<<< Back Table of Contents Next >>> 11 Impetuous A local preacher had taken to lashing out at the Psychic Rangers, calling their music "a river of filth, an open sewer." One day Anton came across a woman distributing tapes of the man's sermons on a downtown sidewalk. Through a megaphone she called the Psychic Rangers "the pawns of Satan," or possibly "the spawn of Satan." She accused the band of "sonic hypnotism" and wildly misquoted their lyrics. He doubted she'd ever listened to their music. She'd never been to one of their shows, or she would have had more to complain about than "behavior far from Christ." She obviously failed to recognize the person she was attacking, although he was standing right in front of her. He approached her with farmboy sincerity, and explained that her words had put the fear of God in him. "I need your help, ma'am, or that rock music will turn me into some kind of a sex freak." "Let's pray together." She put down her megaphone and embraced him. They did that. Afterwards he told her, "I need something more. I'm afraid I won't be able to resist later, when I'm alone. Can I get one of them tapes?" "Sure, for a donation. It helps the preacher get the word out." He shuffled his feet. "I've got a buck in my pocket, and I need that. When I came into town today, I brought just enough for a candy bar and the ride home. I didn't want to fall into the trap of temptation. No pinball, no peep shows, no trinkets for the ladies." "You should have thought ahead." "I was thinking. I just didn't know. I sure could use your help, though, in warding off the Devil." She pressed a cassette into his hands and they said another prayer. He'd gotten what he wanted, a free tape of the sermon. Back at the studio, he mixed the preacher's wrath-of-doom speech with a deep, funky bass line. He added sampled horns and vibes, and a few slashing guitar licks of his own. Then he answered the preacher line for line. A river of filth, an open sewer At least I'm not hiding it inside me A vile and depraved imagination Willing to look truth in the face Luring our youth into debauchery Come dance with me if you are gods.... • • • On a table next to his bed was a glass filled with brown liquid into which he spat occasionally. A bottle of Jack Daniels was also there, mostly gone. He leaned back on the bed, playing his guitar softly, drinking and spitting. He was in a Willie Nelson outlaw kind of mood. He'd been spending a lot of time with the guitar lately. He was starting to like it more than the bass. He heard someone coming upstairs to the loft. He went on playing softly, seeming not to notice. A young woman with a round face poked her head over the landing. He noticed her now. He figured she wouldn't be there unless he'd invited her. How long ago had that been? A few hours? A few days? "Hi, Anton." "Hi." He was drunk. "Do you want me to go away?" He stopped playing and spat into the glass. He gestured to a chair by the bed. As she came toward him, he offered her the bottle, which still contained a couple of swallows. "Want some whiskey?" "There isn't much left. Are you writing a song?" "I don't remember. Was I playing?" She giggled. "That's how I knew you were up here." He spat again. "Where I come from, they hand you a glass of tobacco juice and tell you it's Pepsi. They think it's a big joke. And another thing—" "Where do you come from?" He gave her a sharp look. What was the use of being famous if people didn't know the answers to those kinds of questions? "And another thing, you ever heard of cow tipping? That's all there is to do in Iowa on a Friday night. You go into the fields and run at cows from the side. They sleep standing up, you know. So you slam into 'em, they fall over and you run like hell, because by then they're pretty pissed." He stopped and spat, uncertain. "Maybe I should let you in on a secret...." "Tell me, Anton!" "I really can't." "You can tell me, I'm good with secrets." "It's something I probably shouldn't tell anyone, is all." "I swear I'll forget it the minute it's out of your mouth." He laughed. "What good would that do?" "Sometimes it's good just to talk." "Well, in that case...." He gathered his thoughts. "I didn't really get where I am on my own. To be a rock star, I mean. I got help from powerful friends." He stopped and squinted at her. "Who are you, anyway? Who sent you? How long have you been here?" For a moment it seemed like her face would dissolve. She collected herself, but she couldn't keep the frustration out of her voice completely. "I'm Donna, your girlfriend." "Oh, you mean we've...." "I've been here a week. Remember those things we did together, that you said you'd never done before? Remember how you said