that's Greg and Elaine back there. And I am...' He beat a drumroll on the wheel. 'The Earl!'
Headlights passing in the opposite direction penetrated the van. Elaine was a chubby girl wriggling into a T-shirt, forcing it down over large breasts, and Greg was a longhaired, muscular kid who regarded Donnell with drugged sullenness. He pointed to his own right eye. 'Papa Salva-tino do that to you, man?'
Elaine giggled.
'He's been sick,' said Jocundra. 'Radiation treatments.' She refused to look at Donnell.
'Actually it was bad drugs,' said Donnell. 'The residue of evil companions.'
'Yeah?' said Greg, half-questioning, half-challenging. He took a stab at staring Donnell down, but the eyes were too much for him.
'You shoulda seen the dude!' The van veered onto the shoulder as Earl turned to them. 'He talked some wild shit to them goddamn Christians! Had ol' Papa's balls clickin' like ice cubes!'
Elaine cupped her hand in front of Donnell's eyes and collected a palmful of reflected glare. 'Intense,' she said.
Greg lost interest in the whole thing, pulled out a baggie and papers and started rolling a joint. 'Let's air this sucker out,' he said. 'It smells like a goddamn pig's stomach.'
'You the one's been rootin' in it.' Earl chuckled, downshifted, and the van shot forward. He slipped a cassette into the tape deck, and a caustic male voice rasped out above the humming tires, backed by atonalities and punch drunk rhythms.
'... Go to bed at midnight,
Wake at half-past one,
I dial your number,
And let it ring just once,
I wonder if you love me
While I watch TV,
I cheer for Godzilla
Versus the Jap Army,
I think about your sweet lips
And your long, long legs,
I wanna carve my initials
In your boyfriend's face.
I'm gettin' all worked up, worked up about you!'
The singer began to scream 'I'm gettin' all worked up' over and over, his words stitched through by a machine-gun bass line. Glass broke in the background, heavy objects were overturned. Earl turned up the volume and sang along.
Jocundra continued to avoid Donnell's gaze, and he couldn't blame her. He had nearly gotten them killed. A manic, sardonic and irrationally confident soul had waked in him and maneuvred him about the stage; and though it had now deserted him, he believed it was hidden somewhere, lurking behind a mist of ordinary thoughts and judgements, as real and ominous as a black mountain in the clouds. Considering what he had done, the bacterial nature of his intelligence, it would be logical to conclude that he was insane. But what logic would there be in living by that conclusion? Whether he was insane or, as Edman's screwball theory proposed, he was the embodiment of the raw stuff of consciousness, the scientific analogue of an elemental spirit, it was a waste of time to speculate. He had too much to accomplish, too little time, and - he laughed inwardly - there was that special something he had to do. A mission. Another hallmark of insanity.
Earl turned down the tape deck. 'Where you people headin'?'
Jocundra touched Donnell's arm to draw his attention. 'I've thought of a place,' she said. 'It's not far, and I think we'll be safe. It's on the edge of the swamp, a cabin. Hardly anyone goes there.'
'All right,' said Donnell, catching at her hand. 'I'm sorry. I don't know what happened.'
She nodded, tight-lipped. 'Can you take us as far as Bayou Teche?' she asked Earl. 'We'll pay for the gas.'
'Yeah, I guess so.' Earl's mood had soured. 'Jesus fuckin' Christ,' he said sorrowfully. 'My ol' man's gonna kill my ass.'
Chapter 11
May 21 - May 23, 1987
A tributary of Bayou Teche curled around the cabin, which was set on short pilings amid a palmetto grove, and from the surrounding darkness came a croaking, water gulping against the marshy banks, and the electric sounds of insects. Yellow light sprayed from two half-open shutters, leaked through gaps in the boards, and a single ray shot up out of a tin chimney angled from the roof slope, all so bright it seemed a small golden sun must be imprisoned inside. The tar paper roof was in process of sliding off, and rickety stairs mounted to the door. Jocundra remembered the story Mr Brisbeau had told her, claiming the place had been grown from the seed of a witch's hat planted at midnight.
'This is the guy who kept the moths? The guy who molested you?' Donnell had put on a pair of mirrored sunglasses - a gift from Earl - and the lenses held two perfect reproductions of