"Somethin' wrong?"
"Do me a favor, stay till I get there, all right?"
"But Isaiah and the band were coming by to pick me up, we're goin' camping, remember? Sheez, all that shit you smoke, your brain must be like a Etch-A-Sketch."
"Uh huh, don't get alarmed, but we are facing a situation where a quick mouth, even a leading example such as your own, won't be nearly as much use today as a little cooperation. Please."
"Sure this ain't pothead paranoia?"
"Nope and now I think of it could you ask the young gentlemen when they git there to stick around too?"
"Just 'cause they look evil, Dad, doesn't mean they're any good for muscle, if that's what you're thinkin'."
Feeling unprotected on all flanks, Zoyd went speeding in, running lights and ignoring stop signs, to Vineland, where he just made it to the door of the bank at closing time. An entry-level functionary in a suit who was refusing admission to other latecomers saw Zoyd and, for the first time in history, nervously began to unlock the door for him, while inside colleagues at desks could be seen making long arms for the telephone. No, it wasn't pothead paranoia — but neither was Zoyd about to step inside this bank. A security guard sauntered over, unsnapping his hip holster. OK. Zoyd split with a that's-all-folks wave, having luckily parked Trent's rig just around the corner.
Prairie wouldn't be off work for a couple of hours. Zoyd needed cash and also some advice about a quick change of appearance, and both were available from the landscape contractor Zoyd did some lawn and tree work for, Millard Hobbs, a former actor who'd begun as a company logo and ended up as majority owner of what'd been a modest enough lawn-care service its founder, a reader of forbidden books, had named The Marquis de Sod. Originally Millard had only been hired to be in a couple of locally produced late-night TV commercials in which, holding a giant bullwhip, he appeared in knee socks, buckle shoes, cutoff trousers, blouse, and platinum wig, all borrowed from his wife, Blodwen. "Crabgrass won't be'ave?" he inquired in a species of French accent. "Haw, haw! No problem! Zhust call — The Marquis de Sod. …… . 'E'll wheep your lawn into shepp!" Pretty soon the business was booming, expanding into pool and tree service, and so much profit rolling in that Millard one time thought to take a few points instead of the fee up front. People out in the non-Tubal world began mistaking him for the real owner, by then usually off on vacation someplace, and Millard, being an actor, started believing them. Little by little he kept buying in and learning the Business, as well as elaborating the scripts of his commercials from those old split 30's during the vampire shift to what were now often five-minute prime-time micromovies, with music and special effects increasingly subbed out to artisans as far away as Marin, in which the Marquis, his wardrobe now upgraded into an authentic eighteenth-century costume, might carry on a dialogue with some substandard lawn while lashing away at it with his bullwhip, each grass blade in extreme close-up being seen to have a face and little mouth, out of which, in thousandfold-echoplexed chorus, would come piping, "More, more! We love eet!" The Marquis, leaning down playfully, "Ah cahn't 'ear you!" Presently the grass would start to sing the company jingle, to a, by then, postdisco arrangement of the Marseillaise —
A lawn savant, who'll lop a tree-ee-uh, Nobody beats Mar-Quis de Sod!
Millard was known for spreading work around generously, and for paying in cash and off the books too. Half the equipment lot today was filled by a flatbed rig from someplace down in the Mojave, whose load was a single giant rock, charred, pitted, streaked with metallic glazes. "wealthy customer," explained the Marquis, "wants it to look like a meteorite just missed his house."
Zoyd eyed it gloomily. "Askin' for trouble, those folks. Messin' with Fate."
They went on back to the office. Blodwen, hair full of pens and pencils, peeping away at the computer, glared at Zoyd. "Elvissa just called in looking for you, your rig's been impounded." Ah shit, here it was. Elvissa had been in the Vineland Safeway and when she came back out to the lot had found more law enforcement than she'd seen since her old marching days, surrounding the pickup she'd borrowed that morning from Zoyd as if expecting it to pull a weapon on them. Elvissa tried to find out what was going on, but had no luck.
"Listen, Millard, m'man, think I may need a disguise, and soon — can I trouble you for a professional tip or two?"
"What'd you do, Zoyd?" Blodwen wanted to know.
"Innocent till proven guilty, whatever happened to that?"
"All's I'd like to know is will they be after your money," a familiar question around here, the subcontractor accounts collectively having more attachments on them than a vacuum cleaner, "More liens," Zoyd had once suggested, "than the Tower of Pisa," to which Blodwen had answered, "More garnishes than a California burger — spouses, ex-spouses, welfare, the bank, the Lost Nugget, haberdasheries in faraway zip codes, it's what you all get for leading these irregular lives."
"Looks like it's what you get," Zoyd had remarked.
"Is why most of you ringdings keep gettin' paid off the books," she'd advised, making a face Zoyd remembered from teachers in elementary school. She wasn't a bad person, though Zoyd theorized that she'd've been happier if they'd gone to Hollywood. Millard and Blodwen had met in a San Francisco theater group, she doing pretty-girl walk-ons and he thinking about specializing in Brecht — one night in the Haight somebody had some acid, and after careening for a while through the sixties, they alit from their anarcho-psychedelic spin twenty miles up a mud obstacle course referred to as a road only by those who'd never been near it, deep in the Vineland redwoods in a cabin by a stream from whose bed they could hear gold-bearing cobblestones knocking together at night. When the Business took off they'd rented a house in town, but had held on to the place in the mountains, where they'd first come back to Earth.
