Indian Hill

The road they’ve found leading out into the desert, straining towards Indian Hill, is not much of a road at all. It’s simply a set of parallel grooves, left by the tires of the few cars to have come before. The pickup follows as faithfully as a train on its rails.

The path further degenerates into one long trench. The pickup is swallowed by ridges of dirt and the overgrown chaparral of the Nevada desert. The driver wants to go fast but is cautious of the rocks, tall grasses, and other various flora that sprout up freely between the two tire tracks. Rumor has it that Jeanie is flown to and from her house in a private plane. None of that is of any concern to the driver, the hitchhiker, or now the scrawny black teenager riding between their seats. He eagerly, though unnecessarily, points out the general direction. Or he was; he hasn’t spoken now for many minutes.

The hitchhiker wonders where the Indians of Indian Hill are.

“Kinda risky for a pretty lady like that Jeanie Meriwether to be livin’ out here amidst wil’ Ind’uns, no matter who she’s hired to protect her.” He peers up into the darkness, but the headlights are having trouble reaching over the mounds of earth that rise up on either side.

The pickup starts on an ascent, and there immediately rises what can only be a spaceship, hovering over the ground in an indeterminable amount of distance away. It’s the first sign of civilization. As the pickup winds a gradual turn, the object comes to look more like an enormous glass insect, either devouring, mating with, or climbing atop a lopsided dirt hill. If this is Miss Meriwether’s Las Vegas desert hideaway, it looks like it’s been treated to wrecking ball or else carefully dismantled by a bomb. Shards of glass, three or almost four stories high, stab out in every direction. They’re lit from within, and although the hitchhiker, the driver and the teenage black are still a few miles away, they can see the irregular shadows of people moving within each spire.

It’s not clear if the teenager has ever been out here before, but if he hasn’t, there’s no sign on his face to indicate that he is in any way excited to be so close to crashing a party of millionaires. If anything, the blank stare drawn across his eyes combined with the hard gulp in his throat tells of an inward-focused unease.

“I’ll send one of my guys wi’ya. So don worry bout your precious car. An you,” staring right into the hitchhiker. “It’s up to you who ya wanna to ride with, but we’re goin now.”

With that, Smokey makes his exit and it seems like half the club follows him out. Really, it’s only those in the immediate vicinity, but his departure certainly has an impact on the other patrons. A ripple effect occurs. People become aware that something significant is happening. They strain to check it out and that causes others to take notice and inspect, and so on. In this case, there is an unseen but widely felt drain on the energy in the room. The music retains the same canned and syncopated commotion, but someone could be forgiven if they no longer wanted to be smothered in the no-longer bearable swamp of bodies and breath.

For the few women employed to lend a sexual charge to the place, Smokey’s departure is bitter-sweet. He no doubt weighs heavily in their professional duty, and makes demands that have no other option but to be fulfilled. They also feel the other side, the loss of that intangible spark, when he is gone. Imperceptibly and as one, the girls’ shoulders slump forward and they release the little bit of air they were holding in, so their bellies take on their more rounded, natural form. As far as they are concerned, the night has already ended. It is only a quarter past three.

The hitchhiker looks at the driver. The driver motions back. They and the skinny, black accomplice left with them – only a teenager really- have to make the stealth passage back down the alley. The diminutive gangster makes an effort to take the lead. He strikes a comedic affect in his hurried steps and a suit that hangs off him as it once did the rack it was nicked from. A rhythmic swoosh swoosh swoosh of flopping pant legs is indistinguishable from the labored breath of the teenager. They come back off the walls even louder, counting each step like a flustered metronome.

At the end of the alley, they can see the pickup truck sitting alone, apparently unharmed, less than thirty yards away. There are no lamps around, but everything flits with excited silhouettes. The sheen from the not-too-distant strip –the dance of its marquee lights and the jungle of fluorescent tubes- casts a haunting, not to say gloomy, glow over the unspoiled desert spread out before them. It seems that the city first swallows the land with its light, before pushing out with more casinos.

