A Thousand Steps

17

Mystic Arts World is dense with smoke and bodies. The smoke is mostly incense and tobacco, as Furlong and his fellow cops just yesterday busted and dragged off four hippies sharing a joint on the sidewalk outside. Matt scans the faces for Jazz but it’s going to take him some time to get a good look at everyone.

Christian Clay, standing with a crowd at the meditation room entrance, waves Matt over. He’s a wiry young man, with bushy hair and mustache and goatee. Something knowing in his eyes.

He sizes up Matt with his open stare, then leads him to a semiprivate corner of the meditation room, where Christian’s enormous Cosmic Mandala painting hangs on the back wall.

“Why didn’t you tell me your sister ran away?”

“She didn’t run away.”

“I’d rather not read it in the paper and see her on flyers around town,” says Christian. “It’s important to tell your friends when bad trips go down. Friends can help.”

Matt apologizes then tells him what he’s learned about Jasmine’s whereabouts. Lets his vision drift around the crowded room in search of her. He tells Christian that he doesn’t think Jazz just ran away to sleep at Big Yellow or go to Jordan Cavore’s parties.

Which gets him a sharp look from the artist. “You should talk to Johnny about this. He and the brothers know the town.”

Just the mention of Johnny Grail brings a subtle thrill to Matt. Grail is the founder of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, which of course owns this store. Grail is borderline worshipped by the BEL but detested by the cops and the straights. Leary openly adores him; Furlong wants his head on a platter.

To Matt, Grail is a contradictory knot tied with truth, falsehood, and mystery. Matt knows from the News-Post that Grail is in his early twenties, married with two kids, grew up in Anaheim. Beyond that, Grail is rumored to be a former high school wrestler, hot-rod driver, and street fighter. After experimenting with a variety of recreational drugs, Grail allegedly took LSD one day and found God. Matt has overheard Grail here at MAW, talking excitedly about finding Jesus Christ and the Buddha through LSD, saying everyone should take acid — free your consciousness, find your soul, and save the world.

Some call Grail a mystic — charismatic, spiritually advanced, and generous. Others say that he’s a profiteer who distributes LSD, as well as powerful opium-laced hashish, smuggled into Laguna from Afghanistan by his daring BEL pirates. Matt’s heard that Grail is rich. That he gives LSD away to those who haven’t tried it yet or can’t afford it. That he lives frugally out in Dodge City with his family. Others know he is amassing huge drug profits and burying cash in steel drums out in the rough hills around Dodge City. That he’s buying an island to sail away to.

The Great Johnny Grail takes Matt into a small office behind the meditation room. There’s an old steel desk and folding chairs, a floor safe that looks straight out of the Wild West, metal grocery-store shelves cluttered with books and papers.

Grail takes a hit from a cobalt-blue bong; offers it to Matt, who declines. The dope the BEL smokes would melt his face, as he found out once before.

They sit across the desk from each other. Grail is small but muscular and he has kind eyes. Plenty of hair and a scant beard. He looks impish. Christian calls him a leprechaun. He’s got on a black Mystic Arts World T-shirt with a swirling white design on it — an ancient calendar, maybe, or some kind of cosmic symbol. Matt has the feeling that Grail is focused totally on him in this moment.

“I heard about Jazz running off,” Grail says. “Is she back?”

“She didn’t run off, I don’t think.”

“I put two of her posters up in the windows. That foxy lady cop brought them by.”

Grail listens to Matt’s account of Jasmine’s not coming home for five nights running. Of her two confirmed sightings, and her mother’s van found in Sapphire Cove. Of the fact that Bonnie Stratmeyer had gone to one of Jordan Cavore’s Sapphire Cove parties and been found dead and bruised at Thalia not long after. He hopes Darnell will forgive him for sharing their secret about Bonnie.

Johnny Grail takes an enormous hit from the bong. From the joint he smoked with Leary and Grail and Christian, Matt remembers the smoke expanding in his lungs, and the scary sensation that his lungs might burst. He’d gagged up a river of smoke. But Grail holds it forever, then lets it out in a billowing jet. He smiles and his eyes widen. A tiny little cough.

“Man, that’s a lot of bad Karma for Jasmine. I like her. She’s choice and smart. She’s into mysticism, and the older Eastern ways of dealing with what we think is reality.”

