Less Than Zombie
BY DOUGLAS E. WINTER
People are afraid to live on the streets of Los Angeles. This is the last thing I say before I get back into the car. I don’t know why I keep saying this thing. It’s something I started and now I can’t stop. Nothing else seems to matter. Not the fact that I’m no longer eighteen and the summer is gone and it’s raining and the windshield wipers go back and forth, back and forth, and that Skip and DJ and Deb will soon be sitting with me again. Not the blood that splattered the legs of my jeans, which felt kind of hot and tight, as I stood in the alley and watched. Not the stain on the arm of the wrinkled, damp sweater I wear, a sweater that had looked fresh and clean last night. All of this seems meaningless next to that one sentence. It seems easier to hear that people are afraid to live rather than Skip say “This is real” or that song they keep playing on the radio. Nothing else seems to matter but those ten, no, eleven words. Not the rain or the cold wind, which seemed to propel the car down the street and into the alley, or the faded smells of marijuana and sex that still flow through the car. All it comes down to is that the living are dying and the dying are living but that people, whether alive or dead, are still fucking afraid.
It’s actually the weekend, a Saturday night, and the party by this guy named Schuyler or Wyler was nothing and no one seems to know just where Lana is having her party and there’s nothing much else to do except go to a club, go to a movie, go to the Beverly Center, but there aren’t any good bands playing and everyone’s seen all the movies and we went to the Beverly Center last night so I’ve been driving around and around in the hills overlooking Sunset and Skip is telling me that we’ve got to score some crystal meth. DJ does another line and he’s running his finger over his teeth and gums and he asks Skip whatever happened to his friend Michael and Skip says “Really?” and DJ laughs and Skip pushes in my Birthday Party tape and twists up the volume and Nick Cave starts to scream.
I light a cigarette and remember something, a dream maybe, about running down the streets of Los Angeles, and I pass the cigarette to Skip and he takes a drag and passes it back to Jane and Jane takes a drag and passes it back to Skip. DJ lights a cigarette of his own and just ahead a billboard reads Your Message Here and beneath it is an empty space. A car is stopped at the next light, a silver Ferrari, and when I pull up next to it, I turn my head to see two guys inside wearing sunglasses and one of them looks at me and I look back at him and he starts to roll down his window and I drive fast out of the hills and back into the city. The rain is pouring harder and the sidewalks are empty and the streets shine like black mirrors and I start thinking about last summer and I make a couple of wrong turns and end up back on Sunset.
Summer. There is nothing much to remember about last summer. Nights at clubs like Darklands, Sleepless, Cloud Zero, The End. Waking up at noon and watching MTV. A white Lamborghini parked in front of Tower Records. The Swans concert, DJ pissing in the aisle at the Roxy in the middle of “Children of God.” A prostitute with a broken arm, waving me over on Santa Monica and asking me if I’d like to have a good time. Breakfast at Gaylords, Mimosas with Perrier-Jouet. Lunch with my mother at the Bev-erly Wilshire and then driving her to LAX for the redeye back to Boston. Dinner with Deb and her parents at R.T.’s, blackened mahimahi, Cobb salad, Evian water, and feeling Deb up under the table while her father talked about the Dodgers. The new S.P.K. album. Going to Palm Springs with Skip over Labor Day weekend and getting fucked up and watching a lizard crawl along a palm tree for about an afternoon. Jane’s abortion. Monster billboards of Mick Jagger grinning down on Hollywood Boulevard like the skull of a rotting corpse. Clive getting busted, DWI and possession, and his father getting him off and buying him a new 380SL. Hearing the Legendary Pink Dots on AM radio. And, oh yeah, the thing with the zombies.
It’s ten P.M. and I’m sitting at the bar in Citrus with Skip and DJ and Jane and the television down at the end is turned to MTV but the sound is off. I order a Stoly straight up and DJ orders a Rolling Rock and Jane orders a Kir and Skip orders a champagne cocktail and Jane changes her mind and orders a champagne cocktail. We look at the menus for a while but we’re not very hungry since we did a half a gram at this guy Schuyler’s or Wyler’s party so we sit at the bar and we talk about new videos and this girl I don’t know comes up to me and thanks me for the ride to Bel Air. Jane digs in her purse and I think she takes some Quaaludes and I look down the bar and out the window and I see nothing at all. “What are we going to do?” I ask no one in particular. “What are we going to do?” Skip asks back and he gives me a match-book and shows me the handwritten address on the back, some place in the Valley, and he tells the bartender that we’ll take the check.
