THE shape of the brief but legendary1 Trasero County coast, where the waves were so high you could lie on the beach and watch the sun through them, repeated on its own scale the greater curve between San Diego and Terminal Island, including a military reservation which, like Camp Pendleton in the world at large, extended from the ocean up into a desert hinterland. At one edge of the base, pressed between the fenceline and the sea, shimmered2 the pale archways and columns, the madrone and wind-shaped cypresses4 of the clifftop campus of College of the Surf. Against the somber5 military blankness at its back, here was a lively beachhead of drugs, sex, and rock and roll, the strains of subversive6 music day and night, accompanied by tambourines7 and harmonicas, reaching like fog through the fence, up the dry gulches8 and past the sentinel antennas9, the white dishes and masts, the steel equipment sheds, finding the ears of sentries10 attentuated but ominous11, like hostile-native sounds in a movie about white men fighting savage12 tribes.
How it had come to this was a mystery to all levels of command, especially here, bracketed by the two ultraconservative counties of Orange and San Diego, having like a border town grown into an extreme combination of both, attracting the wealthy, who gathered around golf courses and marinas in houses painted the same color as the terrain13, with vast floor areas but no more elevation14 than there had to be, flew in and out of private airfields15, would soon be dropping in on Dick Nixon, just over the county line in San Clemente, without even phoning first, most of them solid Southern California money, oil, construction, pictures. Ostensibly College of the Surf was to have been their own private polytechnic16 for training the sorts of people who would work for them, offering courses in law enforcement, business administration, the brand-new field of Computer Science, admitting only students likely to be docile17, enforcing a haircut and dress code that Nixon himself confessed to finding a little stodgy18. It was the last place anybody expected to see any dissent19 from official reality, but suddenly here with no prelude20 it had begun, the same dread21 disease infecting campuses across the land, too many cases even in the first days for campus security to deal with.
But when traveling Movement coordinators began to show up, they could only shake their heads and blink, as if trying to surface from a dream. None of these kids had been doing any analysis. Not only was nobody thinking about the real situation, nobody was even brainlessly reacting to it. Instead they were busy surrounding with a classically retrograde cult23 of personality a certain mathematics professor, neither charismatic nor even personable, named Weed Atman, who had ambled24 into celebrity25.
It was a nice day, everybody was out in Dewey Weber Plaza26 enjoying the sunshine, boys loosening their ties, even taking off their jackets, girls unpinning their hair and hiking their skirts up as far as their knees, a thousand students out on their lunch breaks, drinking milk, eating baloney-and-white-bread sandwiches, listening to Mike Curb28 Congregation records on the radio, talking about sports and hobbies and classes and how the work was going on the new Nixon Monument, a hundred-foot colossus in black and white marble at the edge of the cliff, gazing not out to sea but inland, towering above the campus architecture, and above the highest treetops, dark-and-pale, a quizzical look on its face. In the midst of a noontide scene tranquil29 enough to have charmed a statue, there arose, suddenly, the odor of marijuana smoke. That it was widely and immediately recognized later led historians of the incident to question the drug innocence30 of this student body, most of whom were already at least in violation31 of the California mopery statutes32 about Being In A Place where the sinister33 herb was burning. The fateful joint35 that day could have come, heaven knew, from any of the troop of surfer undesirables36 who'd lately been finding their way up the cliffside and in among the wholesome37 collegians, bringing with them their "stashes38," consisting — up till now — mainly of stems and seeds, which because of a mysterious anomaly in surfer brain chemistry actually got them loaded but which produced in those they were trying to "turn on" only headaches, upper respiratory distress39, shortness of temper, and depression, a syndrome40 that till now the college kids, not wishing to seem impolite, had pretended to find euphoric. But that day, at the mere3 distant spice-wind scent41 of the Joint in the Plaza, other states of mind ail42 at once seemed possible. Like loaves and fishes, the hand-rolled cigarettes soon began to multiply, curls of smoke to become visible, all from the same bag of what drug-agency reports were to call "extremely potent43" Vietnamese buds, perhaps, it was later suggested, brought in by somebody's brother in the service, since it sure wasn't surfer product.
As events were later reconstructed, when a young woman suddenly fell to her knees and began screaming at Jesus to deliver them all from the satanic substance, a disheveled young man in a beige suit, with eyeballs like a county map and a loose smile he could not, for the first time in his life, control, approached the distraught girl, attempting, in a spirit of benevolent45 therapy, to insert a lit reefer into her mouth, which drew the unsympathetic attention of her boyfriend. Others took sides or, bummed46 out, began also to scream and run around, while several went off to phone the police, so before long units from Laguna to Escondido were responding, what they lacked in coordination47 being more than made up for by their eagerness at a chance to handle, however briefly48, some college-age flesh. It was the following confusion of long crowdwaves, carrying smaller bursts of violence that exploded like seeds in a surfer's cigarette, that Weed Atman, preoccupied49 with the darker implications of a paper on group theory he'd just been reading, came woolgathering and innocent into the midst of. "What's happening?" he asked.
