We stopped into a hole in the wall falafel stand for a bite. 

 

"Nearly a sheet," said Horse, licking gyro sauce off his arm.

 

There were two girls studying at the table next to us; talking quietly, smoking.  Beyond them, an old bum nursing a shot of Turkish coffee. 

 

In the background there was the din of bad, Middle Eastern techno.  Somehow, I imagined that it was all bad.  
 
"Doesn't vampire bitch work around here?" Horse wanted to know. 
 
"I think."
 
"I'd love to sink my teeth into that," he went on.  "Maybe soon."
 
"Maybe."
 
"What the fuck's wrong?"
 
"Huh."
 
"You want her for yourself?"
 
"Nothing's wrong," I said.
 
"Let's drop tonight . . . it's a been couple days."
 
"I don't know," I said.
 
"What about Tanya?" He wanted to know.
 
"Tanya?"
 
"She's not with that one dude, anymore . . ? Joe?"
 
"So . . ?"

 

"Maybe she wants your cock."
 
I looked over at the two girls who continued to hibernate within the circle of themselves.
 
The bum got up and walked away.  He thanked one of the girls on the way out, probably for the coffee. "No problem," she assured him.
 
I looked at Horse, who was digging into his rice.
 
"I wouldn't mind giving it to her," I admitted.
 
"Fuckin'-A."
 
- - - - - - -

 

 Taking acid for the first time was like strapping into a long, inordinate ride.
 
I was fourteen.  Horse was fifteen. 
 
He tried to lead me through, but there was nothing he could do to protect me from the fear of myself.  I was feeling all the shit that had been bottled up for too long to care about; at least in the real world.

 

'Acid doesn't give a fuck if  your ready or not.' Horse warned earlier. 

 

It devoured me like I was carrion, torn open and strewn across jagged stones.

 

"Do you see them?" Horse wanted to know.

 

"Yes." 
 
But it was more than that . . . massive blankets of past lives quilted into a complex pattern . . . a synchronistic order of spirits from all over the universe.
 
"No," I said.
 
"Ghosts." 

 

The rudiments of time blurred between thoughts as if everything were going on at once . . . all life and death; perpetual, motionless.

 

"It's different than that," I managed, my tongue dead-heavy in my mouth. "It makes more sense."

 

We walked up and down the length of the cemetery, tripping over head stones.
 
I could see Chloe, a portion of the quilt.
 
The idea of death didn't bother me anymore . . . the idea of anything.  Horse was right?  There was only this room, vast and intricate . . . a room containing an infinity of doors, windows, traps.
 
"You can't get out.  No matter how hard you try."
 
"What?"
 
Horse leered at me from the pit of his eyes. "I didn't say . . ."
 
My cock hardened.  I looked closer at Horse.  Behind one of the doors I was his lover.  "Your skull's purple," I said.
 
"Huh?"
 
There was a surge through my body; my cock wilting into putty. 
 
"I'm really frying," he muttered.
 
Horse sat on a stone and loaded a bowl. "This'll help." His hands shook.  I could see flakes of pot tumbling through the moonlight toward the grass.
 
"Your spilling," I said.
 
We'd taken two good hits of acid each.  Horse recommended I take two the first time in order to have a 'full-on, psychedelic experience.'
 
Horse handed the pipe to me.  I fumbled with the lighter.
 
"Like . . . this."
 
Horse had the lighter now.  Flicking it to life, he started to laugh. "Fucked up," he said.

 

At the end of everything we sat watching the sun rise above the mist and trees.   

 

An elderly woman hobbled through the cemetery, flowers protruding from her gnarled fingers.  There was the uncertain aura of her life in the morning air, as if all life, all death, weighed itself against her isolated sorrow.    

 

She was coming toward us.

 

"Here comes another ghost," said Horse.

 

"I don't think . . ."

 

She walked past.  She did not take notice.  Up the same hill we'd traversed a thousand times . . . winding through the stones toward her destination.

 

"Who do you think she's going visit?"

 

"Herself," Horse claimed, cryptically.

 

"I don't think I've ever seen anyone here."

 

"Do you want to go talk to her?"

 

"Why?"
 
Horse loaded another bowl.  It was the last of it. I leaned back against a stone, my
legs dangling in the grass. 
 