The three climb into the pickup. It pulls out in a dusty donut, not towards the shrill mayhem of Freemont Street but out into the expansive darkness. The night closes over them and it’s as if they were never there.

“Arright listen up. You go get your car an meet us out front on Free-mon in ten minutes.”

“No goin, Smokes.” The hitchhiker had to cut in, and he had to use that hated universal moniker he lavished on all Negroes. “The whole place is heatin up on us, and the strip is definitely a no-go. We need to go with your guys all the way, or we’ve got no deal.”

“Fine.” Smokey spits out a curt end to all further negotiation and he doesn’t look any happier for it. The hitchhiker knows to avoid crossing Smokey if it can be avoided, but it also often pays off to drive a hard bargain with a man known for being himself immovable. It could earn something of a professional respect, from one asshole to another. Or it can get a person killed; but that would have been the end result anyway if the hitchhiker allowed Smokey and his boys to drag those two out onto Freemont Avenue for all the world to see.

“Give us your keys.” Smokey unceremoniously puts his hand out to the hitchhiker. His level of casualness jars with the actual weight of the situation, as the hitchhiker sees it. Plus he can already see a difficulty with Smokey’s command.

“Uh, he’s drivin’ ac’shly..” The hitchhiker nods to the driver. “…an, well….”

“I ain’t givin ma keys ta no ni…..ta nobody.” The driver is right to be so adamant. Smokey and his boys can get them out of the city just as well with the driver at the wheel. Asking him to hand his pickup over is unnecessary and, frankly, unsettling. Smokey react surprisingly amused.

“Ha ha. Fine.” There’s that word again. This time, it’s lost its hard edge and serves as a veiled concession that perhaps Smokey had gone too far.

“We’re goin to a liddle shindig at Jeanie Meriwether’s place out on Indian Hill, on the outskirts. You boys eva heard a’ her?”

“A’course,” replies the driver, but he knows Smokey doesn’t care if he actually recognizes the name of one of Hollywood’s best-paid actresses. It doesn’t even seem so odd to the driver that a character as disreputable as this Smokey would think nothing of dropping by a young starlet’s soirée, especially with a couple of bums who just rolled in from the desert. After all, he’s Smokey: the foulest part of Vegas’s criminal underbelly. Who’s going to tell him no?

“…Specially h’wen he’s in a place as..”, Smokey coughs and laughs “..cola-ful as this, shall we say. An mos specially h’wen he’s an uninvited, an certainly unwelcomed, guest.” The look Smokey has just showered the driver with should have been enough to strip him to his core. The drive merely brushes the hands off him as soon as they relent, and makes a show of straightening out his shirt, which was a rumpled mess to begin with.

Since Smokey’s had his say, he doesn’t even deem to look at the driver. In his mind, he’s done with him. That’s letting the driver off easy, considering the various punishments Smokey has meted out for infractions less serious than merely “lookin at ‘im funny”. In that sense, the driver is the worst kind of ingrate: not only does he refuse to acknowledge his just being saved from Smokey’s peculiar brand of justice, but he seems to deny that he was in any danger in the first place. The hitchhiker looks the driver up and down. It’s a surprisingly unexpressive look, considering how long it lasts before he turns back to Smokey. The black man appears to be getting ready to bolt.

“So what’s the plan?” He hates to irk Smokey when so much is depending on his arbitrary decisions. Smokey is the kind of guy who likes to hold everything back until it become absolutely necessary to divulge the slightest bit of information: just enough to get the job done.

A flash of irritation interrupts Smokey’s otherwise calculating face. He seems seconds away from spitting, “you know what you impatient cracka? You can see your own way outta Vegas. An keep yo damn money. Cos I’ll make sure whatever sonnofabitch that’s comin’ afta you gives me double once he skins yo skinny white ass soas I can give it to ma bitch to wear as a coat.”