I drive to Jane’s house. Nobody’s home. Jane forgets the security code and Skip is telling her to try typing the year, it’s always the year, and she types one nine eight nine into the little box and the red light goes green and the front door’s open and we’re inside. We walk through the darkness of the hall to get to the kitchen and there’s a note on the table with the telephone number of the hotel where her mother and father, or her mother and her mother’s lover, are spending the holidays. There’s a stack of unread newspapers and a can of Diet Coke and an empty box of Wheat Thins and then the three videotapes.
“Deal with it” Skip says and he picks up the videotapes and he walks into the living room and he starts on the vodka and tries to turn on the television. I sit on the floor with DJ and Jane, and her parents have one of these big-screen TVs, forty-five inches maybe, with a pair of video-tape machines on top, and Skip finds the right buttons and the first tape is rolling. I think that maybe DJ got the tapes or probably Jane, she was at Claremont for a while and had a friend who knew some guy whose brother worked one time at a video store, a film student, and this guy stuck them away when the lists came out, and Jane maybe balled him and got the tapes, so we’re watching them, all in a row, three of them, lying on the floor of this high-ceilinged living room with this antique furniture and this print by Lucian Freud and Jane keeps telling us that she’s seen all these movies before even though she hasn’t. Skip is sitting with the remote control in his hand and he doesn’t say a word, he keeps flicking the fast forward, jumping ahead to the best scenes, and the first one is called Dawn of the Dead and right away this zombie’s head gets blown apart by a shotgun blast and this other zombie gets its head chopped off and the next one is just called Zombie and the last one I can’t remember much about except the part where this doctor blew away this little girl, she was a zombie, and he put the pistol almost right to her head and the pieces of head and brains and blood went spraying away across the inside of an elevator and just for a moment you could see right through the space where her brain used to be and I look at Jane right after this happens but she isn’t looking at me, she’s looking at Skip and DJ, and I guess she knows what she wants, don’t we all?
An hour later, there’s no more vodka and there’s no more beer and the television is turned to MTV and Jane just lays there on the floor of her parents’ living room, staring at the ceiling, while DJ fucks her for about the third time. Skip is on the telephone in Jane’s bedroom, trying to score some meth from a dealer in the city, and after a while I’m in there with him, looking at the poster of The Doors and the poster of The Smiths and listening to him say “Deal with it” over and over before he slams the telephone back onto the cradle and rolls his eyes at me and looks at the posters and says “Strange days and strange ways” and then he starts to smile and I think I get it.
The telephone rings and Skip answers and it’s Deb. Skip sighs and waves me to the phone and I say hello and she says hello and asks me what I want for Christmas and can I she talk to Jane. I tell her I don’t know and that Jane can’t talk right now and she says that’s okay, she’s coming over, don’t go, she’ll be right there and I say okay and good-bye and she says good-bye. I watch Skip go through the drawers of Jane’s desk. He stuffs a pack of cigarettes and a I lighter into his pocket and hands me a Polaroid picture and it’s Jane when she was a little girl and she’s standing in front of a fat birthday cake with eight blue-and-white candles and she is smiling a big smile and I don’t tell him that that’s me standing next to her, the little blond kid with the burry haircut and the thick black glasses. He isn’t looking at the photograph anyway, he’s looking at me, and all he says is “You faggot” and then he has his hands on the buckle of my jeans and he’s pulling me onto the bed on top of him.
Afterward, we smoke a couple of cigarettes and I follow Skip back downstairs. DJ has found another bottle of beer somewhere and he’s sitting on the couch watching MTV. Jane is still lying on the carpet, staring at the ceiling, and the fingers of her right hand are moving, clutching into a fist, flattening, then clutching into a fist again. Skip walks over to her and unzips his jeans and says that Deb is on her way and doesn’t anybody know how we can score some meth. Jane’s right hand flattens, then curls into another fist, then flattens again, and she looks up at Skip and says “Well?” and DJ looks up from the television and says “Well what?”
