Nightmares and Dreamscapes, Page 36

  She suddenly realized that she knew this town--had seen it many times on late-night TV. Never mind Ray Bradbury's hellish vision of Mars or the candy-house in "Hansel and Gretel"; what this place resembled more than either was The Peculiar Little Town people kept stumbling into in various episodes of The Twilight Zone.

  She leaned toward her husband and said in a low, ominous voice: "We're travelling not through a dimension of sight and sound, Clark, but of mind. Look!" She pointed at nothing in particular, but a woman standing outside the town's Western Auto saw the gesture and gave her a narrow, mistrustful glance.

  "Look at what?" he asked. He sounded irritated again, and she guessed that this time it was because he knew exactly what she was talking about.

  "There's a signpost up ahead! We're entering--"

  "Oh, cut it out, Mare," he said, and abruptly swung into an empty parking slot halfway down Main Street.

  "Clark!" she nearly screamed. "What are you doing?"

  He pointed through the windshield at an establishment with the somehow not-cute name of The Rock-a-Boogie Restaurant.

  "I'm thirsty. I'm going in there and getting a great big Pepsi to go. You don't have to come. You can sit right here. Lock all the doors, if you want." So saying, he opened his own door. Before he could swing his legs out, she grabbed his shoulder.

  "Clark, please don't."

  He looked back at her, and she saw at once that she should have canned the crack about The Twilight Zone--not because it was wrong but because it was right. It was that macho thing again. He wasn't stopping because he was thirsty, not really; he was stopping because this freaky little burg had scared him, too. Maybe a little, maybe a lot, she didn't know that, but she did know that he had no intention of going on until he had convinced himself he wasn't afraid, not one little bit.

  "I won't be a minute. Do you want a ginger ale, or something?"

  She pushed the button that unlocked her seatbelt. "What I want is not to be left alone."

  He gave her an indulgent, I-knew-you'd-come look that made her feel like tearing out a couple of swatches of his hair.

  "And what I also want is to kick your ass for getting us into this situation in the first place," she finished, and was pleased to see the indulgent expression turn to one of wounded surprise. She opened her own door. "Come on. Piddle on the nearest hydrant, Clark, and then we'll get out of here."

  "Piddle . . . ? Mary, what in the hell are you talking about?"

  "Sodas!" she nearly screamed, all the while thinking that it was really amazing how fast a good trip with a good man could turn bad. She glanced across the street and saw a couple of longhaired young guys standing there. They were also drinking Olly and checking out the strangers in town. One was wearing a battered top-hat. The plastic daisy stuck in the band nodded back and forth in the breeze. His companion's arms crawled with faded blue tattoos. To Mary they looked like the sort of fellows who dropped out of high school their third time through the tenth grade in order to spend more time meditating on the joys of drive-train linkages and date rape.

  Oddly enough, they also looked somehow familiar to her.

  They saw her looking. Top-Hat solemnly raised his hand and twiddled his fingers at her. Mary looked away hurriedly and turned to Clark. "Let's get our cold drinks and get the hell out of here."

  "Sure," he said. "And you didn't need to shout at me, Mary. I mean, I was right beside you, and--"

  "Clark, do you see those two guys across the street?"

  "What two guys?"

  She looked back in time to see Top-Hat and Tattoos slipping through the barber-shop doorway. Tattoos glanced back over his shoulder, and although Mary wasn't sure, she thought he tipped her a wink.

  "They're just going into the barber shop. See them?"

  Clark looked, but only saw a closing door with the sun reflecting eye-watering shards of light from the glass: "What about them?"

  "They looked familiar to me."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. But I find it somehow hard to believe that any of the people I know moved to Rock and Roll Heaven, Oregon, to take up rewarding, high-paying jobs as street-corner hoodlums."

  Clark laughed and took her elbow. "Come on," he said, and led her into The Rock-a-Boogie Restaurant.