you wanted to die after making love to me? How you said you'd rather starve to death than be without me, even for a second?" "I guess I don't. From the way you describe it, though, I wish I did." He licked his lips. She'd been clinging to his arm, but now she moved away, as if sensing what came next. "It's just as well," he told her. "I don't have any more time for childish games." "Childish games! Just this morning you—" "Look, have you got any stuff here? You should take it and leave. Take it now so you won't have to come back. I'm sure it was great, Donna, but I'm an artist and I've got work to do." She backed away slowly, then ran off down the stairs. He could hear her sobbing on a couch down below. He spat tobacco juice into the glass again and picked up his guitar, trying to find the riff he'd been chasing for hours, the one that would capture the ornery, lonesome, world-weary mood he was feeling. • • • It seemed that Donna was back. He woke up and there she was, in bed next to him. Seeing that his eyes were open she asked him, "Will I be famous for this some day?" "For what, being a party girl?" "No, for doing it with you." He groaned, rolled over and went back to sleep. • • • "I don't want to be scared of you," Donna told him. "Scared of me!" It wasn't what he'd expected, but it made sense. "You know what I mean. You never let people get close to you." "I don't know what you mean," he said to mess with her. "The way you keep me at a distance. The way you shut me out whenever you start getting comfortable with me. Don't think I can't see it. I'm not as stupid as you think." "I never said you were stupid. Why would I? I don't even know you." "That's what I'm talking about! You've never bothered to know me. I'm only real to you when I'm in the room." "How right you are. I'm a self-centered person, what do you expect? I don't have time for anyone else. I've got a world of my own." "You're so cold!" "I'm not here to entertain people. I'm not an entertainer. If people want to make small talk or be polite, that's their problem. It does nothing for me." She shuddered. "Sometimes I think you don't deserve to be with people." "I won't argue with that." • • • She gave up. He noticed this because his Donna sightings ceased. She was no longer in his space, and it surprised him to feel a hole where she had been. He had a twinge of regret, but it didn't last long. He had too much on his mind, and besides, there were a thousand women like Donna. He wondered what it was that drew women to him. Couldn't they tell he was a jerk? No doubt they were responding to all the yearning and complexity he put into his music. They wanted to be the one to satisfy that hunger, but no one person could do that. Music let him soar out of the world completely. That was why he'd become a musician in the first place. He put all his feeling into it, so there was nothing left over for ordinary people. Donna was typical of his relationships with women, superficial, one-sided, irritating to him, unsatisfying to her. He began to wonder what was wrong with him. Maybe he wasn't as self-contained as he thought. How had he gotten to be such a user? If he knew a relationship would end badly, why drag himself and his victims through those tawdry maneuvers? If he had nothing to give, he should refrain from taking. Wasn't that what he always said? He tried to reassure himself that he paid for his encounters with his art, but he knew better. The Donnas of this world weren't interested in color and shading, harmony and form. They wanted to rub against him and touch his fame. It would be better if he could find women who didn't want to get involved emotionally, but that would be against the nature of women as he understood it. He began to wonder if he was interested in women at all. He was secretly in awe of women, at least women of a certain type. Sabrina Lee for example, the Asian stalker. If such a woman ever pierced his emotional armor, she would tear him apart. He had soft spots or vulnerabilities that led to his secret center, which was bruised in places like an avocado pressed by thumbs. If a woman ever got in there, she would be an avenging angel, an angel made of ice. She would destroy him on behalf of all the women he'd used and thrown away. Was it possible he wanted this? As always, Becky was the exception. With her, he felt tenderness and trust. What made her unique was that she never threw herself at him. She kept her distance so he wouldn't have to. Not for the first time, he wondered if he loved her only because she remained out of reach. If he'd stayed in Iowa, the hints and innuendo between them might have evolved into something real. Would he have learned to cherish