All he says is, “the plan? The plan is to get yo honkey asses outta Vegas. An not have you come back, if we can help it.” Smokey looks around at his boys on this last note. They approximate smirks of agreement, but cannot look up. They had all been watching the driver, even if a single eye wasn’t on him. To his credit, the driver plays it cool enough, though he obviously would like to be out of that menacing club and back on the road, at the wheel of his own pickup.

It has gotten darker in the club. There must be a sole red light above the stage and one somewhere off in the rear. Everybody is dancing, or throbbing in place, and they spill up onto the stage. Some of the girls are interspersed throughout the crowd, playing good hostesses. They don’t wear much more than before, but now their nakedness is covered by the hands and opened jackets of a roomful of men trying to dance with them. Something in the back attracts the hitchhiker’s attention. He sees a few quick movements and the flash of a face. It’s familiar but he’s not sure how he feels about having glimpsed it. He figures he had better go over and help this guy out, he might prove useful in getting him out of Las Vegas. Besides, the hitchhiker needs his bag back; or more importantly, he needs what’s in the bag.

The hitchhiker rushes over to the driver, who is being held against a wall by a gaggle of black hands and arms. One of the men back there is Smokey.

“You know dis cracka-ass punk?” Smokey gets right into it.

The driver is staring at the hitchhiker, and still struggling every now and again to show he won’t be so easily dogged; all-the-while a look tacked across his face says he doesn’t believe the hitchhiker will automatically back him up. After all, how much does he really owe him, or how much do they owe each other? It’s hard to tell when all a two-and-a-half-hour trip has yielded is a spontaneous card game heist and a subsequent near-capture by local thugs. Both men are justified in asking whether it is worth continuing with the other; yet this instance doesn’t appear to be the most opportune juncture to part ways.

“Yeah, he’s wi’me.” The hitchhiker doesn’t break his stare with the driver.

“Then tell yo boy to mind wey he goin’ an’ h’wat he says…” Smokey uses this last word as a chance to chastise the driver. He turns to him while his fist pulls a handful of the driver’s shirt. The driver merely tightens his lips as if he’s gathering up a huge spitball to let fly Smokey’s way. If he does, then he’s worn out the graciousness of the hitchhiker –now acting as his grand protector- and deserves whatever he gets. Lucky for them both, he doesn’t. Smokey continues his pontification on ‘honky’ manners.

She was ready to die, but that shouldn’t allow any speculation as to whether she thinks the hitchhiker was justified in what he did, or that she felt guilty for spurning him forever. The willingness to bow courteously before fate is not the same as self-condemnation.

The hitchhiker was reminding himself of why he had traveled the one hundred and sixty miles, straight from San Quentin, when the gun went off. He was so shaken that he had forgot to leave the note he had hastily written the night before. It wasn’t meant for her husband, whose name he never learned, and even less for the authorities, who should be taking up the case right about now. It was for her, and included everything he had wanted to say during those three years behind bars: mostly hate-filled jibes and admonition.

Now, standing, dripping wet, in the middle of some illicit club’s dressing room, it’s a shame to think he put in all that effort, and risked the rest of his life behind bars, just to have the local authorities think it was all the lethal outcome a domestic dispute. However, if that’s enough to earn his escape, then he’d be willing to accept that everything happened for a reason.

A gurgling noise of the dying brings the hitchhiker back to the room. He turns to the junkie, sprawled in his chair and stained with….well anyway, covered in stains.

“Hey buddy, you wanna hear som’in crazy?” The man sniffs and mumbles something incomprehensible, just as his eyelids close.

“Nah, forget it. It’d be over yer head en’way.”

The hitchhiker decides he’s had enough backstage horseplay and is ready to hit the road once again. He just has to find his guy, Smokes –“remember, be cool bout th’whole Smokes thing to his face”- and get out of there.

The hitchhiker follows the long hall that had originally led him to the dressing room. He takes it back out into the main room, just to the left of the stage. The club is more crowded than he remembers it being -what?- forty-five minutes ago. Before, most of the black heads were content to gather around the perimeter, either throwing off a hostile stare or cracking up completely over something said, or nothing at all. Now, the ring of unfriendly eyes has become a monsoon of heads, seemingly without faces.

