The Do-Re-Mi Page 22

  Or, I thought, he was just telling me to lay off Vic because he worried Vic would kill me. Or he hoped to recover soon and do the job himself.

  I drove behind the slowest vehicles, wondering how to get rid of Ava. She asked where we were going. “Back to Quig’s,” I said.

  She laid her arm around me and her head on my shoulder. I turned into Evergreen on Manhattan Avenue. “Hungry?” I asked.

  “Not really.”

  “I am.” I pulled up to the curb in front of Foster’s Freeze, parallel with no cars in front of me. “Would you mind getting me a burger and a malt?” I asked.

  Most people would flash a look that meant, Go get your own stupid burger. Some, being of suspicious natures, would guess my motive. Ava kissed my cheek, slid over, grabbed her purse off the floorboard, and climbed out. Before she closed the door, she said. “Double burger and chocolate malt?”

  I nodded and felt an honest smile rise at the thought of what a pure, trusting soul she had. When she reached the counter and started to order, I floored the Cadillac and raced away. In the rear-view mirror, I watched her jump and wave her arms, then shoot the finger at me.

  Twenty-four

  THAT night, I wasn’t fully human. Every trace of decency expelled, I couldn’t reason, or feel pity, or think beyond what I needed to do. I didn’t notice anything alongside the road. My mind didn’t toss around ideas or reflections. I had no hunger, thirst, aches, or discomfort. I had become a soulless demon programmed to seek, destroy, and self-destruct.

  I didn’t harbor much anger toward any Cossack except little Vic. Hound Dog was crazy. The others might be as cruel as Vic, but all I knew for certain was that they answered to him, like Manson’s bunch answered to Charley. My friend's friend, whom I had met at a coffee house during the Manson trials, knew all the "family" murderers but wouldn’t even guess which of them were monsters and which were only caught in a drama that made them act like monsters.

  If I needed to kill other Cossacks, I would. They just didn’t matter. Only Vic did. I thought about driving straight to their camp, making a suicide run. But up there, even if I performed a massacre, I might die without touching Vic.

  So I parked behind a shed just inside Big Dan's commune, went to the Eldorado trunk, and dug out Pop’s Remington shotgun.

  While I sat behind the wheel watching the road down the slope of Sugar Hill, regret for what I was about to do began to distract me, not about Vic but about forsaking Ava. I fished in the glove box, found a flashlight, a pen, and a notepad. I wrote a note, though I had no plan for getting it to her. I apologized and promised that I admired her more than I had any business admiring anybody I had only known a few days. And I tried to explain that I turned into a killer because every vicious act Vic did or instigated from now on would be mine to account for, unless I killed him. In a sense, I wrote, Vic was part of me. The most evil part, I hoped. And a part that needed to die.

  I thought of explaining that a worse sin than killing Vic would be leaving the crime to Pop or Alvaro when it was me who turned Vic loose on my family. But then Ava might believe I was groping for excuses.

  I folded the letter and wrote Ava’s name on the outside. I thought of going to Quig’s and placing it in the mailbox. But Vic might come roaring down the hill while I was gone. He might race off somewhere before I could run back to the Cadillac and give chase.

  And, a minute after I set the letter on the dashboard, I happened to glance back west and saw Ava hiking on the shoulder of River Road and turning into Quig's. For a second I wanted to leap out of the Cadillac, shout her name and run to her. Maybe I could hand her my note and say goodbye, at least.

  But I closed my eyes and covered them with my good hand. I counted to one hundred, long enough for Ava to vanish out of the moonlight. Then I opened my eyes, blinked a few times, and measured the length and depth of my breaths. A few minutes later, I heard the rev of one Harley, then another. The noise came from atop Sugar Hill.

  From the revs, I imagined the whole gang would come roaring down but only four appeared, moonlight glittering off their chromed machines. I started the Cadillac’s motor and let it idle. The Harleys crept down the trail sputtering in first gear. All I could tell about the riders from that distance, at least two hundred yards, was that they had brought none of their women along and that the lead rider was little Vic. He looked no bigger than my old teddy bear.

  At the base of the hill they stopped and pulled two abreast, as if to confer. Then Vic fishtailed off and the others tagged along. Where the trail met River Road, they turned right and gunned their motors.

