Off the Road - 34

a jazz novel on a typewriter

3

In the morning, we decided that the car should be left here, and we should take the bus and the BART to Oakland to deliver the supplies. Dean noted what I said about guiding my writing and taking care that I take good care to see more of my materialist friends. But he worries that I may be too naïve. We walked to the bus stop and eventually managed to board the bus to take it into the bowels of the underside of the transportation system. It was like going down in two the depths of hell and not being sure that we would come up on the other side.

But the air was breezy and the 1 did eventually reach us to go to the Embarcadero - the landing place for points beyond.

At the back of the bus, the windows were wide open, and we watched as California Street mood from point to point in a ritual devised by the cabal in closed-off places. He boarded at California Street and Pierce and went straight through the valley to the boarding space going down. We went by Fillmore Street with Jane, Salt & Straw, and The Snug, all of which Dean told me of and the days that he was here. The one caveat that one had to remember is that Dean was drunk almost every day after he did whatever he did for cash. That was the one rule that Dean possessed: you would never know he was drunk while at work.

Townhouses and four and five-story apartment buildings as went up and more of the apartment buildings as we went down to the bottom from the sky. We could see the bridges in the distance for the maximum uncertainty as to when we would reach the lowest level. So down we went into the tall buildings that congregated near the downtown creating shafts of light from the sun which grew increasingly secluded and included. People looked at pictures because the sun was too bright.

Then we reached Embarcadero, and we boarded with heads down to charge ahead to the maw inside the ground. There was a flash of air which touched everyone but then was gone within the market of confusion. And above the palm trees was the tower which was our destination.

 The day before we had started at the bottom of Market high within the reaches and now we had reached the top down below.

“Remember to let me do the talking because I may have to tell some untruths to get all arranged.”

“You know that I am doubleplusquiet because after all it is your show, and I am just an audience member.”

“This time make it doubly so because they will want to trip me up at any moment.”

The door slid closed, and the faint pressure of the air equalizing was the only noise that was heard. The air was choking because it was recycled and then recycled again, as if by a spin cycle. We winded through the West, and then to City Center and stopped by MacArthur where we hurried off and up into the stale pollution. It was refreshing in a cold slash. Then up to the surface, we climbed as if they were taking devotions as if to be reminded rather than to inform. We hurried our way through the orange and black titles not looking to either side because of the white overpass. Once out on the platform, they could see in the distance a white tower climbing upwards.

“It’s in that white tower that we are to go.” Dean looked at me with seriousness and all of the drunken revelry of yesterday seemed 1,000,000 miles away and long forgotten. I had never seen anything like a business-suited drug racket in my life. In fact, I had very seldom gone into such a place and the idea seemed absurd to me.

But then we were at the base of the building which climbed upwards with cement and glass as its twin motifs. But Dean was as competent as I had ever seen him thrusting his way through the glass doors and into the glass foyer. We seemed out of place because everyone else that could be observed was in business suits or at least the casual version that was common whereas we were dressed down to the very bottom with white sneakers encapsulating the refurbished look. I noticed the stares, but Dean walked as if he were just another drone waiting for the hive to recognize him as one of its own. The guard behind the register looked at Dean with a kind of contempt and coldly and crassly asked if he was in the right place. Dean did not even answer but put in front of him a card.

“I want to see this person I have an appointment.”

 The guard of used lead to not believe this but he knew that he had to check so picked up the phone and we did for it to be answered. The first sign that there was something amiss passed without notice: be thrown was picked up immediately and the guard stammered and read the information. Before he could even finish there was a confirmation in the affirmative and then the line went dead. The guardsmen motioned for them he had to go but still did not believe that he had heard the information from the other side of the black box.

 Then it was a world as we were pulled up by the bootstraps until we were very near the top level. Then the elevator stopped and slid open at the bottom level of a place known as the Inferno. And I hoped we had what they were looking for because I knew that they were going to have some fresh of whatever kind - either opioid or fleshoid.

Dean strode out and slithered his bag down.

“I have what you had asked for, I hope you like it.”

Then a cold cool callused woman just picked up the phone and said that there was a package here and would someone come out and sign for it.  Nowhere is the temptation so successful as on the very steps of delivery.