The Last Good Kiss (17 page)

At least the bulldog had the decency to pass out in the

back seat. As we parked in the string of cars beside

Skyline Drive, Trahearne sniffed the air, muttered

party, and stopped whining.

"Maybe you should stay in the car," I suggested.

"Nonsense," he said as he tugged a fresh quart of

Turkey from under his seat. "If my famous writer act

doesn't work, lad, I'll show them my invitation," he

added, waving the whiskey. "I'm always welcome at

parties," he said as he lurched out of the car.

Of course the old bastard was right. The bearded

young man who answered the doorbell had met Trahearne some years before at a poetry reading in Seattle, though Traheame didn't remember him, and

he welcomed us into his house, introducing Trahearne

to his guests as if he had been the guest of honor all

along. Within minutes, he had arranged glasses and ice

and Peggy Bain sitting across a picnic table. Traheame

shooed the host and his fans away, sat down beside

Peggy Bain, and flopped a heavy arm over her shoulder

as he called her honey. She was a genial lady with a face

as round as a full moon looming above her thick wool

poncho. When Trahearne explained what we wanted,

she glanced at him, then me, then broke out in a fit of

stoned laughter so fierce that she had to remove her

rimless glasses and set them among the dirty plates on

the table.

"You've got to be kidding," she said over and over

again, only stopping to giggle. Then she lowered the

pitch of her glee, rubbed the tears out of her eyes, and

said, "Man, I haven't seen her since high school. " She

paused long enough to shake a hash pipe out of her

sleeve and light it, then offered it to Trahearne. He

took a greedy hit, then held his breath and muttered

dynamite dope! like some kid. When she offered it to

me, I shook my head, trying to stay straight for a few

minutes longer. "I ran into her father down in Bakers-

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field a few years ago, and he said Betty Sue had been

living in a commune up in Oregon, but she had left."

"Remember the name of it?" I said.

"Man, who can remember those names," she said.

"Sunflower or Sunshine Starbright Dreaming or Sunfun or Sun-kinda-pretentious-hippie-shit." After she stopped chuckling at her own joke, she added. "Whatever its name was, it was somewhere outside of Grants Pass, I think."

"When did you talk to her father?" I asked, and

Trahearne muttered yeah as he fondled her square

shoulder through the rough wool.

Peggy's face stiffened and she slipped her glasses

back on, sighed and lifted her hands. I thought I was

about to get a long question about who the hell I was to

ask about Betty Sue, but she turned to Trahearne,

saying, "Hey, man, I ain't into starfucking, okay? See

that lady over by the back door? The one with the scarf

around her head and all that heavy metal hanging off

her neck? That's where your action is, man, okay?"

Then she lifted his large hand off her shoulder by the

fingers, dangling it as if it were a dead crab, and

dropped it in his lap .

"Excuse me," he muttered without a trace of sincerity, looking at his lap and peeking toward the back door at the same time.

"Don't be bummed out, man," Peggy said.

"No sweat," he said, then slid off the bench and

limped toward the house.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked.

"Artistic temperament," I said. "He thinks famous

writers are supposed to get fucked a lot."

"Not that, dummy," she said. "What's wrong with

his leg?"

"Old war wound," I said.

"Which one?"

"Pick one," I said, "they're all the same." I had been

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trained in the right radical responses by a crew-cut first

lieutenant with a text on radical responses.

"Right on, man," she answered on cue.

"But back to Betty Sue," I said. "How long ago did

you talk to her father?"

"At least six years ago," she said. "I know because I

was still married to that redneck asshole from Santa

Rosa. We were down in Bakersfield on some kind of

United Farmworkers blast, and I saw Betty Sue's

daddy's name in the paper. He was playing at a place

called the Kicker, which I assumed was short for

Shitkicker, so a bunch of us got high and went out to

test the rednecks. Of course, we took two of the biggest

hippies in the world, two logger kids from up around

Weed. We wanted to look back to see how the other

half lives."

"How were they doing?"

"Just like you'd expect, man, living high, wide, and

handsome in Bakersfield," she answered, grinning.

"But old man Flowers, he was one cool dude."

"How's that?"

"Singing in the band, running the bar, and dealing

nose candy like a bandit," she said.

"Cocaine?"

"Nothing else makes you feel so good," she said. "At

first we thought he was bragging to impress the

hippies-you know how straight people do-talking

about selling coke to all the big names playing around

Bakersfield, but after the second set, he took us back to

his office, and we did a ton and bought five grams.

Good stuff and fairly cheap."

"And you talked about Betty Sue," I said, trying to

bring her back from her cocaine memories. And mine

too.

"Right. I asked if he'd heard from her, and he said

she'd called once, a year, maybe two years before,

asking for money to split from the commune scene.

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Probably one of your typical fascist hippie scenes, you

know, man."

"But you don't remember the name?"

"Like I said, man, Sun-something," she said, then

paused to glance up at me. "You looking for her

because she's in trouble?"

"No, not that," I said, then realized that after the

film I didn't know why I was looking for Betty Sue

anymore. "I stumbled into her mother, and she hired

me to look around for a few days," I said.

"Sorry, but I can't help."

"That's okay," I said, "she's been gone too long

anyway."

"Just barely long enough," Peggy whispered, looking

down, all the stoned laughter gone now.

Behind her, the clouds surrendered their last crimson

streaks to a soft, foggy gray. A single tall evergreen

tilted against the falling sky. Behind me, the party

began to rumble like thunder. Peggy relit the hash pipe,

and this time I accepted it from her. We shared the

smoke as the evening winds rose off the cold sea, rose

up the wooded ridges, and herded the party inside,

people muttering thin complaints like little children

called from play to the fuzzy dreams of their early beds.

The plate-glass windows along the back of the house

reflected the last vestiges of the sunset, and beyond,

like a double exposure, the party trundled silently

onward, mouths opening, wounds without sound,

gestures without meaning. Beside a doorway against

the opposite wall, Traheame stared sadly at the sunset.

"What else can I tell you, man?" Peggy asked when

the pipe had gone out.

"I don't know," I said, then moved around the table

to sit beside her, close but not too close, my fingers

locked behind my head as I leaned against the littered

table. "I just don't know," I said as I tried to see the

ocean swells and the evening fog below the wide and

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empty sky being overcome by a nascent darkness.

"Maybe you could just tell me about her," I said. "All

about her."

"That's too much," she said.

"Just barely enough."

"Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said. "Tell me what she looked

like in the sixth grade with pigtails and elbows and

knees, or tell me-"

''I'll be damned," she interrupted. "I'll just be

damned."