her, or dropped her like the others? These doubts even bled into his public life, but he pushed them aside. When Kliff mocked him for not being able to hold onto a girl, he shot back, "I already love a girl, that's why." "You mean the one in Iowa who's better than all the rest? What's her name, anyway?" "Becky." "That's right, Becky. Ever had sex with her?" "No." "Then you don't really love her, do you?" "What the fuck?" "Either that, or she doesn't love you. If you love each other, why not have sex?" "You think it's that simple? That love and sex are the same?" "If you love this girl, and you're comfortable with her and trust her more than any other, can you think of any reason not to have sex with her, since that's supposed to be the one thing boys and girls want most from each other?" Anton looked uneasy. "That's why I say you don't love her, not really." "How can I have sex with her if she's not even here?" "So invite her. Or go back to Iowa to see her, if you love her so much." "It's not like that." "What's it like then? You act like she's a figment of your imagination, some kind of myth." That was close to the truth. "What do you know about it? You sleep with men." "Maybe you should too, it might be easier for you." He flashed a triumphant grin. "When I've been with a guy, and later I go to a party without washing so the smell of sex is still on me, there's something about it that's a magnet for the ladies. They can't keep themselves off me. Let me give you a few tips, a few pointers. You could play both sides." Anton glared at him. "I do love Becky, that's all." • • • Progress on the new album had come to a standstill, and Anton felt the need to change his routine. Kliff invited him to the opening party for "Impetuous," a group show featuring the work of former Trashtown artists. They walked there together through a district of Victorian townhouses on the outskirts of Zombieland. "I hear they've found a way to insert commercials into an acid trip," Kliff was saying. "They engrave it into the chemical structure, so you keep getting reminded in subtle ways of Big Macs or Coca Cola. Maybe you're sitting around listening to Lou Reed with some friends—" "Lou Reed isn't good tripping music," Anton reminded him. "Whatever. Then suddenly the girl next to you is holding a hamburger. And you forget about it, but later you're staring at this big dog on the sidewalk, and for no reason you hear the words, 'Big order of fries.'" "Scary! No one would touch it." "They'll be handing it out for pennies a hit. The quality will be cleaner than street acid, just like commercial bands sound cleaner than garage bands. There'll be 'commercial acid' and 'underground acid,' and no one but dirtheads will touch the pirate stuff. The big companies will have booths in all the clubs where they give it away. It could even be trendy—like which is trendier, Reebok acid or Adidas?" "Would you take acid named after a tennis shoe?" "What I'd do is beside the point. They could even have acid that gets you to vote Republican, or watch Fox News, or work for the World Bank. You name it." The highlight of "Impetuous" would be new work by Cynthia and Doreen that merged sculpture and painting into a single art form. Anton was eager to see them again, and congratulate them on the fact that their "dyke commune" had gotten off to such a strong start. Their new squat had always favored women, but in the months since his last visit, the handful of men had been slowly squeezed out, so that the community was now for women only. The result was a militant eroticism that produced electrifying work. For his part, Kliff was bitter that the project, known as Grrlhaus, had turned out to be a success even though they'd done it without him. They'd gotten permission from the city to remain in the building, with the chance to win ownership rights over five years. Meanwhile they had to improve the property and give something back to the neighborhood. "They're suckers to trust the city. 'Do the right thing' means nothing to a bureaucrat. Would a bureaucrat put himself on the line for what's right? There's nothing to keep the city from backing out when it comes time to honor their end of the deal." "Don't be silly. There's the courts, media pressure...." "I'm tellin' ya, I know the script. Once it's time to go through with it, there'll be a long list of code violations and the building will be declared unsafe. Or they'll tear it down so they can build a new health clinic. Flu shots for kids are more important than art. Some fucked-up maneuver like that." They were following a long wall topped with ivy and shrubs. Across the street was an old-fashioned garage of whitewashed brick. A sign over the large