I tune out Don the policeman as I wander to D Street and hang a right onto Wabash. There’s a party in a bungalow just past a curbside bamboo grove―unpenned chickens are running loose in the driveway. The first person I run into there is an overweight Mexican cat with a bandage around his throat. He’s white as a ghost, his eyes black and mad with terror. He flirts with me: “Don’t I know you from somewhere, chica? My name is Alonzo. I’m from Waterman Gardens.”
My mom used to sell acid on Base Line. In her apartment—I was living with my grandparents—she had six refrigerators. Each stocked with different kinds of acid. Blue double-dome tabs weighing in at 275 micrograms apiece. White paper blotter at 230 micrograms. Her masterpiece was a gram of gray mini-barrels—four thousand hits—taking the cake at 307 micrograms per hit. The acid was clean, she never cut it with speed or strychnine. Of course, certain customers complained. One of them was this very same Alonzo. I heard he ate five tabs of the blue double-dome and skydived off a rooftop and broke his legs.
Alonzo doesn’t recognize me—he’s too busy describing his tracheotomies. He offers to exhibit them. I decline the invitation. He changes subjects and talks about the June 1970 Jimi Hendrix concert at the Orange Show. A riot broke out. Cops fired off tear gas. Hendrix quit playing. Then it’s when Arthur Lee and Love played at a club on E Street:
“Arthur Lee took the stage in his pajamas and bathrobe. He didn’t smile. Neither did we. His eyes electrified us. He had the ultimate knowledge—it was a fucked-up night. And tomorrow would bring even more crazy shit. He was our conscience.”
Alonzo falls quiet; starlight bathes his pale face. A Harley panhead rumbles on E Street. Now a SWAT helicopter shaves the treetops, enveloping the bungalow in retina-damaging yellow light. A loudspeaker blares:
this is an illegal gathering. you are subject to arrest. it is curfew. repeat. it is curfew. failure to disperse will result in jail time. repeat. it is curfew.
Without saying goodbye to Alonzo, I vamoose. I skirt the chickens in the front yard. My cardboard slippers kiss the sun-warmed sidewalk as I float down the street to Pioneer Park with the day’s sadness flowing though me—I let it suckle at my breast. Hush my sorrow. Cry no more.
I rest on a bench in Pioneer Park, watching the moon sink behind the heat-whitened mountains. I sense a pair of eyes and glance up—a rat in a palm tree is frowning at me. Don the policeman whinges: there’s too many mosquitos here. Let’s go to Seccombe Lake. It’s nicer there. I snap: shut up, will you?
I wonder where daddy is tonight. We could’ve ridden off into the sunset together with me on the back of his saddle, my arms knotted around his waist while I inhaled his spicy smell. Don the policeman jeers: fuck you, girl. That man is a loser. And you’re a two-timing whore. I rail at him: I don’t need no cop telling me what I am. You old fart.
□ □ □
None of this would be happening if I had my wig. You can quarrel with your man. Even slit your wrists. Maybe go to hell. But don’t ever lose your wig. You’ll regret it. And no matter how divine the silver lamé gown is, it’ll never turn me into Audrey Hepburn. I’m on my own now. And I don’t know anybody who isn’t.