"Little busy just this second," Millard handing Zoyd an envelope with a sum of greenbacks within, "later would be better — say Hon, what's the Eight O'Clock Movie?"
"Um, oh, it's Pat Sajak in The Frank Gorshin Story."
"Say about ten, ten-thirty?"
"Yikes, got to call Trent, he needs his rig."
Trent, a sensitive poet-artist from the City, had moved up north here for his nerves, which at the moment were not at their most tranquil. "Armed personnel carriers," Trent trying to scream and keep his voice down at the same time, "persons in full battle gear stomping through vegetable patches, somebody said they shot Stokely's dog, I'm in here with a thirty-aught-six I don't even know how to load, Zoyd, what's gooeen ahn?"
"Wait, easy pardner, now it sounds like CAMP," meaning the infamous federal-state Campaign Against Marijuana Production, "but it ain't quite the season yet."
"It's you, fucker," Trent blubbering now, "they're usin' your place for a headquarters, everything's thrown out in the yard, they sure must've found your stash by now. . . ."
"Do they know what I'm driving?"
"Not from me."
"Thanks Trent. Don't know when —"
"Don't say it," Trent warned, sniffling, "see you whenever," and hung up.
Zoyd thought his best bet might be to find an RV park someplace and try to blend in. He reserved a space a few miles out of town up Seventh River under a fake name, praying nobody was listening in on this phone. Then, gingerly, proceeded in the cedar-shake eyesore to Bodhi Dharma Pizza, which he could hear tonight before he saw it. All the occupants of the place were chanting, something that, with vibes of trouble to come, he recognized — not the words, which were in Tibetan, but the tune, with its bone-stirring bass, to a powerful and secret spell against invaders and oppressors, heard in particular a bit later in the year at harvest time, when CAMP helicopters gathered in the sky and North California, like other U.S. pot-growing areas, once again rejoined, operationally speaking, the third world.
As Zoyd was about to pull into the lot, the first thing he saw through the front window was Hector standing tensely up on a table, completely surrounded by chanting pizza customers and staff. Zoyd kept driving, found a public phone, and called Doc Deeply at the Vineland Palace. "I don't know how dangerous he is or how long I can stall him, so try to make it soon, OK?"
"Do me a favor, stay till I get there, all right?"
"But Isaiah and the band were coming by to pick me up, we're goin' camping, remember? Sheez, all that shit you smoke, your brain must be like a Etch-A-Sketch."
"Uh huh, don't get alarmed, but we are facing a situation where a quick mouth, even a leading example such as your own, won't be nearly as much use today as a little cooperation. Please."
"Sure this ain't pothead paranoia?"
"Nope and now I think of it could you ask the young gentlemen when they git there to stick around too?"
"Just 'cause they look evil, Dad, doesn't mean they're any good for muscle, if that's what you're thinkin'."
Feeling unprotected on all flanks, Zoyd went speeding in, running lights and ignoring stop signs, to Vineland, where he just made it to the door of the bank at closing time. An entry-level functionary in a suit who was refusing admission to other latecomers saw Zoyd and, for the first time in history, nervously began to unlock the door for him, while inside colleagues at desks could be seen making long arms for the telephone. No, it wasn't pothead paranoia — but neither was Zoyd about to step inside this bank. A security guard sauntered over, unsnapping his hip holster. OK. Zoyd split with a that's-all-folks wave, having luckily parked Trent's rig just around the corner.
Prairie wouldn't be off work for a couple of hours. Zoyd needed cash and also some advice about a quick change of appearance, and both were available from the landscape contractor Zoyd did some lawn and tree work for, Millard Hobbs, a former actor who'd begun as a company logo and ended up as majority owner of what'd been a modest enough lawn-care service its founder, a reader of forbidden books, had named The Marquis de Sod. Originally Millard had only been hired to be in a couple of locally produced late-night TV commercials in which, holding a giant bullwhip, he appeared in knee socks, buckle shoes, cutoff trousers, blouse, and platinum wig, all borrowed from his wife, Blodwen. "Crabgrass won't be'ave?" he inquired in a species of French accent. "Haw, haw! No problem! Zhust call — The Marquis de Sod. …… . 'E'll wheep your lawn into shepp!" Pretty soon the business was booming, expanding into pool and tree service, and so much profit rolling in that Millard one time thought to take a few points instead of the fee up front. People out in the non-Tubal world began mistaking him for the real owner, by then usually off on vacation someplace, and Millard, being an actor, started believing them. Little by little he kept buying in and learning the Business, as well as elaborating the scripts of his commercials from those old split 30's during the vampire shift to what were now often five-minute prime-time micromovies, with music and special effects increasingly subbed out to artisans as far away as Marin, in which the Marquis, his wardrobe now upgraded into an authentic eighteenth-century costume, might carry on a dialogue with some substandard lawn while lashing away at it with his bullwhip, each grass blade in extreme close-up being seen to have a face and little mouth, out of which, in thousandfold-echoplexed chorus, would come piping, "More, more! We love eet!" The Marquis, leaning down playfully, "Ah cahn't 'ear you!" Presently the grass would start to sing the company jingle, to a, by then, postdisco arrangement of the Marseillaise —
A lawn savant, who'll lop a tree-ee-uh, Nobody beats Mar-Quis de Sod!