wooden doors caught Anton's eye. "Community Project—Imaginary Workspace." "What's that?" he said, pointing. "What do you mean?" Kliff looked at him instead of following his finger. "Oh, nothing." He dropped his hand. He would check it out later on his own. A block from the gallery they met Blake, who was wearing a felt hat shaped like a crown. They stopped on the sidewalk for a smoke before going inside. Artistic types milled in and out of the gallery, each convinced that she was the nerve center of her little scene. There were tortilla chips and cheap beer, and bottles of red wine. Anton had some of each, mingling with the crowd and getting rowdy as an acoustic band began to play. The band was corny and their set was too slow, so people began to make noise. The musicians quit after a couple of songs, and a gangly woman came out who resembled an effeminate boy. Sitting at a folding table, she gave an intense diatribe about penis envy and warmongering. Their friend Sebastian followed, wearing a black leather vest that exposed a tattoo on his bicep. His wild mop of brown hair was set off by an earring. He did a piece involving meat frying on an electric griddle, pages read at random from a book on cattle raising, video footage of people stepping off an escalator, and a story about a drive through the country with his girlfriend. There was a chaotic quality to the piece that Anton liked. Following him was another diatribe, completely artless, comparing death in the Third World to the love of shopping. After the show, Cynthia was feeling ornery. She wanted to go on an adventure, so she invited her friends to explore a burned-out mansion on a hill she'd heard about. The moon was full, which added to the allure. The problem was, she had no idea which hill it was on. To find it, they would have to drive up every hill in Portland. Doreen was all for it, and Anton and Blake found themselves sucked into the spirit of things. For Anton, it was refreshing to hang out with old friends as if their drifting apart had never happened. To get in the mood, they went to Grrlhaus to smoke a joint, but there was no weed in the house when they got there. It was Zack's weed, and he was at work. Zack was Doreen's brother, who had recently moved to Portland and was staying at Grrlhaus until he got on his feet. They went through his belongings trying to find his stash, but instead came up with some pages from his journal describing his fantasy of being Cynthia's boyfriend. "It must run in the family," Doreen laughed. She called her brother at the art cinema where he worked. He told her to get there within half an hour, because his "political friends" would be stopping by, and he didn't want them to run into his "artist friends." They spilled hollering into the street. The next-door neighbor, an older man, stopped them with a stern lecture. "If you hippy-ass freaks don't learn to control yourselves, I'll call the police." On their way to Cynthia's car, they ran into two girls Blake knew who needed a ride home. One had a red dye job, and the other was a British girl with short, bleached hair. As a result, there were four people jammed into the back seat, and Cynthia drove recklessly so they would tumble all over each other. Doreen sat next to her in front, chuckling at the behavior of the people in back. Finally they parked in front of the theater where Zack worked, and Doreen went in. After a few minutes she came out flashing a thumbs-up. After dropping off Blake's friends, they pulled into an alley to get high. As they drove in search of the burned-out mansion, they terrorized people by tuning the radio to the static between stations and blasting it as loud as they could. If they saw a couple walking together, they would slow down to ask, "Are you in love? Are you in love with each other right now?" After driving for a while, they stopped in a hilly park, where Cynthia tricked Doreen and Blake into running off together into the woods. She and Anton hid in some bushes near the car and got high again, waiting to see what the others would do. Once it became clear that they weren't going to find the burned-out mansion, they decided to go to Club Omaha instead. The Zombieland bar was crowded and noisy, so they went in the back room to drink, sitting on stored kegs of beer. A woman saw them there and came in. Taking a liking to Blake, she offered to buy him a beer in exchange for a back rub. He performed this service as she showed them her two tattoos, a skeletal shape on her arm and a mandala on her back. After a while she left for another bar, and the rest of them drove back to Grrlhaus. Once more, as they drove they called to couples on the street, "Are you in love? Are you