to his ... his disappearance. I thought, maybe somebody ’ s idea of a payoff? Local 47, some insurance policy I didn ’ t know about. I mean, you wouldn ’ t expect it to be anonymous, would you. But here ’ s this mute set of figures in a monthly statement and some obviously jive-ass story the bank came up with to explain it. ”
Doc wrote the date of the deposit on a match cover and said, “ Is there a picture of Coy you could spare? ”
Was there. She pulled out a liquor-store box full of Polaroids—Coy sleeping, Coy with the baby, Coy cooking heroin, Coy tying off, Coy shooting up, Coy out under a shade tree pretending to cower away from a 454 Big Block Chev engine, Coy and Hope out on the beach, sitting in a pizza joint playing tug-of-war with the last slice, walking down Hollywood Boulevard just as the streetlight was coming on.
“ Help yourself. I should’ve probably thrown ’em all away a long time ago. Detach, right? move on, hell, I ’ m always lecturing everybody else to. But Ammie likes them, likes it when we look through them, I ’ ll tell her a little about each one, and she should have something anyhow, when she gets older, to remind her. Don ’ t you think? ”
“ Me? ” Doc remembered how Polaroids have no negatives and the life of the prints is limited. These, he noticed, were already beginning to shift color and fade. “ Sure, sometimes I ’ d like to have one for every min ute. Rent, like, a warehouse? ”
She gave him one of those social-worker looks. “ Well, that ... might be a little ... Are you seeing, like, a therapist? ”
“ She ’ s more of a deputy DA, I guess. ”
“ No, I meant. .. ” She ’ d picked up a handful of photos and was pre tending to arrange them in some meaningful way, the gin hand of her brief time with Coy. “ Even if you don ’ t know what you ’ ve got, ” she said slowly after a while, “ act sometimes like you do. She ’ ll appreciate that, and even you ’ ll be better for it. ”
Doc nodded and picked up the first picture to hand, a shot of Coy holding his tenor, maybe taken during a gig, the lighting inexpensive, out-of-focus elbows and shirtsleeves and guitar necks poking in at the edges. “ Okay if I take this one? ”
Without looking at it, Hope said, “ Sure. ”
Amethyst came running in, revved up. “ Here I am, ” she sang, “ to save the day! ”
later in the afternoon Doc drifted up to the Tree Section to his Aunt Reet ’s place, where he found his cousin Scott Oof out in the garage with his band. Scott had been playing with a local group known as the Corvairs, till half of them decided to join the northward migration of those years up to Humboldt, Vineland, and Del Norte. Scott, to whom redwoods were an alien species, and Elfmont, the drummer, decided to stay on at the beach and went around sticking up ads on different school bulletin boards till they ’ d assembled this new band, which they called Beer. Playing mostly covers in bar gigs around the area, Beer were now actually almost paying their rent month to month.
At the moment they were rehearsing, or today actually trying to learn the correct notes to, the theme from the TV western The Big Valley, which had recently gone into reruns. The shelves of the garage were lined with jars of purple pork rind, sure-fire bait for the depraved reservoir bass Aunt Reet went off periodically to Mexico after and came back with the trunk full of. Doc wasn ’ t sure, but in the dimness the stuff always appeared to be glowing.
Beer ’ s front man Huey was singing, while the rhythm guitar and bass filled in behind him,
“ The ...
Big ...
Valley!
[ Guitarfill ]
The
BIG
Valley! [ Same guitarfill ]
just
How big, is it, well go, visit sometime ...
Ride all night, till,
Dawn-and-what will
you find?
The Big Valley! Yes! Even more-of— the
Big Valley! no place to score in— the
Big Valley! big? that ’ s for sure, it ’ s— the
BigVal-ley!
“ It ’ s like my
Doc wrote the date of the deposit on a match cover and said, “ Is there a picture of Coy you could spare? ”
Was there. She pulled out a liquor-store box full of Polaroids—Coy sleeping, Coy with the baby, Coy cooking heroin, Coy tying off, Coy shooting up, Coy out under a shade tree pretending to cower away from a 454 Big Block Chev engine, Coy and Hope out on the beach, sitting in a pizza joint playing tug-of-war with the last slice, walking down Hollywood Boulevard just as the streetlight was coming on.
“ Help yourself. I should’ve probably thrown ’em all away a long time ago. Detach, right? move on, hell, I ’ m always lecturing everybody else to. But Ammie likes them, likes it when we look through them, I ’ ll tell her a little about each one, and she should have something anyhow, when she gets older, to remind her. Don ’ t you think? ”
“ Me? ” Doc remembered how Polaroids have no negatives and the life of the prints is limited. These, he noticed, were already beginning to shift color and fade. “ Sure, sometimes I ’ d like to have one for every min ute. Rent, like, a warehouse? ”
She gave him one of those social-worker looks. “ Well, that ... might be a little ... Are you seeing, like, a therapist? ”
“ She ’ s more of a deputy DA, I guess. ”
“ No, I meant. .. ” She ’ d picked up a handful of photos and was pre tending to arrange them in some meaningful way, the gin hand of her brief time with Coy. “ Even if you don ’ t know what you ’ ve got, ” she said slowly after a while, “ act sometimes like you do. She ’ ll appreciate that, and even you ’ ll be better for it. ”
Doc nodded and picked up the first picture to hand, a shot of Coy holding his tenor, maybe taken during a gig, the lighting inexpensive, out-of-focus elbows and shirtsleeves and guitar necks poking in at the edges. “ Okay if I take this one? ”
Without looking at it, Hope said, “ Sure. ”
Amethyst came running in, revved up. “ Here I am, ” she sang, “ to save the day! ”
later in the afternoon Doc drifted up to the Tree Section to his Aunt Reet ’s place, where he found his cousin Scott Oof out in the garage with his band. Scott had been playing with a local group known as the Corvairs, till half of them decided to join the northward migration of those years up to Humboldt, Vineland, and Del Norte. Scott, to whom redwoods were an alien species, and Elfmont, the drummer, decided to stay on at the beach and went around sticking up ads on different school bulletin boards till they ’ d assembled this new band, which they called Beer. Playing mostly covers in bar gigs around the area, Beer were now actually almost paying their rent month to month.
At the moment they were rehearsing, or today actually trying to learn the correct notes to, the theme from the TV western The Big Valley, which had recently gone into reruns. The shelves of the garage were lined with jars of purple pork rind, sure-fire bait for the depraved reservoir bass Aunt Reet went off periodically to Mexico after and came back with the trunk full of. Doc wasn ’ t sure, but in the dimness the stuff always appeared to be glowing.
Beer ’ s front man Huey was singing, while the rhythm guitar and bass filled in behind him,
“ The ...
Big ...
Valley!
[ Guitarfill ]
The
BIG
Valley! [ Same guitarfill ]
just
How big, is it, well go, visit sometime ...
Ride all night, till,
Dawn-and-what will
you find?
The Big Valley! Yes! Even more-of— the
Big Valley! no place to score in— the
Big Valley! big? that ’ s for sure, it ’ s— the
BigVal-ley!
“ It ’ s like my
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