Dog Soldiers

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SHE WOKE TO MOONLIGHT, PHOSPHORESCENCE BEHIND HER EYES dimming to sparkles. There was the slamming of a car door. At first she could make no sense of the place.

Hicks was asleep in a chair, his feet up on the writing desk. Moonlight lit half his face.

Standing, her knees trembled, a strange liquescence rippled under her skin. There was a tart chemical taste in her mouth. But it was not sickness, not unpleasant.

Another door slammed, footsteps sounded on the cement patio. She moved the hanging blind and saw Eddie Peace with a red bandana at his throat. It seemed to her that figures moved behind him — but she stepped back when his eyes swept the window where she stood.

Hicks was awake, rubbing his stiff legs.

“It’s them,” she said. “It’s Eddie.”

He went past her in shadow to crouch at the blind.

There was a knock at the door. Over Hicks’ shoulder she saw Eddie Peace before the bungalow door; a blond couple stood behind him. The couple looked very much alike and they were both a head taller than Eddie Peace. They did not, in the odd seconds before Hicks let the blind fall, appear to be the sort of people who knew everyone’s weakness.

“Hello,” Eddie Peace said.

Hicks sped across the room toward the moonlit picture window. “Tell them wait.”

“Just a minute,” Marge called. He peered into the moonlight, pressing his face against the glass.

“Can’t see shit that way.”

“Hey,” Eddie Peace said.

“Don’t let them in yet.”

“Coming,” Marge said.

He seized the backpack from beside the bed, shook it, and disappeared into the bathroom.

“O.K.,” she heard him say through the bathroom door.

She opened to Eddie Peace’s thick-lipped smile.

“Hello ‘dere.”

Eddie led his friends inside. The blonds nodded soberly as they passed.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie said, “could we have some light?”

When she turned the lights on, Eddie looked around the room.

“So where is he?”

Marge had no answer. The blond couple watched Eddie Peace.

“What’d he do? Take off on you?”

When Hicks came out of the bathroom he held a pistol in either hand; he bore the weapons before his shoulders with the barrels raised like a movie-poster cowboy.

Eddie drew himself and displayed empty hands.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Eddie said. “Look at this!”

The woman looked at Hicks with a sensitive frown. Her companion moved in front of her.

“Buffalo Bill,” Eddie said.

Hicks stared at him and glanced about the room. He was looking for a place to put the pistols down.

“You asshole,” Eddie said. “If I was the narks your ass would be dead.”

“So would yours,” Hicks said. Marge went into the bathroom and brought the backpack out. Hicks put the pistols inside it and slung it around his shoulder by one strap. Then he went to the door and looked outside.

“Don’t you love the guy?” Eddie asked his friends.

The man nodded sadly as though Hicks represented a mode of behavior with which he was wearily familiar. He was a big soft man. He had steel-rimmed spectacles and dim blue priestly eyes. The woman was very like him, as bland to look at but perhaps a shade meaner. They were both wearing light-colored leather jackets and bell-bottom pants. The clothes appeared brand new.

Hicks came back from the door and sat on the bed beside Marge. He set the backpack between them.

“If these people are buying weight,” he told her softly, “things are really getting fucked up.”

Eddie Peace had linked arms with the couple; he hauled them before Hicks’ blank stare.

“These folks, Raymond, are the nicest folks you could ever want to meet. Gerald and Jody — this is Raymond.”

Jody stooped to shake Hicks’, hand as though he were an Indian or a lettuce picker. Gerald saluted briskly.

“Sit,” Hicks said.

Jody spread herself cross-legged on the carpet. Gerald and Eddie Peace took the only chairs.

“Gerry is a writer,” Eddie Peace explained, “and he’s one hell of a writer too. He wants to see the scene.”

“What scene?”

“Oh man, like the old Malibu scene. You know.”

“Man,” Hicks said, “I don’t have a notion.”

“He wants to look at some scag,” Eddie said. “For atmosphere.” He turned toward Gerry in coy apology. “I’m sorry, Gerry — I’m just teasing you. Why don’t you explain yourself to the man.”

“That may not be easy,” Gerald said modestly. He did not like to be called Gerry. Everyone watched him.

“I’m a writer,” he said.

Eddie Peace joined the tips of his thumb and index finger like a billboard chef and blew him a kiss.

“Now scag is a problem… or a phenomenon… that’s important. It’s a subject which has a lot of significance, particularly right now.”