  *

  The Rock-a-Boogie went a fair distance toward allaying Mary's fears. She had expected a greasy spoon, not much different from the dim (and rather dirty) pit-stop in Oakridge where they'd eaten lunch. They entered a sun-filled, agreeable little diner with a funky fifties feel instead: blue-tiled walls; chrome-chased pie case; tidy yellow-oak floor; wooden paddle fans turning lazily overhead. The face of the wall-clock was circled with thin tubes of red and blue neon. Two waitresses in aqua-colored rayon uniforms that looked to Mary like costumes left over from American Graffiti were standing by the stainless-steel pass-through between the restaurant and the kitchen. One was young--no more than twenty and probably not that--and pretty in a washed-out way. The other, a short woman with a lot of frizzy red hair, had a brassy look that struck Mary as both harsh and desperate . . . and there was something else about her, as well: for the second time in as many minutes, Mary had the strong sensation that she knew someone in this town.

  A bell over the door tinkled as she and Clark entered. The waitresses glanced over. "Hi, there," the younger one said. "Be right with you."

  "Naw; might take awhile," the redhead disagreed. "We're awful busy. See?" She swept an arm at the room, deserted as only a small-town restaurant can be as the afternoon balances perfectly between lunch and dinner, and laughed cheerily at her own witticism. Like her voice, the laugh had a husky, splintered quality that Mary associated with Scotch and cigarettes. But it's a voice I know, she thought. I'd swear it is.

  She turned to Clark and saw he was staring at the waitresses, who had resumed their conversation, as if hypnotized. She had to tug his sleeve to get his attention, then tug it again when he headed for the tables grouped on the left side of the room. She wanted them to sit at the counter. She wanted to get their damned sodas in take-out cups and then blow this joint.

  "What is it?" she whispered.

  "Nothing," he said. "I guess."

  "You looked like you swallowed your tongue, or something."

  "For a second or two it felt like I had," he said, and before she could ask him to explain, he had diverted to look at the jukebox.

  Mary sat down at the counter.

  "Be right with you, ma'am," the younger waitress repeated, and then bent closer to hear something else her whiskey-voiced colleague was saying. Looking at her face, Mary guessed the younger woman wasn't really very interested in what the older one had to say.

  "Mary, this is a great juke!" Clark said, sounding delighted. "It's all fifties stuff! The Moonglows . . . The Five Satins . . . Shep and the Limelites . . . La Vern Baker! Jeez, La Vern Baker singing 'Tweedlee Dee'! I haven't heard that one since I was a kid!"

  "Well, save your money. We're just getting take-out drinks, remember?"

  "Yeah, yeah."

  He gave the Rock-Ola one last look, blew out an irritated breath, and then joined her at the counter. Mary pulled a menu out of the bracket by the salt and pepper shakers, mostly so she wouldn't have to look at the frown-line between his eyes and the way his lower lip stuck out. Look, he was saying without saying a word (this, she had discovered, was one of the more questionable long-term effects of being married). I won our way through the wilderness while you slept, killed the buffalo, fought the Injuns, brought you safe and sound to this nifty little oasis in the wilderness, and what thanks do I get? You won't even let me play "Tweedlee Dee" on the jukebox!

  Never mind, she thought. We'll be gone soon, so never mind.

  Good advice. She followed it by turning her full attention to the menu. It harmonized with the rayon uniforms, the neon clock, the juke, and the general decor (which, while admirably subdued, could still only be described as Mid-Century Rebop). The hot dog wasn't a hot dog; it was a Hound
Dog. The cheeseburger was a Chubby Checker and the double cheeseburger was a Big Bopper. The specialty of the house was a loaded pizza; the menu promised "Everything on It But the (Sam) Cooke!"

  "Cute," she said. "Poppa-ooo-mow-mow, and all that."

  "What?" Clark asked, and she shook her head.

  The young waitress came over, taking her order pad out of her apron pocket. She gave them a smile, but Mary thought it was perfunctory; the woman looked both tired and unwell. There was a coldsore perched above her upper lip, and her slightly bloodshot eyes moved restlessly about the room. They touched on everything, it seemed, but her customers.

  "Help you folks?"

  Clark moved to take the menu from Mary's hand. She held it away from him and said, "A large Pepsi and a large ginger ale. To go, please."

