“This is Shelly’s house. An old racetrack friend.”
“Where is he?”
“Disappeared. He does that a lot. Come inside,” I said. “I’ll show you his museum of suffering.”
I pushed open the door. Sweets was sulking in one of the chairs.
“This is Sweets,” I introduced. “Formerly Carlito of Isla Escondida. He is not a Mexican dog, however.”
She patted his head. “Is he yours?”
“He is now.”
“He’s a handsome boy.”
Sweets bumped his tail around and surrendered a flattered, nervous yawn.
I took her through the rooms of Shelly’s house, showed her the framed conquistadors in the master bedroom, Donny Ray’s shrine, the photographs of Renee, the record room with “Rocket 88,” a bottle of Librium thirty-five years expired.
“I know this place,” she said. “I grew up in one. Don’t tell me, dad fought the commies and never once missed Lawrence Welk.”
“Something like that,” I said.
Back in the living room she paused to run her finger through the dust on my Olympia, then leafed through a few pages of the book I had abandoned. “Shelly’s?”
“Mine.”
She set her hands on her hips. “So you finally tackled the great American loony bin novel.”
“Yeah, I just got to the part where you drove up in your Trans Am.”
“I hope it has a happy ending. It is fiction, after all.”
“It is.” I moved to the kitchen, opened the wine, and poured two glasses.
She took a corner on the crumbling old couch, sipped at the wine. “Is that a television or did someone forget to clean the aquarium?”
“It’s a real TV,” I said, “the centerpiece of Shelly’s museum.”
The phone rang. Shelly, I thought, angry about us making fun of his house. We both stared at it until it stopped.
“Every day I think about Napa,” she said, removing her scarf and shaking her hair free. “You’ll laugh, but it was the most fun I ever had in my life. The singing, the smuggling, das verböten bedzpringens und humpinderscheetz. Remember the time you taped the fan of peacock tail feathers to your ass and paraded the grounds?”
“With my dumb haircut and big nose, I even looked like a peacock.” I imitated the hey-yelp call of the bird.
“What memories!” she cried.
“I’ve got some English cheese!” I cried.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That would be lovely.”
I cut a few pieces and set the plate and the knife on the coffee table.
She nibbled, wrinkling her nose. “Scrummy.”
“Tastes like socks,” I said.
“You never liked food.”
“I just forget to eat.”
“You look thin.”
“I’ve never seen you in actual clothes.”
“What does that mean?”
“I wonder if I am dreaming.”
“San Diego is too sunny,” she announced, popping another cube into her mouth and dusting off her hands. “Don’t you think?”
I set my Stilton aside. It was more the stuff you’d put on someone’s engine manifold for a prank. “It’s a beautiful city, everyone tells me.” My head fell over and I feigned sleep.
“So, what do you think happened to your buddy, Shelly?”
“The world keeps changing. He’s not equipped for it.”
“Is he alone?”
“Always.”
“People aren’t meant to be alone.”
“Are you alone?”
“For the last two years. After I left Murph I moved here. I knew you were from San Diego. I don’t want to talk about Murph.”
“I don’t want to talk about Murph either.” I finished my wine.
Sweets had fallen asleep, head under paw, and was snoring.
“What is this Isla Escondida you mentioned?”
I told her about the island and why I would not be able to return.
“We could have our own island,” she said.
“Where would that be?”
“Ferndale is nice. It has ocean and redwoods and rain, and there is not too much sun.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“I’m not going to lose you again.”
I went into the kitchen and poured two more glasses of wine.
38.Run Through the Jungler
SIX MONTHS AFTER I LEARNED THAT A CABDRIVER NAMED ROBERTO Adolfo Malandrin had been stalking and killing prostitutes and throwing their bodies into the great incinerator at La Zona Basura, I was pulled over by a Humboldt County Sheriff who claimed I fit the description of a psychiatric hospital escapee named Edward Ellington Plum. Driving with an expired license that was not mine and unable to prove my identity, I was arrested and taken to jail. Three weeks later came the hearing and I was remanded to the custody of the state mental health system, this time Atascadero, a maximum-security, all-male forensic hospital in San Luis Obispo with vomit-yellow halls and pea-soup-colored cells (who chooses the color schemes for these places?), about two hundred miles south of Napa State, that specialized in sexual offenders.
Atascadero made Napa look like a Fred Astaire movie. It was half again as big with many more patient and staff assaults on record and numerous illustrious deviants such as “The Co-Ed Killer” Edward Kemper, Manson Family member Tex Watson, and Arthur Leigh Allen (likely Shelly’s beloved Zodiac Killer) having signed the registry. ASH was much more like a prison with tighter security, stricter dress codes, no women inmates, and no issued ground passes. This was the place you were sent when you’d been a bad boy at one of the other psychiatric hospitals, where the recalcitrant, recidivist, and irremediable cases landed, half of them habitual violent MDSOs (Mentally Disordered Sex Offenders). Once again I was immediately assigned with MDSOs on Unit 28. I’m certain I was sent there to be taught a lesson, though this time with stronger resolve I kept my mouth shut and did what I was told.
Atascadero was an easier place by far to get your head stomped in, but it had its good points too: a big sunny yard and baseball field, large canteen, full-sized movie theater, double the magazine subscriptions in the library, good computer access, and better weather and food than Mudville. Unlike the convoluted corridor networks of ancient madhouses like Napa, there were fewer nooks and crannies, spaces under stairwells, back wards, and recessed doorways where inmates might hide to jump out at you, and so by using the mirrors on each corner you could significantly reduce your odds of getting shanked or crowned by a chair.
I made several key allies
