Drop City

straight at him.
    She didn't know how long it went on, but there was never any doubt as to the outcome. It took Alfredo, Jiminy and Mendocino Bill combined to pull Marco off Sky Dog, who went down in the first rush and never got up again. Standing there in the dirt with a cored-out shaft of sunlight hammering at her head, she could hear the impact of each blow, relentless, bone on flesh, bone on bone, and it was almost as if Marco was giving him a massage too, very thorough, very diligent, with special attention to the head and throat. But this was no massage, this was murder. Or the closest thing to it. There was blood where there wasn't supposed to be blood, on the dried-out floorboards, on the bleached walls, imbued in the fabric of Sky Dog's denim vest and smeared like finger paint across the cavity of his breastbone. Her own blood was racing. She hated this, hated it, but she couldn't take her eyes away and she never once called out for help.
    But that was then, and then didn't count for much.
    Now was what counted, and she flashed open her eyes on the nodding trees, the festival of the river, a pair of kingfishers swooping low. It was just a day, a kind of garment you could crawl inside of and use for your own purposes, and it was brightening now, brightening till all the colors stood out in relief against the shadows gathered along the far bank. Numbers, she told herself, numbers, not stories. Two birds, one river, three hundred and sixteen trees, seven thousand wildflowers, one earth, one sky: there was nothing to be afraid of here, nothing to get hung about. _Strawberry fields forever.__ She pushed herself up and started back.

Drop City
    12
    Norm had a pocket watch that had been in the family for three generations, a tarnished silver disc on a tarnished silver chain he kept tucked away in the front flap of his overalls. By Marco's count, he must have consulted it at least once every thirty seconds since they left the ranch, his free hand draped casually over the wheel, the radio giving back static and the van skating through the curves on River Road as if the usual forces in operation--gravity, velocity, wind resistance--had been suspended in honor of the day. “What I want,” he was shouting, “is to coordinate this so we're in tune with everybody else, I mean, right on the stroke--and don't call me crazy because it's a karmic thing, is all. And for the rush. I mean, what's the sense of tripping if you're not having a blast? Am I right?”
    He didn't need Marco to tell him he was, but Marco told him anyway.
    “All right. So ten o'clock is what we're shooting for, one cup of OJ for me, one for you, then we pick up the stuff for the feast--cream soda, that's what I'm into, man, I really _crave__ cream soda, especially when I'm tripping--and then we're back like by eleven-thirty, twelve, you know, and let the party commence, longest day, man, longest day. Whew! Can you believe it?”
    They'd just pulled into the parking lot at the supermarket, life beating around them, kids on bikes, old men crawling out of pickup trucks like squashed bugs, planes overhead, dogs scratching, mothers pushing shopping carts as if they were going off to war, when Norm's watch gave out. It froze at five of ten, the hands immobilized as if they'd been soldered in place. “I can't believe it,” he muttered, tapping at the crystal. He put the watch to his ear, tapped it again. “I just wound it this morning.”
    “Well, there you go,” Marco told him, “too much attention to detail. Go with the flow.”
    Norm looked puzzled. He squinted at Marco out of the depths of his walled-in eyes as if he couldn't quite place him. He murmured something unintelligible, some sort of prayer or chant, and then, out of nowhere, he said, “You know, not that it's any of my business, but just out of curiosity--you've been getting it on with Star, haven't you?”
    The question took Marco by surprise--_Star? Who was talking about Star?__--and right away, it filled him with suspicion. He looked at Norm, at the feverish brown eyes dodging behind the distorting lenses, and wondered, What does he care? Was he even paying attention? And if he was, what was he really asking? As chief guru and presiding genius of the ranch, he recycled women pretty efficiently--at one time or another practically all the Drop City chicks had slept with him. Lydia had gone around for a week talking about his lingam and what a perfect fit it was, Verbie called him