  "Y'all oughtta try the cherry pie!" the redhead called over in her hoarse voice. The younger woman flinched at the sound of it. "Rick just made it! You gonna think you died and went to heaven!" She grinned at them and placed her hands on her hips. "Well, y'all are in Heaven, but you know what I mean."

  "Thank you," Mary said, "but we're really in a hurry, and--"

  "Sure, why not?" Clark said in a musing, distant voice. "Two pieces of cherry pie."

  Mary kicked his ankle--hard--but Clark didn't seem to notice. He was staring at the redhead again, and now his mouth was hung on a spring. The redhead was clearly aware of his gaze, but she didn't seem to mind. She reached up with one hand and lazily fluffed her improbable hair.

  "Two sodas to go, two pieces of pie for here," the young waitress said. She gave them another nervous smile while her restless eyes examined Mary's wedding ring, the sugar shaker, one of the overhead fans. "You want that pie a la mode?" She bent and put two napkins and two forks on the counter.

  "Y--" Clark began, and Mary overrode him firmly and quickly. "No."

  The chrome pie case was behind the far end of the counter. As soon as the waitress walked away in that direction, Mary leaned over and hissed: "Why are you doing this to me, Clark? You know I want to get out of here!"

  "That waitress. The redhead. Is she--"

  "And stop staring at her!" Mary whispered fiercely. "You look like a kid trying to peek up some girl's skirt in study hall!"

  He pulled his eyes away . . . but with an effort. "Is she the spit-image of Janis Joplin, or am I crazy?"

  Startled, Mary cast another glance at the redhead. She had turned away slightly to speak to the short-order cook through the pass-through, but Mary could still see at least two-thirds of her face, and that was enough. She felt an almost audible click in her head as she superimposed the face of the redhead over the face on record albums she still owned--vinyl albums pressed in a year when nobody owned Sony Walkmen and the concept of the compact disc would have seemed like science fiction, record albums now packed away in cardboard boxes from the neighborhood liquor mart and stowed in some dusty attic alcove; record albums with names like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Cheap Thrills, and Pearl. And the face of Janis Joplin--that sweet, homely face which had grown old and harsh and wounded far too soon. Clark was right; this woman's face was the spitting image of the face on those old albums.

  Except it was more than the face, and Mary felt fear swarm into her chest, making her heart feel suddenly light and stuttery and dangerous.

  It was the voice.

  In the ear of her memory she heard Janis's chilling, spiraling howl at the beginning of "Piece of My Heart." She laid that bluesy, boozy shout over the redhead's Scotch-and-Marlboros voice, just as she had laid one face over the other, and knew that if the waitress began to sing that song, her voice would be identical to the voice of the dead girl from Texas.

  Because she is the dead girl from Texas. Congratulations, Mary--you had to wait until you were thirty-two, but you've finally made the grade; you've finally seen your first ghost.

  She tried to dispute the idea, tried to suggest to herself that a combination of factors, not the least of them being the stress of getting lost, had caused her to make too much of a chance resemblance, but these rational thoughts had no chance against the dead certainty in her guts: she was seeing a ghost.

  Life within her body underwent a strange and sudden sea-change. Her heart sped up from a beat to a sprint; it felt like a pumped-up runner bursting out of the blocks in an Olympic heat. Adrenaline dumped, simultaneously tightening her stomach and heating her diaphragm like a swallow of brandy. She could feel sweat in her armpits and moisture at her temples. Most amazing of all was the way color seemed to pour into the world, making everything--the neon around the clock-face, the stainless-steel pass-through to the kitchen, the sprays of revolving color behind the juke's facade--seem simultaneously unreal and too real. She could hear the fans paddling the air overhead, a low, rhythmic sound like a hand stroking silk, and smell the aroma of old fried meat rising from the unseen grill in the next room. And at the same time, she suddenly felt herself on the edge of losing her balance on the stool and swooning to the floor in a dead faint.

  Get hold of yourself, woman! she told herself frantically. You're having a panic attack, that's all--no ghosts, no goblins, no demons, just a good old-fashioned whole-body panic attack, you've had them before, at the start of big exams in college, the first day of teaching at school, and that time before you had to speak to the P.T.A. You know what it is and you can deal with it. No one's going to do any fainting around here, so just get hold of yourself, do you hear me?

