31: Babylon Sisters

Bones are slow-built cathedrals revealed only at the architect's exit.

It's day five on the Malibu coast where camping is surprisingly affordable. Kadrey pours himself out of the tent a good hour before sunset because nobody's yet bothered to design a tent for smokers. Evan's there, of course, drawing something in the back pages of whatever he's reading this week.

Kadrey's been a bitch all week but Evan chances a greeting anyway, "Hey Dracula." Kadrey answers through the filter, his words spurting from the tobacco, "Whazit? What the hell are you talking about?" Evan stands and faces Kadrey, "Two weeks in California. Two weeks and you are still lilly-white. I think you had more of a tan in Michigan."

A couple of screeching kids run in between them, their frequencies liquefying thoughts and molars. Kadrey knows they live four tents down, he knows their parents are usually reduced to pinot grigio containers by nine P.M., he has a warm cannibal thought.

He starts walking away from the field of tents and Evan follows. Thirty feet from the highway he stops and speaks.

"I'm tired of this fucking water. And I'm tired of these rocks. I want to get back into the car. I want to keep going."

"Keep going," Evan shouts over the traffic, "there is nowhere to go. This is it. We ran out of country."

"So? We go back."

"We go back why, Kadrey? We do what? It takes me a week with both of my feet in one little spot to feel like I've stopped. All of this movement, Kadrey. All of this for no real reason."

"What are you saying? You can't do this anymore? You don't want to?"

"Driving is getting scary. I keep thinking that we keep avoiding disaster by just a little bit, feet probably, but we keep running we're gonna end up smack dab in the middle of fucked."

"I thought I was the pussy."

"You've been the pussy. Now you're aiming for retard. Did we loose anything on the road, Kadrey?"

"You're not curious? How about Joanie, and Olly, and The Casbah, and that grave in the desert. How about we go back and make sure we kept all of our promises and nobody is worst off in our wake."

"How about we go back and erase every dumb ass thing we ever done. Come on Kadrey there's forward and there is stop. There is no time travel."

"That's it? You're settling?"

"No, no. I never said that."

"Well I'm not. In two days I'll be headed East. It would make sense if you came along."

"What will you do till then?"

"Right now I'm gonna cross this road, go down that cliff and jack off into the Ocean."

Sand gives to any pressure but it's foolish thinking it will remember.