Devil Said Bang

the real Bamboo House of Dolls. I picture home but I’m still in Hell. What am I doing wrong?

The front of the bike noses down toward the rubble.

Did I use up all the armor’s power on Brimborion?

Wouldn’t that be a hilarious goddamn end to everything?

The ground comes up fast. “The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish” mixes with the rising sound of the engine. What did I expect? Fucking up is my true home and I’m heading there fast.

I wish I had a cigarette.

Then there’s nothing at all.

Then there’s something.

The front wheel hits pavement. A rush of vertigo. Lights. Smeared and jittering. The nothing parts like heavy curtains. Or a trapdoor.

The rear wheel drops. The impact is like being rear-ended by a battleship. I can’t hold the bike. So I lean it to the side. Lay it down and let it slide. Ten or twenty yards. The asphalt grinds against my legs but the leathers hold. I’m not so sure about the coat. Have I mentioned I’m hard on clothes?

When the bike finally stops, it’s sliced a deep groove in the roadbed. I grab the handlebars, get my weight low, and tilt the bike upright. It’s not even scratched.

Welcome home.

It feels good to say it and mean it. How do I know? The place doesn’t smell like bad meat and misery. The sky is clear and full of stars. Clue number three: the bike’s stopped right in front of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Tombstones never looked so good.

A big screen is set up by the columbarium. People sit and sprawl on blankets among the dead. Movie night at the cemetery. It’s not as weird as it might sound. On Dia de los Muertos, families offer food and eat meals with their dead. In Hollywood, we show up with offerings of cowboys and show tunes.

Tonight we’re entertaining our favorite stiffs with a pristine print of The Bad Seed. Pigtailed moppet Patty McCormack just set Leroy the janitor on fire and her mother and best friend watch him burn from an upstairs window. How are you enjoying the movie so far, dead people? We could have shown The Sound of Music but we thought we’d scare the last few scraps of coffin jerky off your bones.

I’m back on the bike when I notice a kid by the cemetery gates. A girl in a frilly blue party dress. Maybe nine or ten years old and she’s all alone. Who brings their kid to a murder movie in a graveyard drive-in and lets her run off alone? Hell, who brings their kid to one of these things at all? The place is half stoners and speed-freak hipsters. The moment the show is over the whole block will turn into one big bumper-car ride.

The kid doesn’t move. Just stares at me until she realizes I’m staring back. Then she turns and runs through the cemetery gates. I can hear her laughing all the way across the street. With an attitude like that, she’s going to grow up and start a mind-blowing band or become a serial killer. I flash on Candy: that could have been her years ago bouncing into Hollywood Forever, a tombstone Disneyland for kids too carnivorous for teacup rides and cotton candy.