On the road is a good place to be, and that’s where I’d been for the last two weeks. Or two days, or two months, depending on how time was passing at any particular moment. It should be understood, though, that “on the road” is not driving from Seattle to Denver to attend Aunt Sally’s funeral. On the road is waking up in the morning and not knowing where you’ll be when you fall asleep that night; it is approaching a stop sign and not knowing which way you’ll turn until after you’ve come to a complete stop.
Being on the road means having to pee and stopping the car without pulling over because you are on a highway so straight that you can see to infinity in both directions and so desolate that you are the only person on it. On the road is standing there, pissing on the yellow line, facing the direction from which you just came. Pissing in that direction because that is the road behind you, and therefore no longer of importance.
This is where I found myself on that day, listening to the hiss coming from the scalding dotted yellow of NV-319, pointed in the general direction of Utah. The only decoration a sign reading “Caliente 20 miles.” So far away, but only 17 minutes until things would get really strange.
Because, ultimately, “on the road” means taking yourself so far out of your element that you are no longer sure when things are thoroughly out of whack, and when it is all just in your head. Caliente, Nevada. 20 miles ahead, 17 minutes away. A town five blocks long, and my mind still hasn’t settled on how long it took to get through.
Nick Steele walked down the hallway the way a man with three balls might walk down a hallway after he’s just hit a grand slam home run at Comiskey Park.
“Hey, Brandy,” he growled in his manly throat, “did you get the files on the Gianelli caper?”
“Sorry, boss”, purred Brandy his sultry secretary, “Judge Smithers says they’re off limits to he-man detectives who shoot first and ask questions later.” Her eyes slid down the front of his bulging pectoral muscles.
“How about a sandwich?”, he intoned, “I’m so hungry I could eat my own boogers and ask for seconds.”
“Oh, boss”, Brandy’s voice was flushed with allure, “I like to watch a man eat.”
Happy Billy the Silly Bunny had just moved into Sunny Valley that morning. The smiling sun bid him welcome, the frilly flowers bowed their heads to him in friendly greeting, and the blue birds seemed to be chirping just for him.
“It seems like I’ll be staying here in Sunny Valley at least for a while”, mused Billy to himself.
“That is, unless I can finish gnawing off this leg before Trapper Ben gets here.”
Then Friendly Fox came down the lane. “Need some help, neighbor?” he sang out.
“Well,” I thought, rising from my waiting room chair as my empty bowels rumbled in hunger, “here goes nothing.” I headed for the exam room crowded with people. Ten colonoscopies, ten medical students needing training, $100 bucks, tax free, toward that new pair of Manolo Blahniks I’d been eyeing. And oh yeah, a free meal at the hospital cafeteria after it was all over.
There are a million stories in the naked city. Some are about wild and fast dames who like to play it loose with the boys near the waterfront, some are about a good kid gone bad whose only crime was growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, and some are about soft and fuzzy bunnies.
As I leaned against the wall of some anonymous dive in Chinatown, I thought of Velveteen. Velveteen was what you call a “working girl”, but she was tired of being a plaything; she was tired of being someone’s toy. A young bunny’s soul can be worn down faster than third rate imitation velvet when she’s cast down into the shadows every night after those that used her had had their fun. So Velveteen dreamed her dandelion dreams - soft and fuzzy dreams of lifting herself up from the ghetto and becoming a real live bunny. Ah, but the dark underbelly of the toybox is a hard place for a velvet covered rabbit.
I was killed horribly that night. Unfortunately for you, dear reader, I cannot go into much more detail than that, since, as I have just alluded, I was in the process of being horribly killed during that particular incident, and thus do not recall in any significant detail said details; my mind was on other things.
A soft lazy pop fly floated out towards right field, where it snugly landed in the Sammy Sosa’s black leather glove. A roar like none other Wrigley Field had ever witnessed washed down onto the sea of green grass.
On the radio, Ron Santo was screaming “The Cubs win the World Series! The Cubs finally win the World Series!”
The cuckoo clock on the wall said, “Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo,” because it was 5:00 and it goes “cuckoo” once for every hour that it is. And yet, despite my sunny disposition, I felt a sense of foreboding and a pricking in my ass.
“One more for the casebook,” I chuckled.
The clock struck six. I opened the light pine door and in the bed in the next room lay a woman, about 30 years old, six feet tall, left-handed, speaking in a heavy Irish brogue, with tresses of flaming hair three feet long and the bluest of deep blue eyes. I did what comes naturally and after about two hours I dressed and walked over to the door on the other side of the room. In the next room was another bed, occupied by a woman of the same age, hair color, eye color, handedness, sexual proclivity, and accent. I spent the same length of time with her.
The building had 1,034 consecutive rooms like this. I knew I was going to be busy for quite a while…
Images from the erotic dream I had been having were still with me as I slowly awoke. They involved the woman I had met at that bar yesterday evening and things that I had either done or wished I had done with her last night. In my befuddled state, I couldn’t even remember how the night had ended. Had she eventually rejected me and, if not, had we gone back to her place or mine? And why was I so cold? Had I set the thermostat on the air conditioner too low again?
I opened my eyes to discover that I was in a bathroom, but not any bathroom I could recognize. What was I doing in a bathtub full of rapidly melting ice? As I arose from the bathtub, I accidentally knocked off a telephone that sat precariously on the side of the tub. I grabbed at a piece of paper that fluttered from under the phone. Leaning over to catch the paper, I felt pains in my sides.
I never would have guessed when I took on the Case of the Murdered Millionaire that I would eventually end up finding it was my own client who was the killer.
