Azalia Dawn felt intoxicated by the sudden smell
of roses that filled the truck cab. She pulled off the road onto a dirt
track, braking to a stop with an impatient lurch. Then she lunged at Milo and kissed him hard. Somehow in that short movement, her blouse had torn open to reveal her full, perfect breasts. She wasn't quite sure how. But she knew her breasts were full and perfect, and she wanted Milo to see them.
Taken aback, Milo confusedly tried to disengage. Azalia Dawn, driven by a higher imperative, kept coming.
“You poor man! I can help you. I
need to help you,” she gasped. “Don't you see? This is meant to happen!”
She threw herself onto him again, and knocked the wine bottle to the truck floor. Beneath the quiet intensity of their commingled heavy breathing - hers of passion, his of panic - the sound of wine glugging into a pool on the floormat seemed unnaturally loud.
“No!” Milo wailed, when he heard it. Then, as he realized how this might go down with Azalia Dawn, he tried a feeble, belated save: “Uh, not you! The booze!”
She, suspended in mid-lunge, felt suddenly self-conscious. Jerkily, she moved back behind the wheel, covered up, straightened
her hair and started the truck. Milo frantically lifted his feet from the floor and perched his knees at the front edge of the bench seat, his butt in the air and his head down low, trying desperately to suck the wine pooled in each dusty waffle of the rubber floor mat. When he finally lifted his head to not quite meet her eyes, his mouth was rimmed with mud.
Azalia Dawn, mortified and increasingly angry at the bizarre form that Milo's rejection had taken, screwed up her face in disgust.
Azalia Dawn, mortified and increasingly angry at the bizarre form that Milo's rejection had taken, screwed up her face in disgust.
“What the hell is wrong with
you?”
She squealed the truck's tires accelerating back out onto the highway. Milo, shamefaced, tried to explain why he needed the wine, but the corners of her mouth tightened down further and further. Finally, she shook her head violently.
“That's the weirdest delusional
bullshit I have ever heard. Shouldn't you be on medication or
something? Do us both a favor and keep your trap shut.”
Feeling badly, Milo wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and offered the bottle
to her. She dismissed him with a glare. Glumly, he settled back into the lumpy seat, sipping slowly, hoping
it would keep the tatters of the inter-dimensional cross-rip in place. At least until he found something else to busy his liver.
The drive carried on in grim silence, except for motor and gear harmonics resonating through the pressed-metal
truck body, and the dry squeak of the leaf springs .
After maybe another fraught hour, they were bumping along what Milo supposed was a poorly
maintained grid road. From that they turned onto a loose dirt track that looked like half a day's rain would turn it into a rodeo.
They passed a 'Beware of cattle' sign, nailed askew to a fencepost. A few yards down, another read, 'Stop War'.
The old Dodge climbed, laboring, for a mile or so, and crested the hill to reveal a picaresque clutch of shanties
and interesting, if wobbly-looking, experimental shelters assembled from scraps, recycled materials, and found objects. There was one more sign
– 'Welcome. God. Love.'
Milo was tense and fidgety. The truck
stopped near several people dressed against the chill of the
afternoon. Azalia Dawn jumped from the truck as if she couldn't get out fast enough. Then her demeanor brightened as half-ran to the group and began hugging them. Milo stayed put on the seat, head
hung, and watched the scene suspiciously through the dusty, pitted and
cracked windshield.
Finally, she half-turned and, without looking at Milo directly gestured back toward the half-ton. At that, a big man with a full beard, wearing a checked jackshirt, broke off, strode casually over
and opened the passenger door. Smiling, he offered a giant mitted paw, holding there until he had willed Milo, reluctantly, to shake it.
“I'm Bill Wheeler,” he boomed, “Welcome to Ahimsa!”
“Milo... Pavlov,” Milo returned
meekly. His hand felt as clammy and limp in Bill's grip as a boneless
raw chicken breast, but he willed himself to ask an urgent question: “Can a guy get a drink or something around here?”
Booze did not seem to be outright banned on the Wheeler commune, but if anyone had any, they weren't fessin' up. Quality grass was apparently run short, too, but Milo managed to cadge a
couple thin joints of D-grade homegrown. It tasted like parsley
when he lit it.
His unease grew through a convivial but thin communal supper of boiled weed-greens, lentils and barley.
His unease grew through a convivial but thin communal supper of boiled weed-greens, lentils and barley.
“Thing about boiled weed-greens
is, they's just as good the second day!” quipped Wheeler, sunnily..
Darkness fell as it does in
the mountains... fast and early. This did not suit
Milo's mood at all. He couldn't get past the feeling that a cosmic door had come ajar sometime during the trip up, some behemoth creature was on the other side, waiting to crowd in to feed
noisily on his chitlins. He sat playing with what was left of a book
of matches, snuffing the candle on the rough-sawn table, snuffing it, then relighting the wick from a short distance above, using the smoke as a conduit for the match
flame. The flame seemed to offer a chance of holding whatever monsters were out there, at bay.
So when something large
dropped onto his shoulder from behind, tarantula-like, he gave a stifled exclamation of alarm. It was only Wheeler's hand.
“Milo, old man, you a pyromaniac or
something?” Bill laughed. “Drop up to the studio a little later.
I've got some sleep gear for you up there.”
“I don't know how long I'll be
staying...” Milo trailed off, subconsciously checking for the
Thermos.
“Well, you're welcome as long as you
want to be here. Right, Azalia Dawn?”
Azalia Dawn worked up a knee-jerk grin and nod without looking at Milo directly, as Bill continued. “And you'll be that much more welcome if you want
to pitch in a little... sure a lot to do, to keep this place
going!”
Everybody within earshot laughed nervously. They knew Bill was really addressing them, too,.
“I'll see you all a little later. Judy had her baby yesterday and we're eating the placenta up at her
shack tonight. With organic onions. Yer all invited, of course...”
Bill's jovial, looming form swung through the kitchen door and out into the falling dusk.