in love with each other right now?" As they got out of the car, Blake asked a preppy-looking couple if they were in love. They told him about a party that was going on half a block away. "Tell them Jason sent you." They stood under the window yelling, "Jason! Jason, are you there?" Finally someone came out of the building and they slipped inside. The party was made up of preppies in a state of extreme drunkenness. People were falling all over each other, and there was a lot of necking going on. Anton had the impression they had all been in high school together. Cynthia walked to the back of the apartment where the liquor was, as if she had a sixth sense for it. They followed her, and Blake took a hit from the monster bong while the rest of them drank vodka from the bottle. A drunken youth with blond hair fell to the floor in front of them, and had to be helped into one of the bedrooms by his friends. Cynthia was disgusted and announced, "I'm going to steal something from here before we leave." On their way out, she noticed a large piece of cloth hanging from the front door to block the window. She took it down and slipped it inside her coat. Back at Grrlhaus, they shared their last joint and tried to think of more pranks to pull. Cynthia was still feeling ornery. "If we had the phone number of the party we were just at, we could call and complain about the noise." Blake offered to go back and get the number. She gave him the cloth she'd just stolen, telling him to wear it around his neck as a cloak. "That would be the ultimate insult." He took it and went off down the hall, skipping. A few minutes later he was back with the number. Anton dialed it but there was no answer, so they set the receiver on the table and let it ring. Ten minutes later it was still ringing. Blake invited Anton to spend the night, because it was late and Anton's studio was far away. As they walked through Zombieland to Blake's apartment, they passed the New Jerusalem Chapel which was locked up for the night. Blake spotted two men in the alcove getting high. He stopped and asked them, "What have you got there?" "Do you want something?" one of the men said. "What have you got there?" Blake repeated. "Do you want something?" The man beckoned them into the alcove, took a hit off the joint and handed it over. "Take a good look at me. If you ever want more of this, come to the bar around the corner. I'm always there. If I can't get it for you, I'll find someone who has it." He left the joint in Blake's hand and walked off with his friend. Anton wondered idly if this was one of the dealers Kliff worked with, or if he was part of a rival network. Only then did he realize that he hadn't seen Kliff in hours. Apparently Kliff had slipped away from the gallery at some point during the show. Of course there was nothing unusual about that. He frequently had business of his own to attend to. But it prompted Anton to remember Kliff's strange behavior from earlier in the night, when they'd passed a building called the Community Project. He'd pointed it out, but Kliff had pretended not to notice. He reminded himself to go back and check it out for himself. It had looked interesting in any case. He found himself thinking about Sebastian in the days to come. Sebastian had been one of his favorite people at Trashtown, because he managed to be even more chaotic than his environment. People called him "the crazy one" because he was always dropping acid, babbling incoherently and indulging in antics that got him in trouble. Anton had been put off by these antics at first, but once he started paying attention to what Sebastian had to say, he realized that "the crazy one" had a clearer idea of the world than most people. Listening to Sebastian took patience, because he looped wildly from one thought to another, but it turned out they cared about many of the same things. "I'm a bird flying high above the earth. I'm down in the dirt with the rest of you, but at the same time, I'm far away. I'm a vagabond spirit. I want to get to know everyone, generals and gang members, church women and prostitutes. I want to travel in the world and meet my brothers." When Sebastian was at Trashtown, he liked going on walks through the hills at night dosed on acid. He collected petals from his favorite flowers and carried them home in his soft brown hat. He put them in his dresser drawers until they dried, then glued them to the wall in intricate patterns. He also liked to throw sheets of glass from the roof so he could go down into the alley and collect the pieces. These, too, he kept in his dresser drawers. Once his technique grew subtle enough, he made some interesting sculptures with them. They were in the