Chapter Twenty-four
We drove through small towns and villages of which most seemed to have more billboard signs than inhabitants, past abandoned gas stations and motels letting out their last gasp, through crossings where the wind played silent chords with the solitary phone poles’ cables. Though it was still hot in the bus, you could tell from the vegetation that we had definitely left the desert. I wouldn’t say that the earth had turned green, but compared to what we’d seen lately this was close to paradise. Some hills were even covered with vegetation. The air felt kind of fresh.
Louis’ outline against the blue sky upfront, like a brick wall fending off possible opponents.
Suddenly he grabbed the microphone and said: “Could I have everyone’s attention please. It won’t take long, but there’s something you need to know.”
Lucy, who was sitting with Mark in the row behind us, grabbed my shoulder.
“What’s he up to?”
“Don’t worry sister,” I said. “It can’t be that bad - otherwise he wouldn’t be telling us while driving.”
Louis continued: “I just wanted you to know that I’m with you all the way. I quit my job in Midville the morning I picked up Mark.”
The whole bus cheered.
“Work was so low that I decided I’d need a change.”
“You’ll find a job in L.A. Louis, I’m sure you will,” Lucy yelled.
Then she pinched me again: “Hey Damon, what do you think. Should we pay him for the ride. We don’t have much but if we all put a bit aside ….”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Lucy,” I said. “Louis ain’t no baby. He’d have thought things over before cutting the rope. He wouldn’t accept it anyway. Much too proud for that. I guess he took his savings from the bank or something. Don’t worry, he’ll manage.”
“So I take your howling as a yes, right?” Louis asked. “It’s okay that I stay, Miss Lucy?” He turned and smiled.
Lucy jumped off her seat and ran upfront. She jumped up and clung to him like a koala baby, put her head on his shoulder and stayed glued to his huge mass for a long while.
The mountains kept getting closer. Nothing but mountains in the distance, as far as the eye could see. Incredible. Louis said we would probably reach Sedona before nightfall.
“We’ll spend the night at Maxim’s, an old friend of mine. He picked one of the prettiest hills to build his house. It’s also part hotel, part restaurant. He once was a great cook in France.”
“Food!” Spooky threw in.
“I wouldn’t want others to live in my house,” Lucy said.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I would feel the same,” Louis said. “But with Maxim it’s different. He likes people, what do I say, he loves them. Even when they stay at his place for days. He has this French way of being nice to all while still managing to keep to himself.”
It didn’t sound like any more freaks. I felt relief. We definitely had enough of those.
“Maxim and I go way back,” Louis said. “Together we’ve gone through burning hell and we became friends for life. He also loves music. I try to visit him once a year during the local jazz festival. We go to concerts and stuff, have a great time together, it’s wonderful. Apart from that, the Sedona area is well known for its eso-tourism. Maxim normally has a few of those marshmallow brains sleeping over. But, don’t worry, they’re usually quite harmless.”
I sure hoped so.
We kept south of the mountains but we watched their peaks in the distance. They stood out from the afternoon dusk like huge creatures trying their best to watch over the stupid humans so busy destroying their planet.
Louis put on some Robert Cray. His music makes me feel warm. Even if he sings about cheating on his girlfriend or being hunted by the taxman, I cannot help but feel good.
The others in school only listened to the screaming chart topping plastic on MTV. A nice face, a tight body, add a few dance steps, some hot lyrics and a simple melody; here we go again, the next star is born. With her looks probably even Nudjia would have had a chance. Someone would push a few buttons and oops her Tweety bird voice would sound like Cher in overdrive. Then you’ll only have to clone Louis twice to get the necessary backing vocals. It simply wasn’t for me.
But I didn’t mind. I had Louis’ stuff to make me feel good. He introduced me to all kinds of rythm and blues, even jazz. So many afternoons I’d spend sitting next to him upfront or simply during his break. When he didn’t have any passengers to drive around, he would sometimes pick me up at home and we would drive to a nice quiet place by the river where he would park the bus in the shadow of a tree. If it had enough water, we’d go skinny dipping to freshen up, while Sam Cooke was singing from the bus.
But he really loved Terry E. the best. Louis is originally from some little place near Memphis. He knew Terry from one night in Vicksburg, Mississippi. At the time Louis was a truck driver and while doing a stopover there,waiting for his truck to be loaded, he checked-in to some motel. When he asked the doorman for a place to go to end his boredom, the man laughed because the town was packed with nightclubs. Willie Dixon was born there.
The guy had so many different joints to propose that Louis decided to check things out for himself. Somehow he got stuck at a place called ‘The Blue Room Skyline’, in those days Vicksburg’s leading nightclub. That night Terry and some friends did an acapella opening for the local favorites, the ‘Red Tops’. Louis was so impressed by Terry’s voice, that the next day as Terry and his friends wanted to travel to LA, Louis offered to take them there for free on one condition: that they’d entertain him with their songs for the ride. So they did. They lost contact shortly after, but met again a few years later when Terry played with Ry Cooder. Louis’ bus was filled with his tapes.
That’s how I got introduced to r&b. My parents just listened to all kinds of Italian crap, as if from another planet. I guess now you understand that nobody could impress me with being the first to have watched Britney’s new video. I never even finished any of the bitch’s clips. To me her so called music and that of the other copycats is a complete fake and the babe a slim mortadella in string bikini. I prefer people who maybe can do fewer dance steps but are able to write decent songs and play real instruments.
So there we were, listening to Robert Cray’s blues while the sun went down and the lonely hills slid by.
Spooky rocked his bottom to my ears – from the bumps in the road, not the music. On my other side Nudjia leaned her head on my shoulder. I felt good.
Everytime I looked at Spooky, he instantly turned away as if observing the others.
“Don’t be a nerd. You know we’re friends. Can’t we have different opinions on things!?”
“But you don’t have the right to tell me to shut up!”
“You just go ahead and talk as much as you want, just stop the dirty stuff about Nudjia and me.”
“All right, how about Lucy and Mark?”
I chuckled. He was so funny. He even managed to take my mind off of all the supernatural shit we had going on.
Do animals have a sense of humor and if, can they smile? I don’t mean the dolphin grin – that’s just the way they look. They even smile while performing in Seaworld. I’m talking about those smiles from the heart, because they’re happy. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if humans and animals could grow back to real communication? For that to succeed, it would be up to us to approach them, not the other way around. Trying to understand their way of thinking without putting them in cages or drilling holes into their heads …. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, living among each other as equals? Studying whale ‘songs’ is a step in the right direction, I think. At least it’s a way for people to get involved. But enough of the wise talk for now. I don’t want to get too philosophical.
It had grown dark outside and Lucy passed around blankets against the cold. I liked driving in the dark. All was quiet except for the sound of the rumbling engine and the wind. The road went uphill. It kept getting narrower until finally it changed into a single lane. We were lucky there were no cars coming the other way. One of us would have had to pull back to let the other one through. Although I was eager to know more about Louis’ friend, I didn’t dare interrupt. He had to pay full attention to the road. I’d get to meet Maxim soon enough, so I cuddled up against Nudjia to take a nap.