“Particularly right now,” said Eddie.

“I mean,” Gerald told them, “I’ve done dope like a lot of people have. I’ve blown acres of pot in my time and I’ve had some beautiful things with acid. But in all honesty I’ve never been in a scag environment because it just wasn’t my scene.”

“But now,” Marge suggested, “it’s your scene.”

Gerald blushed slightly.

“Not exactly. But it’s something I feel I should address. As a writer. Because of the significance it has.”

“Particularly now,” Marge said.

Eddie looked at her good-humoredly, avoiding Hicks’s eyes.

“Why don’t you shut up?” he asked.

Gerald was looking thoughtfully at Hicks’s bottle of Wild Turkey which stood on the floor beneath the picture window.

“My next project concerns…” he paused for the appropriate word… “drugs. I want to do something honest and real about the heroin scene.”

Eddie Peace nodded approvingly.

“I see it,” Gerald told them, “as a chain. People linked to each other through this incredible almost superhuman need. A chain of victims.”

“Like our whole society,” Jody said.

Eddie Peace sat straight up in his chair.

“That would be a great title for a flick, right, Jody? Chain of Victims!” He winked at Hicks very quickly.

“But somehow I don’t feel as though I have a right to it.” His hands orchestrated a moral balance. “I don’t think I can approach it as a project if I haven’t paid my dues.”

“He wants to cop,” Eddie explained. “He wants you to turn him on. He’ll pay for it.”

“It must strike you as weird,” Gerald said. “It strikes me as weird — but it’s a way of connecting with the project. I mean whatever the risk is I’m prepared to take it. Experience is what makes work valid.” He fixed his earnest eyes on Hicks. “I hope I’m not making you paranoid.”

Hicks stood up.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I want a word with your friend.”

Eddie Peace rose slowly as though there were water at his feet. “Ain’t you gonna hear him out, Raymond?”

Hicks went out the bungalow door and held it open.

“He wants a little schmoozing,” Eddie Peace explained to his friends.

Alone with Marge, Gerald and Jody looked at each other in silence.

“Would you like a drink?” Marge asked them. The way in which she asked it set them slightly more at ease. She supposed that she had meant it to.

“Please,” Gerald said quickly.

Jody looked uncertain.

“I don’t know. Would it go?”

“I think we should have a drink,” Gerald said.

Marge moved the backpack with the pistols in it to the far edge of the bed and brought Gerald the bottle of Wild Turkey.

“I’m afraid there aren’t any glasses.”

“That’s all right,” Gerald said. He held the bottle toward the light, examining the texture of the whiskey. “Very fine stuff.”

He took three large swallows and passed the bottle to his wife. Jody drank from it grimly.

“Do you?” she asked Marge inclining the bottle.

Marge took it and drank. For some reason it tasted sweet to her, like sherry.

“Are you an addict?” Jody asked.

“Certainly,” Marge said.

Jody smiled intelligently.

“No. Really.”

“I don’t know if I am or not.”

“Doesn’t that usually mean you are?”

Marge shrugged.

“How about him,” Gerald asked. “Is he?”

“No.”

“Aren’t there some funny moral areas there?” Jody asked.

“I guess it depends on your sense of humor,” Marge said.

Gerald had another drink.

“We’re not here to judge,” he said. “There’s such a thing as personal necessity. Maybe it’s beyond moral areas.”

Marge found that the liquor made her eyes ache. She closed them against the light, and leaned back on the pillows. She had already been told to shut up.

“You must be a terrific writer,” she said.

Hicks and Eddie Peace huddled against the dark wall of the last bungalow. Eddie hugged his shoulders, his back to the wind.

“Ridiculous,” Hicks said. “Ridiculous bullshit.”

“I thought you’d be amused for Christ’s sake.”

“Amused?” Hicks shivered. “You got a lot of nerve. What happened to the Englishman?”

“I got news for you,” Eddie said, “your shit has a bad rap.”

“Then there’s a misunderstanding.”

“I don’t think so,” Eddie said.

Hicks ran a hand over his hair.

“Then get those assholes out of here.” Eddie shook his head in impatience.

“You don’t understand, Raymond, that’s the misunderstanding. You don’t know how things work here. This guy has just been paid an absurd figure. His wife is an heiress. I tell you these people have no conception of money.”

“You’re the con man,” Hicks said, “not me. I’ve got quality shit to sell — why do I want this insanity?”

