FLIPKA

Chapter Thirteen, Part Two

The Nova waited for me under the moonlight. Ah, freedom, I thought, as I fired up all two precious cylinders, and off we raced across the dry lake bed. I figured I’d keep the car for the night and then return it in the morning to the rental car place where my trusty steed (a fifteen-year-old Datsun truck) awaited me. That seemed the most logical re-entry to my well-ordered world. A lot of people accuse me of driving an old wreck in order to gain notoriety as a genuine eccentric, but you know, you don’t have to worry about keeping an old car clean, or about where you park it, or who drives it. 

For the first hundred miles I felt as free as a biker on a Harley. With his daughter no longer at Enev, Hyman wouldn’t give a damn about me, and I could go back to my lowly but comfortable station as the Queen of Props. I knew by reputation the place Meredith Hyman was headed: a converted tubercular sanitarium in the Sonoma hills. It was secluded, woodsy—the perfect place for a romantic like Meredith Hyman. In no time she’d find another Major Olivore, maybe even a living one. And the Major? I pictured his journal lying behind a glass counter, unread but preserved, like a zillion other testimonials to a life led, slowly turning to dust. Ah, the ultimate futility of art, I thought. Everything men have worked so hard to produce eventually turns to dust, everything. And then it dawned on me that I’d forgotten to give the journal to Ms. Peterson. It was still sitting in the trunk of the Nova. Suddenly I no longer felt free. 

I can’t explain what happened next. Lack of sleep, stress, that package of Hostess donuts I had in lieu of dinner—any and all could have contributed to the irrational thoughts that now floated through my head. I began to wonder if I’d formed a subconscious attachment to the journal, perhaps believing a romantic sensibility too soon taken from the world, like the pulsing heart removed from a still breathing elk, did not deserve an eternity in an obscure museum. But, if I kept it, what would I do with it? Put it in a fishbowl and tend it all day? I knew the publishing world well. If Major Olivore had been a nephew of Lincoln, run off with the black mistress of Robert E. Lee, fought Indians in the West, and founded Mormonism, then I might have a chance of getting publishers interested in his journal. Only might. A lot would depend on the whim of the public who might be more interested in a woman who has undergone multiple surgeries to look like Cher.

Now this next episode might seem silly to anyone who’s gotten a good night sleep, a good meal, and a hot shower, but as I drove through the moonlit night, I began feeling like I wasn’t alone. The journal of Sebastian Olivore became a living, breathing entity locked in my trunk. The more it breathed, the more evil it became, the more powerful, like an evil amulet, Sauron’s ring of power, so shiny and beautiful that it could corrupt even Mother Teresa. Like Frodo, I must dispose of it. But where? The fires of Mordor? The tomb of King Tut? Doug Hyman’s office? Maybe I shouldn’t touch it at all. Maybe I should just leave it in the Nova, and let the rent-a-car people deal with it. No, that was a bad idea—that would just transfer the evil to another poor person.

What was left of my rational mind tried without success to interject a wee bit of sanity: In your exhausted state, you’ve ascribed evil powers to a diary. To a diary, Fi. Think about it. The journal has no power over you.

It didn’t help. As soon as I got to Vegas, I decided, I was heading for the Excalibur. There had to be a Fire of Mordor someplace in that pink and blue medieval monstrosity. I’ll take the journal and drop it into the fake fiery pit.

Luckily, before I wigged out any further, the all-night gas station in Pioche sprung from out of nowhere, landing smack dab in front of me on the highway, so brightly lit that it could be seen from outer space. Beside it was a sign welcoming visitors:

Welcome to Pioche: A living Ghost Town. 

Once the roughest mining camp in the Old West, rougher than

Tombstone and Dodge City! Seventy-two men died in gunfights

before a natural death occurred. Visit Boot Hill and Murderer’s

Road! Have a Sarsaparilla at the Bucket of Blood! 

I staggered around in the bright fluorescent light like a drunkard, gulping in dusty air and trying to get some blood flow to my numb feet and hands while the tank filled. Seeing another human—the cashier in his booth—brought me back from the Land of Mordor. 

“Excuse me,” I asked the cashier, a young man who looked up at me blankly, “but is this Bucket of Blood place still open? The desert’s making me a little daft—I’m starting to have conversations with my alternate personalities! I could sure use a Sarsaparilla and some conversation.” 

“They close at 9. If you’re thirsty there’s a coke machine in back.”

“Thanks. I guess Pioche is so dead that even the ghosts have left town,” I chuckled. It was a joke he’d obviously heard one too many times or perhaps he actually was a ghost. It was hard to tell. He could have been one of the seventy-two gunslingers who had to die before there could be a natural death. 

Once past the town founded on blood, the highway wound through hilly country for which I was eternally grateful. It kept me from falling asleep. But thirty minutes later it straightened out again, becoming a long straight strip of asphalt heading towards an eternally shifting horizon. Along the route, signs warned drivers not to spend too much time by the side of the road. What they should have read was: “Beware. Radioactive fumes. Hold Your Breath for the Next Fifty Miles.” To the west lay the Nevada Atomic Test grounds. I was gliding along the sandy bed of an ancient ocean, now filled with the fossils of silvery radioactive fish flying over me. Once or twice, I joined them and swam above the speeding car. And then I returned, apparently not missed. The car was on such a straight path that a driver was an accessory. 

An hour later the pastel dome over Vegas pulled a trick on my exhausted mind. For a frightening moment, I thought the sun was rising from the west, having spun around the earth in reverse. A certain sign of apocalyptic end of days. But it was only Vegas, the town that never sleeps. The empty two-lane highway flowed clumsily into the main truck route. “Welcome to Las Vegas,” the sign read. Suddenly I was engulfed by a swarm of all-night truckers, sights clearly set on the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffets awaiting them, gunning their oversized rigs and threatening to overrun anything in their path, including me. A big fella on my bumper flashed his brights into my rearview mirror, blinding me. I sped up and attempted to change lanes but was cut off. I don’t remember what happened next.

I awoke next to a ringing phone in a bright and sunny hospital room, a major pain in my head. The bed next to me was empty, but nurses were just outside. 

“Hey!” I yelled, but they ignored me. The phone persisted in torturing me, until I knocked the receiver off the hook. 

“Butters?” it squawked. “Butters, you there?” 

“What?” I shouted back to the receiver.

“Blah, blah, blah,” the voice mumbled.

“I can’t hear you—I’m in a damn hospital bed!”

“Pick up the phone, Butters!” the voice insisted.

“Hell no! I’m injured!” Painfully I propped myself up to look for lower extremities. “Hot damn, I still have my legs and feet!” 

“Don’t be cute, Butters, I already checked with the hospital. You just have a concussion.” 

“Thank you, Dr. Hyman . . .” 

“What did you say?” he growled.

“Nothing. Are you calling to wish me a speedy recovery?”

“Hell no. Pick up the phone, Butters—I’m tired of yelling at you!”

“Fire!” I screamed. That finally brought a nurse.