  I mumbled, “Yes. Yes.” They might be heading into the woods to scout or rob a plantation. Or to the Bend in the River Church looking for the pastor so they could beat him into giving up the whereabouts of Roy Van Dyke. Or to the waterfall to skinny-dip and flagellate each other. Whatever they were up to, I had caught them going away from civilization.

  The first few miles or so, I hung back. They passed the church and clattered across the covered bridge and over the river and past Jimmy’s grave. On the grade, when the road widened through a foothill village of orchards and lighted farm houses, I sped up to seventy-five and began to close on them. Now they rode four abreast.

  The road narrowed as the last house fell behind us. I floored the pedal. Light from the sliver of moon dimmed out as the forest thickened and the trees got taller. Redwoods grew higher than the night allowed me to see. Their fragrance, like fumes from a magic potion, made everything appear otherworldly.

  When the asphalt gave way to a dirt logging trail, one rider dropped back, then another. The one on my left was Hound Dog, whom I hadn’t seen since I left him tied to a tree. The other was taller.

  I didn’t intend to run those two over. I only meant to nudge them off the road. But as I neared, they peeled off. When their tires hit the mulchy roadsides, they went crashing into the forest. I heard their squeals.

  Little Vic had gone ahead of the other, who I guessed was Boomer, with his lightning bolt scar. He zigzagged. He backed his speed down as though trying to help his leader put some distance between him and me. For an instant I admired the biker’s loyalty and courage. Then once again I changed from decent to pitiless.

  I punched the gas again, caught him in a zig and slammed my right fender into his front wheel. His Harley reeled into a spin. His arms lashed around and over his head as if he hoped to grab a branch. He flew off and tumbled like a spastic high diver, into the black woods.

  Years must have passed since a logging truck drove this road. The Eldorado barely fit between the roadside brush, manzanita, and small trees. Branches whip-cracked the fenders and roof. For too many moments, I concentrated on driving. Vic pulled farther ahead. I thought I heard other motors roaring up from behind and airplanes above and banshees screaming all around. But those noises were whispers compared to Vic’s machine racing flat-out through woods so high and lush, the road became an echoing tunnel.

  I would have caught Vic and crushed him in another half mile, except motorcycles can do things Cadillacs can’t. Besides, he knew the forest road. I didn’t. He skidded around a bend. In the couple seconds it took me to make the turn, he disappeared. But I heard his motor sputtering and saw the totem.

  Though I had only been to the swimming hole once, I remembered the directions. When you see the hippie totem pole, a psychedelic phallus carved into a redwood log, on the right side of the road, look for a path on the left side. I stomped my brake pedal and skidded to a stop just past the totem. I threw the gearshift into park, grabbed the shotgun, flung open the door, and jumped out.

  As I started down the path, I heard the Cadillac motor purring. I had failed to shut it off, only shifted to park. The key was still in the ignition. For all I knew, Vic was on foot now, circling around and hoping to steal the Cadillac. I lost a minute or two running back to turn it off, grab the keys, and lock the doors.

  The path was steep, slippery, and narrow. Stumble one step to eith
er side, I remembered, and you could sink waist-deep in mulch. I gripped the shotgun, crooked my finger into the trigger guard, and started down. I dug my heels into the powdery dirt. In my memory, the pool was fifty yards from the road. Now the whoosh and splash of the waterfall made it sound closer though it felt like history’s longest fifty yards.

  Between the squawks of birds or banshees, I heard a squeal that sounded human. After a few careful, silent steps, I heard it again. A light blinked through the brush. I ducked, to make a smaller target.

  The path cut right. Vic had barely made the turn. Then his front wheel had lodged in a bush. The rest of his chrome and black-lacquered Harley was leaning on a stump. It looked like a scrap pile.

  I squatted and peered all around. Vic could be hiding in the brush, leveling a gun at me. Yet I didn’t flinch or feel the slightest fear. I was a creature without feelings that stepped, stopped, peered into the dark, listened for another squeal through the waterfall’s swoosh and rumble.

