Off the Road - 29

a jazz novel on a typewriter

9

Auto race down the azure sped along El Camino Real with intent in mind. I was the shadow of the waxwing slain. There was trouble behind and danger ahead and I knew these two things without Dean telling me that we were like mice pursued by men and the cats that they brought. California knew that a certain kind of person would not find happiness and she knew that Dean and I were two. She must have cameras that took pictures and sorted them out into someone and no one. I don’t think I need to tell you which kind we were.

We were almost at La Cocnchita. A place to stretch your legs but not fill up your gas because it is almost a gated community with services for those who live here. I was looking forward and Dean was looking back because we knew that one of these cars would have more than people in it. Three things up and three lanes down on US 101 with all colors making me happy especially gray, because gray was to me the last color that assassins would want. I admit it was an antiatomic chat, but it was all I had. I would not know what kind of truck I would take and I had not seriously thought about it but I envisioned the same battered semi stuck out in my mind. Crazier thoughts than this would occupy slices of my brain as we trucked up be long forgotten highway with grass and sand fills and the ocean spreading out before us.

Dean was looking but he was also talking and puffing as there was no tomorrow but he also had time to speak in that mellow voice he possessed each alone with dignity: “Even when we get to San Francisco we should be prepared for anything.”

I scanned the horizon: “Dean you did not tell me what girl we were meeting in Frisco.”

“It is not a girl but the person who I am to deliver the packages some of whom have more punch than even cocaine.”

For just a moment I wondered if he had tried everything but decided to gently let the day pass in a sustained low hum of harmony. Even taking California 1 only takes 10 hours or so with its dramatic blocks and the ocean which promises panoramic vistas. But I worried that the hunters would pick this as the way I would take. Mais comme on dit, tout est permis en amour comme à la guerre.

“So, this is the way you really make money?”

“Now and again but if you get too deep you find yourself in the water. And without a life jacket.”

Among my scrapbooks in which over a period of years I had collected tickets that I had not paid because I had a false name. the false name came from a real ID whose face looked enough like mine that I could often get away with it it was a great conspiracy I admit. But whatever happens, wherever the scene is laid somebody somewhere will quietly sit out to find be missing tickets and connect them with me.

I hope that I am dead before they catch me.

Just as I hope that anyone looking for us will look in the wrong places or for the wrong people. The problem is that the car that I am driving is too obvious and we should find a way to trade this one for one that is in worse condition and the other party will think he has gotten a good deal out of the bargain.

I mentioned this to Dean, and he had an idea to stop by a used car market and make the trade saying that it had hidden problems and so we were letting it go on that account.

And so, that is how we arrived in Monterey with a bucket of used car dealers all in a row that could pass for an auto market if one squinted at it hard enough. And it is with seaside auto dealers that we made a trade. We pulled up from the Del Monte Boulevard with its wide lanes and terrible drivers and pulled in front of a gray man with a gray suit made of polyester. Dean had pointed him out as the one who needed a sale today in order to keep his job.

He looked over the car and was not suspicious because his pocket rather than his eyes was making be trade faster. It was a different color it was slightly larger but older than twice my old car’s age. And it looked innocuous and more than trifle out of shape. And I hoped it would blend in with the traffic.

Then a much younger man waved him in and we were worried, very worried, that he would stop and check the car more thoroughly with and me for anything that might stick up and raise a red flag that could be seen in China. So inside our car we cagily waited, and waited, and waited like the time in a cartoon: it wasn’t long, but it felt that way.

Then the young man stepped out of the small office with deliberate steps, and we were hesitant because if it was too bad, he would call the others, and we would be discovered perhaps by someone who would call around and find out what was going on.

Another deliberate step.

Of course, we tried to be nonchalant and laissez-faire, but it was all an act. Dean got away with it, but I knew that I would not be so lucky.

Then double step.

And I was thinking about how everything came out to be I. I. I. I. I had to try and stop it but the drumbeat would not stop because I was beat to the world and perhaps open to some sort of different consciousness. It was at that point that I got out and walked over to the younger man with greater authority.

“Is there a problem with the deal?”

“It was just repaired in Boston not too long ago.”

I remembered that I did not have enough alternate currency and had to use the real thing if I could have accessed Dean, he would have put me up with Coke, if I knew, no problem.

“That’s right it was repaired in Boston, I’m taking a trip down to San Francisco to see the sights before the next apartment opens up in October.” The accent was as toneless as I could make it. And while he had some simmering objection, he decided that getting a better car in and a worse car out could not be that bad of a deal.

 And so, we went trembling an empty borrow up the Lane.