Matt has seen proof of that: all those books on the flimsy shelves in Jasmine’s room. Almost as many books as record albums. He can picture Jasmine out in the MAW book department, checking out the new arrivals. Books and music are expensive unless you buy used, which Jasmine doesn’t. She doesn’t have a steady job. She’s done some modeling — not the phony Thousand Steps kind of modeling — but real modeling for an agency. It didn’t pay much. She worked scooping ice cream one summer at the Sunshine Inn. And briefly at the Jolly Roger like her mom.

Suddenly Matt feels woozy and off-center, a contact high in a small smoky room.

Grail stares at him with kindly, wide-open eyes. It occurs to Matt that in spite of his apparent attention, Johnny Grail could actually be a million light years away from here right now. Should be a million light years away, given the powerful stuff he’s smoking.

“She buys books here, and albums at the Sound Spectrum,” Matt says. “Then, you know, clothes and makeup and music lessons. I’ve always wondered how she pays for things.”

He wonders if this leap of conversation is logical or if the smoke has made him overly suspicious.

Grail freshens the bong bowl from a baggie in the desk drawer, then takes another massive draw. Holds it in forever than exhales hugely. Another small cough. It smells like a jungle in here to Matt: humid and green and hot. Which makes him think of Kyle. Which bums him out. Which is what happens when you’re high — your mind runs off to places you don’t want to be.

“We give her work sometimes,” Grail says. “Nothing steady, but sometimes Jasmine makes deliveries to customers who can’t leave home. Old, sick, paranoid people. Like half of Laguna! Just kidding.”

“How much do you pay her?”

“Just store credit, like the art books Christian gives you.”

Matt feels the dope smoke in his brain, making time pass more slowly. Hears “Mr. Tambourine Man” from out in the store. Thinks Johnny Grail really does look like a leprechaun.

“Your mom was in Dodge City yesterday looking for a place to rent,” says Grail. “She put up some posters of your sister, too. And passed them out door-to-door.”

“A place to rent? Really?”

“Yeah, really. What’s wrong with that?”

“All the drugs and cops and busts. Dodge is in the paper every week.”

“Yeah, man, but there’s a lot of very cool brothers and sisters out in Dodge. I’m raising my two kids in Dodge and I wouldn’t do that just anywhere. The papers blow everything up. It’s just capitalist, bummer-driven journalism.”

But what worries Matt more than the quality of journalism about drugs and cops and busts is why his mother would want to move there. She hadn’t said anything to him about it. His next thought is: living in Dodge City would add another half a mile of pedaling to his paper route every day, and anytime he needed to go to town. To and from school, too. Ever think of that, Mom?

“Is anything for rent there?”

“Sure. It’s who you know, and she knows half the people out there because they love the Jolly Roger.”

“Did she get a place?”

“You didn’t know she was looking, did you? Sorry man. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“No, I knew she was looking. For sure. Just not there.”

“Well, Dodge City is as close to heaven on earth as you can get,” says Grail. “A very cool place. It’s all art and music and surfing. Almost everybody is young. Freedom, man. Everybody shares. No material trips at all. Establishment unwelcome. It’s cheap and close to town and you can walk up into the canyon, all the way to the lakes or the Living Caves or Top of the World if you want. Deer and quail and coyotes. Raccoons and they say mountain lions but I’ve never seen one. And bobcats. I have seen them. Wildflowers in the spring. There’s a bunch of us, we hike to the peak near Top of the World on Sunday mornings. Watch the sunrise. Chant and worship whatever gods we choose. Totally spiritual and cosmic. Take off our clothes if we want. Let love in. No egos. Stay for hours. Sometimes ’til sunset.”

In Matt’s smoky mind, it sounds pretty good, except for the naked part. Maybe Julie can get a place that’s cheaper than Third Street, but has enough room for him not to live in a garage. Enough room for Kyle when he gets home, and for Jazz to have her privacy. Maybe two bathrooms. No Nelson Pedley!

“She was hoping to find some work out there, too,” says Grail. “Something she could do from home.”

“Like what?”

“There’s not much. Housekeeping maybe. Tutoring or babysitting the kids. Kids all over the place out there. When I saw your mom yesterday, she had just gotten off work. And wearing the stupid pirate garb they make her wear.”

“She doesn’t enjoy that costume.”

“Chauvinist piggish to be sure. Matt, let’s go hear what Tim has to say about the psychedelic experience.”