  The last twenty yards to the pool, the path was straight and even steeper than before. On this slope the trees had been thinned by erosion. As many lay fallen as stood, which allowed for shafts of pale moonlight to reach the ground. In one of them I saw Vic. A few yards beyond the pool, he was hobbling. A mangled leg dragged behind him. I lifted the shotgun, shoved the butt against my left shoulder. From twenty some yards, I suspected the scattergun might not kill him. But at least it would hurt and make killing him easier.

  Someone yelled, “Hold on, wait.” It wasn’t Vic. I thought it came from in front of me, down the slope. But then I thought echoes might’ve tricked me and it could be Hound Dog or Boomer. I had spun and was staring and aiming the shotgun into the dark up the hill when I heard a girl yowl.

  She had tripped over a fallen branch. She and her boyfriend had come dashing out from behind one of the manzanitas that made a hedge between me and the waterfall. She was dressed only in panties. He was in boxer shorts. Their hair dripped, their hands and arms clutched sleeping bags and rucksacks.

  The boy grabbed the girl’s arm and towed her behind him, climbing toward me. “We don’t want to see anything, man,” he yelled. “We didn’t see anything, swear to God we didn’t.”

  I lowered the shotgun, let them run past me, and watched them disappear into the dark. Then I crept on down the hill.

  The swimming hole, about ten yards in diameter, was in a rocky, sandy clearing. The waterfall, on the far side of the clearing, was more like rapids plunging down over jagged rocks. On sand beside the pool sat a flickering lantern beside a fire ring with hot coals and a pan that hung from a stick. I smelled pork and beans.

  The clearing was a wide ledge in the hillside. The path ended at the pool. The only trail Vic could have followed without sinking into mulch or getting blocked by thick manzanita was along the streambed. In late summer it was dry.

  He had hobbled beyond my field of vision but I heard him scuffing sand and stones. I walked at a zombie pace and paid no mind to the crunching gravel. The shotgun stayed in position beside my waist.

  When I saw him, just a few yards ahead, he was on one knee, the other leg still dragging behind. His hands were stretched out in front, grasping toward something, maybe a rock he imagined he could sling at me. He crooked his head around and stared straight at me. He tried to shout but only managed a high, breathy whisper. “Hey, old man, it was Crutch that ran your kid off the road, not me. Anyway, he was just dueling, playing chicken.”

  Though his eyes bugged, he couldn’t see me. Maybe the crash blinded him. Maybe his eyes were dripping blood. Anyway, he thought I was Pop.

  I had no reason to give him the truth. I tensed my finger and might’ve shot him right then except a volley of banshee cries made my head jerk to glance into the forest. And Mama spoke to me. I don’t know whether she came from heaven, from the past, or from out of my heart. She said, “Love your enemy, Clifford.”

  But all she accomplished was to make me feel like the devil. Vic was crawling now. I stalked a couple arm’s lengths behind him. Again, he crooked his head around and tried to shout. “Hey, I paid off your kid to get lost, just like you wanted. So why the fuck was he coming back north? Have you thought about that, old man?”

  He crawled again, his right hand in the water, his neck craned around over his shoulder while he rasped, “Hey, your kid tortured Hound Dog, so Crutch, being the Dog’s brother, took the kid on, put him to the test. Your kid lost, that’s all.”

  I stopped still. The shotgun nearly dropped from my hand. I thought Vic might not need to die, now that I saw who was even more to blame for Mama’s death. I had gone after Hound Dog instead of calling on Pop that first day. If not for my stooping to defend wounded pride, Mama would be alive.

  Vic crashed head first into a fallen log. After he snaked over it, he gasped a few times and croaked, “Hey, you win. Look at me. You’re the man. Let’s call it even.”

  A weird thought came. What if, instead of Alvaro, my folks would have adopted Vic? What if he’d gotten raised by a mother like mine?

  He’d probably have become a better man than me, I thought. Like Alvaro, who was risking his life to help Roy Van Dyke and his cupids.

  I quit thinking and watched him crawl, his head crooked almost straight backward to stare bug-eyed in my direction, until his front hand reached over a rocky ledge. “Hey,” he yelled, as he tumbled out of sight.