Another video flashes by. Another. Then another. Love and Rockets has no new tale to tell by the time Deb shows up. She’s wearing a silk blouse and a brown leather miniskirt that she bought at Magnin’s in Century City. “Love you” she says to no one at all. She kisses DJ on the cheek and sticks out her tongue at Skip and Skip acts like he doesn’t notice and keeps on fucking Jane. She says hello to me and I say hello back and she tries on my sunglasses. She walks across the room and starts searching through a stack of CDs. She holds up an old album by Bryan Ferry, puts it down, and picks up one by This Mortal Coil. She says “Can I play this?” and when nobody answers, she slides it into the player and punches a few buttons and cranks the stereo up loud. DJ is watching MTV and Skip is watching MTV while he’s fucking Jane and Jane is still looking at the ceiling and I’m trying not to look at Deb. She is singing along with Elizabeth Fraser, swaying back and forth in a kind of dance. I dreamed, she is singing, you dreamed about me. Then she sits down in front of the fireplace and slips a joint out of the pocket of her skirt and she takes off my sunglasses and squints her eyes and she looks a long time at the joint before lighting it. “Song for the Siren” winds down and there’s a moment of silence and Skip is pulling himself off Jane with a sound that is hot and wet.
“Next” he says, and he looks first at Deb, then at me.
I dream, but I dream about me. I see myself walking through the streets of downtown Los Angeles and the day is cloudy and the sun goes out and it starts to rain and I start to run and I see myself start to run. In my dream I am chasing myself, running past the Sheraton Grande, past the Bonaventure, past the Arco Tower, and for a minute I think I am going to catch up but the streets are slippery with rain and I fall once, twice, and when I stand again I can’t see anyone but this teenager at the opposite corner of the intersection and when I look again it’s me, a younger me, and he’s fifteen years old and he turns away and starts to run and I start chasing him and now he’s thirteen years old and he runs and I run and now he is eleven years old and he is getting younger with each step, younger and smaller, and now he’s nine years old and he’s eight years old and he’s seven years old and I’ve almost caught him and he’s six years old and he turns into this alley and I’m right behind him and he’s four years old and it’s a dead-end street and he’s three years old and he can just barely run and I catch him and he’s two years old and I pull him up into my arms and I’m at the end of the alley and he’s one year old and I’m standing on the porch of our house, the house where I grew up in Riverside, and he’s six months old and I’m knocking on the door and I can hear footsteps inside and he’s three months old and my mother is coming to the door and I can’t wait for her to see me and he’s just a baby and he’s getting smaller and he’s disappearing and the door is opening and my mother is looking out and he’s gone and I’m gone and then there’s nothing. Nothing at all.
It’s midnight. Still raining. Jane’s parents live in the Flatlands, next door to the French actor in that new CBS sitcom, and his dog is barking as we get in the car and Skip shows me the matchbook and the handwritten address and gives me some directions. I drive toward West-wood and take a right onto Beverly Glen and somewhere in the hills I stop at a liquor store for some cigarettes and a bottle of Freixenet and then I’m back at the wheel and I’m driving onto Mulholland and into the Valley and onto the Ventura Freeway and I look at Skip and he acts like he’s smiling, his left hand keeping beat on his leg and it’s right on target, one two three four, one two three four, but I don’t know the song on the radio, I’ve never heard it before. I look into the rearview mirror and I see that Deb is all over Jane and I see that DJ is watching them and I see that Deb’s tongue is in Jane’s mouth and I look at Skip and I see that he is watching me while I’m watching DJ who is watching Deb and Jane and I still don’t know the name of that song.
Skip taps me on the shoulder and we’re coming up on the exit and he has just popped something into his mouth and he downs it with the last of the Freixenet. He drops the black bottle onto the floor and opens his palm to me as if to say “Want some?” and I look at the little yellow pill and I wonder if I could use some Valium. The music is loud with guitars, it sounds like the Cult, and Skip is pounding out the big electric beat on the window, harder and harder, and spiderwebs are running across the glass and he hits the window one more time and it shatters and he shows me his hand. Little cuts run along his knuckles but he hasn’t started bleeding and the song ends and the commercial begins and he turns the volume back down. We go to the Lone Star Chili Parlor in Hidden Hills and sit there drinking coffee and wait awhile because we’re early and then we go back to the car.
The Valley at two A.M. Van Nuys Boulevard out farther than I thought it went. The moon is curled and shiny and I pull into the parking lot and for some reason Skip seems nervous and we pass the empty theater twice and I keep asking him why and he keeps asking me if I really want to go through with this and I keep telling him that I do. Jane is digging around for something in her purse and Deb is saying “I want to see” and DJ is trying to laugh and as soon as I step out of the car and I look at the line in the shadows, I tell him again.