The hitchhiker never got a chance to question whether he would have killed a Paula who had already lost her once-intense passion for living. As the doubt was dawning, she had turned around to face her attacker and the hitchhiker found himself caught in the moment he had fantasized about for so long.

Her look was one of startled relief. The hitchhiker was surprised himself: had she been waiting for this -his release from prison, him hunting her down, and the eventual settling of scores- all along? Her face gave away the vague suggestion that in loosing her life, she thought of herself as finally free.

Free? That was the last thing the hitchhiker was expecting. During those sleepless nights, first at Berta Breck, and then at San Quentin, the hitchhiker imagined every reaction: horror, surprise, pleading; and his cool reaction to each. That’s why he was thoroughly thrown by the way she met his gleaming .38 (how sickeningly bright that moon was) with an unnerving mix of expectation and disbelief. It was as if she had been waiting so long for her end –this ending- that she was startled only by how suddenly it arrived. It was only five years –the hitchhiker had been released early for good behavior- but that is long enough when she knew that someone, in a prison cell somewhere, was plotting her death every day of each year. That’s why when it finally came, it was Paula, not the hitchhiker, who felt relieved.

The hitchhiker was so shocked to see her expectant expression, he pulled the trigger without thinking. It’s not that he wouldn’t have done it otherwise. He just never imagined that he would be the one to be surprised. That, in itself, was jarring enough to give him pause. The gun lowered, unwittingly, from the spot it was aiming at in the middle of her forehead. If Paula had wanted, she could have seized that brief moment to rush the hitchhiker. He would have overpowered her in the end, but it was a last chance for her to put up a fight. She didn’t. She gazed to the ground and lowered her head.

“Want some?” The hitchhiker inquires, pointing a meat-stripped bone at the man in the chair, who is practically no more than a shell of a body.

He slumps to the side so his pork pie hat falls off, exposing close-cropped hair in a receding pattern. His eyes regain focus for a moment, though he can look only vaguely in the direction of the hitchhiker. He answers by slightly amplifying his gurgle. A froth of tiny white bubbles crests over his bottom lip before falling in a gooey string to his shirt.

“Ok, more for me then.” The hitchhiker takes a finger of the whipped potato/collard green concoction at the side of the plate. Whatever it is, it tastes of pure pig lard. As hungry as the hitchhiker is –and the buttery smell of food only intensifies this hunger- he can’t stomach another mouthful of the tepid slime of chicken fat. There are plenty of beer bottles around and he takes a swig from an almost-full one. The room temperature suds do an adequate job of chasing the heavy slime of animal fat out of his mouth and into his stomach. He finishes the bottle with no problem and reaches for another.

There’s a piece of soggy corn remaining on the plate. He takes a bite. It’s pure mush, cold mush, and requires a full swig of beer to get down.

“Jees-is! Even these veg’bles taste like lard. How’re these niggers s’posed to eat this shit, day in n’ day out.”

The hitchhiker says as much with a disgusted look. He could have said it out loud if he wanted. The only other person in the room is miles away, from the looks of him. All the girls are out front for a final number. Even if they were here, he would have no problem saying it.

“These people have th’worst food ‘maginable. They should be told as much.”

The hitchhiker changes back into his clothes without properly drying off. This causes the fabric to stick to his skin, and the dirt streaks down the armpits, neck and chest of his shirt turn to a muddy brown. He thinks of how messy he had gotten this morning. Luckily, none of Paula’s blood got on him, but there was the mud from lying in wait behind a bush. It was getting so late, he started to worry she may never come home; or worse yet, that he had been given the wrong address. Then, just before one a.m., a weary figure appeared and stumbled towards the bungalow. The hitchhiker thought, that couldn’t be Paula. She looked so much gaunter and…he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The way she slouched as she reached for the handrail leading up the front steps and stuck out one timid foot: she had somewhere along the way lost her pride, the zeal that made a fiery teenager turn against her parents, especially her overbearing father, and go with a criminal in the first place.