The Moondust Sonatas Read online

  I must have looked pretty strange, standing at a street corner banging my leg. But, the DJ wouldn’t be able to see me, so I didn’t worry too much. When the car came, as fast as promised, I slid in the back seat and told the driver the score.

  “We’re going to sit here and wait,” I said, “until a van drives out of that alley. When it does, we’re going to follow it.”

  “I don’t do that.”

  “How much?”

  “I said I don’t do that.”

  “And I asked how much. I’m trying to make it worth your while.”

  I hated dipping into the trust fund for this ruffian. But, moondust was my break.

  He sighed, “Two hundred.”

  “Oh, Come on! One hundred.”

  “Get out.”

  “Two hundred, okay.”

  The driver nodded and turned on music, something like reggaeton, which was annoying. Sitting in the car—my legs aching like hammer blows—the incessant beat wasn’t helping my mood at all.

  “Hey. If I gotta pay you two hundred dollars for this, you mind turning off the tunes?” I said.

  He glanced back at me, and turned it up.

  After the images of me beating him into bloody sea-foam faded, a headache rooted in my brain. I was not happy about this. But, the driver had me over a barrel, and the music wasn’t as bad as sitting behind a roach-infested dumpster. I’d be thrilled when the DJ’s van finally pulled away. I wondered what his name was. Probably DJ Delicious or something stupid like that.

  25. YVONETTE

  DJ Wally

  Beaver

  Pushed me up against a wall

  Intermixed our signals.

  I kissed back,

  And my hand went,

  With delicacy,

  To his waist.

  This was the magnetic hour.

  With a laugh, he tried to pull away,

  Begging that his gear remained unpacked. But, I would not relent,

  Grabbing his flapping lips with my teeth. Ridiculous boy.

  We were starlight under a shining city,

  Glowing crimson and clover, and I grabbed him again.

  He kissed back. A hand went

  To my breast. I moaned.

  But the gear had to be packed, and so he slipped

  Eel-like from my embrace,

  Coming back, and saying nothing. But, ‘get in the van,’

  Galaxies of bedsheets burning in his irises.

  This was the magic hour.

  He went off to pack his gear,

  Speedy. I went and sat in the van,

  Checked my hair,

  Prepared. I was drunk and saw beauty

  In clouds and concrete.

  And when he came back,

  Climbing into the van with a smile,

  I felt my lower lip crawl between my teeth.

  We reached his place,

  Floating up to his apartment on the fourth floor,

  Swelling out of our clothes,

  Clasping each other,

  Smothering our differences.

  Once again, I felt Free.

  26. MAXWELL

  I followed the DJ’s truck to an apartment building in Brooklyn. My driver whined incessantly. But, I ignored him. When the DJ parked, a girl got out of the passenger side; I recognized her. I spoke to her earlier, in the club. She’d been too flirtatious, generally not my type.

  But apparently the DJ dug her; they were all over each other. He wasn’t leaving his apartment until morning, so I wrote down the building’s address, and I told the driver to take me home.

  “I take you home. But, I turn on the meter.”

  “No deal, pal. I just handed you two hundred dollars for an hour-and-a-half’s work, so quit bitching and take me home.”

  I’d invested quite a lot of money to get only an address, and my poor rate of return caused a dark spirit on the ride back. Still, I would stay in. You can’t win, if you don’t buy.

  I thought about heading back to Justine’s—telling the driver to take me there, dealing with the requisite whining while the cab rolled until the city became her neighborhood. I thought of ringing all the bells, but hers, knocking on the door once I got in. I thought of enfolding her in my arms.

  Just fantasies.

  I texted her because I wanted her to write something back, anything. Chances are she’d be asleep. But, I needed to know she wasn’t dead because of a drug I should’ve taken away from her.

  I wrote, “r u ok?”

  The city rolled by, flowing toward my home, not hers. No answer for a while, until, surprisingly, my pocket vibrated. I took the phone out and flipped it open, saw one word on the screen, “NO.”

  I may have felt hopeless in that moment, maybe even furious. And I did tell the driver to turn go to her house.

  “Fuck you,” he said, “You wanna give me another address now?”

  “My girlfriend’s sick. Do it.”

  “You’re the one who’s sick—yo, sick in the head. Chasing people around, making up lies… you know what? Fuck this. Get the hell out.”

  “Oh don’t even—”

  “OUT. You know I have a gun up here, and I know you don’t. So get out the back seat, and I hope you get mugged, stupid ass.”

  After I watched his car pull away, I flipped open my phone and called Justine. She didn’t answer. But, after I lowered the phone, I started walking, trying to figure out what to do, and she sent me a text, two words, “not now.”

  I wrote back “when?” And waited. No answer.

  I needed to find the nearest subway station; I had to go home.

  What happened to her? She took the moondust—I knew it. For a second, the alcohol in my stomach bucked. What kind of world was this? My girlfriend was on drugs and refused to see me… I was stranded in the middle of Brooklyn… everything was wrong. Some goober accosts us with a weird powder, and now everything had gone belly up.