“Raymond,” Eddie said, “Raymond, try and learn something. I deliver this goof into your hands.” He reached out, took Hicks’ right hand and squeezed it. “He’s a nice fella. He’s very polite.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then you’re stupid, Raymond. I tell you your shit is a no-no around here. I’ll give you six thousand for what you can give me. And with a little imagination you can screw Gerald for a lot more. Listen, it would wipe you out what I’ve got working with those two. The guy is scared shit less— even if he doesn’t know it yet. He’s gotta be discreet.”

“You’ll give me what?” Hicks said. “What’s that figure again?” He put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“You just take it easy,” Eddie said.

“Man, I’ll burn it before I take a fucking like this.” Eddie twisted slightly to dislodge Hicks’ hand from his person. Hicks seized the leather and held him. “You’ll take a fucking like you wouldn’t believe if you don’t get hip, Raymond. I’m warning you.”

“You’re doing me,” Hicks said. He pulled Eddie toward him.

“Take your hand off me, Raymond.”

“You’re doing me.”

His teeth clenched, Eddie Peace struck Hicks in the stomach with the points of his fingers. Hicks released him surprised.

“Take your hands off me, cocksucker.”

To Hicks’ utter astonishment, Eddie slapped him twice across the face.

“You nickel and dime asshole — don’t you dare threaten me with violence.” Eddie thrust his chin upward and pushed Hicks backward. “You’re way out of your league, Jack. You’re not selling grass to college girls down here. You and that bitch can get offed on account of that shit. For Christ’s sake, you big creep I’m doing you a favor.”

A one-man Mutt and Jeff routine, Hicks thought, stepping back to let him work. He had balls and audacity, without question.

“I can lay this off for you, stupid. Nobody else can.”

Eddie had balls and audacity and he was not basically rash. He was operating in midair — but he held the superior position and it was not unreasonable that he dare to assert it. His trouble, Hicks thought, was that he was too much of an optimist, like all hustlers. And for all his imagination, he was not a good judge of character on limited acquaintance.

He rubbed his cheek where Eddie’s first blow had fallen.

The sound of it rang in his soul like a mantra.

“You’re too vain, Eddie,” Hicks said.

A faint caution troubled Eddie’s eyes — only for a moment.

“You think so, huh?”

“You don’t have the bread.”

Eddie smiled.

“Sure I got it. When we’re finished here we’ll take a ride and do some business.”

“Finished what, for Christ’s sake?”

Eddie shrugged in mock despair.

“We’re turning Gerald on, Raymond. We’re showing him how it is. And he’s gonna do us a few favors because he’s a nice cat and we’re gonna make him scared.”

“How?”

“How? We’re gonna put you in his life. Then he’s gonna want everything back like it was when he didn’t know nothing.” He patted Hicks’ arm in a friendly fashion. “You’ll make out fine. Look at the bright side.”

Hicks began to laugh.

Eddie grinned happily.

“You’re smiling. You like it.”

“Sure,” Hicks said. “Anything you want.”

Eddie and Hicks returned while Jody was explaining to Marge that she, Jody, was fundamentally a revolutionary and that if Gerald was not fundamentally a revolutionary at the moment, she considered it likely that he soon would be. Hicks was so tense that Marge was aware of his body’s rigidity when he sat down on the bed beside her. His right hand rested on his knee; the discolored palm opened and closed as he stretched his corpse-white fingers. When she looked at his face, it struck her that in some curious way he had come to resemble Eddie Peace and after a moment she realized that it was his smile. He was wearing Eddie’s smile in some private mockery. When he turned it on her, she took it for a signal the significance of which she could not understand.

“Everybody makes out,” Eddie told them.

Jody studied him for a moment and giggled, a hand to her mouth.

“Ed is my absolute picture of an operator. Look at him.”

Everyone looked at Eddie Peace.

“Mine too,” Hicks said.

“Raymond is the operator,” Eddie said softly, “not me.

He’s the original hip guy. The whole world is goofs to him.”

“What’s that like?” Gerald asked. He had begun to enjoy himself.

Hicks walked over and took the bottle from his hand without looking at him.

Eddie Peace watched him.

“What’s it like, Raymond?”

Hicks closed his eyes for a moment, drank some bourbon, and gave Eddie Peace his own smile.

“I don’t know what it’s like, Eddie.”

Marge leaned against him and felt him trembling.

“What are we doing here?” she asked. “Are we going to do up or what?”

Eddie came over to pat her on the head.