"You tell us, you're tall enough."
"Yeah, High-Altitude, what's going on over there?"
Weed saw that he was the tallest person in his vicinity, if "vicinity" be defined as a domain50 bounded by a set of points partway to the next person of a height equal to or greater than his own, six three and a half, this distance varying linearly with the height — His thoughts were interrupted by a scuffle nearby. Three policemen, falling upon one unarmed student, were beating him with their riot sticks. Nobody was stopping them. The sound was clear and terrible. "What the hell," said Weed Atman, as a throb51 of fear went right up his asshole. It was a moment of light, in which the true nature of police was being revealed to him. "They're breaking people's heads?"
"How about over that way?"
"Line of cops — helmets, fatigues52 — carrying some kind of weapons. . . ." Suddenly Weed was the spotter.
"Man, let's split!"
"Somebody get us out of here!"
"Follow this big dude!"
"I'm just tall, that's all," Weed tried to point out, but it seemed he'd already been chosen, already too many were going to move exactly the way he did. And he was still reeling from his law-enforcement epiphany. Without thinking, become pure action for the first time since ascending53 a rock face one sunrise last year in Yosemite, he led them to safety, out the back way, past Greg Noll Lab and The Olympics Auditorium54. Most of them kept on going, but a few stayed with Weed, making their way finally down to the Las Nalgas Beach apartment of Rex Snuvvle, a graduate student in the Southeast Asian Studies Department, who while being indoctrinated into the government's version of the war in Vietnam had, despite his own best efforts, been at last as unable to avoid the truth as, once knowing it, to speak it, out of what he easily admitted was fear of reprisal55. In his increasingly deeper studies he had become obsessed56 with the fate of the Bolshevik Leninist Group of Vietnam, a section of the Fourth International that up till 1953 had trained in France and sent to Vietnam some 500 Trotskyist cadres, none of whom, being to the left of Ho Chi Minh, were ever heard from again. What remained of the group was a handful of exiles in Paris, with whom Rex, in paranoid secretiveness, had begun to correspond, having come to believe that the BLGVN had stood for the only authentic57 Vietnamese revolution so far but had been sold out by all parties, including the Fourth International. What it stood for in his own mind was less simple. These men and women, few of whose names he would ever know, had become for him a romantic lost tribe with a failed cause, likely to remain unfound in earthly form but perhaps available the way Jesus was to those who "found" him — like a prophetic voice, like a rescue mission from elsewhere which had briefly entered real history, promising58 to change it, raising specific hopes that might then get written down, become programs, generate earthly sequences of cause and effect. If such an abstraction could have for a while found residence in this mortal world, then — of the essence to Rex — one might again. .. .
So did he envision himself counseling and educating Weed Atman, a dialogue in which together they might explore American realities in the light of this low-hanging Eastern lamp — but Weed, much to his dismay, turned out to be all but silent. At the Steering59 Committee meeting that night for the newly formed All Damned Heat Off Campus, or ADHOC, Weed just milled around. " 'To have said and done nothing is a great power,' " Rex quoted Talleyrand, " 'but it should not be abused.' " Weed smiled absently, absorbed by the beat of rock and roll music beamed by the megawatt in over the border from the notorious XERB. Girls everywhere, as if by magic, were become all thighs61 and dark eyelashes, and boys, seized as well by this geist that could've been poker62 along with zeit, had actually cut off pieces of hair from their heads and, too impatient to grow beards, glued it onto their faces. Innocent festivity ruled far into the night, not much by Berkeley or Columbia standards, maybe, though Rex did manage to place Weed in what looked like the emerging junta63.
By all the laws of uprising, this one should have been squashed in a matter of hours by the invisible forces up on the base. Instead it flourished, as week after week amazingly went by, a small crescent-shaped region of good spirits in that darkening era, cheerful not in desperation or even defiance64, but in simple relief from what had gone before, still innocent of how it could ever be stopped. Perhaps its very textbook vulnerability allowed it to be spared — why worry about anything that could so easily be brushed into the sea, like crumbs65 off a tabletop? At the same time, it was still too uncomfortably close to San Clemente and other sensitive locales.
Meanwhile, ominously66, the education denied them now proceeded, as enough of them saw through to how deep, how empty was their ignorance. A sudden lust67 for information swept the campus, and soon research — somebody's, into something — was going on 24 hours a day. It came to light that College of the Surf was no institution of learning at all, but had been an elaborate land developers' deal from the beginning, only disguised as a gift to the people. Five years' depreciation69 and then the plan was to start putting in cliffside vacation units. So, in the name of the people, the kids decided70 to take it back, and knowing the state was in on the scheme at all levels, including the courts, where they'd never get a fair deal, they chose to secede71 from California and become a nation of their own, which following a tumultuous nightlong get-together72 on the subject they decided to name, after the one constant they knew they could count on never to die, The People's Republic of Rock and Roll.
