Seventeen years old, he rents not one but two houses in Dodge City.
One to live in, the other to store his dope in.
He makes more round-trips to Mexico than the Trailways bus, and he ain’t skateboarding five-dollar fingers anymore. (He has three other grems doing that, and happy for the money.) He is wholesaling now, selling in volume to street dealers, making real money. He has so much grass stashed in that second domicile it becomes known as “The Shit Brick House.”
He has a twenty-three-year-old girlfriend named Lacey living with him who has a sleek body, so flexible because it doesn’t have a jealous bone in it. He can drive his own car now and has three of them, the Plymouth, a ’65 Mustang convertible, and an old Chevy pickup he uses to put his surfboards in. He has a quiver of custom-made boards. He hangs out with the Dead when they roll through town. He gets high on trips with Doc to Maui.
He’s still Doc’s puppy, but now they say that he “runs with the big dogs.”
John is a junior member of the Association.
49
Meanwhile, the country is going motherfucking insane.
While John is on the trajectory from taco-grubbing grem to successful young businessman, the United States goes McMurphy in the cuckoo’s nest, aka the years 1968–1971.
Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin, has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby, Tet Offensive, riots in Cleveland, riots in Miami, the riot in Chicago, Mayor Daley, Hippies and Yippies, we go off the meds and elect Richard Nixon (the Nurse Ratchett of the American political psych ward), the Heidi game, the last prince of Camelot takes a girl to the terminal submarine races, the Chicago Eight, My Lai, I came across a Child of God he was walking along the road, Altamont, Janis dies, the Manson family, Cambodia, tin soldiers and Nixon coming, Angela Davis, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, Apollo 13, tie-dyed T-shirts, granny dresses, Attica.
With the exceptions of Woodstock and Janis dying, it pretty much all slides past John.
Come on, he’s in Laguna.
Don’t let the Devil ride
I said don’t let the Devil ride
’cuz if you let him ride
He will surely want to drive
50
The Gold Coast is silver.
Laguna’s streetlights are shrouded in fog, and the lifeguard tower at Main Beach looks like it’s floating on a cloud.
Ben likes the town this way.
Soft, mysterious, nighttime.
He just dropped O at her place and is now considering whether to go out, go home, or give Kari the waitress a call.
Uh-huh.
He gets on the phone. “Kari? It’s Ben Leonard. From the Coyote?”
Just a short silence, then a warm answer.
“Hey, Ben.”
“I wondered what you’re doing.”
Longer silence. “Ben, I shouldn’t. I’m seeing somebody.”
“Are you married?” Ben asks. “Engaged?”
She’s neither.
“Then you’re still single,” Ben says. “A free agent.”
But she’d feel so guilty.
“Makes the sex better,” Ben says. “Trust me on this, I’m Jewish.”
She’s Catholic.
“In that case we have almost a responsibility to do this,” Ben says. “We owe it to sex.”
She laughs.
Ben drives past Brooks Street and keeps going toward Kari’s place in South Lagoo.
51
Things you don’t want to see in the rearview mirror:
(a) Your new cell phone crushed under your tire.
(b) Ditto your girlfriend’s dead puppy.
(c) A goalie mask.
(d) Flashers.
Ben sees (d).
“Shit.”
He pulls over on the PCH near the entrance to Aliso Creek Beach.
An empty stretch of road on a foggy night.
Looking in the mirror again, he sees that it’s an unmarked car with a flasher attached to the roof.
But he doesn’t have anything on him and the car is clean.
The plainclothes cop’s face appears at the window. He shows his badge and Ben rolls the window down.
“License and registration, please.”
“May I ask why you stopped me?”
“License and registration, please.”
Ben takes his license from his wallet, hands it over, and then reaches toward the glove compartment for the registration.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” the cop says.
“Do you want the registration or not?” Ben asks.
“Step out of the car, sir.”
“Oh, come on,” Ben says. Because he just can’t help himself-it’s in his freaking DNA. “Why did you stop me? Do you have probable cause?”
“I saw marijuana smoke coming out of the driver side window,” the cop says. “And I can smell it now.”
Ben laughs. “You saw marijuana smoke from a moving car at night? And you don’t smell anything-I never smoke in my car.”
“Step out of the car, please, sir.”
“This is bullshit.”
The cop rips the door open, grabs Ben by the wrist, hauls him out, and arm-bars him to the ground.