Millard was known for spreading work around generously, and for paying in cash and off the books too. Half the equipment lot today was filled by a flatbed rig from someplace down in the Mojave, whose load was a single giant rock, charred, pitted, streaked with metallic glazes. "wealthy customer," explained the Marquis, "wants it to look like a meteorite just missed his house."
Zoyd eyed it gloomily. "Askin' for trouble, those folks. Messin' with Fate."
They went on back to the office. Blodwen, hair full of pens and pencils, peeping away at the computer, glared at Zoyd. "Elvissa just called in looking for you, your rig's been impounded." Ah shit, here it was. Elvissa had been in the Vineland Safeway and when she came back out to the lot had found more law enforcement than she'd seen since her old marching days, surrounding the pickup she'd borrowed that morning from Zoyd as if expecting it to pull a weapon on them. Elvissa tried to find out what was going on, but had no luck.
"Listen, Millard, m'man, think I may need a disguise, and soon — can I trouble you for a professional tip or two?"
"What'd you do, Zoyd?" Blodwen wanted to know.
"Innocent till proven guilty, whatever happened to that?"
"All's I'd like to know is will they be after your money," a familiar question around here, the subcontractor accounts collectively having more attachments on them than a vacuum cleaner, "More liens," Zoyd had once suggested, "than the Tower of Pisa," to which Blodwen had answered, "More garnishes than a California burger — spouses, ex-spouses, welfare, the bank, the Lost Nugget, haberdasheries in faraway zip codes, it's what you all get for leading these irregular lives."
"Looks like it's what you get," Zoyd had remarked.
"Is why most of you ringdings keep gettin' paid off the books," she'd advised, making a face Zoyd remembered from teachers in elementary school. She wasn't a bad person, though Zoyd theorized that she'd've been happier if they'd gone to Hollywood. Millard and Blodwen had met in a San Francisco theater group, she doing pretty-girl walk-ons and he thinking about specializing in Brecht — one night in the Haight somebody had some acid, and after careening for a while through the sixties, they alit from their anarcho-psychedelic spin twenty miles up a mud obstacle course referred to as a road only by those who'd never been near it, deep in the Vineland redwoods in a cabin by a stream from whose bed they could hear gold-bearing cobblestones knocking together at night. When the Business took off they'd rented a house in town, but had held on to the place in the mountains, where they'd first come back to Earth.
"Little busy just this second," Millard handing Zoyd an envelope with a sum of greenbacks within, "later would be better — say Hon, what's the Eight O'Clock Movie?"
"Um, oh, it's Pat Sajak in The Frank Gorshin Story."
"Say about ten, ten-thirty?"
"Yikes, got to call Trent, he needs his rig."
Trent, a sensitive poet-artist from the City, had moved up north here for his nerves, which at the moment were not at their most tranquil. "Armed personnel carriers," Trent trying to scream and keep his voice down at the same time, "persons in full battle gear stomping through vegetable patches, somebody said they shot Stokely's dog, I'm in here with a thirty-aught-six I don't even know how to load, Zoyd, what's gooeen ahn?"
"Wait, easy pardner, now it sounds like CAMP," meaning the infamous federal-state Campaign Against Marijuana Production, "but it ain't quite the season yet."
"It's you, fucker," Trent blubbering now, "they're usin' your place for a headquarters, everything's thrown out in the yard, they sure must've found your stash by now. . . ."
"Do they know what I'm driving?"
"Not from me."
"Thanks Trent. Don't know when —"
"Don't say it," Trent warned, sniffling, "see you whenever," and hung up.
Zoyd thought his best bet might be to find an RV park someplace and try to blend in. He reserved a space a few miles out of town up Seventh River under a fake name, praying nobody was listening in on this phone. Then, gingerly, proceeded in the cedar-shake eyesore to Bodhi Dharma Pizza, which he could hear tonight before he saw it. All the occupants of the place were chanting, something that, with vibes of trouble to come, he recognized — not the words, which were in Tibetan, but the tune, with its bone-stirring bass, to a powerful and secret spell against invaders and oppressors, heard in particular a bit later in the year at harvest time, when CAMP helicopters gathered in the sky and North California, like other U.S. pot-growing areas, once again rejoined, operationally speaking, the third world.
As Zoyd was about to pull into the lot, the first thing he saw through the front window was Hector standing tensely up on a table, completely surrounded by chanting pizza customers and staff. Zoyd kept driving, found a public phone, and called Doc Deeply at the Vineland Palace. "I don't know how dangerous he is or how long I can stall him, so try to make it soon, OK?"