Burn Down The Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

stuff always mellows me out, if I don't pass out first."
    "Too simple. It
lacks class," says Morrison.
    "What?"
    "Store-bought
matches. They are without soul."
    "Oh. "
    Morrison sticks
his head out the window and waves at a foxy girl coming out of a bar. "Give my rhino head!" he
shouts. At least that's what it sounds like.
    "Like I said,
stores are too simple. Stores and the products therein. Civilized fire is the worst kind. Like in
the invention of porcelain. That's really corrup­tion."
    I look at
Morrison. "Is that supposed to make sense?"
    "No," he
admits.
    "Good. I'm glad to
hear it. For a second there, I thought I might be wrecked on some dangerous
chemi­cal."
    The girl he yelled
at gives him an up-yours gesture, turns her back on him and walks away. If she yells back, I
don't hear it. She's strutting off doing that phony L.A. model/waitress swivel. Like she's got a
tuning fork up her ass and she doesn't want the insides of her legs to touch for fear she'll
strike the wrong note.
    "What was that all
about?"
    "Cecil B. De
Mille," he says. "Without tights."
    That makes perfect
sense to me. His mind is fried.
    "I'm sorry you
didn't get off" I tell him. I try stop­ping for a stoplight. Perfect smooth stop. Unfortunate­ly
I'm still fifty yards from the stoplight. I'm in no shape to pass any driver's license
tests.
    "Didn't get off?
Are you out of your frigging mind? As Black Lazarus said, I am getting off like a mother­fucker!
What was that shit really? I'm getting rushes that feel like they're gonna break my
bones!"
    The light changes
as I inch up on it, gears grinding as I miss a couple of shifts and finally stall the car out. I
look over at Morrison. His eyes are chasing each other. He looks like a truck is parked on his
mind. "That stuff is baby laxative," I tell him. "Absolutely pure and guaranteed to be undiluted.
You'll know when you get ripped 'cause you'll pass out with a diaper on your nose."
    "Far
out."
    I restart the car,
noticing a street sign. We are cruis­ing Van Nuys Boulevard. That means we are lost in the swamp
of North Hollywood. How we got there, I have no way of knowing. Me, I thought we were in Santa
Monica or Pennsylvania, or someplace like that.
    "How we gonna
smoke without matches? I got to figure this out," says Morrison, the joint still dangling from
one corner of his mouth.
    I am up to the
intersection by now and it turns red. I stop for it. Right in the middle of the intersection.
Je­sus! I don't seem to be doing so hot.
    A couple of cars
honk at us, perhaps in recognition of my superior driving skills.
    Morrison looks out
the window at the cars whipping toward us on both sides. He just shrugs, grabs up a bot­tle of
wine, pops the cork and takes a big hit off of it. He seems bored by the whole
business.
    And me? Me, I am
not bored. I am about to piss my­self with fright. Scared shitless is what I am.
    I race the
restarted motor, let the clutch out, peel rubber and stall the car again, still in the frigging
inter­section. A red Mustang puts on its brakes and skids toward us.
    At the speed of
light and some left over, I get the car going again, forgetting it is still in gear, and the car
lurches forward, just enough to be missed by the red Mustang as it skids sideways past
us.
    "Pretty neat!
Pretty neat!" says Morrison, drinking some more wine. "I'm glad this is all a dream or I'd be
shooting shit all over my back pew." He held up the joint. "What we need to do is discover the
secret of fire."
    He's beginning to
sound like a scratched record.
    I'm busy. Stalling
the car again. I don't know how I do it but I do it. At least, we are almost out of the
inter­section. That counts for something.
    I restart the
frigging car, shift, tell myself not to panic.
    Morrison is
reading the wine bottle. Totally uncon­cerned. Love to wrap his head around the goddamn steering
wheel column.
    I slam the car
into gear, but carefully, ease up on the