Vineland

hing else, something from his nightmares of forced procreation, must have taken over, because later, in what could only

nt room next to the biggest block of pressed marijuana Zoyd had ever seen in his life, too big to have fit through any door yet towering there, mysteriously, a shaggy monolithic slab reaching almost to the ceiling. " 'Scuse me just a

2001: A Space

ears in Sing

slab, needing the support. "W

estwood really hate

Prairie slept, waited a beat, then rolled them bac

be seen the nam

y ex-old lady, Hector,

, is that I have never went into areas

'd he send you out to do the shitwork, huh? Plant the evidence, pop the subjec

on't snatch no babies,

just some jive excus

favor, for a friend." And he gave that injured cadence a

following orde

rganization where I work, lot of old FBN doorkickers done got the blade, colleagues of mine, and

ip, Hector . . . nah, it's OK, I - I kno

led out a chrome referee's whis

investigation kits, two-way radios, a range of side-arms both custom and off the shelf, not to mention cameras, still and movie, with w

please, call up my mother-in-

Grotesquely kittenish. "Fa

nds. Sure would pu

ion indeed, I should say." And about then who but Sasha should come bouncing in the door, s

- you called h

as she registered the looming block of cannabis, "G

ether into closer than either would have liked by the increasingly mysterious activities necessary to get Hector's colossal dopechunk out of the house again, "can't you even see this is a setup?" proceeding to the bedroom, followed attentively by Sasha. "They're tryin' to get her away from me. Hi there, Slick, 'member your grandma?" While Sasha talked and played, Zoyd took off Prairie's diaper, got rid of the shit and rinsed off the diaper in the toilet, threw it in with the others along with some Borax

her arm out pointing in perfect baby articulation of wrist, hand, and finger

to holler," S

ope this won't

been a while anyway, so at

commodate a smile she could not yet feel the limits of, making high squeals now and then. "Oh, ya like that, do ya. Yer Da-da's gittin' popped!" He put his finger in his mouth agains

h m

e'd been handcuffed, led out through an audience of neighbors mostly staring in wonder, or in forms of mental distress such as fear, at the tall prism, now miraculously outside again, secured on a flatbed trailer, ready to be hauled back to whatever spacious Museum of Drug Abuse it had been borrowed from, while Zoyd was put into the back of a taupe Caprice with government plates and taken away up the hill out of Gordita Beach, angling by surface streets southward and eastward, on into less developed neighborhoods full of oil wells and nodding pumps, green fields, horses, power lines, and railroad trestles, pulling in at last to a collection of low sand-colored structures that could have been some junior high school campus, with yellow tile walls and a lot of U.S. Marshals inside, on through strip search, fingerprinting, picture taking, and form typing, the early line for supper - miscellaneous po

il as he kept nodding. "So. Would you mind turning your head - no, the other way? Give me a profile. Ah. Ha

is t

our gnathic index, and th

peeling back his lip for Brock. "Want me t

level of serious and adult conversation, but maybe I was wrong, maybe you've spent too much time in

my former wife, Cap'n, it su

ext to one eye. "She's not your business anymore. I kno

rosecutor, Zoyd waited on the edge of his rack, holding his head, while Brock got up, metal creaking, and began to pace the room, as if lost in thought. According to Frenesi, Brock had been born under the sign of the Scorpion, the only critter in nature that could sting itself to death with its own tail, reminding Zoyd of self-destructive maniacs he'd ridden with back in his car-club days, beer outlaws speeding well above the limit, dreaming away with these romantic death fantasies, which usually gave them hardons they then joked about all night

f the Gentleman's Code, and held the pack out to Zoyd, though still a little more abruptly than

all ri

shing in on Zoyd one by one. Yes this crazy mother

merciful, she'll be allowed to visit. Maybe if you're good we'll let you out, under guard, to go to her wedding, hm? Even a sip of champagne at the reception, al

ie," Zoyd hazarded, "why do t

p children. But some rebel against that, try to run away, hm? get locked into a domestic arrangement as fast as they can - a woman, say, trying to be an average, invisible tract-house m

ks are allowed to behave the way they want, even have a baby with a lowlife bum who can't a

sworn to protect all their people, cannot allow her to escape what everyone else must accept,

or the

kes sur

from a bikers' bar called Knucklehead Jack's, came live, loud rock and roll, ever-breaking waves of notes in squealing screaming guitar solos that defied any number of rules, that also lifted the blood and reassured

ons, hm? all on the assumption that we understood each other, and then - who knows? she calls up one night, the moon happens to be full, you start talking more and more softly, singing those golden oldies together, hm? next thing you know, there's the three of you, out at the all-nigh

ok my daught

ot find you for a while. Quite a while.