  She crossed her toes inside her low-topped sneakers and squeezed them as hard as she could, concentrating on the sensation, using it in an effort to draw herself back to reality and away from that too-bright place she knew was the threshold of a faint.

  "Honey?" Clark's voice, from far away. "You all right?"

  "Yes, fine." Her voice was also coming from far away . . . but she knew it was closer than it would have been if she'd tried to speak even fifteen seconds ago. Still pressing her crossed toes tightly together, she picked up the napkin the waitress had left, wanting to feel its texture--it was another connection to the world and another way to break the panicky, irrational (it was irrational, wasn't it? surely it was) feeling which had gripped her so strongly. She raised it toward her face, meaning to wipe her brow with it, and saw there was something written on the underside in ghostly pencil strokes that had torn the fragile paper into little puffs. Mary read this message, printed in jagged capital letters:

  GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN.

  "Mare? What is it?"

  The waitress with the coldsore and the restless, scared eyes was coming back with their pie. Mary dropped the napkin into her lap. "Nothing," she said calmly. As the waitress set the plates in front of them, Mary forced herself to catch the girl's eyes with her own. "Thank you," she said.

  "Don't mention it," the girl mumbled, looking directly at Mary for only a moment before her eyes began to skate aimlessly around the room again.

  "Changed your mind about the pie, I see," her husband was saying in his most infuriatingly indulgent Clark Knows Best voice. Women! this tone said. Gosh, aren't they something? Sometimes just leading them to the waterhole isn't enough--you gotta hold their heads down to get em started. All part of the job. It isn't easy being a man, but I do my goldurn best.

  "Well, it looks awfully good," she said, marvelling at the even tone of her voice. She smiled at him brightly, aware that the redhead who looked like Janis Joplin was keeping an eye on them.

  "I can't get over how much she looks like--" Clark began, and this time Mary kicked his ankle as hard as she could, no fooling around. He drew in a hurt, hissing breath, eyes popping wide, but before he could say anything, she shoved the napkin with its penciled message into his hand.

  He bent his head. Looked at it. And Mary found herself praying--really, really praying--for the first time in perhaps twenty years. Please, God, make him see it's not a joke. Make him see it's not a joke because that woman doesn't just look like Janis Joplin, that woman is Janis Joplin
, and I've got a horrible feeling about this town, a really horrible feeling.

  He raised his head and her heart sank. There was confusion on his face, and exasperation, but nothing else. He opened his mouth to speak . . . and it went right on opening until it looked as if someone had removed the pins from the place where his jaws connected.

  Mary turned in the direction of his gaze. The short-order cook, dressed in immaculate whites and wearing a little paper cap cocked over one eye, had come out of the kitchen and was leaning against the tiled wall with his arms folded across his chest. He was talking to the redhead while the younger waitress stood by, watching them with a combination of terror and weariness.

  If she doesn't get out of here soon, it'll just be weariness, Mary thought. Or maybe apathy.

  The cook was almost impossibly handsome--so handsome that Mary found herself unable to accurately assess his age. Between thirty-five and forty-five, probably, but that was the best she could do. Like the redhead, he looked familiar. He glanced up at them, disclosing a pair of wide-set blue eyes fringed with gorgeous thick lashes, and smiled briefly at them before returning his attention to the redhead. He said something that made her caw raucous laughter.

  "My God, that's Rick Nelson," Clark whispered. "It can't be, it's impossible, he died in a plane crash six or seven years ago, but it is."

  Mary opened her mouth to say he must be mistaken, ready to brand such an idea ludicrous even though she herself now found it impossible to believe that the redheaded waitress was anyone but the years-dead blues shouter Janis Joplin. Before she could say anything, that click--the one which turned vague resemblance into positive identification--came again. Clark had been able to put the name to the face first because Clark was nine years older, Clark had been listening to the radio and watching American Bandstand back when Rick Nelson had been Ricky Nelson and songs like "Be-Bop Baby" and "Lonesome Town" were happening hits, not just dusty artifacts restricted to the golden oldie stations which catered to the now-graying baby boomers. Clark saw it first, but now that he had pointed it out to her, she could not unsee it.