form of ships with the glass stacked in layers like decks, or standing upright to make masts and sails. Sometimes he would glue flower petals to his ships. Anton had one of these sculptures in his Trashtown studio for a long time, until he'd finally lost it or given it away to someone. Later Sebastian got into fire shows. He spent hours standing matches on end, gluing them to the decks of his ships to form railings. He would light the whole thing on fire in the midst of a group of people, dancing around the burning sculpture while making trills that were half Indian war whoop, half bird call. This gave him the idea of creating a full-scale "fire opera," and he was constantly talking about this project. He had a trust fund he wanted to use to realize his idea, but there was little chance of this happening because he was rapidly burning through his inheritance. In fact, he was as careless with money as it was possible to be. He'd gone so far as to give two thousand dollars to a drug dealer to invest for him, because he thought it would be safer than managing it himself. When Trashtown closed, he'd helped Cynthia and Doreen to open Grrlhaus, but he quickly abandoned that project to take up with a stripper. He and Melissa moved into a studio together over a machine shop. His energies turned from sculpture to painting, and the canvasses he made there were huge and messy. Friends stopped by to check out his work, or simply pay their respects. He earned no money from what he did, in fact he was known to sell his finished paintings for less than the cost of the paint. It flattered him that someone would want them, and besides, he was anxious to move on to something new. Unlike Anton, he preferred poverty and obscurity because there were fewer hassles that way. "Poverty is freedom. I don't take their money, so they can't tell me what to do." Feeling the need for company one night, Anton walked to Sebastian's studio and rang the buzzer. Sebastian came downstairs with paint on his hands, greeting him with one of his famous trills. The studio wasn't the mess he would have imagined, perhaps because of Melissa's influence. The most striking thing about it was a huge tree branch suspended from the ceiling on pieces of wire. Sebastian explained that he'd found it on a trip to the mountains. Walking in the forest, he'd felt "tree thoughts" that showed him where to look. He told Anton about a new talent, communicating with insects. "One night I saw an ant crawling across the floor. It came towards me and crawled up the table leg. When it got to the top, it stood there for a while and watched me. Finally a bunch of others joined it. They were all watching me, standing together in a row." "You're the insect guru. Old Man of the Ants." Melissa came in while they were talking. She gave Anton a brief nod, then began changing into her stripper's outfit as if he wasn't there. It was the first time they'd met. She was in a hurry to get to her gig. She thought of her clothes as stylish, but Sebastian thought they were too tight, too flashy. This started an argument. "Why do you dress like that? It makes my eyes hurt." "You know what? Every time you open your mouth lately, a piece of shit falls out." "What I mean is, I never think about clothes. I wear whatever's lying around. If I like something, I keep it. If I don't, I throw it away. What's the point of fashion? If it wasn't cold in the winter, we wouldn't even wear clothes." "You think you're the only reasonable one around here. What makes it your job to judge my lifestyle?" "You want people to notice, so I'm noticing. You're my girlfriend. It's hard for me not to notice what you wear." "You say that you wear whatever's lying around, but do you paint the first thing you find in the street?" "Actually, yeah." He liked to pick things up in the street, like a doll's head or a torn flyer, and glue them to the surface of his paintings. "You're the only one who paints the way you do, and you're proud of it. Clothes are like that for me." "The paintings I do are beautiful, but the stuff you wear is just tacky. You want cheap attention. It's not the same." "You're jealous, why don't you admit it?" "Jealous of what?" "Of the attention I get. You spend most of your time up here avoiding people. You know there's plenty of guys in the clubs who take a second look at me. You know I work in the clubs, and you know you can't make it in that world." "Why would I want to make it in that world? Do you think that world means anything to an Oklahoma boy like me?" "Don't try to pass yourself off like some hick. You're a lawyer's kid. Why don't you go back to Oklahoma if you like it so much?" "They think I'm a faggot. Here on the West