  He only fell about eight feet, down what must’ve been a waterfall in spring, but he landed on a jagged hunk of granite. It made a diamond shaped gouge in his forehead. He didn’t even scream.

  VIC didn’t go gentle. He was still breathing. I carried him like a bag of cement, over my shoulder. He couldn’t have weighed much over seventy pounds. That night, I could carry a ton. When I reached the road and the Eldorado, he was still breathing in little gulps. I laid him on the ground, opened the trunk, and made a pallet bed out of my sleeping bag. He fit crossways with room left over. I used a piece of tent cord to tie the trunk lid open just enough to give him air. I lashed the rest of the cord around him and wedged my duffel bag and guitar case to keep him from flying up and smashing into the trunk lid when I drove over ruts and fallen limbs.

  I drove fast, until I neared the place where the other bikers had crashed. Then I slowed and looked for them. Even their Harleys were gone.

  AROUND midnight, I pulled into Quig's and stopped before the gate. I climbed out and opened the trunk. Vic lay on his back, staring up. The trunk light made his moist eyes sparkle. His lip curled. He didn’t say anything, but I recognized the look. I had seen it on a boy when I worked for a group home, and in a newspaper portrait of Charles Manson, and on my own face, in the Cadillac rear-view mirror while I chased Vic into the forest. A cannibal, or worse.

  I don’t remember picking up the tire iron. But I remember seeing Vic’s smashed and bloody head and finding the tire iron in my hand. I dropped it then slammed the trunk closed, fell onto the car, and pounded with my fists until the gatekeeper Ava called Whitey came out of the dark with his finger to his lips. He said, “Hush, man. No screaming after midnight.”

  So I sat on the ground, picked up dirt and sifted it with my fingers while I stared at the sliver of moon but saw Vic’s face like it appeared at the jamboree when he said, “See you in hell, Pretty Boy.”

  Twenty-five

  AVA was awake. The flap that served as the door of her yurt was clipped open. Maybe she didn’t care if anybody came in and raped or killed her. I found her sitting cross-legged in the dark on her futon, in her T-shirt with the silk-screened beaver and its chainsaw. Her eyes were wide but registered no alarm or surprise. Her voice came out flat and sounded raw as if she had caught strep throat during the last few hours.

  I brought in her duffel, her rucksack, and the Mexican shopping bag into which she had packed her climbing boots and spare sandals. She said, “Did you kill them?”

  I nodded. “Little Vic anyway.”

  Her eyes, cheeks, and even the crown
of her head appeared to deflate. I dropped her bags and remained standing, staring at her and feeling like someone who can see heaven from hell across the river and knows he can gaze upon its delights for eternity but never touch or taste them or hear the songs.

  “I’m going to the police station,” I said. “Only, maybe I don’t have the guts to walk in there alone. Maybe on the way I’ll spook and run.”

  After she sat still so long I thought it meant No, leave me alone, she pushed herself up. She walked past me, barefoot, out the doorway and straight to the shotgun door of the Cadillac.

  All the way into Evergreen, she stared at me as though I were a fugitive madman. Still I hoped that suddenly her eyes would moisten, her lips part, and the softness in her voice would absolve me. Like Mama’s voice would have. Mama could forgive anybody, for anything. But the closest Ava came was to ask, “Do you feel better now that it’s done?”

  I pondered but soon realized the words to explain how I felt didn’t exist. Not in the English or Spanish I knew. “I can’t even remember who I was before. I mean, not just today. Yesterday, last week. I’m not who I thought I was.”

  “Who are you then?”

  “Something evil, I guess. Like Vic used to be.”

  I parked at the curb in front of the jail. After one last gulp of Evergreen’s crystalline air, I climbed out. I took the car keys with me. On the sidewalk, under a street-lamp, I glanced at Ava, saw the horror in her face better than I had in the dark yurt or car and knew if I tried to even touch her hand she would scream and jump away.

  But she was brave. She followed me inside. The lanky deputy with a birthmark where a sideburn might be glanced up from a magazine he preferred we didn’t see. He closed it and slipped it under the counter.

  To keep from collapsing, I leaned on the counter with the weight on my good hand. “You know Little Vic?”

  “Everybody knows Little Vic.”