The 24fps convoy73 rolled in the day after the official declaration. Cafes, beer taverns74, and pizza parlors76 were ahum with intrigue77. Young folks with subversive hair ran through the streets putting up posters or spray-painting on walls PR3, CUBA WEST, and WE'RE RIGHT UP THEIR ASS22 AND THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW IT! No hour day or night was exempt78 from helicopter visits, though this was still back in the infancy79 of overhead surveillance, with a 16mm Arri "M" on a Tyler Mini-Mount being about state of the art as far as Frenesi knew. Down at ground level, as things turned out, it was herself and the Scoopic. Not that she would have said she was working for Brock, exactly. When he took copies of the footage she shot, he paid no more than the lab costs. She told herself she was making movies for everybody, to be shown free anywhere there might be a reflective enough surface ... it wasn't secret footage, Brock had as much right as anybody. . . . But then after a while he was not only seeing the outtakes, but also making suggestions about what to shoot to begin with, and the deeper she got into that, the deeper Brock came into her life.
Meantime, most of the members of 24fps thought she was into "a number," as they called it back then, with Weed Atman. Prairie had her suspicions too, just from the way Frenesi was filming him, initially80 at a night wingding that was supposed to be a general policy meeting. Led Zeppelin music blasted from the PA, bottles and joints81 circulated, one or two couples — it was hard to see — had found some space and started fucking. Up on the platform several people were screaming politics all at the same time, with constant input82 from the floor. Some wanted to declare war on the Nixon Regime, others to approach it, like any other municipality, on the topic of revenue sharing. Even through the crude old color and distorted sound, Prairie could feel the liberation in the place that night, the faith that anything was possible, that nothing could stand in the way of such joyous83 certainty. She'd never seen anything like it before. Then, in a shot of the whole crowd, she noticed this moving circle of focused attention as somebody made his way through, until a tall shape ascended84 to visibility. "Weed!" they cried, like a sports crowd in another country, the echo just subsiding85 before the next "Weed!" By this stage of his career Weed looked exactly like the kind of college professor parents in those days were afraid would seduce86 their daughters, not to mention their sons. "Attractive in an offbeat87 way," was one of the comments in his COINTELPRO file, an already lengthy88 stack of documents that eventually would oblige the Bureau, when they wished to move it about, to hang a WIDE LOAD sign on the back. His hair was approaching shoulder length, and tonight he wore a cowrie-shell necklace, white Nehru shirt, and bell-bottom trousers covered with four-color images of Daffy Duck. And oh how Frenesi, that throbbing89 eye, was lingering on him, and presently, in time to the music, zooming90 in and out every chance she got on Weed's crotch. "Subtle," remarked DL.
"Nuanced," added Ditzah. "I give it a thumbs-up." For somebody who spent as much time as he did with objects so abstract that most people went their whole lives without even hearing about them, Weed pursued a remarkably91 untidy personal life. Technically92 separated from his wife, Jinx, sharing custody93 of Moe and Penny, he was orbited as well by an undetermined number of ex-old ladies and their relatives and kids, who showed up from time to time either in person or by way of certified94 mail, process servers, or else all together on one of Weed's infamous95 family weekend get-togethers, when everybody was supposed to wallow in retro-domestic Caring and Warmth, except of course for whoever the latest girlfriend happened to be — left to her own resources, she would usually, after a while, grow dazed with it. The kids ran thumping96 around, eating nonstop, the adults drank, took drugs, hugged, wept, had insights, marathoning through the night till breakfast, nothing ever resolved, false reconciliation97 abounding98. All very jolly for Weed, naturally, being the one who got to set up and direct these extravaganzas, to preside beaming as two or more pleasant-looking women, in Weed's case often wearing provocative99 attire100 and getting physical about it, competed for his attention. Mysteriously, the various ladies kept going for this every time, and the kids loved it. If this was how adults were allowed to act, their own outlook might not be so bad.
Frenesi in fact had gone directly from a sinkful of dishes accumulated during one of these all-night love feasts right on to an early jet to Oklahoma City, where by now she was meeting Brock Vond for regular trysts101 in the waterbed suite102 of a motor inn out on South Meridian103, by the airport. She hitched104 a ride up to LAX with Jinx and the kids, to whom she pretended she was headed for the Bay Area. "It was nice of all you guys not to gang up on me."
" 'Cause we've all been there," Jinx's smile unrelaxing.
"He doesn't strike me somehow as ... real groovy husband material?"
"Oh — he thinks he is. Thinks being married will help anchor him to real life, so he won't go floating off into some other dimension?"
"Do you understand any of this math trip he's on?" After a pause, the two had a short laugh. "He tried once, but after a while he must've forgot I was there, just kept on writing equations and stuff."
" 'From the foregoing, it is intuitively obvious ...,'" Jinx doing his voice. "That's how soon I knew it was over. But as you probably found out, once you can stop him talking, he's all business. So, you know, you do kind of hang around."
"A lot of this is the politics too, Jinx, I hope you dig."
