Off the Road - 05

a jazz novel on a typewriter

5

An Interlude on the Internet

I awoke on the bed upside down and stared into be sunlight dimmed by brooding clouds and wondered what had happened the night before but thought the better of it because I had heard the bombings and the scratchings from the bedroom and could easily figure out what was going on. I did not have the vibe of the place last night because almost immediately Dean and Susie, that was her name, went immediately into the bedroom and made the kind of noise that you don’t want to interrupt.

A flimsy robe scampered across my vision as it moved from the bedroom to the kitchen. Within a few minutes, some coffee was filling the whole house with the maddening smell of full consciousness. it was at that point that I realized my two would be awake. then from out of the bedroom I heard Dean exclaim:

"God yes."

I spied upside down a flock of seagulls far in from the ocean. I didn’t know why Dean had done that but I am sure that I would hear it soon enough. Then line as I was upside down a face looked at me and she said:

“I’m Susie Galliard. would you like some coffee?”

For a moment I thought of canning my things and heading out for the car because upside down her face seemed a frown but then I realized it was because of my position. I waited a second because I didn’t want my first noises to be the kind of grunts that angry old men make when they see young men making jazz noises in a solo shack.

“Yes, I would like some coffee. Can you put sugar and cream in it?”

“We have sugar, but I don’t have milk only some coffee creamer if that is okay with you.”

I again reworded myself so that I would not make a kind of grunt that would place me as uncool.

“Sure, to copy creamers would be fine.”

“I don’t have a mug will a crystal glass do?”

At that point, I merely grunted and in the back of my head, I made a silent face because real milk was the real thing and should be served in a cop. A few minutes later she came out with the class and was stirring the whole concoction with a knife and handed it all to me.

“Anything else?” With the implication that she was finished serving me because I wasn’t supposed to be there at all. Just about that time, a strange thing began to haunt me: I really needed some time with the Internet even though I knew there was nothing for me specifically there. I would sponge off of the forums and sub something or other stack and quora. I reached the protective city when I was online. The rockets were real the explosions were real and everything else was real including death. The only difference is you don’t need to die on the Internet.

I wanted to read about the presidential donations and how many years Chrystul Kizer got for killing her tormentor and who was the Islamic terrorist who stabbed people in Germany and why would anyone want to know what sex therapists wish you knew before visiting them about the hidden world of sauna. The whole buffet of random information will be stored and then deleted so more random notions can be accumulated. Then Dean came out. I should mention that his last name was Moriarty and perhaps there is some relationship between him and the villain of Sherlock Holmes, but I have never had the nerve to ask him about it to his face. If I don’t mention how flushed his face was you can pretend you did not read that from me. Dean with a placid face said to me:

“How long until you’re ready to go?”

It was at that point that I realized that the yellow wallpaper with gaudy red flowers was going to be in the rear-view mirror very quickly because Dean had decided that his time here was almost over. Clearly there were limits to his time with a woman. I think bottling his method and giving it to incels would be the cure for many things though I didn’t know whether it would cure incels or have the incel murder the doctor who tried it. There was a breeze from my back, and I realized that Susie had surreptitiously opened the window. Looking out I could see the driveway and a small piece of the property dedicated to pumpkins, cucumbers, and spinach with a view to the nibbles from the forest creatures.

“I could take 15 minutes and be ready then.”

“That seems fine with me.”

There was a glazed look on his face, and I realized that under his white robe with fine blue stripe squares, he was actually dressed and ready to go in a heartbeat and it was I who was holding things up. It was at that point that I realized that Dean moved from one thing to another with great speed. Then Dean said:

“Then don’t let me stop you because I am pretty to think for Dharma as a bum on the Tenderloin.” By tenderloin, he meant the small neighborhood near the north side of San Francisco where strange things happened and you just had to go with the flow. In no time I was dressed and we were ready to go the only thing left was for Dean to pack Susie on the cheek and say goodbye in that final kind of way that only comes from a triste.

Then we were on the road going to Rte. 2 which we would pick up in Bangor.

“I have to ask what was with the ‘God yes’  routine?”

“She mixed me up cocaine and heroin which will fund our way across the country.”

 At that point, I didn’t want to know what the arrangements were but I had the feeling that he had moved something from Boston to her.  It was all cloudy and hazy and more than slightly illegal.  But who was I to judge?  And the colored girls sing: “Doo, do-doo, do-doo, do-do-doo.”

But I knew that with the drugs in hand that we shall prevail, in an Apple kind of way.