“Mar-gee wants her smack-ee.”

“Please.” Marge said. “Really.”

Eddie laughed.

“I already asked ya if you was a schoolteacher, didn’ I?”

“Yes, you did,” she said.

Eddie clapped his hands.

“C’mon, c’mon, Raymond. It’s all you. Where’s this famous shit?”

The bleached fingers shook slightly as he opened the bag. His Eddie Peace smile was an uninhabited rictus. Marge grew frightened of him.

When the dope was out everyone regarded it with silent respect. Gerald and Jody stood to see it.

“Well, O.K., there, Mr. Hicks,” Eddie said. “Let’s try it on.”

Since their arrival, Marge had been trying to decide whether she would do up with them. The fact that there seemed to be a decision involved encouraged her to pass; with the stuff laid out before her like a midnight picnic, her faint resolve wavered.

So far as she could tell, she felt all right. Perhaps it had been just nerves the last time, nerves and the lack of dilaudid. If she declined, Eddie Peace would be irritated and confused and that made it almost worthwhile. On the other hand, it was all such a drag, so scary and depressing and the high was so righteous and serene. She never thought about Janey when she was high.

“You want to go first?” Eddie asked her gently. She glanced at Hicks and it seemed to her that he shook his head almost imperceptibly. It was probably imagination, she thought, she could not read him at all that night.

“You go ahead. I’ll think about it.”

Eddie smiled.

“Yeah, you do that, Margie.” He looked about the room. “I’ll go first. Because it’s my party.”

Hicks bowed his head in deference, the terrible smile still in place.

“Your works or mine, Eddie?”

“Mine,” Eddie said. “They’re new.”

His works were new, a regulation syringe, without improvisations. He had cotton and ajar of surgical alcohol. Hollywood.

“Now that’s what I call narcotics paraphernalia,” Hicks said. “I got better than that,” Eddie said. “I got coke to run with it. I don’t go for that nowhere noddy feeling.”

“I do,” Marge said.

“Sure you do. You’re a broad.”

He assembled the needle and admired its luster. Jody watched him.

“But is Ed an addict?” she asked her husband. “I didn’t know Ed was an addict.”

Gerald looked puzzled.

“Ed’s an addict,” Hicks said. “Ain’t you, Ed?”

Nothing could spoil Eddie’s mood.

“None of your fucking business,” he said good-naturedly.

Hicks took the cap from his Wild Turkey bottle, rinsed it out in the sink — and with his baker’s measuring spoon — poured in what he judged to be the fifth part — a nickel bag. Eddie followed him about, watching over his shoulder.

“That’s enough?”

“You’ll find out.”

“It’s that good?” He took the cap and looked into it. “And we do it aged in oak.”

There was a pool of water in the bottom of the sink. Hicks drew up enough to fill the dropper and transferred it to the cap in three measures.

“Gerald,” Eddie said. “C’mon Gerald, social significance time. We’re gonna cook up here.”

He held the cap with an alligator roach clip, they cooked up with his propane lighter. When the heroin began to melt, he produced a tiny make-up box and spooned an edge of his cocaine from it into the mix.

“Aged in oak and cut with coke, Gerald.” Gerald nodded as a man will who has spent much time being shown things. “Aged in oak and cut with coke and bless my soul,” Eddie said. He took the works from Hicks’ hand and loaded his shot.

“Cheers,” he told them.

He tied up with the red bandana and went into the big vein. When he shot, a burst of bright color rose in the valve and a liquor of blood and melted heroin spread across the pure glass surface in delicate butterfly patterns. When he took the needle out he ran a swab across his arm and over the point of the spike.

“Aw shit,” he said tenderly, moved to emotion.

After a minute or so, he stamped his feet.

“Ai yai!” He grinned furiously at the people in the room. “Ai chihuahua.”

Jody watched him with an expression of incredulity and delight.

“Is it Mexican?” she asked.

“Is it Mexican?” Eddie cried. “Bless your heart!”

Everyone laughed except Gerald. Hicks’ laughter was his Eddie Peace smile expanded in a spasm.

“She asks me if it’s Mexican!” Eddie roared. His hilarity was boundless. “Outasight!”

Jody was nearly beside herself. “Who’s next.”

“Who’s next, Marge?” Eddie asked.

Marge shrugged. “I don’t care. I’m still thinking about it.”

“What about me?” Jody demanded.

“Gotta be you,” Eddie said. There was a little bit of spittle on his lip and he wiped it away. “Gotta be you. Stone the gash.”