The mall is no Galleria, not even a mall, just a hollow horseshoe, a curve of little shops, the theater, a drugstore, a pizza place, a karate club, and lots of empty windows lined with whitewash and old newspapers and printed signs that say Commercial Space. There’s a chubby kid sitting in a lounge chair in front of the theater, wearing Vuarnets and reading The Face and taking ten dollars from each person who wants to go inside. He doesn’t even look up as we walk by. DJ pays him and Deb takes my hand and we’re inside and the hallway is lined with torn movie posters and shattered glass and spray paint and Skip nods at me and points to the handwritten sign that reads Club Dead.
The lobby looks something like an attic and it’s dark and crammed with furniture. Some guy at the back, the manager maybe, is dealing dollar bills to a pair of policemen. He nods at Skip and he nods at me and he lets us through and this girl in the corner winks at me and tries to smile, pale white lipstick and her tongue licking out, and she knows Skip and she says something that I can’t hear and Skip gives her the finger.
Inside the lights are bright and it takes my eyes a while to adjust. The place is crowded but we find a table and five chairs and DJ orders a round, four Coronas and a Jack Daniels, straight up, for Deb. “Black Light Trap” is playing over the sound system and the bar is lined with boys trying to look interested in anything but what’s about to go down. No one is looking at Jane, plain Jane. Some are looking at Deb and some are looking at these other girls smoking clove cigarettes and standing or sitting in little groups. Skip points out his friend Philip, standing in the back and wearing sunglasses and a black Bauhaus T-shirt.
I get up from the table and go to the bar and then outside with Philip and it’s raining and I can hear Shriekback from inside singing that we make our own mistakes and I score from Philip and then I go to the bathroom and lock the door and stare at myself in the mirror. Somebody knocks on the door and I put my foot back against it and say “Deal with it” and lay out three lines and do them and take a drink from the faucet and decide I need a haircut.
It’s hot back in the theater and I hold my Corona up to my face, my forehead. There’s a man sitting at a table next to us whose eyes are closed so tight that he is crying. The girl he’s sitting with is tugging at the crotch of her Guess jeans and drinking a California Cooler and she’s fourteen if she’s a day. When the man opens his eyes, he looks at his Rolex and he looks at the stage and he looks at the girl and for some reason I’m relieved.
That’s when the music goes down and the lights dim and there’s some applause, scattered, and the music revs up again, something by Skinny Puppy, and at long last it’s showtime. There are video screens set in a line over the stage and I look up and they shoot on one by one and it’s a clip, just a short sixty seconds or so, from one of the films we saw, a grainy bootleg copy of a copy of a copy with subtitles in some foreign language, Spanish I think, and the zombies are loose inside a shopping mall and Skinny Puppy is pounding on and the singer’s voice is barking deep down trauma hounds and the film clip jumps and now it’s from some place back east, you can tell by the trees, and this is from television, from the news last summer, before they stopped talking, before the lists came out, and these soldiers are sweeping through a little town and the buildings are burning and the air is filled with smoke and they’re moving house to house and they’re blasting the doors and firing inside and now there’s a pile of bodies and it’s on fire and now it’s that commercial, that public service announcement, whatever, and the Surgeon General is saying that the dead are alive, they’re coming back to life, but we’re killing them again, it’s okay, it’s all right, and somebody told me he’s dead, all those guys are dead, and now the film clip jumps again and the colors roll over and over and the picture steadies and there’s a test pattern. Skip says “This is it” and a new picture fades in and then this real tinny music, more like muzak, and it’s a video, a home video, something shot with a Handycam maybe, and the picture is a basement or a garage, just bare walls, grey concrete, and after about a minute shadows start walking across the walls and then the first one’s out on stage.
The music is gone and there’s nothing but silence and a kind of hum, the tape is hissing, and the camera goes out of focus and the picture breaks up and then it’s back in focus and she is looking at the camera. She’s recent, blond and tall and sort of cute, and she’s wearing a Benetton sweatshirt and acid-wash 501 jeans and it’s hard to believe she’s dead.
