A Thousand Steps

36

Julie is wide-eyed and breathing hard, bent over a boulder, one granny-booted leg twisted at a terrible angle. She’s babbling nonsense, apparently not aware of what has happened. No blood, Matt sees. Just his broken, LSD-tripping, getting-sober-from-the-dragon-balls, former farm girl mom.

It takes the Fire Department ambulance and cops nearly twenty minutes to show up. Two medics, with help from Matt and Laurel, get burbling-sobbing-laughing Julie onto a gurney then into the vehicle.

Matt and Laurel are about to get in too, when a hand clamps over Matt’s shoulder from behind and he turns to face Furlong.

“You’re under arrest for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, public endangerment, and mayhem.”

He spins Matt against the ambulance and handcuffs him. Laurel screams at Furlong and Julie breaks into “I’m a Believer,” and the hippies hurl insults at Furlong while pelting him with fruit and sandwiches, much of which hits Matt as the burly sergeant drags him toward Moby Cop.

Matt sits inside with ten young people, most of whom seem to be overdosed on something, probably LSD, which makes them incoherent but peaceful. Two are kissing and groping rather heavily. The others stare at Matt as if he’s an exotic zoo animal, or maybe an alien. It’s hot in here and the hippies stink and so does Matt and he’s furious at his mother when he hears the ambulance siren blare its way by.

Ten minutes later Furlong throws the back doors open. His hair is wet and his hula girl shirt is stained and his aviators are glazed with liquids.

He points at Matt: “Out.”

Matt climbs over the zoned-out hippies and the ardent couple and lands — still handcuffed — on the dirt in front of Furlong.

“Did Johnny Grail tell you what was on those invites? If so, he’ll confess and you’ll be processed into Juvenile Hall within twenty-four hours. If not, you’re every bit as stupid as you look.”

“No sir, he didn’t,” Matt says, furious at Johnny now, thinking that fucker.

“And I’m not as stupid as I look. I’ve been lied to and broken on by events. Like waves, broken on today.” Furlong raises his opaque glasses. “Matt, how many sunny orange invitation corners did you eat?”

“None.”

“And your pretty, bad-luck mom?”

Matt nods. “One I saw.”

“They took her to South Coast Hospital.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Furlong uncuffs him. “Everybody gets broken on, Matt. It’s what you do after that matters. You owe me.”

Matt and Laurel sit in the waiting room as the doctors cast Julie’s leg. She’s got a broken left femur and a broken left tibia and two cracked ribs. The good news is she landed feet first so her skull and spine were spared. The leg fractures are very fortunately not compound, and will not require setting.

The bad news — carried by Dr. Caroline Hoppe, whose white coat is stitched NEUROLOGY in red cursive letters — is that Julie may have ingested enough LSD to incur lasting brain damage. The doctor has seen it before, the brain “literally re-wired” by the powerful hallucinogen. Difficult to treat. Julie is neither coherent, nor aware of her surroundings.

Later, she is strapped into an ICU “overdose room” with barred windows and a door not openable from inside. No visitors allowed, unless accompanied by staff. She’s deep asleep, snoring lowly through the painkillers and tranquilizers. Her leg is in a full-length plaster cast that rests on a boom-mounted cushion.

The barred windows are large and overlook the twinkling blue Pacific.

Matt sits with her for hours, absently drawing in his sketchbook.

As his hands and eyes work, he thinks of Jazz. It bothers him that she doesn’t know about her mother. And it bothers him that he’s the only Anthony still at home to deal with Julie and her... well, what exactly was all that?

He gets good sketches of Marlon and Neldra Sungaard, and of Johnny Grail telling him about the Hessians. A decent Staich, and a Furlong throwing hippies into Moby Cop.

He stops and ponders how to depict his mother’s fall/slip/jump but can’t bring himself to picture it again. It hurts to imagine.

He has an early dinner at the Kalina residence, with Laurel’s parents and sister. Kai Kalina is a professor of sociology at the new UC Irvine. Marilyn Doss teaches in the English Department creative writing program. She’s published two novels and a collection of essays. Rose is finished with her freshman year at UC Santa Barbara, majoring in marine biology.

Matt sees that Laurel has her father’s rich Hawaiian coloring and her mother’s lovely face. Rose too. He wonders why different races don’t get married more, put together the best traits of each in their children. He tries to listen and talk through a thick haze of exhaustion and worry. He eats like a bear, and after seconds and dessert, escapes with Laurel to knock on doors before sunset.

After eighty-three more households, Matt pulls the Westfalia into the Kalina driveway once again. It’s almost ten o’clock.

“I’m going home to sleep,” he says. That’s a lie because he has to pack up and be out of his house by midnight.