“Did you want to go first?” Jody asked her husband.

“Maybe I ought to,” Gerald said.

“I don’t see why. But you can if you want to.”

“No,” Gerald said. “No. There’s no reason you shouldn’t.”

“Stone the gash,” Eddie Peace said. Jody offered her arm manfully. Eddie held it and turned to Hicks.

“I gotta say, Raymond.… I gotta say…”

“Glad you like it, Eddie.”

He looked down at Jody’s arm and shoved it away.

“I don’t want that,” he declared. “Gimme some leg.”

“Some leg?” Jody asked.

“He wants to put it in your leg,” Gerald explained, “instead of the vein.”

“Somewhere nice.” Eddie said. “C’mon Gerald, tell her take her pants down.”

Gerald stood up uncertainly, as though he thought he might be useful.

Jody unbuckled her brand new leather belt and peeled the fawn colored cloth down her left hip to expose an area of skin below the margin of her panties. She blushed charmingly and held her trousers up with her right hand. She looked at her husband while Eddie shot her and did not flinch.

“O.K., Jody,” Eddie said, patting her on the rump. “You’re fixed.” She walked away looking thoughtful and sat down on the floor beside her husband. For a moment they held hands and looked at each other.

“Raymond,” Eddie said, “take care of Gerald. I want to goof.” He began walking up and down in the middle of the room, silently mouthing a song of his imagining. Goofing.

Hicks measured and cooked up again.

Gerald took the chair where Jody had been sitting; he sat erect and grim, with the air of a man about to do something valorous in a good cause. When he looked at Hicks, his eyes held humility and trust.

“Shall I take my pants down,” he asked.

“You don’t have to,” Hicks said.

Hicks drew up the liquor, pink with blood and lined up the spike with Gerald’s bare arm.

Eddie stopped goofing for a moment to watch.

“Hey, Raymond, don’t hit him in the vein, man.”

“No,” Hicks said.

Jody tried to stand up.

“Oh my God,” she said softly.

“Isn’t that the vein?” Gerald asked. At the last moment, he tried to pull his arm away. Hicks held his wrist and pushed the shot home.

“What are you doing?” Eddie asked. He was still smiling. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Gerald’s eyes opened in astonishment. His feet made a quick convulsive shuffle. When he fell sideways, the needle went with his arm.

Marge stood up in terror.

“No,” Eddie said. “You crazy cocksucker… !”

Jody took a step toward the bathroom and vomited on the tile. She was trying to scream.

Eddie Peace stared down at Gerald and then at Hicks. The smile had not completely disappeared even then and it seemed that at the core of his amazed stare there was some grain of admiration. Eddie was a true joker.

Slumped in the bathroom doorway, Jody was trying to make sense of what she saw.

“Please,” she said to Eddie Peace.

Marge sprang forward and bent over Gerald. She could not tell if he was alive or not. It would be shock at the very least. She remembered something about salt.

“Salt,” she said. “What about salt?”

She looked up and saw that Hicks had thrown Eddie against the window. That had been the signal, the meaning of the smile.

“Hustle now, creep,” Hicks told Eddie. “Let me see you hustle now.”

Jody kept saying “please,” and retching.

“What have you done?” Eddie asked sadly. “What have you done?”

Marge started for the door with an idea of obtaining salt. Borrowing it from a neighbor. A cup of salt for an OD.

Hicks grabbed her. He was holding the backpack.

“There ain’t no salt,” he said. “Get your gear.”

She could not get past him.

“Why?” she asked him in a whisper. “Why in the name of God?”

“Get your gear,” he told her and stepped around her. He was pointing the gun at Eddie Peace.

“Look what you done to him,” Eddie said. “Look at him.”

Jody, deathly pale, knelt over her husband, rocking on her knees.

“You’re too vain, Eddie,” Hicks said. “You’re too small to take a joke.”

“No,” Eddie said, “you’re wrong. I can dig it.”

“I liked the look on your face when I hit him.”

“I liked the look on his face,” Eddie said.

“What are you gonna do, hustler?”

Eddie shook his head, vexedly.

“I don’t know, Raymond.”

“You understand, don’t you, buddy? It was unacceptable.”

Eddie smiled faintly and shrugged.

“What can I say, Raymond?”

Marge stopped gathering her things and looked down at Gerald. There was foam or mucus around his mouth.