"Just don't tell me you're in love, OK?"
"Sister, I ain't even in line."
The kids were giggling105 in the back. "Funny, huh?"
Giggles106. "We're just waitin'," said Moe.
"What for?"
"For one of you to say 'asshole,' " said Penny.
Flying to Oklahoma was like taking a shuttle to another planet. After a lunch hour of sex, they lay among plastic room-service litter in front of the Tube, which had just announced that the powerboat racing107 out by the dam at Lake Overholser had been suspended. Voices accompanied by weather maps kept breaking in with updates on a number of storm cells moving out in the landscape, surrounding the city. Ghostly predigital radar108 images appeared, of gray mother storms giving birth from their right-hand sides to little hook-shaped echoes that grew, and detached, to glide109 off on their own as murderous young tornadoes110. Weather commentators111 tried to maintain the tradition of wackiness the job is known for, but could not keep out of the proceedings112 an element of surrender, as if before some first hard intelligence of the advent113 of an agent of rapture114. Outside, from a remote camera, the sky was the underside of a beast, countless115 gray-black udder shapes crawling in in front of a squall line, behind it something distantly roaring, dangling116 immense stings veined with lightning, sweeping117, destroying. . . . She felt electrically excited — more than his cock, just then, she needed his embrace. Fat chance. He'd been watching it all like a commercial, as if the Beast opposite the city were a coming attraction he had grown overfamiliar with.
What he seemed to want was to talk business. He had drafted, sent up, and was about to have authorized118 a plan to destabilize and subvert119 PR3 with funding from one of the DOJ discretionary lines. "It's a laboratory setup," Brock argued, "a Marxist mini-state, product of mass uprising, we don't want it there and we also don't want to invade — how then to proceed?" His idea was to make enough money available to set them all fighting over who'd get it. It would also, as Brock pitched it, have value as a scale model, to find out how much bringing down a whole country might cost.
She lay with her hair all messed up, lipstick120 smeared121, arms and legs in a loose sprawl122, nipples erect123 and, to the infrared-sensitive eye, glowing steadily124. A peal125 of thunder from outside fell close enough to send a shuddering126 fine ache all across her skin. She wanted so to hold him. She had entered a brief time-out in the struggle, from which, if she'd chosen to, she also could have seen most, maybe all the way to the end, of what she could lose for this — OK, there he was, full-length, the whole package — for what? The fucking? Anything else?
On the screen, the weather crew had fallen queerly silent. At first Frenesi wondered if the sound had gone out, but then one of them laughed nervously128 and the others joined in. It would happen again before suddenly, unannounced, a preacher with a hand mike, in front of a great luminous129 cross, appeared on the screen in stylishly130 long sideburns and a leisure suit of some lurid131 brick-colored synthetic132. "Looks like we're in the hands of Jesus again," he announced. "Someday, with the right man in the White House, there will be a Department of Jesus, yes and a Secretary of Jesus, and he'll be talking to you all, on a nationwide hookup, instead of this old ignoramus from the piney woods. No friends, I'm no expert, wouldn't know a suction vortex if it walked up and said bless you brother — ah but I do know how the men of science measure tornadoes, and that's on what they call the Fujita Intensity133 Scale. But folks, maybe today that name should be Fu-Jesus.. . ." "Mind if I, uh —" Frenesi reaching and turning off the set. "Your mathematician134 doesn't go in for that sort of thing?" Frenesi put her ears back, and white triangles appeared at the corners of her eyeballs.
"Or does he? Maybe he's one of these servants of the Lord, with a holy mission to defy Caesar?"
"Think I covered that on one of those forms of yours." "I read it," almost breathless, looking like a boy, "I watched all the film footage, too, but I never saw anything about his spirit. That's what I'd like to hear about sometime. I want his spirit, hm? I'm happy to leave his body to you."
"Oh, I don't know, Brock, he might be just your type." He took off his glasses, smiled at her in a way she'd learned to be wary135 of. "Actually he is, and I'm sorry you had to find out this way. Remember last time, when I told you not to bathe, hm?
because I knew you'd be seeing him that night, knew he'd go down on you — didn't he? ate your pussy136, hm? of course I know, because he told me. You were coming in his face and he was tasting me all the time."
Brock's homophobic sense of humor? She tried to remember if that was how it had happened, and couldn't... and what did he mean about "wanting" Weed's spirit?
"You're the medium Weed and I use to communicate, that's all, this set of holes, pleasantly framed, this little femme scampering137 back and forth138 with scented139 messages tucked in her little secret places."
She was too young then to understand what he thought he was offering her, a secret about power in the world. That's what he thought it was. Brock was young then too. She only took it as some parable140 about his feelings for her, one she didn't exactly understand but covered for with the wide invincible141 gaze practiced by many sixties children, meaning nearly anything at all, useful in a lot of situations, including ignorance.