"I don't know," he said. "Ask her why she keeps coming here.  Why she doesn't stay.  You know?  She's probably got nothing . . . old photos and fractured memories."
 
My muscles ached.  My brain felt flax and dumb.  I wanted to remember everything . . .  darkness, light and the beauty of noise; the hush rumble of my mind working over time . . . saintliness, godliness.  Fortunately, I could work the lighter just fine.    
 
"You could just kill her," he said.
 
"I don't want to kill her."
 
"You'd be doing her a favor."
 
"Don't you think she'd be dead if she wanted to be."
 
"Most humans are too cowardly to take their own lives."
 
The old woman was a silhouette in the distance; a snatch of shadow, or a dark, human shaped door leading into nowhere. 
 
And I watched her vanish; into nothing, out of nowhere.
 
"You see," said Horse.

 

For all I knew, she was still there.     
 
- - - - - - -

 

I woke up in the night . . . from a dream that Horse and I were kids.
 
Getting up to take a piss . . . stumbling through the night house.  I caught my
reflection in the mirror.  I smiled crookedly, but it was useless.  It was an invisible hour in which nothing could withstand the night.  It made me realize that whatever mythology we were trying to create, whatever mythology at all, was relative in the sense that we were creating it. 
 
It made me think of a story Horse had written.  Usually, when he wrote, it was in strange, twisting snatches, but there was this one.  In it, Christ commits suicide.  He stabs himself in the heart with a very long, sharp knife and bleeds to death. 

 

He'd murdered someone in a nearby town.  A small boy.  Slit his throat with the same knife he'd used to kill himself . . . watched him bleed in the street, in the night, a few yards away from the boy's home.

 

Jesus had played the thing out in his mind so many times that it just seemed like the right thing to do.  It didn't matter that they would eventually catch Him; that they would condemn and crucify Him. 

 

The future was all around him, in many shades; none of them bright.

 

Still, I could visualize Him; demeaned by his own hand, but happier.  After all, He'd just saved the world from it's ignorance.
 
The smile faded.  I tried to remember what Horse and I had been doing in the dream.  There were so many things I'd forgotten.  Not just about the dream.  About everything.  It was such a blurred landscape.  And all I could remember for now was getting up to take a piss. 

 

This moment in the lonely mythology of night. 

 

The invisible hour.

 

- - - - - - -

 

 "Where's everyone?"
 
"Horse and Arella went to a movie," I said.
 
Tanya sat on the couch beside me.  Her legs were long and sharp, but nice. 
 
"An eleven o'clock showing of Luci Fulci's Zombie at The Grand Illusion."
 
"Arella loves that shit," she said.
 
"Yeah . . . so does Horse."
 
"How long have you guys known each other?"
 
"A long time," I said. "Since junior high."
 
I took Tanya's bong off the coffee table and loaded it.
 
"Thanks," she said.
 
"No problem."
 
"I saw a couple drunk idiot's beat the shit out of each other tonight."
 
"Yeah?"
 
I watched as the glass chamber filled up with the smoke; twisting, thickening angel hair.
 
"I need to find a fucking job," I said, feeling partially guilty.
 
"You'll find one," she said.
 
"Thanks for letting us stay here."
 
"It's cool."
 
"Yeah."
 
"What's his trip anyway?"
 
"Huh?"
 
"Horse."
 
I loaded another bong hit and killed it.  I was already pretty stoned.
 
"Seems kind of crazy," she said.
 
"Horse thinks everyone else is crazy," I said.
 
"Arella's going to fuck him, you known? She fucks almost everyone."
 
My cock twitched, hardened.  I was thinking about the girl in Seaside. 
 
"You want another one?" I asked.
 
"Sure."
 
"We're more like brothers," I said, handing Tanya the bong. "We've done pretty much everything together."
 
"Everything?" She was smiling. "If I remember right there's not a hell of lot to do in Coos Bay, Oregon.  Fuck, I hated that place.  I couldn't wait to get out of there."
 
"Yeah."
 
Tanya's tone grew lighter.  For brief moments we didn't say anything at all.  I'd been watching The Sci-Fi Channel before Tanya showed up. . . The Twilight Zone.

 

I was still thinking about the girl in Seaside.

 

"I've seen this one," she said. "With Dennis Hopper.  As a Nazi."
 
