SIXTY-SIX
IN THE PATHS, FINDING FRIENDS WAS LIKE CATCHING A SONG.
Without phones or reliable plans, you listen to the crowd’s white-noise buzz, adjust focus like a radio dial. Griff twisted hard at a pizza place called the Boondoggle, right at a counter labeled Liquid Sunshine. Closer. He could almost feel her. Then her heard his own name in the noise:
“Griff!”
Charity.
She tore loose from the group and came barreling into him like they’d been shipwrecked—lost for generations. He spun her three full times. Could spin her forever. She tucked herself against his neck. Her lips brushed his ear.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Shhhh-curity,” Malachi said. He popped his collar. “We’re classy-fied.”
“What about you?” Griff asked.
“Keeping the water flowing,” Charity said. She turned her palm to the sky. “Which may not be a problem.”
The group caught up, clustered around them.
“Is it actually going to rain?” Griff asked.
“Fifty-fifty,” Thomas said. “Let’s flip a coin.”
“Let’s not,” Griff said. “You brought the rat?”
“Neapolitan wanted a night out!” Thomas said, lifting the carrier. “Everyone loves a guy with a pet.”
“There are some straight-up weirdos out here, Charity,” Thomas said. “Just like me.”
He put on the mirrored sunglasses, and they walked.
Lights blazed in booths and lean-tos. The show-night party mood was revving up with drinks and hoots and laughter. Charity held his arm, his whole arm, miraculous to have her holding a whole arm—
“How long are you all going to stay?” Stitch asked.
“Forever,” Thomas said.
Griff looked at Thomas. Was he serious? Griff assumed they’d head back sometime tomorrow after the show. But this was Thomas. He had the car. And where would they head back to?
They rounded a wide corner. Lanterns gilded the sunken avenues in amber. A guitar and a fiddle tuned up in a wooden loft above. In front of them, a man stopped his bicycle. He was towing a small coffin. Inside the coffin, a stand-up bass. A person wearing bunny ears and a rodent mask stopped to help him. Everywhere, suddenly, people were wearing masks.
“How long do you want to stay?” Griff whispered to Charity.
“At least until the show,” Charity said. “And the lagoon.”
Griff looked at the sky, afraid to ask: What if they postponed the show? Would the Band play tomorrow? Or would they hide out another month? Should they have a plan?
“Hey, Rumblefish,” Griff asked. “What time is the show?”
“Noodles!” Rumblefish screamed.
The plan was noodles.
Nobody was talking about the show. All off-ramping to the Naughty Noodle, which smelled great. Fresh, steaming odors of crushed basil and pine nuts, juicy green olives popping in the pan oil, cackling at the names: The Devil’s Got Angel Hair, F-U-Silly Pesto, Curry Some Flavor—and when Griff picked up his plate of bright green corkscrew pasta, Charity had vanished in the crowd.
Griff found a small wooden stump and sat to eat. Noodles, slippery with butter and fresh pesto. Small nuggets of hard cheese, garlic, my god. Griff ate and watched a guy in a fedora sweeping the back kitchen of the Naughty Noodle. A lady with a tight, short mohawk approached and watched him. She unslung her guitar and played a magic lick along to the beat of the broomcorn.
Griff knew the song. A perfect song. It played to the memory of his parents pulling the car over to dance, him and Leo rolling their eyes from the backseat. They’d really done that!
“‘Harvest Moon’!” Rumblefish screamed. He came rushing in with his dobro. More musicians arrived on the scene like EMTs trained to make sure the moment kept its pulse.
And there was Charity. Across a sea of arms, legs, heads, elbows in a red dress, and would she dance?
The whole crowd loved her. The whole world.
He should ask her to dance. They’d come to the desert together. Cuddlenapped. And when he pictured the person walking confidently through the crowd and taking her hand, he still could not see himself. He saw Leo.
Griff forced himself to move. Like when he tried to go to her window. Moving forward, retreating—maybe she wanted a moment alone—maybe she wanted to dance with someone else—and finally when the song was two verses deep he was close enough.
“What took you so long?” she said.
She stood and her body came against his. Electric awareness. Breasts against his chest. She moved his hand to the place where waist became hip. It felt obscene, remarkable. They were here with hundreds, kicking up the same dirt, and they were alone.
“I never once expect you to say yes,” he said.
“I don’t know how else to show you,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I—”
“What else?” she said. “Whatever poem you’ve got rattling in your head—say it.”
“Oh,” he said.
“No one else can hear you,” she sang softly, imitating his warm-up song. “Charity loves your voice.”
He bit his lip. Breathing.
“Sing it, boy,” she whispered in his ear.
“I don’t love anything like I love you,” he said.
She hummed. “Mmm. What else?”
“I feel like we’ve been singing together since before we were born.”
She hummed more, along with his words.
“I miss the music,” she said. “I miss your ear.”
She took his earlobe between her teeth, tugged gently. He jerked upright, laughed.
“There’s a piano in the desert,” he said.
“Mmm,” she said. “Let’s get it.”
The song was almost over.
“One more time!” Rumblefish told the band. Ah! Sweet miracle! And Rumblefish deserved every good thing and any sum of money, the best possible life forever for playing “Harvest Moon” one more time.
She pressed her body against him. His hand pulled the small of her back, harder. A soft grind. He wanted her so badly he laughed—didn’t know what to do. The laughter just shook out.
“Good, huh?” she whispered. She kissed his neck. Then the song was over, maybe had been over. She was laughing too.
“Right,” Griff said. “The Band.”
Thomas, Stitch, and Alea plowed into their group like a rudderless boat, well sloshed. Stitch was drinking from what looked like a giant tin can.
“Where’s the party?” Stitch asked.
“Shouldn’t we get to the stage?” Griff asked.
“Don’t worry,” Malachi said. “There will be an announcement.”
“They chirp, right?” Thomas said. “Like—Che-che-chirrup!”
Thomas made a strange, squirrelly sound in his throat and people looked in their direction.
Others took up the call:
Che-che-chirrup!
Che-che-chirrup!
“Nope!” Malachi said, waving his arms. “K.T.! No false alarms!”
“Sorry,” Thomas said.
“We’ve got an hour,” Malachi said. “Maybe two.”
“We drink!” Stitch said.
“What about the piano?” Griff said.
“Well,” Stitch said.
“Yes,” Charity said.
“Piano!” Rumblefish screamed. “Exactly, fucking exactly perfect what we need to do right now. Find the Bagman. It’s written in the sky—”
Hooting, Rumblefish led them to the ladder.
Bagman?
“Maybe he won’t be there,” Stitch said.
They kept talking—he’s always there—as Griff climbed the rungs to the top of the plateau. Thomas followed. As the first to the top, they were the first to see it. Beyond the blinking blue light of Simon’s tower. A dark boil of clouds, churning over mountains. The rest of the group collected around them.
“You know what they call that in Australia?” Thomas said. “The black layer of sky that rolls out like a fuck-you pirate flag at the front of a storm?”
“Don’t ask him,” Griff said.
“What?” Rumblefish asked.
“The Razor’s Edge,” Thomas said, looking them over. Raising an eyebrow.
“Oh god,” Griff said.
“Not coincidentally, the name of AC/DC’s twelfth studio album. The opening track has played at every single live show since its release.”
As they walked, thunder clapped. A flash of light scribbled through clouds.
“Turn back?” Charity asked.
“No,” Griff said. “Walk faster.”