Somebody had left a promotional magnum of Grand Cru de Muskogee Demi-Sec, made from a Concord142 grape variety imported from Arkansas, in a wastebasket full of ice. It had a nearly opaque143, deeply purple color bordering on the ultraviolet and a body comparable to that of maple144 syrup145, through which its bubbles, though multitudinous, were obliged to rise slowly and, alas146, invisibly. But Brock, an aspiring147 gentleman, did the gallant148 thing and managed to choke down his share, even managing to toast Weed once or twice. She gave him the little-girl photofloods, 4800o of daylight blue, and whispered, "It's why you kill each other, isn't it?"
"Who?"
"Men. Because you can't love each other."
He shook his head slowly. "Missed the point again — you never get beyond that hippie shit, do you."
"Point I didn't miss," she finished the thought, "is you prefer to do it by forcing things into each other's bodies."
"I hope that's a mischievous150 look."
"Don't get many of them, do you?"
"It's Atman who's been putting you on this 'trip,' you're getting too old to be such a smartass on your own."
She smiled and raised her glass. "You got it, just a 'medium,' goes in these four holes, comes out this one. Hey, and let's not forget nostrils151, huh?"
They lounged around the room, on and off the waterbed, becoming more grapey than drunk, and Brock just wouldn't give the Weed situation a rest. Outside, beyond the dense152 rubberized drapes, now a solid black rectangle rim-lit with a least glimmer153 of failed daylight, was the storm, the Event. Just when she thought they were nestled safe in the center of America — here were sounds in the air they couldn't have imagined, roars too deep for any Air Force jets from Tinker, some nonliquid clattering154 on the roof that could only be insects of a plague. Frenesi went to the window and pulled enough of one drape aside to have a look. At the sight of the black rolling clouds she caught her breath — she'd never seen a sky like this on Earth, not even with the help of LSD. With no warning, everything would pulse hugely with light, and the undersides and edges of the great clouds be hit with electric blue and now and then, all creviced in black, a terrible final red. In the last light out the window, near enough to see, a funnel155 cloud, its tip not yet touching156 the earth, swung slowly, deliberating, as if selecting a target below. She pulled the drapes open to allow a sword-shape of outside patio157 light, which had just come on, to fall across the bed, where Brock lay with his forearm over his eyes and his socks on. "You can figure it out, can't you?" he cried over the booming death-drone outside, "you have a smart-assed angle on everything else, why can't you see this one? Your boyfriend is in the way. In our way." Just quiet enough to register as deferent, sincere.
"Real easy, then — just take me off the case. Chances are he won't even notice."
"Anyone can deliver me his body," called Brock Vond across the room, "if that was all I wanted, you'd've been off it long ago."
There, as her mother used to sing, he said it again.
"Remember handing me all that shit in your office till I agreed to send in a written report? You said then there wouldn't be anything more."
"But you're right there literally158 in bed with him — perfect placement. He's the key to it all, the key log, pull him and you break up the structure," and the logs would disengage, singly and in groups, and continue on their way down the river to the sawmill, to get sawed into lumber159, to be built into more America — Weed was the only one innocent enough, without hidden plans, with no ambitions beyond surmounting160 what the day brought each time around, he just went lurching on happily into his new identity as a man of action, embracing it as only an abstract thinker would, with the heedless enthusiasm of some junior doper discovering a new psychedelic, enjoying the unqualified trust of all who came inside his radius161. With him gone and the others scrambling162 after the greenbacks in Brock's safe, PR3 would fall apart.
"Never thought you'd try to hustle163 me like this, Brock." "I didn't think you'd ever get into it with Atman, either," his voice just for the moment stressless, unprotected. "Plans change, I guess. . . ."
She understood as clearly as she could allow herself to what Brock wanted her to do, understood at last, dismally164, that she might even do it — not for him, unhappy fucker, but because she had lost just too much control, time was rushing all around her, these were rapids, and as far ahead as she could see it looked like Brock's stretch of the river, another stage, like sex, children, surgery, further into adulthood165 perilous166 and real, into the secret that life is soldiering, that soldiering includes death, that those soldiered for, not yet and often never in on the secret, are always, at every age, children. She came and lay next to him, but not touching. The storm held the city down like prey167, trying repeatedly to sting it into paralysis168. She lay on one elbow, unable to stop gazing at Brock, pretending to herself that it made some difference to him whether or not she and Weed were fucking . . . just as she had to pretend that Brock was not "really" what he looked like to everybody else — namely, the worst kind of self-obsessed collegiate dickhead, projected on into adult format68 — but that someplace, lost, stupefied, needing her intercession, was the "real" Brock, the endearing adolescent who would allow her to lead him stumbling out into light she imagined as sun plus sky, with an 85 filter in, returning him to the man he should have grown into ... it could've been about the only way she knew to use the word love anymore, its trivializing in those days already well begun, its magic fading, the subject of all that rock and roll, the simple resource we once thought would save us. Yet if there was anything left to believe, she must have in the power even of that weightless, daylit commodity of the sixties to redeem169 even Brock, amiably170, stupidly brutal171, fascist172 Brock.
