The Big Whatever Read Free

distant galaxies, and we didn’t need speech to communicate anymore, we just understood each other’s thoughts – you dig? – and when we did need to say something, we used pure musical vibration. Ray Charles was our crazy, blind, all-seeing navigator, steering us through meteor showers, alien attacks and shit like that, just sensing where we should go, and wherever he took us, that would be cool. We’d meet up with other searchers, crazy sweet like us, but in different ways – outlaws, poets, surfers, musicians, sacred prostitutes, mystics, artists, blessed anarchist lunatics – brothers and sisters all.
    Right about then a fight started somewhere up the back of the room, and the Maori bouncers moved in. The bad energy was coming from a strung-out R&R guy named Eddie, one cat who was maybe not quite ready for lysergic acid diethylamide. Negative conditioning by the military-industrial complex and the CIA, plus a Nam skag habit – had turned Eddie’s brain, which was no doubt once beautiful and angelic, into something vicious and twisted, and whenever he tried to turn on, things got VERY WEIRD. Anyway, the bouncer whacked Eddie, and he fell in a heap. End of story, dig? Another heavy picked him up and carried him out. Goodnight Eddie. Kind of changed the vibe for a while there, but hey, that’s the world, sweethearts, and your correspondent Mel ‘the Cool One’ Parker has no illusions about such things. So bros and sisses, I grooved on regardless, and lo, the room and everyone in it sweetened again.
    At three that morning I smoked a joint in the back lane with Cathy and we sipped cognac from a bottle I’d taken from the bar. Cathy did a dance, right there in the alley way. Not the fucking Watusi or the Boogaloo, but pure, free, arms-waving, tribal goddess MAGIC. Dig, Cathy had powers. That’s not a figure of speech, little ones, I mean it. She was possessed by Lilith. She was the Hindu goddess Mohini. She was Delilah. She was Cleopatra. She was Gilda. Morgan le Fay. Medusa. And don’t forget Beatrix. She was angel, siren and succubus. She was She .
    Actually, dear friends, I exaggerate. She was just another chick, right? Like everyone is just another whatever they are. It doesn’t do to make out this one or that one is that special, dig?
    So, truly, Cathy? you ask. Now harken unto the good doctor Mel. She was like this: About five foot six or seven. Good height. Thin, slightly foxy face, brown hair, which she sometimes grew long and was never less than shoulder length. Light brown eyes, large, but not gormless large. Taking-everything-in, never-miss-a-trick large. She leaned a tiny tad forward nearly all the time – gave you an impression of energy and enthusiasm, and even when she was stoned that drive and animation was there. Her brow was clear and even, but deep furrows would suddenly appear if she was laughing or concentrating. They were cute. Shegave it all she had, everything, all the time. She didn’t fuck around. Metaphorically speaking.
    Which leads me to the bod: nicely stacked, but not too much of anything. She could walk into any dancing, stripping, lewdly-displaying-the-wanton-flesh-type gig any time she wanted. But it was never a dumb thing with her. She kept a knowing eye on the staring palookas, and probably picked up a lot more about them than they did about her.
    Anyway, Cathy had it all going on that night in the lane way out the back of the Joker. She danced in big circles while I was slouched against the wall, clutching a bottle of firewater. She sauntered over and slowly, beautifully leaned against me. I kissed her cheek, then her nose, then her lips, while she swayed and wiggled.
    Then I shook my head and pushed her away.
    â€œIt’s not right.”
    â€œHmm,” she said, moving her hips, “why not?”
    â€œYou know, Johnny,” I said. “Where is he, by the way?”
    â€œHe split when the fight