Burn Down The Night by Craig Kee Strete Read Free Book Online Page B

street!
    Morrison
reappears. A hand comes out of the back seat, taps me on the shoulder. "Got a joint?"
    I turn around and
look back at them. Two inter­twined bodies like a pink worm farm.
    "Go fuck a
biscuit!" I say, opening the glove com­partment. I get a bag and pull out a couple of joints. I
pass them back, keeping two for myself. I light them both. I need it.
    "I just did," says
Morrison, putting a joint in his mouth. "Did somebody mention a party?"
    The car, still
full of smoke, gets fuller.
    Gail, the
fearlessly fat driver of our moving viola­tion, makes a turn off of whatever street we're driving
on and we go up a drive with big mansions. We are among the habitats of the rich and
playful.
    I toke furiously
on my joints. I've got a definite plan. I'm going to pass out and to hell with everybody else.
Gail especially. Let's see the dumb bitch messing with me when I'm in a coma. Maybe I'll even
throw up on her just before I slip into unconsciousness. That'll teach her to maul my family
jewels.
    One mansion at the
top of a hill is lit up like a Satur­day night drunk. Cars parked every which way, on lawns,
driveways, sidewalks and a couple of dented ones sticking out of hedges. One parked on top of a
rock garden, a jazzy-looking Jaguar with the wind­shield smashed, has half of a tree laying
across it.
    Loud noise
masquerading as music blasts out into the late night air, probably sterilizing everybody and
everything in its path. This looks like my kind of party.
    Gail pulls up
somebody's driveway, trys to edge in between a blue Alfa Romeo and a Thunderbird. Catches the
Alfa Romeo on the left front fender, prac­tically tearing it off.
    "Oh, shit," she
says, turning the car off.
    "Nobody'll
notice," says Morrison, lost somewhere in a thick cloud of dope smoke. Everybody's eyes are
stinging. Even the oxygen in the air is stoned.
    Gail puts on the
parking break and turns to gather me up in her arms.
    The thing is, I'm
already ten steps from the car and still moving.
    I look back to see
if Morrison is coming. Car is so full of smoke, I can't see anybody in it.
    Suddenly the
ground rises up and hits me in the face. I am waaaaaasted!
    The door is still
open where I've exited and Morrison stumbles out after me in a cloud of smoke and a hearty "Hi
Ho, Silver."
    The ground rises
up and hits him in the face too. He is waaaaasted!
    I lay there on my
stomach, trying to stand up without using my legs. Not easy.
    Morrison crawls
toward me, near-empty wine bottle in one hand and some of his clothes in the other. He's wearing
nothing but his pants. How he got them back on is one of life's great mysteries.
    I can hear his
chick cursing about something in the car. She's looking for something, probably can't find her
clothes, or one of her legs is missing. Maybe I smoked it, thinking it was a pink
joint.
    "Mluck," says
Morrison, glassy eyed and mentally keelhauled. "Far... out!"
    I'd agree but I
can't get my mouth off the ground.
    Smoke is pouring
out of the car. Where's it all coming from? Looks like we arrived in a forest fire.
    Morrison drags
himself up to me, nudges me with the wine bottle. "Geeet... upppp."
    I roll over on my
side, just so I can get the grass out of my nose. "That's... easy for you to say."
    Somebody must be
standing on my tongue.
    Morrison gets to a
sitting position, reaches down and pulls me up. We lean against each other to keep our­selves
from falling over.
    Morrison looks
around. "Where the... hell are we?" He's so high he's almost glowing in the dark.
    "Shit!" he says,
sort of on general principle.
    "Did you... you...
uh... I forget."
    "What?" asks
Morrison.
    "Did you... you...
uh... I forget."
    "I don't know,"
says Morrison, staring at the wine bottle. "You were there... wasn't you?"
    "Was I? Where was
I where?"
    "I thought one of
us was," says Morrison.
    "Oh," I say. Then
I remember. "Did you ... you have a smooth ride?"
    Morrison nods,
slipping off my