At some point he must have gone drifting off to sleep, and she hadn't noticed. She watched over him, hers for a while, allowing herself to shudder127 with, even surrender to, her need for his bodily presence, his beauty, the fear at the base of her spine173, the prurient174 ache in her hands... at last, so swept and helpless, she leaned in to whisper to him her heart's overflow175, and saw in the half-light that what she'd thought were closed eyelids176 had been open all the time. He'd been watching her. She let out a short jolted177 scream. Brock started laughing.
AS a resident of the everyday world, Weed Atman may have had his points, but as a Thanatoid he rated consistently low on most scales, including those that measured dedication178 and community spirit. Even his first of many interviews with Takeshi and DL, continuing off and on over the years, had been enough to establish a detachment of attitude, a set of barriers neither found they could cross. We are assured by the Bardo Th?dol, or Tibetan Book of the Dead, that the soul newly in transition often doesn't like to admit — indeed will deny quite vehemently179 — that it's really dead, having slipped so effortlessly into the new dispensation that it finds no difference between the weirdness180 of life and the weirdness of death, an enhancing factor in Takeshi's opinion being television, which with its history of picking away at the topic with doctor shows, war shows, cop shows, murder shows, had trivialized the Big D itself. If mediated181 lives, he figured, why not mediated deaths?
At first Weed went around feeling like a political defector. People pretending to be amateur students of the sixties kept showing up to fish for information and annoy him with entry-level chitchat. He was often obliged to be at functions not to his taste, wearing tuxedos182 it was impossible for the average Thanatoid to rent anyhow, owing to the usual complexities184 in the credit situation. Weed soon found he'd been 86'd from every tux outlet185 in Hollywood and on south, so he headed the other way, up over the passes and out the long desert arterials, out past the seed and feed houses and country music bars and Mexican joints with Happy Hours featuring 99￠ margaritas out of a hose, under the smog, the dribbling186 rain, the toxic187 lens of sky, to where folks, he hoped, were more trusting if less picky about what they wore, and where in fact formal dress, by some subterranean188 fashion law, turned out to be much less conventional. Soon he began showing up at Thanatoid service-organization affairs in ensembles189 of vivid chartreuse, teal, or fuchsia, the ties and cummerbunds hand-painted with matching motifs190 like tropical fruit, naked women, or bass191 lures192. For tonight's tenth annual get-together, Thanatoid Roast '84, Weed sported a stretch tux in an oversize aqua and gold houndstooth check, with lime-green athletic193 shoes. Each year the community chose to honor a Thanatoid old-timer whose karma had kept up a suitably steady rhythm of crime and countercrime over the generations, with facts only grown more complicated, many original wrongs forgotten or defectively195 remembered, no resolution of even a trivial problem anywhere in sight. Thanatoids didn't exactly "enjoy" these long, resentful tales of injustice196 modulating197, like a ballpark organ riff, to further injustice — but they honored them. Figures like tonight's Roastee were their Emmy winners, their Hall-of-Famers and role models — their own.
What an evening. They told obscure but rib-tickling Thanatoid jokes. They twitted one another for taking inordinate198 lengths of Earth time to clean up relatively199 penny-ante karmic business. Thanatoid wives bravely did their part to complicate194 further already tangled200 marriage histories by flirting201 with waiters, buspersons, and even other Thanatoids. Everyone drank and smoked furiously, and the menu featured the usual low-end fare, heavy on sugar, starch202, salt, ambiguous about where the meat had come from, including which animal, accompanied by bushels of french fries and barrels of shakes. Dessert was a horrible pale chunky pudding. There was sparkling wine, to be sure, but all clues to its origin had been blacked out with felt-tip marker at some unknown stage in its perhaps not even entirely203 legal journey. As more of this was drunk, Thanatoids grew less shy about lurching up to the mike and reciting insult testimonials to the Roastee, or making with the quips.
"What do you call a Thanatoid with 'Sir' in front of his name? Knight204 of the Living Dead! How many Thanatoids's it take to screw in a light bulb? None — it gets too hot in there! What does a Thanatoid do on Halloween? Puts a fruit bowl on his head, two straws up his nose, and goes as a Zombie!"
The 1984 Thanatoid Roast was being held up north, at an old Thanatoid hangout, the Blackstream Hotel, which dated from the times of the early timber barons205, hidden far from highways, up among long redwood mountainslopes where shadows came early and brought easy suspicion of another order of things . . . believed, through some unseen but potent geometry, to warp206 like radio signals at sundown the two worlds, to draw them closer, nearly together, out of register only by the thinnest of shadows. In the century since the place was built, tales of twilight207 happenings had accumulated, rooms, corridors, and wings taken on reputations for sightings, exorcisms, returns. Pilgrims enjoying a broad range of legitimacy208 had been around, so had Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of" people and Jack27 Palance's "Believe It or Not," and deals, as you could always count on hearing, were in the works.