“This is real” Skip says to me and he turns to DJ and Deb and Jane and he says “For real.” It’s quiet in the club, quiet except for the hissing tape, and on the tape the girl is staring at the camera for a long time and nothing else happens. The floor behind her is covered with plastic trash bags and what looks like newspaper and there’s a thin wooden cot and there’s a worktable in the corner and I wonder why there’s a power saw on the table and it does seem warm and I reach for my Corona and the bottle is empty and I look around for the waitress and everybody is watching the screen so I do too. This guy comes into the picture with a coil of rope and he’s wearing this black hood and she sees him or hears him and she starts to turn his way and she stumbles and her legs are caught, there are chains on her ankles, and now there’s another guy and he’s wearing a ski mask and he’s coming up behind her and he’s carrying a chain and something like a harness, a leather harness, and I look at Deb and Deb looks at me and now they’re hitting the girl with the chain and she falls to the ground and they’re hitting her some more and now the rope is around her and the harness is over her face and I look at Deb and Deb is touching herself and I look back at the video and they’re cutting her clothes and now they’re cutting her and I look at Deb and Deb looks at me and she reaches to touch me and now they loop the rope around her neck and Deb’s hand is moving up my leg and now the first guy is gone and Deb’s hand is moving and now he’s back and Deb is squeezing me and he’s got a hammer and he swings it once and he swings it twice and Deb is squeezing me harder and now the rope is fastened overhead and someone in the audience says “Yeah” and Skip’s arm circles Jane and he pulls her close and says “For real” and now they are yanking the rope and the noose is tightening and her feet are off the floor and Deb’s hand is moving and squeezing and I tell her to slow down and she stops and says to hold on a minute and I try and I look back at the screen and now they have a set of hooks and Deb’s hand is moving again and the hooks connect to chains and her hand is moving faster and the chains go taut and faster and there’s a sound like a scream and faster and her head is bent back and faster and now they have a dildo and faster and they’re fitting it with nails and faster and faster and faster now they have a boy, faster a little naked boy, and faster now they have a blowtorch and faster now they have a power drill and faster now they have and now they have and now they and now they and now and now and now the picture is gone and my crotch is wet and Deb reaches over and hands me a napkin.
It’s four A.M. and it’s getting cold and we’re still sitting in the club and Skip is picking lint from my sweater and telling me that he wants to leave. The Clan of Xymox fades to Black and it’s a wonderful life, the singer is singing, it’s a wonderful, wonderful life. Jane is vomiting in the corner and the lights are dark and red and for a moment I think it looks like blood. DJ is turned away, watching two boys wet-kissing in the shadows beyond the stage and taking deep pulls on another Corona. Deb is out back fucking this guy from U.S.C., bleach-blond and tan and wearing a white Armani sweater. Skip is telling me that we ought to leave real soon now. The music clicks off and it’s smoke and laughter and broken glass and the sound of Jane spitting up and then the live band saunters onto the stage and the band is called 3 but there are four of them. The bass player has a broken right hand and Skip says “The bass player has a broken right hand” and slides a clove cigarette from his shirt pocket. The four-man band called 3 starts playing a speed metal version of “I Am the Walrus” and Deb is standing in front of me and she kisses me and tells Skip she’s ready and Skip is saying that we have to leave and DJ is pulling Jane by the arm and Jane is still bent over and I wonder if I should ask if she’s okay and my eyes meet Skip’s and he cuts them to the exit and the next thing you know, we’re gone.
Skip says Jimmy has a camera and I drive over to Jimmy’s house, but Jimmy, somebody remembers, is either dead or in Bermuda, so I drive to Toby’s place and this black kid answers the door wearing white underwear and a hard-on. A lava lamp bubbles red in the living room behind him. “Toby’s busy” the black kid says and shuts the door. I take the Hollywood Freeway to Western Avenue but it’s not right and I take the Hollywood Freeway to Alvarado but it’s not right and I drive downtown and I take an exit, any exit, and I see the Sheraton Grande and I see the Bonaventure and I see the Arco Tower and I think it’s time to run. Skip says to stop but it’s still not right and I turn the corner and now it’s right and so I stop and Skip tosses Jane out the door and she’s facedown in the gravel and it sounds like she’s going to vomit again.
“You didn’t have to do that” somebody says but I don’t know who. DJ is sitting up in the backseat and he pulls his arm from around Deb and shrugs and looks down at Jane. Skip starts to laugh and it sounds like choking and he turns up the radio and it’s the New Order single and Jane is crawling away from the car. Skip is pulling something from under his jacket and his door slams and I check the rearview mirror. I look at the reflection of Deb’s eyes for a moment and I don’t say anything more.
