Drop City

inexorably drawing her up into the air, and all she could think of was one of those arcade machines where you try to extract a prize from a heap of trinkets. She was the prize, the gold ring that was really brass, and the jaws had hold of her, squeezing and pinching, and what she needed was a Darvon, or better yet, a Seconal, something to kill the pain. She'd ask Ronnie once the meeting broke up--he was usually good for something, and he always had his own little stash hidden away somewhere. She stared at her folded hands and tried to concentrate on looking normal. Or human. Just that.
    Alfredo was rattling on--“Brothers, sisters, _people,__ we're all in this together, and now, of all times, we need to _stick__ together . . .” She leaned into Marco, and a flare of irritation leapt up in her. “What's he talking about? The accident? Is that it? Can't Norm just pay a fine or something?”
    Marco tucked a coil of hair behind his ear, smoothed his beard with a ringless hand (he didn't believe in jewelry, not for men, though she saw he was wearing the string of painted wooden beads she'd given him, and for a fraction of a moment that made everything balance out). He was sitting in the lotus position, legs folded, back arched, as perfect as an illustration in one of those pamphlets by Swami Kriyananda Norm was always handing out, _Yoga Made Easy, Eight Steps to Enlightenment, The Swami Speaks.__ “No,” he said, shaking his head, “it's gone way beyond that. It's--I don't know. I didn't want to tell you this, at least not till tomorrow, anyway, but you want to know the truth? It's over, is what it is. He was trying to tell me this morning, when we went for the cream soda and the rest of it--and the wire for the horse, which is still in the back of the van, by the way, wherever the van is. Not that it matters.”
    “Over?” She sought out his eyes, but his eyes dodged away. “What are you talking about?”
    That was when Norm's voice rang through the room and everybody looked up to see him standing there in the kitchen doorway, his arm around Premstar. “A horse!” he cried. “My kingdom for a horse!” That was all it took--two phrases--and the pall Alfredo had cast was dissolved, and they all, everybody--even Reba, even Alfredo and the Krishna cat--laughed aloud. “Or a match,” Norm said, pulling a number the size of a cigar from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Anybody got a match? Or did you forget about the bonfire? Longest day, man, longest _day__!”
    The bonfire. Of course. A buzz went through the room. Norm could do that--he could wake people up, turn them on, change the vibe of a whole room just by striding through the door. And Star saw that he'd dressed for the occasion too, emergency or no, in a wide-brimmed suede hat with a chin strap and a fringed jacket cut from the same material. The suede was a deep amber, the color of honey at the bottom of the jar, and he'd cinched a blue bandanna round his throat to set it off. That wasn't all: his glasses were taped together and a slash of white sticking plaster bisected his right eyebrow, not in a way that made him look like a victim or an invalid or anything, but somehow--Star couldn't think of the word, and then she could--_jaunty.__ And Premstar. She'd been here all of a week, and she'd done nothing but giggle and play up to Norm as if she was some kind of sex toy or something, and here she was dressed up in a sheer white nightgown like the ingenue in some vampire movie. And her hair--it was braided in two blond ropes that rose up off her brow like a layer cake.
    Star turned to Marco, and for just an instant she felt the clamps let go of her. “That hair,” she whispered, feeling buoyant suddenly, feeling stoned all over again, “that's what _I__ call an emergency.”
    The whole room watched as Norm led Premstar to the table, where he pulled out a chair for her with the kind of exaggerated gallantry that announced to everybody they'd been balling ten minutes ago, handed her the joint and leapt up onto the worn oak planks. “People,” he shouted, “brothers and sisters, this is my rap and I'm like more than grievously sorry to have to lay it on you tonight of all nights and even before we light the bonfire and dance, and I mean we _are__ going to shake it out, believe me, we are going to _dance__ like nobody has ever danced, I mean we are going to _reinvent__ the whole trip of dancing for now and forever, but this has been coming down a