"And someday," the joker at the mike was saying, "maybe they'll even put Thanatoid Roasts on television, as a yearly comedy special, yeah, big names, network coverage209 — 'course we won't live to see it. . . ." The drummer gave him a couple of bass thumps210 and some slow mashed211 sizzling from the high-hat. Providing the music tonight was a local pickup212 group, including, on bass, Van Meter, who'd heard about it down at the Lost Nugget, would have tried to talk his running mate Zoyd into coming along and playing keyboard, except that nobody had seen Zoyd around for most of the week, and Van Meter didn't know if he should be getting worried yet or not. Zoyd had been staying with planters he knew up by Holytail, beyond the coastal213 ranges and the yearlong fogs, in a valley where growing conditions were ideal — about the last refuge for pot growers in North California. Access, at least by road, wasn't easy — because of the Great Slide of '64, you had to double back and forth along both sides of the river and take ferries, which weren't always running, and bridges said to be haunted. Zoyd had found a community living on borrowed time, as everyone watched the scope of the CAMP crop-destruction effort growing without limit, season after season — as more state and federal agencies came on board, as the grand jury in Eureka subpoenaed215 more and more citizens, as friendly deputies and secure towns one by one were neutralized216, taken back under government control — all wondering when it would be the turn of Holytail.
The Vineland County sheriff, Willis Chunko, a squinty-eyed, irascible old media hand who showed up every autumn, as sure a precursor217 of the season as the Jerry Lewis telethon, posing on the evening news next to towering stacks of baled-up marijuana plants or advancing on some field shooting a flamethrower from the hip149, had featured Holytail on his shit list for years, but the area was extraordinarily218 tough for him to penetrate219. "It's Sherwood Forest up there," he would complain to the cameras, "they hide up in the trees, you never see 'em." No matter how Willis chose to arrive, Holytailers always had plenty of advance warning. The network of observers extended down to Vineland, with some lurking220 right outside the Sheriff's Department itself with rolls of quarters, ready to call in, others hooked up by CB radio in roving patrols on all surface routes, or scanning the sky from ridges214 and mountaintops with binoculars221 and converted fishing-boat radars222.
As crops in the sun grew fatter, flowered, more densely223 aromatic224, as resinous225 breezes swept out of the gulches to scent the town day and night, the sky over Vineland County, which had allowed the bringing of life, now began to reveal a potential for destroying it. Pale blue unmarked little planes appeared, on days of VFR unlimited226 nearly invisible against the sky, flown by a private vigilante squadron of student antidrug activists227, retired228 military pilots, government advisers229 in civvies, off-duty deputies and troopers, all working under contract to CAMP and being led by the notorious Karl Bopp, former Nazi230 Luftwaffe officer and subsequently useful American citizen. During these weeks of surveillance, helicopter and plane crews were beginning to assemble each morning in a plasterboard ready room out in the flats below Vine-land, near the airport, waiting for Kommandant Bopp to appear in the full regalia of his old profession and announce Der Tag.
Up in Holytail, the growers hung around at Piggy's Tavern75 and Restaurant, discussing, in an atmosphere of mounting anxiety, the general dilemma231 of when to harvest. The longer you waited, the better the crop, but the better, too, your chances of getting hit by the CAMP invaders232. Storm and frost probabilities, and personal paranoia233 thresholds, also figured in. Sooner or later Holytail was due for the full treatment, from which it would emerge, like most of the old Emerald Triangle, pacified234 territory — reclaimed235 by the enemy for a timeless, defectively imagined future of zero-tolerance drug-free Americans all pulling their weight and all locked in to the official economy, inoffensive music, endless family specials on the Tube, church all week long, and, on special days, for extra-good behavior, maybe a cookie.