  I walked in a random direction, hoping I could stumble upon a subway station before being mugged. Tomorrow, I’d wake up, shower, and either go to Justine or to the corner of Hubert and Welsh, to an unnamed building where I’d pick up and tail a DJ wherever he went. It was a huge decision, one I couldn’t yet contemplate. Too drunk, too tired—making my way through inky Brooklyn took all my focus.

  27. JUSTINE

  What an understatement to call moondust unexpected.

  As my eyes opened, echoes of crushing joy reverberated through me. It’d been so powerful I felt sick—as if someone extracted every nice feeling from my whole life, combined and multiplied them by one billion, and shoved the result right into my belly.

  I couldn’t handle it. That was not the God I’d known, nor the Heaven I’d been taught; instead something alien, strange, and inside of it, I had been alien and strange, too. It put a fracture in my brain, something I could never reconcile.

  I threw the packet holding the powder across the room, I started drinking. I had three quarters of an open bottle of red wine remaining, and so I went into the kitchen and grabbed it, no glass.

  In my stomach were still the fading knots of ecstasy I couldn’t understand. I started praying to Jesus, as I did when my distress got this unbearably high, as my father had taught me. But, suddenly and irrevocably, I knew that there was no Jesus to hear me.

  There’d been nothing like his calm, comforting presence with moondust. Nothing at all.

  Yet, in that light, I’d felt… whole, and a sense of joy I’d never known. My head hurt. I drank more.

  At some point my phone beeped, it was a text message from Max, asking if I was okay.

  I told the truth, which was no. He wanted to come to me. I told him no again.

  After dawn seeped through the window, when I finally felt sleep taking me, I felt enormous gratitude.

  Saturday, September 30, 2006

  28. YVONETTE

  And in the morning,

  Deflated.

  Merely human again.

  All the thou
ghts sex sends off-line, returning.

  And I, next to

  This strange man. In his strange bed.

  Strange smells all over my skin.

  But I was an expert at the after-shock,

  Love’s remainder.

  No, I did not hope

  That Wally Beaver would have built magic

  From the space our skin collided.

  I got dressed.

  I yawned and stretched.

  As was sometimes preferable, I tried not to think about the sex.

  It’d been okay. He was drunk and

  Showed it. C’est la vie.

  I checked my reflection in a mirror. Saw the usual.

  But as I made to leave, something unexpected:

  He awoke and spoke.

  Not that unusual, I guess. Not at all. I just figured

  Wally Beaver wasn’t that type.

  In the daylight,

  Something in his whole vibe lacked depth.

  One of those with no hope of intimacy left. Not that I’m judging.

  I could even be the same.

  It’s possible.

  “Leaving already?” he said.

  So I turned ‘round.

  “The shoes on my feet would suggest it,”

  Was my riposte.

  Admittedly, a great line to leave on,

  But instead of walking

  I crossed my arms.

  “Don’t be a butterfly, baby,”

  He said, with a stretch, “Stay. I’ll show you things.”

  My arms did not uncross.

  “You’ll show me things?”

  “Oh yeah.” said he. “But first, come here.”

  He was better in the morning. He kissed like he meant it.

  And I was

  Unaccountably distracted. But, still,

  I found a groove and fell into. C’est la vie.

  And when I released my brain fuzz, a flower grew between our skins,

  Bloomed,

  And died.

  Not the biggest,

  But worth the time.

  I thought maybe we’d be something for a while.

  It could happen.

  Still, when we lay side by side, breathing,

  Coming down,

  It seemed time to let time carry me

  Elsewhere.

  So I got up, and made to get dressed.

  But he said, “Wait.

  I said I have something to show you.”

  “Oh?” I replied. Wiggling into my bra. “Here I was thinking that you just showed it.”

  And he laughed.

  “Trick, that’s something. But, it ain’t nothing.”

  Arms crossed again. Trick, he calls me?

  The nerve.

  And nerve’s a funny thing,

  Some is to be punished. Some makes the blood flow.

  Which this was, I hadn’t decided.

  He didn’t notice my glare. “Come here,” he said.

  “No. I’m trying to decide whether to slap you.”

  “Decide after you try this.” And he reached into a drawer.

  Pulled out white powder.

  And I thought, Oh, God, no.

  “It’s called moondust,” he said,

  “It’s the ride of your life,”

  Oh, God, no.

  I could not help the tears that fell. Don’t ask me why.

  It seemed so unfair,

  It made me so angry

  To see that again.

  The last thing I needed.

  I made an exit of it.

  I shouted.

  Threw something. He shouted back.

  C’est la vie. In the hallway,

  I lit a cig with shaky hands. It was illegal,

  But law be damned.

  I was usually a very calm and rational human being.

  But now forever in my brain was

  Echoes of joy—unearthly music,

  And I could not abide it.

  29. PERCIVAL

  The rain kept coming, it rained all morning. I sat in a nondescript diner in the Bronx, because I never hung out in the Bronx.

