Stone Junction

dreams, wishes, fantasies, yearnings, and the last of the drugs I brought from Reno. I’m glad they’re gone.

The DJ never showed. Daniel never came back. I can’t imagine Mia anymore.

I think Daniel may have been the DJ. I know he kissed my scar. I know what passed between us was us, a warm-rain moon waltz, everything joined and hurled at the stars. I know I imagined Mia, but Daniel was real, real enough to imagine me.

I kept the Diamond until today. I was convinced that Daniel was and is real and that the Diamond was not. I never looked at it once. But I did pick it up in its sack and caress it, because everything round invites caresses. Every day the Diamond seemed to lose weight, grow lighter but not smaller, and then I got scared that if I kept it, it would gradually exhaust itself, collapse into emptiness, and Daniel could never find his way back.

The Diamond, in an odd way, was all I had left of us, yet I didn’t believe it was real. So this evening at sunset I carried the Diamond out to the center of a bridge over the Mississippi River. I married Daniel. I honor vows, keep my promises.

I slipped the Diamond from the sack and looked into it as deeply as I could. I wanted a sign, a vision in the crystal ball, something to keep. I saw nothing, felt nothing.

I opened my hands and let it go. I watched it fall, utterly certain it would hit the water and sink without a ripple, like a breath entering the air.

The Diamond hit the river like a comet, half the Mississippi erupting in a geyser, a magnificent fountain turned golden by the setting sun.

I don’t know a fucking thing. That must mean I’m finally sane. And that’s an excellent place to start going crazy again.

Also available from Canongate

NOT FADE AWAY

By Jim Dodge

Introduced by KEVIN SAMPSON

Floorboard George Gastin is part of an insurance scam to wreck a pure white, mint condition ’59 Cadillac originally intended as a present to The Big Bopper from an ageing admirer. But in the name of love, Floorboard George has other ideas, and disappears with the car, gangsters and cops in hot pursuit.

On the road, the crazy characters and demented hitch-hikers he meets provide high-octane entertainment as Floorboard George covers many miles – and states of mind – in his quest to find the true spirit of rock ‘n’ roll.

“The best road novel never to be adapted for the big screen … Vanishing Point with a point, Easy Rider with no hippies and a sense of historical depth.” Guardian

“… a potent mix of bawdy folk-tale, philosophy and principled techno-awareness. Strong threads of humanism work within a fabric of vibrant characters, hillbilly landscapes and cathartic wit.” Dazed and Confused

“[Jim Dodge is] in an affectionately satirical tradition that stretches back to Twain … he also happens to write snappier dialogue than anyone this side of Elmore Leonard.” Scotland on Sunday

Acknowledgements

My gratitude to the following people for their help, encouragement, and forbearance:

Victoria Stockley (first, foremost, and more), Patricia Sinclair, Leonard Charles, Lynn Millman, Richard Cortez Day, Jeremiah Gorsline, Gary Snyder, Freeman House, Jacoba, Jack Hitt, Melanie Jackson, Robert Funt, Jack Gilbert, T. J. Mullen, Jenny Berry, Morris Graves, Gary Fisketjon, and Anne Rumsey (tune and tone).

About the Author Stone Junction

JIM DODGE is the author of three books of fiction: Fup, Not Fade Away and Stone Junction. Rain on the River, his collection of poetry, is also published by Canongate. He lives on an isolated ranch in California’s Western Sonoma County.

Copyright

First published in 1990 in the USA by The Atlantic Monthly Press

First published in Great Britain in 1997 by Rebel Inc.,

an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,

14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE

This digital edition first published in 2011 by Canongate Books

Copyright © Jim Dodge, 1990

Introduction copyright © Thomas Pynchon, 1997

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data