"I think I have too," I said.  "My dad used to watch this show all the time.  I think he lived there."
 
"Where?"
 
"The Twilight Zone," I said.
 
Tanya snorted and leaned back against the couch. "You know, you guys should come to the show tomorrow."
 
"Ummm . . ."
 
Hitler talked to Dennis Hopper's character from the shadows, only you weren't supposed to know it was Hitler yet.  Ironically, Hopper's character's name was Pete, and even though I was very stoned my stomach began to bother me.  And the more I concentrated on it the worse it became.
 
"My fucking stomach," I blurted.
 
"What's wrong with it?"
 
"It's been hurting me a lot lately," I said.
 
"There should be something in the bathroom."
 
I loaded another bong hit.

 

"Jesus," she said.
 
"Hang out with Horse long enough . . ."
 
"Seems like that's all that guy talks about," she said. "That, and how everything's so fucked up.  I've never met anyone so negative."
 
"A lot of it makes sense," I said.
 
"Doesn't it get old?" She wanted to know.
 
"What?"
 
"Listening to it."
 
"Sometimes."
 
Pete (Dennis Hopper) stood above the crowd, preaching . . . empty, hateful sentiments.
 
"The first time I ever took acid was with Horse," I said.  "Right after my sister died."
 
"Sister?"
 
"It was the same year Cobain killed himself."
 
"How old was she?"
 
"Five."
 
"I'm sorry."
 
"Yeah.  It was a pretty fucked up year . . . but Horse was always there, trying to cheer me up.  I guess we've done some pretty messed up things."
 
"I don't even know him," she said. "Really."
 
"Who's playing?" I asked.
 
"What?"
 
"Tomorrow."
 
"Oh, shit . . . I forgot.  Ummm . . . Joe's band.  There opening for Kinski."
 
"You guys still friends?"
 
"Yeah . . . I guess."
 
"Cool."
 
"But Kinski is amazing.  You should see them.  Kind of like Sonic Youth, but more intense and no lyrics."
 
"Yeah . . .  sure."
 
I was stoned, tired. 

 

Horse and Arella burst through the door.
 
Hitler walked out of the shadows.
 
"How was the movie?"

 

- - - - - - -

 

"She really knows how to fuck," said Horse.
 
"I'm sure she does."
 
"No . . . I mean really."
 
"Maybe it's because she's not thirteen."
 
"Fuck you!  You know I don't go any younger than fourteen."
 
"Now," I said.
 
"She'd probably let you fuck her too . . . maybe both of us at the same time."
 
"No thanks."
 
"Is it Tanya?"
 
"What about her?"
 
"You want to fuck her, right?"
 
"I don't know . . . yeah . . . I guess.  You want to go to a show tonight?"

 

"Where?"

 

"At The Graceland.  Joe's band is opening up."

 

"I thought Tanya told him to fuck off."

 

"The headliner . . . I forget their name.  Tanya said they kick ass."

 

"We should drop," he said. "Before."
 
"Last time wasn't too good for me."
 
"I don't know what to tell you . . . Arella wants to."

 

"We need to start looking for jobs."
 
"I'm not too worried about it.  Something will happen."

 

"It's been almost two weeks . . . maybe I can get another delivery job."
 
"Whatever."

 

- - - - - - -

 

 We took Arella's car.  I slumped in the backseat.  Horse sat up front.
 
Arella put on some god awful Goth music that she claimed had changed her life 

 

I watched the city scape out my window, like an exploded sky . . . lights scattered in a dark valley like seeds, stars. 

 

Queen Anne Hill rose above Lake Washington like a mother ship. 
 
Horse loaded a bowl and passed it around the car.  I felt tired for some reason.  Or bored. 

 

"I brought some Coke," said Arella.

 

There was a vial settled between her breasts, hanging by a chain. 

 

Arella tapped some out onto the side her hand . . . snow on snow.  She eased it carefully under Horse's nose with one hand while driving with the other. 

 

Sniff.  Sniff.

 

"Now me." Taking the chain from around her neck.  Arella handed Horse the vial. "Did you want some?" 

 

"I'm cool."

 

I continued watching the glittering landscape; to get lost in my existential dilemma.  I thought about mom . . . my job.  How was this any better?  Any worse?  Horse had a kicked a stray dog in the park the other day; his shoes covered in the mongrel's blood . . . the leering grimace of salvation in violence; an instant in the ever cloying void . . . edge of propriety . . . nothing beyond it.

