Baby Be-Bop Read Online Free PDF Page B

a club in an old ballroom. Dirk drove into the parking lot under a freeway, concrete shaking like an earthquake. Inside there was a long curved bar and columns and balconies and chandeliers but everything looked ready to crumble from age and the freeway vibrations. Dirk watched a boy and girl slamming. The boy threw the girl down on the ground. She was wearing a lot of metal that shocked against the wood of the floor. He started hitting her in the face. Finally some guys broke it up but to Dirk it seemed like it went on forever. There was blood the color of her lipstick on the girl’s face.
    Dirk felt the piece of pizza he had eaten for dinner hot in his throat and ran into the bathroom. When he looked up under the greenish-white chill of the lights, his head felt as if he had slammed it against porcelain.
    After that, Dirk drove along Sunset to the Carney’s hot dog train.
    “Do you have a dollar?” The boy sitting in front of Carney’s looked like Sid Vicious. “I’m Sinbad,” he said.
    He was really skinny so Dirk motioned for him to follow him in. But when they were sitting on the bench outside, Sinbad said he didn’t want the hot dog Dirk had bought.
    “I’m a vampire,” he said.
    “A what?”
    “A vampire.”
    He bared his teeth. He had fangs.
    “They’re bonded on,” he said. “They really work. Want to see?”
    “No,” Dirk said.
    “Don’t you want to exchange blood with me?” He leaned closer on the bench.
    “Get away from me,” said Dirk.
    “You don’t know what might happen,” said Sinbad.
    Two boys walked by, leaning against each other, sharing a frozen yogurt.
    “If you ask me all those fags are going to die out,” said Sinbad.
    As he got in his car, wishing he had brought Kaboodle for a kiss and a wink, Dirk thought of Sinbad’s eyes. They were familiar. Where had he seen them? Then Dirk knew he had seen those eyes in the mirror when he scrutinized his face for blemishes and imperfections, when he imagined that no one would ever love him.
    Fifi was volunteering at a local hospital the next night. Dirk was home listening to his Adolescents album.
    “I hate them all—creatures.”
    The angry voice made Fifi’s collection of plaster Jesus statues shake as if there were an earthquake, or as if they were about to start slamming, Dirk thought. He imagineda pit full of slamming plaster Jesuses. He didn’t like the thought.
    Suddenly Fifi’s music box with the ballerina on top began to play, the ballerina going around and around on one toe. The china cabinet doors flew open and Fifi’s coaster collection spun out like tiny Frisbees. Dirk covered his head to protect himself. The clown paintings on the walls swung back and forth, and Dirk thought he heard them laughing evil clown laughter. Dirk had never liked the clowns. He turned away from their leering mouths and saw the plaster Jesus statues slamming. Dirk stared into the eyes of one of them. The eyes were glowing. The statue fell from the shelf and its head broke off but the eyes kept sizzling like fried eggs. Finally the Adolescents’ song was over and the house was quiet. Dirk heard an owl hooting in a branch outside the window and some cats screaming. He could have screamed like that. He plucked his wet T-shirt away from his sweating body and collapsed on the bed.
    Fear, the band, was playing out in the valley. Dirk armed himself in chains and the leather motorcycle jacket. He rode the 101. The freeway made him think of loss instead of hope, stretching out under a hovering orangish buzz of night air, not seeming to lead anywhere. At night the valley felt deserted. Dirk drove down barren streets under tall streetlamps. The little houses lookedblank, as if they wanted to deny that anything unpleasant happened in or around them, but the way they were nestling under the crackling telephone wires, Dirk knew they were afraid.
    Dirk got to the place where Fear was. Punks were hanging out in the parking lot drinking beers, smoking,