Coast, with all the real queers around, I feel more normal. What I can't figure out is why you go out of your way to dress up like a freak, when you really aren't one." "It's what I do for a living, you jerk." His visit with Sebastian gave Anton the idea of putting on a concert that would let his friends relive the anarchic days of the Trashtown House Jam. The Psychic Rangers' new album, Extreme Liberties, was taking its final form, and it was time to introduce the new material to the public. Since it was the home crowd, he wanted to do something special. He chose the New Jerusalem Chapel because its cavernous performance hall was the best venue in town for them. There was no fear of trashing the place, because it was already trashed. They could get away with anything there. At the start of the show, the hall filled with so much dry ice that it was impossible to see the stage. In fact, it was difficult for anyone in the crowd to make out her closest neighbor. The stage was brightly lit, making the mist even more luminous and impenetrable. Suddenly Vince unleashed a raw burst of drums, backed by Sasha and several of his friends playing tall congas. A wall of sound seemed to press in on the crowd from all sides at once. Disoriented and caught by the shifting rhythms, they moved closer together, attempting to reach the source. An obsessive chanting rose over the drums that felt like a summoning of ancient gods. Anton led the chant and the others answered him, sometimes repeating him, sometimes in words of their own. The rhythms grew more frenzied and complex, and the crowd crushed together as one. Layers of clothing were shed as people swayed against each other, adding their steam to the artificial mist. Sebastian circulated with a fire hydrant, spraying down the sweating forms. Refreshed by the spray of water, they gyrated wildly, dancing barefoot, waving their arms in the air, shaking their wet hair. Blake cut into the rhythm with notes of fire, shaping the sound as a welding torch shapes metal. Anton added a bass line like an unscratchable itch. By now the mist had cleared enough that the forms on stage were visible, but everything else was a blur. The conga drummers hadn't let up in the slightest. Shirtless and barefoot in loose pants, they pounded the skins as if in a trance, eyes rolled back in their heads, caught up in the beat and swaying dangerously. By the time Anton began to sing, the crowd was beyond themselves, unconscious of what they were doing or why. I'm on a downward spiral and there's nothing you can do, I'm on a downward spiral and I'm falling into you. Catch me if you can or keep on falling, Catch me or stop me if you can. A procession began to move through the crowd. Melissa reclined on a litter, carried by four young men in Turkish garb, barebreasted and decked in gaudy jewelry. She was surrounded by piles of fruit which she tossed to the revelers, slices of orange and pineapple and melon. Sometimes the fruit was caught and eaten gladly, otherwise it landed on someone's chest or hair and slithered to the floor, where it was trampled underfoot. Sebastian followed with a rope of fire, swinging it around his head while emitting shrill cries. His trills were met with whoops from people carried to the point of abandon, who tried to dance as close as they could to the fire without being burned. At the tail of the procession were two women, twirling batons with balls of flame on either end. The orange glow of the fire reflected from glistening chests and flickered in the eyes of the revelers. Wanting to rise above the crush of bodies and reach new heights, some in the crowd climbed onto the heads and shoulders of their neighbors, and were passed along on a sea of hands. They gripped the beams at the sides of the building and shimmied onto a massive crossbeam above the stage. Others, inspired by the collective heat and slippery skin, pressed closer together in a rage of hormones. Without fully realizing what they were doing, their gestures turned sexual and small orgies broke out. In one corner by the stage, a knot of young men was locked in a convulsive embrace. Two women fondled each others' breasts, exchanging soul kisses as they twirled in a circle of protective onlookers. From his position above the crowd Anton could see everything, and was delighted to be the wizard of this transformation. His singing was raw and dangerous. The drums were a lake of fire. Blake's guitar was like a knife that tore hearts from their chests and exposed them, still beating, to the sun. Tomorrow hadn't happened yet. Now was what mattered. Whatever disasters lay on the horizon, the moment they were living now was real. <<< Back Table of Contents Next >>>