Tales of the City 02 - More Tales of the City

Mary Ann Singleton. Which one of us would you like?”
    Mary Ann giggled. “What if he doesn’t want either one of us?”
    “Then,” said Michael matter-of-factly, “you push him off the first available cliff in Acapulco.”

Mona Flees
    A FTER MONA HAD DRIVEN MARY ANN AND MICHAEL to the airport, she returned to Barbary Lane and fell into a cosmic funk.
    She felt grossly disoriented, partially because of her mother’s weird phone call, and partially because two of her friends had managed to break the bonds of this incestuous backwater Babylon called San Francisco.
    That was what she needed, really. Fresh territory. Blue skies. Communion with the Eternal. A chance to restructure her life into something that would bring her the inner tranquillity she so desperately wanted.
    She mapped out a plan of action in less than ten minutes, leaving a terse note on Mrs. Madrigal’s door:
Mrs. M.
I’ll be gone for a while.
Please don’t worry. I
need to breathe.
Love,
MONA
    She made her escape by cable car, irked by the bitter irony of it all. Wouldn’t Tony Bennett be tickled to know that Mona Ramsey, aging freak and transcendental cynic, had been forced to flee Everybody’s Favorite City on one of these cloyingly cute tourist trolleys?
    At Powell and Market she disembarked, separating herself from the double-knit masses as soon as possible. She strode up Market to Seventh, turned onto Seventh, and stopped with a sigh in front of the Greyhound bus station.
    After three minutes’ consideration, she bought a ticket to Reno, deciding on the spot that sun and sky and desert might somehow offer new horizons. The bus, they told her, would leave shortly after midnight.
    For the rest of the afternoon she sat in Union Square, where the drunks and derelicts and burned-out hippies could only reinforce her decision to leave. Then, as soon as night fell, she smoked a potent mixture of grass and angel dust and drifted back to the bus station.
    She was eating a cheese sandwich, when a garishly painted crone—eighty if a day—tried to make conversation with her in the snack bar.
    “Where ya headin’, dolly?”
    “Reno,” she said quietly.
    “One stop after me. You takin’ the midnight bus?”
    Mona nodded, wondering if the angel dust had made this woman more grotesque than she really was.
    “How ‘bout sittin’ with me, then? I get real nervous on the bus, what with the perverts and all.”
    “Well, I’m not sure I’d be much—”
    “I won’t bother you none. I won’t say nothin’ unless you want me to.”
    Something about that touched Mona. “Sure,” she said finally. “It’s a deal.”
    The old woman grinned. “What’s your name, dolly?”
    “Mo … Judy.”
    “Mine’s Mother Mucca.”
    “Mother …?”
    “Mucca. It’s kind of a nickname. I’m from Winnemucca, see?” She cackled gleefully. “It’s a long story, and I don’t see no point in … Say, dolly, are you OK?”
    “Yes.”
    “You look kinda fucked up.”
    “What?” A terrible sea roar was resounding in her head, as if someone had lashed a giant conch shell to her ear.
    “I said you look fucked up. Your eyes are all … You ain’t been smokin’ no reefers, have you, dolly?”
    Mona nodded. “Sort of.”
    “Meanin’?”
    “I don’t think you’d—”
    “Something’ in it?”
    “Ever heard of angel dust?”
    Mother Mucca’s hand came down on the counter so hard that several sleepy diners looked up from their coffee. “Holy shit! That stuff is for puttin’ elephants to sleep, girl! If you don’t know any better than to fuck yourself up with an animal tranquilizer, you ain’t got no business ridin’—”
    Mona lurched to her feet. “I don’t have to sit here and listen—”
    A bangled talon of a hand clamped onto her wrist and pulled her back down.
    “The fuck you don’t!” shrieked Mother Mucca.

Animal Magnetism
    S OME PEOPLE DRINK TO FORGET,” SAID MRS. MADRIGAL, basking in the sun of her courtyard. “Personally, I smoke to remember.” She took a toke of her new Colombian and handed the joint to Brian.
    “Like what?” he asked.
    “Oh … old lovers, train rides, the taste of fountain Cokes when I was a kid. Grass is a lovely, sentimental … Reader’s Digest kind of a thing. I can’t understand why the bourgeoisie doesn’t approve of it.”
    Brian smiled, stretching his legs out on the beach towel. “You’ve been smoking long?”
    “Not by my standards. Oh, I think … since you were a teenager,