made it so very…wow. He was beginning to hyperventilate. To cover up he clumsily produced a joint from his shirt pocket and lit it with trembling hands. As he passed it to the girl the back of his hand accidentally brushed her cheek.

“Sorry,” he whispered. How warm and soft her cheek was, how he longed to have it rest against his hand forever.

Kevin felt a shy stirring in his Levis. His free hand made a fist. He squeezed shut his eyes and ground his teeth, cursing silently. And as he reached for the passed joint his hand grazed her naked shoulder, jangling his nervous system, touching off fireworks in his skull. As if in encore, pins crashed in the bowling lane next to his ear. Getting high, he descended. Inch by inch, into deep and unfamiliar chasms. The roach burned his fingertips. Kevin now used the minor pain of snuffing the cherry to toughen his resolve, to summon the courage to tell her exactly how he felt, if words could explain.

“Janet!” he whispered.

Regular, deep breathing. The tiniest snores, so very feminine. Kevin could feel her hair’s wispy tendrils fluttering against his face in the warm sea breeze. He sighed, moved his hand across his chest to pocket the butt.

And froze.

The tip of the girl’s right breast was grazing the back of his hand with each inhalation. Paralyzed, excited, ashamed, he lay still as the dead. Each small touch jolted his nerves--but so sweetly, so tenderly, that his skull felt like it was stuffed with cotton.

This was wrong.

She was asleep.

She didn’t know.

Against his will Kevin found himself letting a little of his weight move against her breast, without moving his hand.

And now he could imagine every contour of the sweet, pert fruit…how it sloped upward from the rib cage, how the ruddy peak jutted. In the sweaty miasma of his shame, Kevin felt a real awakening in his loins.

The girl gave a small groan and shifted.

Kevin held his breath.

His hand was no longer making contact.

Deeply troubled, he quietly rolled over to face the wall.

In a world occupied by guilt and lust and cannoning bowling balls, his cannabis-colored thoughts accompanied him into an uneasy sleep.