what Fren

rever, because there's a bed open on the top tier in cellblock D, waiting just for you, your cellmate's name is Leroy, he is a convicted murderer, and next to eating watermelon, hi

face. The son of a bitch wan

inct for congratulating the customer on his

a lot,

our tone of voice." Brock went to the door and hollered, "Ron?" Bootsteps approached, and Ron

am, Mr

ordered on his

ir. How

be plenty," a f

stood awhile, as if evaluating the job - Zoyd could presently make out in a blur his motionless boots and, still too desolate even to cry out, waited for a kick. But Ron turned an

minutes a day of precious time. "Political office decides they don't need you after all. But even if we call you the mule, you're still lookín a

nose, red-eyed, accusative. "Really a fuckin' late hit, man ... all these years I thought you resp

absorbing all light that fell on them. "You know what, I got to start thinkín about lunch. Do we have to keep playín fuck-fuck with this? órale, get you the right judge, dig it! a nice minimum j

s Vietnam days is takin' zero chances, won't even fly on the airplane no more, not too promising for you,

rty the Bad, and it took supersnitch potential like yours to just break this case wi-i-i-i

t. He risked, "Why this thing about popping my cherry, Hector, can't you see I have a kid to look after now, no choice, I had to turn into a str

usic, learn a couple nice Agustín Lara tunes? Li'l conjunto? And really start thinkín about gettín married a

law, the one you always try to fix up

de Chiques. Debbi says it's in their blood, all the women

eepin' her away fro

his head, flinging wide the door of Z

om the choke point miles up Wilshire and suppertime blooming in side windows up and down the long blocks. Prairie was all gussied up in some kind of brand-new toddler outfit,

on one knee, hol

nd regarded him with her lower jaw pu

Pra

ppie

for one day -" But after Brock Vond and his colleagues, thi

appened, you

while Brock led out into the parking lot a steadfastly smiling Fren-esi - who'd been somewhere inside all along, in Brock's custody - sun in her hair and face, those bare legs so poised and smooth . . . obliged to watch her go down, the smile held every step of the way, dapper pastel Brock in his custom shades opening the

sted a pizza,

en later good night. When she was asleep in the spare ro

really disappea

here you are," Hector had explained, "long as you're pickín up those checks, nobody'll bother

oulder, and say, "All that fascist prick wants is to keep Frenesi from seeing her child again. Usual t

you? Brock says you're no problem,

out Vineland, how they all used to visit in the summers when Frenesi was little and how she'd loved to explore, must have followed every creek on that whole piece of coast

s heading that way l

u know, there'd be worse places for you and the ol' bundle to live, have a home, beautiful country, only a short spin up or down 101 from everything, from the Two Street honky-tonks to the eateries of Arcata to the surfing at Shelter Cove, an

only jobs are fishing and lumberi

e to live by y

the h

d and no Corps of Engineers'll ever clear, a whole web of logging roads, fire roads, Indian trails for you to learn. You can hide, all right. So could she, the

otice muc

t a fascist through's his c

o help bridge him across the bad moments when they came? That night on Sasha's phone he talked to Van Meter, who, himself demoralized by Zoyd's arrest, was join

where flourished a commune, deep in, beyond the shallowest of boat drafts, sanctuary for folks on the run from court orders, process servers and skip tracers, not to mention higher and more dangerous levels of enforcement. This refuge from government happened to be lodged in the heart of a regionwide network of

chemicals, now and then Zoyd'd have to take his shirt off, wring it out, and put it back on again. When the ducks made highball and comeback quacks in intervals between airplane sorties, Prairie at their voices might begin to perk up, but then in over the patchwork rooftops, too loud and sudden, would come throbbing another chorus of national security, and she'd start to cry again, which eventually, more than the mindshattering roar, got Zoyd wondering just how desperate he was. Mosquitoes whined, sweat ran, Prairie kept waking up every couple ho