“I’m exhausted too,” says Laurel. “But please kiss me.”

They kiss long and tenderly, with the hunger of the young. In his mind Matt sees the hippies making out in Moby Cop. His gonadal ache quickly returns. Laurel sets his hand on her left breast. It’s heavy and living and her breath catches, which makes the ache worse, and when he knows he’s about to explode he ends the kiss and hugs her.

“I love you,” he says.

“You lust me.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“See you tomorrow. I’ll be praying for Jazz and Julie tonight. And for you, too.”

“Get us lots of blessings and miracles.”

“Don’t make fun of things like that.”

“I don’t mean to. It just comes out.”

“You have a lot inside.”

“First it was Dad. Then Kyle. Then Jazz. Now Mom. There’s no one left.”

“They’re all alive and well, Matt. You’ll see. You’ll get them all back.”

“I want to believe you.”

“You have a true heart and I like you more than you know.”

The FOR RENT sign is up and the living room light is off, not as he left it. Nelson Pedley has been inside.

Julie has already taken some of Jazz’s things to Dodge City, but Matt takes a few more highlights from Jasmine’s room and loads them into the Westfalia. Like a lot of beach cottages, this house was rented furnished, so the big stuff stays. He picks out some clothes and shoes he’s seen her wear. Rolls up the Buffalo Springfield and Beatles and Tim Leary posters, loads a box of books and the jewelry from her dresser. Her diary. Her ukulele and the music book he gave her.

Kyle’s room is easy because he gave a lot of his things to Goodwill before enlisting.

His mother’s scant possessions are already in the Dodge City barn. It’s sad to be in her empty room. It’s like she’s died.

Matt’s own clothes, fishing gear, art supplies, books, sleeping bag, pillow, towels, and toiletries go in last.

He takes every last bit of food — jarred pimientos, a can of green beans, and a bottle of soy sauce — from the little pantry and puts them in the Westfalia refrigerator. Climbs the avocado tree and takes all five of the skimpy avocados he can get to. With sixteen dollars and fifty cents to his name, and soon to be no roof over his head, he’ll need all the food he can take.

Last, he racks the Heavy-Duti on the back of the van, wondering where to tell Tommy to drop his papers after tomorrow. Hopes that Pedley won’t happen by and charge him a day’s rent for stealing avocados and using the Third Street driveway one last time. Matt briefly imagines picking up the landlord by the collar of his shirt and dropping him into the GTE dumpster across the street. He never used to have violent visions like this.

It’s strange to lock the door and put his and his mother’s house keys under the welcome mat. He feels heavy and regretful and responsible and guilty. It was a good house. What, exactly, could he have done to keep this from happening?

He backs onto Third and stops the van in the exact place he last saw his sister. Right here on this asphalt, being stuffed into a van like this by strong men. He hopes to knock on their door, free Jazz, and fight them. And has another angry vision, but more violent, with fists and blood and breaking bones.

He parks on Cliff Drive, carries a jar of peanut butter and a package of tortillas toward Heisler Park. It’s a beautiful place, high on a cliff, the Victor Hugo Restaurant twinkling behind him and a sprawling rose garden beyond. Used to come here with his family when he was little.

Matt settles onto a pathway bench behind a thicket of red roses. The garden paths are empty this late. He makes a peanut butter burrito. Over the rosebushes he sees the glittering ocean and the sharp dark shapes of Rockpile, where it’s dangerous to fish, but where he has fished, and done well.

He’s surprisingly not afraid to have no home now. A year ago, he thinks, he would have asked Ernie Rios or maybe his mom’s friend Brenda from the Jolly Roger if he could just crash a night or two. There are some scary people out there. Like Longton, the mugger. Matt thinks with his new muscles he could maybe take Longton now, one-on-one.

But Matt hasn’t asked anyone for a place to stay, and he won’t. He can get away with this. Just stretch his sixteen dollars. Do his job, keep his paper deliveries on time, wait for a larger, better-paying car route to come up. Continue his door-to-door search for Jazz twice a day until he’s found her. Take care of Mom. Be good to Laurel. Fish when possible. Hit the Food Exchange as needed. Meditate as the Enlighteners are teaching him at MAW. Eat meals at the beach or in the parks. Use the public restrooms and shower out at Mom’s. After Mom goes back to Dodge, sleep in the Westfalia, at a different spot each night so the cops don’t catch on.

He feels that a new chapter of his life is beginning. Nothing is the same as it was, and never will be. He’s having thoughts and emotions he’s never had. He’s becoming large. He wonders who the new Matt will turn out to be.

Back in the Westfalia Matt heads for his mother’s barn in Dodge City.