Free The Best of Lucius Shepard by Lucius Shepard Page A

management trainee in a bank. Each morning he would drive to
work and spend a controlled, quiet eight hours; each night he would watch TV
with his mother, and before going to bed, he would climb to the attic and
inspect the trunk containing his souvenirs of war—helmet, fatigues, knife,
boots. The doctors had insisted he face his experiences, and this ritual was
his way of following their instructions. All in all, he was quite pleased with
his progress, but he still had problems. He had not been able to force himself
to venture out at night, remembering all too well the darkness in the cloud
forest, and he had rejected his friends, refusing to see them or answer their
calls—he was not secure with the idea of friendship. Further, despite his
methodical approach to life, he was prone to a nagging restlessness, the
feeling of a chore left undone.
     
    One
night his mother came into his room and told him that an old friend, Phil
Curry, was on the phone. “Please talk to him, Johnny,” she said. “He’s been
drafted, and I think he’s a little scared.”
     
    The
word drafted struck a responsive chord in Dantzler’s soul, and after
brief deliberation he went downstairs and picked up the receiver.
     
    “Hey,”
said Phil. “What’s the story, man? Three months, and you don’t even give me a
call.”
     
    “I’m
sorry,” said Dantzler. “I haven’t been feeling so hot.”
     
    “Yeah,
I understand,” Phil was silent a moment. “Listen, man. I’m leaving, y’know, and
we’re having a big send-off at Sparky’s. It’s goin’ on right now. Why don’t you
come down?”
     
    “I
don’t know.”
     
    “Jeanine’s
here, man. Y’know, she’s still crazy ‘bout you, talks ‘bout you alla time. She
don’t go out with nobody.”
     
    Dantzler
was unable to think of anything to say.
     
    “Look,”
said Phil, “I’m pretty weirded out by this soldier shit. I hear it’s pretty bad
down there. If you got anything you can tell me ‘bout what it’s like, man, I’d
‘preciate it.”
     
    Dantzler
could relate to Phil’s concern, his desire for an edge, and besides, it felt
right to go. Very right. He would take some precautions against the darkness.
     
    “I’ll
be there,” he said.
     
    It
was a foul night, spitting snow, but Sparky’s parking lot was jammed.
Dantzler’s mind was flurried like the snow, crowded like the lot—thoughts
whirling in, jockeying for position, melting away. He hoped his mother would
not wait up, he wondered if Jeanine still wore her hair long, he was worried
because the palms of his hands were unnaturally warm. Even with the car windows
rolled up, he could hear loud music coming from inside the club. Above the door
the words SPARKY’S ROCK CITY were being spelled out a letter at a time in red
neon, and when the spelling was complete, the letters flashed off and on and a
golden neon explosion bloomed around them. After the explosion, the entire sign
went dark for a split second, and the big ramshackle building seemed to grow
large and merge with the black sky. He had an idea it was watching him, and he
shuddered—one of those sudden lurches downward of the kind that take you just
before you fall asleep. He knew the people inside did not intend him any harm,
but he also knew that places have a way of changing people’s intent, and he did
not want to be caught off guard. Sparky’s might be such a place, might be a
huge black presence camouflaged by neon, its true substance one with the abyss
of the sky, the phosphorescent snowflakes jittering in his headlights, the wind
keening through the side vent. He would have liked very much to drive home and
forget about his promise to Phil; however, he felt a responsibility to explain
about the war. More than a responsibility, an evangelistic urge. He would tell
them about the kid falling out of the chopper, the white-haired girl in
Tecolutla, the emptiness. God, yes! How you went down chock-full of ordinary
American thoughts and