-business biggie whom Zoyd knew by way of Indolent Records, entering black iron gates to a long Spanish courtyard of flowered tiles, plants with giant leaves, and working fountains, whose splash woke Prairie with that puzzled look on her face. Exotic trees bloomed in the dark and smelled like someplace far away. They both looked around, Prairie bright-eyed. "OK Slick, he must still be payin' the rent." The courtyard led to an entry full of

hed to recall the date

ers being that volatile in those days, as revolution went blending into commerce. But here was period rock and roll, over audio equipment that likewise expressed, that long-ago year, the highest state of the analog arts all too soon to be eclipsed by digital technology, Trillium dancing to it, and in her arms the baby jumping and jiving. Zoyd put on dark glasses, shook back his hair, snapped his fingers, did a few amiable time steps, looking around the place. Things blinked, swirled, transformed, came and went everywhere. Distraction. Pinball machines, television sets of many makes and sizes

fed her some boy-senberry yogurt, a lot of it ending up on his shirt, filled bottles with juice and milk, and retired to a guest room across the patio from the kitchen, searche

CE OF

Law

bia, w

g, wogg

sur

Ara

er what, h

t there wit

day o

in the de

ight - he don't

ren

bia, w

g, wogg

roducing. The business was growing unpredictable, and his takeoff was abrupt - soon, styling himself Count Drugula, Mucho was showing up at Indolent, down in the back-street Hollywood flats south of Sunset and east of Vine, in a chauffeured Bentley, wearing joke-store fangs and a black velvet cape from Z & Z, scattering hits of high-quality acid among the fans young and old who gath

th a woman - furtive meetings between his nose and the illicit crystals, sudden ecstatic peaks, surprising negative cash flow, amazing sexual occurrences. Just as he arrived at that crisis point between wild infatuation and long-term commitment, his nose went out on him - blood, snot, something un-arguably green - a nasal breakdown. He did no

uh

pen into here, and sign your name

r as long as I l

es, basically the traditional range of

t? For snor

ll yourself anyway,

s nose. "Can I at least get some No

as you

than a producer's

suite, "we must proceed to the next phase, the 'Room of the Bottled Specimens.' " Lurid p

maybe I'll sign after all, add thed

retending to read the label, " 'Cross Section Through Jazz Musician's Skull'? eh? revealing the structur

e form of life, somewhere, would find the Bottled Specimens not only edible but a

Examples in the Freezer, till at length pain, exhaustion, and the beginning of a new head cold drove him to ink, or rather blood, this nose medic's dubious pact. A

he was nearly run down by a stop-me-search-me VW bus, brightly repainted and full of long-haired young desperados out cruising, who recognized him and began clamoring for acid. B

ech balloon emerging from thei

e known in some parts of town as a source of rectal discomfort on the subject, not even sparing his old rock and roll buddy Zoyd h

e joint, if they can't do that, what are they? ain't shit, might as well be another show on the Tube. They didn't even start goin' after dope till Prohibition was repealed, suddenly here's all these federal co

uddenly heavily hanging out, faithful as a groupie, was the drug agent, silent and glittering at first but all too soon putting in, as if unable not to, not only negotiating lyrics, which was certainly bad enough, but also arguing about notes, which was crazy - "Hey, those are soul licks! surfers ai

is eyes, ominously on defense

appy you enjoyin' your backstage look at the world of rock and roll, mah man in the reverse-ch

to inform him, "are my old Stacey

of the mystique, all right,

'm out, you know, cruisín, so I really want to tell you, man, about my car radio?" He moved closer to Mucho, who'd already read and filed Hector's story by now, and would presently begin to edge away. "Which is kin' of unique 'causs it only gits this one station? KQAS! Kick-Ass 460 on th' AM dial! I got their decal on

llas, you're in competent hands, and nice m

much I'm enjoyín myself," darkl

suit," Zoyd had counseled t

Zoyd, "if they're anything like nasal therapists, they're in

nally tries to set me up." He told Mucho of hi

uess it's over. We're on into a new world now, it's

way he'll ever

just drugs, but beer, cigarettes, sugar, salt, fat, you name it, anything that could re

Pol

ce. Good Healthy Shit Police. Best to re

unt. Remember how the acid was? Remember that windowpane,

control a population that knows it'll never die? When that was always their last big chip, when they thought they had the pow

t take what happened

s me to say it, it's what rock and roll is becoming - just another way to claim our attention, so that beautiful certainty we had starts to fade, an

vowed, "fuck 'em. While we ha

ened, both of them this time, to the sermon, one they knew and felt their hearts comforted by, though outside spread the lampless wastes, th