“Isn’t anybody going to try…”

“C’mon,” Hicks said. “Hurry it up.”

Jody still knelt, gagging, beside her husband. She looked up at them in stoned terror and tried to stand.

“Is there salt?” she asked.

“Not today,” Eddie said. She made an ineffectual lunge toward the door; Eddie caught her easily and pulled her to him.

Hicks looked straight ahead as they walked to the Land-Rover. Marge trailed behind him with an armful of hastily gathered clothing. The football player was at his desk in the motel office and it seemed to Marge that he must have heard their carrying on — but as they passed he never turned his head or looked up from whatever he was reading. The house had been paid in advance.

As they climbed into the Land-Rover, the door of the bungalow opened and Jody’s struggling silhouette appeared for a moment in the doorway. Eddie pulled her back in side.

“It’s gonna be a long night for Eddie Peace,” he said, when they were on the road. His face looked as bloodless as his hands. As he drove, his cold gray eyes roamed the night outside, their scanning was like some process from the ocean floor.

Marge was crying again.

“I can’t hack it,” she explained. “It’s too much.”

“You’re doing fine.”

They followed the coast highway south past Santa Monica and the arcades of Venice. “So why Gerald?”

“Because he’s a Martian. They’re all Martians.”

“What are you?”

“I’m a Christian American who fought for my flag. I don’t take shit from Martians.”

“My God,” Marge said, trying to keep the tears out of her voice, “you killed the man.”

“Maybe.”

“He was just a jerk with a dumb idea.” She stared at the merciless eyes, trying to see him again, trying to make him be there. “The same as us.”

“Peace was fucking me. He was fucking me bad.”

“Last week we were ready to throw the shit away.”

“He hit me,” Hicks said.

Marge wiped away her tears and touched her forehead.

“He hit you?” Her voice rose to an incredulous whine she could not control. “Are you three years old?”

“I was drunk. It seemed like a good idea.”

Marge tried to experience Gerald’s overdose as a good idea. It was not the way she was used to looking at things.

“So fuck Gerald?”

“That’s right,” Hicks said. “Fuck Gerald.”

“For all the obvious reasons.”

“Fuck all the obvious reasons.”

Feeling indifferent to Gerald made Marge cold. She put her sweater on.

“I should have done up when I had the chance,” she said. “I bet I get sick now.”

“Hue City,” Hicks said. “We had guys who were dead the day they hit that place. In the morning they were in Hawaii,” in the afternoon they were dead. I had six buddies shot to shit in Hue City in one morning.”

“I quit,” Marge said. “Fuck Gerald.”

They did the freeways and Marge tried to map-read in the haphazard light. Near Ontario, a highway patrol car tailgated them for several miles. Sometimes people they could not see followed them from lane to lane, flicking brights.

Twice Marge routed them into wrong turns; they had to stop and reverse in an empty shopping center, in a weed-grown cul-de-sac between two illuminated lengths of wire fencing. Hicks said: “I want to get out of this city.” They drove east toward San Bernardino.

“Now what I do that for?” he asked after a while.

“Revenge?” she suggested. “Honor?”

He said nothing.

“Manhood? Justice? Christianity? Hue?”

“I knocked the fucker loose of his hold.”

Marge turned up the knitted collar of her sweater.

“He didn’t like his hold,” she said. “He felt guilty about it… It’s a political thing. Maybe you don’t know about that.”

Hicks laughed silently.

“What I do know… we’re fucked now.”

“Well,” Marge said, “you know me. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“O.K.,” he said.

“Maybe we should split up?”

“No,” he told her, “we ain’t gonna split up.”

She did not look at him when he said it and she did not answer. It seemed to her that if she thought about pulling out even for a minute, she would be done for.

Please, can I go home now? Craven, chickenshit, and bourgeoisie.

Better stay. If you can’t hack it straight up — be a shadow.

Somewhere on 15, in the desert, she had him pull up.

He held her for a while; he was exhausted.

“Want me to drive?”

He took a canteen from the back seat and poured water over his hand and slapped it on his face.

“You don’t want to drive, you want to do up. Anyway I know where we’re going now. I know where we can stop.”

It was grossly uncool doing up. Warm canteen water in the canteen cap, the bag open on the floor, a propane lighter too hot to hold. Marge was being a shadow.

“What we need,” she said, popping in her thigh, “is some commitment.”

When she was stoned it was all terrific. The sun came up over the desert — there was tumbleweed and silence.

“You are what you eat,” she said.