  Figuring out what to do.

  The situation: I—your hero DJ, lover, and all around quality type—was on the run from some sort of bad element because some time ago, I’d gotten my hands on an unusual drug called moondust, and my caring nature led me to share with friends, neighbors, and associates. Yesterday, some goons came to my building, looking for me, and moondust was the only possible reason why. I ran, and they chased me. I’d been on the bounce all night.

  Where was the justice?

  There was no telling what that idiot Wally Beaver had spilled when they got to him. He’d called me! Someone was with him, trying to get moondust, some dude he didn’t know, who was asking questions, and the dumb shit called me! My circle had been infiltrated at the weakest link.

  But if they could track me through Wally, I could back-track them the same way. If they could ask him about me, I could ask him about them.

  Right now, I needed information more than anything.

  Plans help when paranoia threatens. Everyone had been looking like a threat. Old ladies, children, cops… well, always cops. But now I suspected a whole new level of crookedness and malice. I’d be much better off, if I knew what I was dealing with.

  I felt in my pocket, reflexively, for five packets of powder. All the moondust I had left, although Mark and Hailey, my compatriots in the moondust adventure, had plenty and could make more.

  I hadn’t ever been worried about arrest: Moondust was an unknown compound, not yet illegal. Now I was worried about everything, which brought me back to Wally Beaver.

  I was an artist’s artist: I believed completely in who we are as a tribe, and what we do. But, I also believed some kids were just along for the ride, the scene. Wally Beaver was a classic case. And with half-a-brain, to boot. I couldn’t believe how dumb he’d been.

  I called Hailey, to check in. While the phone rang, a pretty girl with pink hair caught my eye, and we locked gazes.

  Hailey’s phone picked up. “Hablame,” she said.

  “You okay?”

  “Laying low. We figured that was the move. Fucking Wally.”

  “Yeah. You and Mark have any problems?”

  “Not one with those assholes,” she said. “We just want to get back to business as usual. I have a group show in Astoria tonight, I don’t need this. We have moondust for adventure.”

  I laughed. “Yeah. Go anywhere interesting recently?”

  “Dark side of the moon, just the usual,” she said. “Hey, did you know Shamans could really do magic?”

  I didn’t really believe it. “For real?”

  “I don’t know, I guess. I mean, whose reality are we talking about?”

  “Listen Hales, I’m going to talk to Wally. I wanna face this head on.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise?

  “No. But, I’m doing it anyway.”

  “Then we’re with you,” she said. “Hey, I’m hanging up now. I’m on the J-train and people are wigging out for some reason. I need my wits about me. Later.” She hung up.

  So now, at least in the short-term, my path was clear. To Brooklyn and Wally Beaver. Once more, the breach.

  30. MAXWELL

  I’d been scoping out the DJ’s house for hours. A cold rain sapped my strength. But, I, Maxwell Smith, intrepid reporter and soon to be national name, was on the track of a story. And the story went right through a dumb shit DJ in Brooklyn.

  Around one o’clock, the girl he took upstairs last night came stomping out of his building, clearly enraged, maybe crying. Which didn’t say much for my mark, but I was okay with that. No guilt.

  The waiting was cold, wet, and super boring. I had my iPod, and this cut through the drudgery. But, stake-outs required greater patience than I could muster.

  I spent the time in two ways: first, dreaming about my article, the prestige, international fame, world domination, and so
forth; and second, worrying about Justine.

  There was nothing I could do about her right now, and I hated that.

  Things heated up around three o’clock. I wasn’t the only one hanging out around the building. A ruffian with a green hat pulled low and a black coat watched me from a distance, while failing to be inconspicuous. He seemed ill-at-ease. This was getting interesting.

  So, I had a few options.

  The first concerned my general health and well-being. I was dealing with a stranger, and I didn’t know his motives. Logic suggested a strategic withdrawal. Leave the scene, absorb the new information, come up with a new plan, and execute it.

  The second option maintained status quo. I would follow the plan, tailing the DJ at a safe distance.

  The third option was to go over and talk to the guy in the green hat. Holding the ideal of the press, and what we do, ahead of me like a shield. Maybe we could help each other.

  These options rested on a continuum of nerve. The nerviest choice isn’t always the best, and in a situation like this, how do you know with what you’re choosing? Head, gut, testicles, or cowardice? A safe action—regrouping—was also running away. A bold action—direct confrontation—was also bullish, dangerous.

  As I thusly considered my options, Justine’s image, her pretty face, flitted through my mind.

  To hell with caution. I walked right up to him.

  31. PERCIVAL

  When I got to Wally’s place, I did a couple of walk-byes for reconnaissance. I put my hood up to make detection harder and went by the place like I was going somewhere down the street.

  Someone stood in front of Wally’s building, not doing anything, trying to be inconspicuous.

  He wore a three-quarter length cashmere coat, chinos, and brown shiny shoes. A total college boy, the type who can’t wait to tell you he’s Ivy League. At least, that’s how he looked.