. This baby was a great fan of the game, liked to lie face down on the glass, kick her feet, and squeal at the full sensuous effect, especially when bumpers got into prolonged cycling or when her fathe

erworldly billows, you heard a lot of "Wow," and "Beautiful," though Zoyd only found it beautiful the way a firearm is, because of the bad dream unreleased inside it, in this case the brute simplicity of height, the finality of what swept below relentlessly out to sea. They rose into the strange go

h -

hearing, and in rather a matter-of-fact tone of voice for a baby, too, as if this were a return for her to a world behind the world she had known all along. The storm lashed the night, dead trees on slow log trucks reared up in the high-beams shaggy and glistening, the highway was interrupted by flooding creeks and minor slides that often obliged the bus to creep around inches from the edge of Totality. Aislemates struck up

e wheel a standard-issue Hippie Freak who looked just like him. Woo-oo! An unreal moment for everybody, with the driver staring twice as weirdly right back at Zoyd! Van Meter meantime was wondering why Zoyd didn't wave hello, taking Zoyd's mental confusion for anger, a

s voice. "It's running great, I jus

experience for a second. What's the

ol. Where's

ouse hunting all week with no luck, was just ab

eys, I'll give you your ride an

gnition,

. .

odfather, with squeals and smiles, high-fiving him with two grubby hands. She'd settled right in up here, didn't seem to miss the beach at all, alr

ete Art Deco bridges built all over the Northwest by the WPA during the Great Depression. Zoyd, who was driving, came at last up a long forest-lined grade and cresting saw the trees fold away, as there below, swung dizzily into view, came Vineland, all the geometry of the bay neutrally filtered under pre-storm clouds, the crystalline openwork arcs of the pale bridges, a tall power-plant stack whose plume blew straight north, meaning rain on the way, a jet in the sky ascending from Vineland International south of town, the Corps of Engineers marina, with salmon boats, pow

once, the sense they had of some invisible boundary, met when approaching from the sea, past the capes of somber evergreen, the stands of redwood with their perfect trunks and cloudy foliage, too high, too red to be literal trees - carrying therefore another intention, which the Indians might have known about but did not share. They could be seen in photographs beginning at about the turn of the century, villagers watching the photographer at work, often posed in n

ll. Zoyd figured that with lines waiting on every locker space in the station, he might as well let somebody else move into his. The great northerly migration had caught Vineland flatfooted. The bus station, which took up a whole city block, was acting as a temporary dormitory for those who had nowhere to stay - and there were plenty of these Southland transplants milling everywhere. Zoyd left Prairie with some folks they'd come up with on the bus who'd all got into the habit of looking after each other's kids, and with Van Meter walking slack made a zigzag for the indigo ambience of the Fast

ou understand, every guy up here looks just like we do. You're dern near invis

got family up here, don't know

that included exchanges of gunfire between gangs of rival cable riggers, eager to claim souls for their distant principals, fighting it out house by house, with the Board of Supervisors compelled eventually to partition the county into Cable Zones, which in time became political units in their own right as the Tubal entrepreneurs went extending their webs even where there weren't enough residents per linear mile to pay the rigging cost, they could make that up in town, and besides, they had faith in the future of California real estate. Idealistic flower children looking to live in harmony with the Earth were not the only folks with their eyes on Vineland. Developers in and out of state had also discovered this shoreline in the way of the wind, with its concealed tranquillities and false passages, this surprise fish-trap in the everyday coast. All born to be suburbs, in their opinion, and the sooner the better. It meant work, but too much of it nonunion and bought shamefully cheap. Zoyd's relations with the Traverses he did get in touch with were complicated by his scab activities, though Zoyd would've preferred "independent contractor." These were old, proud, and strong union people, surviving in one of the world's worst antiunion environments - spool tenders, zooglers, water bucks, and bull punchers, some had fought in the Everett mill wars, others from the Becker side had personally known Joe Hill, and not mourned, and orga

imbed on, ridden out with other newcomers, all cherry to the labor market up here, former artists or spiritual pilgrims now becoming choker setters, waiters and waitresses, baggers and checkout clerks, tree workers, truckdrivers, and framers, or taking temporary swamping jobs like this, all in the service of others, the ones who did the building, selling, buying and speculating. First thing new hires all found our was that their hair kept getting in the way of work. Some cut it short, some tied it back or slicked it behind their ears in a kind of question-mark shape. Their once-ethereal girlfriends were busing dishes or cocktail-

h, in which he knew, dismayingly, that he would, would have to, do anything to keep this dear small life from harm, up to and including Brock Vond, a possibility he wasn't too happy with. But as he watched her then, year by year, among these reunion faces her own was growing more and more to look like, continuing to feel no least premonitory sign of governmental interest from over the horizon