The car is stopped in the middle of the street, at the mouth of an alley, and I see now that it’s the alley from my dream, a hidden place, a perfect place, and Jane is crawling away from the car and Skip is walking toward her and he’s taking his time and there’s something in his hand, something long and sharp, and it glows in the glare of the headlights and his shadow is streaking across the brick walls of the alley and I think I’ve just seen this. Skip is standing over her and I see Jane start to say something and Skip is shaking his head as if he’s saying no and then he’s bending down toward her and she just watches as he cuts her once, then again, and she rolls onto her back and he flicks the knife past her face and she doesn’t blink, doesn’t move, and now the back door slams and DJ and Deb are out of the car and walking down the alley and now I’m walking down the alley and when we get there Skip shows us the knife, a thick military job, and Jane is bleeding on her arms and hands and a little on her neck and DJ says “Make it like the movie” and Skip says “This is the movie.” He looks at DJ and he looks at Deb and he looks at me and he looks at Jane and he slides the knife into her stomach and the sound is soft and she barely moves and there isn’t much blood at all, so he slides the knife into her stomach again, then into her shoulder, and this time she shudders and her back arches up and she seems to moan and the blood bubbles up but it isn’t very red, it isn’t very red at all. Deb says “Oh” and Skip tosses the knife aside and Jane rolls onto her stomach and I think she’s starting to cry, just a little, and he looks around the alley but there’s nothing there, garbage cans and crumpled papers and the burned-out hulk of an RX-7, and he finds a brick and he throws it at her and she curls up like a baby and DJ picks up the brick and throws it and Deb picks up the brick and throws it and then it’s my turn and I pick up the brick and throw it and hit her in the head.
We kick her for a while and then she starts to crawl and there still isn’t much blood and it’s the wrong color, almost black I guess, and it isn’t very shiny and it’s just like dripping, not spraying around or anything, and she is almost to the end of the alley and the street ends and there’s a curb and there’s a sidewalk and there’s a wall and there’s a light from somewhere beaming down and she crawls some more. Her head is in the gutter and Skip looks at DJ and he is saying “This is real” and he pulls at Jane’s hair and her head is bent back and her mouth is open and he’s dragging her forward and then he’s pressing her face against the curb and her upper teeth are across the top of the curb, her lips are pulled back into a smile and it looks like the smile in the Polaroid, Jane is eight years old, and her head is hanging there by those upper teeth and I look at Skip and I look at DJ and I look at Deb and Deb is looking down and she’s smiling too and Skip is saying “Real” and he puts his boot on the back of Jane’s head and he presses once, twice, and that smile widens into a kiss, a full mouth kiss on the angle of concrete, and then he stomps downward and the sound is like nothing I have ever heard.
The sound is on the radio. I’m listening to the radio and it echoes along the alley and it plays song after song after song. I’m sitting on the curb with Skip and DJ and Deb, and DJ is smoking another cigarette and the stubs are collecting at his feet and there are seven or eight of them and we’ve been here an hour and it’s nearly light and we’ve been waiting but now it’s time to go.
“Okay, Jane” Deb says and she is standing and she is jabbing Jane with her foot and she is saying “We gotta go.” Skip is standing and DJ is standing and Deb is looking at her Swatch and she says “Get up” and then she says “You can get up now.” She is jabbing Jane with her foot and Jane isn’t moving and Skip is wiping his knife and looking at Jane and DJ is smoking his cigarette and looking at Jane and I’m just looking at Jane and then I think I know. No, I do know. I’m sure I know.
“She’s coming back, right?” Deb is saying and she’s looking at Skip and she’s looking at DJ and then she’s looking at me. “Bret?” she is asking me and she is crossing her arms and she isn’t smiling now. “She’s coming back, isn’t she?” Deb is saying “I mean, we’re all coming back, right?” Skip is putting the knife in his pocket and DJ is finishing his cigarette and I am standing and she is saying “Right?”
People are afraid to live on the streets of Los Angeles. This is the last thing I say as I walk away from Skip and DJ and Deb and get back into the car. I don’t know why I keep saying this thing. It’s something I started and now I can’t stop. Nothing else seems to matter.
I sit behind the wheel of the car and I watch the windshield wipers go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and the city blurs, out of focus, beneath the thin black lines. I want to say that people are afraid. I want to say that people are afraid of something and I can’t remember what and maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s a dream and I am running, I am running after something and I can’t remember what, I can’t remember the dream, and the windshield wipers go back and forth, back and forth. People are afraid of something and in my dream I am running and the radio is playing and I try to listen but it is playing the song I do not know. The windshield wipers go back and forth. The doors open and close and then I drive away.