 

I wanted to live in an age that wasn't so fucking complicated; one of knowing ignorance.  It would be naïve of me to claim that I wasn't even partially interested in where it was all heading . . . The punch line, you know?  Would we all just wake up at the same time, scattered in different parts of the universe . . ?  Wake up in strange beds with even stranger thoughts?
 
Pulling off the interstate, down an off ramp.  It had started raining. 
 
Arella tapped her fingers against the steering wheel to the music. "I feel like fucking," she said.
 
My cock twitched, but I was thinking of Tanya.
 
We pulled alongside The Graceland.  The interstate was on the other side, cars speeding past.  Horse took out six hits of acid.  His hands were shaking. "Here," he said, handing me two.
 
"I . . ."
 
"It's the last of it."
 
"You sold it all?"
 
"We've been frying a lot too, dude."
 
"We?"
 
"Well, not you."
 
"Fuck Horse!"
 
"There's still enough to smoke . . . at least for a few days."
 
"What are we going to do for food?"
 
"We can panhandle," he said.  "Like everyone else on The Ave."
 
"Fuck that . . ! I'll get a job first."
 
"This is bullshit!" Arella took her share from Horse's upturned palm and dropped them. "We finally get to do something fun and you guys are acting like assholes."
 
"What about the movie?" Asked Horse, childishly.
 
"Whatever," she said. "I'm going in."
 
I popped the hits in my mouth.  I don't know what the fuck I was thinking.

 

"It's cool," said Horse, mildly. "I'll look for a job . . . I don't know."

 

"What are we doing here, man?"

 

"What the fuck are you talking about, Pete?  What we've always wanted to do.  Get the fuck out of that town."

 

"Yeah, but totally half assed!"

 

"That's the problem with you, Pete!  I'm just not like that!" He was becoming increasingly angry.  "If you want to run back to momma, then go right the fuck ahead!  I'm not going to stop you!"

 

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

 

"What?!"

 

"That." I pointed at the acid in his palm.

 

"It's the last!" He said.  "You did!"

 

"I shouldn't have."

 

"What the are you afraid of, Pete?!  Are you afraid everything's gonna collapse at any minute . . !  That it's all going fade!  Well let it . . . let it fade!  Fuck it!"

 

Horse popped the acid into his mouth, like I knew he would. 

 

He frantically chewed the paper.

 

"And when it does collapse, whose gonna pick it back up . . ?!   Put it back    together . . ?! You . . ?!"

 

There was a pounding at the window; Arella, standing outside, shivering.  Her muffled voice: "Come on . . !  Fuck!  The first bands almost done with their set!"

 

We went inside, where a crowd's body heat clung to our skin.  The place was dark and cavernous . . . low ceilings and walls plastered with flyers.

 

Tanya was working the bar.

 

"Hey," I said.

 

Horse stewed quietly beside me.

 

"Hey.  Cool.  I'm glad you guys decided to come.  Is Arella with you?"

 

"Yeah.  I think she's in the bathroom."

 

"Cool."

 

The first set had already ended.  There were people crowding in behind us. 

 

They had Pabst on tap, so Horse ordered one.  Only two dollars.  For the chilled version of a complete stranger's urine . . . in The Twilight Zone.

 

"See you."

 

"Yeah."

 

The next band was setting up.  Horse and I stood against a wall near the back, a railing of tables and chairs behind it. 

 

"This is Joe's band?" He asked.

 

"Yeah," I said.

 

Arella was walking toward us . . . winding through the clusters of this subterranean humanity. 

 

"Sorry for being such an asshole."

 

Joe's band was called Bloodfly.  They took the stage hard, or maybe it was just the acid working it's way toward all the appropriate control centers. 

 

The bass drum was my heartbeat.  

 

The music was a mixture of older psychedelica and straight ahead rock.  The songs were long and heavy, laden with enormous dips and swells; sound swirling around the hot, dark room.  They were reminiscent of the band Earth

 

I looked at Arella, who had sweat pouring down her face, and at Horse, who was thrashing his head around to the music.

 

I thought of crowds and men; of savage bouts of ritualism and the rise of rock-and-roll.