With surveillance farther up the watershed236 and over the ridge-lines quickening, so had the civic237 atmosphere down in Vineland taken on an edge, traffic downtown and in the lots at the malls grown snappish and loud with car horns and deliberate backfires, boat owners anxiously in and out of parts places several times a day, reports of naval238 movement, at least one aircraft carrier sighted on station just off Patrick's Point, and AWACS planes in the air round the clock now, not to mention the Continental239 charm of Kommandant Bopp all over the local news, as he, often in Nazi drag, declared his "volunteer" sky force at maximum readiness. Something waited, over a time horizon that not even future participants could describe. Once-carefree dopers got up in the middle of the night, hearts racing, and flushed their stashes down the toilet. Couples married for years forgot each other's names. Mental-health clinics all over the county reported waiting lists. Seasonal240 speculation241 arose as to who might be secretly on the CAMP payroll242 this year, as if the monster program were by now one more affliction, like bad weather or a plant disease. The cooking in the cafés got worse, and police started flagging down everybody on the highways whose looks they didn't like, which resulted in massive traffic snarls243 felt as far away as 101 and I-5. A parrot smuggler244 in an all-chrome Kenworth/Fruehauf combination known as the Stealth Rig, nearly invisible on radar, swooping245 by law enforcement with the touch-me-not authority of a UFO, showed up late one Saturday afternoon, parked beside 101 just across the bridge in unincorporated county, and sold out his entire load before the sheriff even heard about it, as if the town, already jittery246, just went parrot-crazy the minute they saw these birds, kept drunk and quiet on tequila for days, ranked out in front of the great ghostly eighteen-wheeler, bundles of primary color with hangovers, their reflections stretching and blooming along the side of the trailer. Soon there was scarcely a house in Vineland that didn't have one of these birds, who all spoke248 English with the same peculiar249 accent, one nobody could identify, as if a single unknown bird wrangler250 somewhere had processed them through in batches251 — "All right, you parrots, listen up!" Instead of the traditional repertoire252 of short, often unrelated phrases, the parrots could tell full-length stories — of humorless jaguars253 and mischief-seeking monkeys, mating competitions and displays, the coming of humans and the disappearance254 of the trees — so becoming necessary members of households, telling bedtime stories to years of children, sending them off to alternate worlds in a relaxed and upbeat set of mind, though after a while the kids were dreaming landscapes that might have astonished even the parrots. In Van Meter's tiny house behind the Cucumber Lounge, the kids, perhaps under the influence of the house parrot, Luis, figured out a way to meet, lucidly255 dreaming, in the same part of the great southern forest. Or so they told Van Meter. They tried to teach him how to do it, but he never got much closer than the edge of the jungle — if that's what it was. How cynical256 would a man have to be not to trust these glowing souls, just in from flying all night at canopy257 level, shiny-eyed, open, happy to share it with him? Van Meter had been searching all his life for transcendent chances exactly like this one the kids took so for granted, but whenever he got close it was like, can't shit, can't get a hardon, the more he worried the less likely it was to happen. ... It drove him crazy, though most of the time he could keep from taking it out on others, what muttering he did do just lost as usual in the ambient uproar258 of the day, often oppressive enough to force him out of the cabin on gigs like this, though it meant a long, intimidating259 drive upward through crowds of tall trees, perilous switchbacks, one-lane stretches hugging the mountainsides, pavement not always there — then a sunset so early he thought at first something must have happened, an eclipse, or worse. He nearly lost his way in the dark but was guided by its own pale violet glow at last to the Black-stream Hotel, which loomed260 up in an array of dim round lights that seemed to cover much of the sky. He'd heard about the place but had no idea it was this big.
Tonight all he'd brought was an ancient Fender Precision bass that he'd taken the frets261 off of himself back around '76, when he heard about Jaco Pastorius doing the same to a Jazz Bass. Van Meter had seen in the act further dimensions, the abolition262 of given scales, the restoration of a premodal innocence in which all the notes of the universe would be available to him. He filled in the grooves263 with boat epoxy and drew lines where the frets had been, just to help him through the transition. Now, years later, with all but murky264 outlines of that epiphany long faded, he figured fretless265 at least was a good choice for this crowd, who, though they didn't respond to much, seemed noticeably to perk266 up whenever Van Meter took long wavering woo-woo-woo-type glides267 on his instrument, something they could relate to, he imagined, though admittedly he didn't know that much about Thanatoids.
They're ev'ry . . .
Place that ya go,
Down ev'ry
Row that ya hoe,
Somehow, ya
Just ne-ver know, say it ain't so,
Thanatoid World!
They're ringin'
Sales at the store,
They're standin'
Guard at the door,
They're turnin'
Tricks on the floor, that 'n' much more,
Thanatoid World!
They've got that,
Tha-natoid stare,
They've got that,
Tha-natoid hair,
They've, got, that, — there's A Tha-natoid, there's
A Tha-natoid (where?)
Right There!
So if you're
Desp'rate some night,
You never
Know but you might,
Just step on
In-to the light, clear out of sight,
Thanatoid World!
A kind of promotional jingle268 more than a song, and about as up-tempo as anything would get around here tonight, the 'Toids preferring minor269 chords and a dragged recessional pulse. Gestures in the direction of rock and roll were discouraged, though blues270 licks were allowed to pass. The band was a twist-era puttogether, two saxes, two guitars, piano, and rhythm. From somewhere mildew-prone and unvisited, the hotel staff had brought piles of old-time Combo-Ork arrangements of pop standards, including Thanatoid favorites like "Who's Sorry Now?," "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues," "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," and the perennially271 requested "As Time Goes By." Van Meter had to keep forcing himself to slow down, not to mention the drummer, whose brightness of eye, wetness of lip, and frequent visits to the men's lounge suggested a personality at best impatient, and who now and then liked to explode into these ear-assaulting self-expressive solos, hollering "All right!" and "Party Time!" Despite his enthusiasm, the beat, as the evening went on, only grew slower. It was to be an all-night rallentando. Van Meter had played reds parties, where a number of bikers and biker women got in a room, took barbiturates, and nodded out, this being, basically, the party, which compared to this gig were evenings filled with vivacity272 and mirth. After a while just getting through 32 bars took a whole set. The dancing, rudimentary to begin with, tended toward gig's-end stillness, as conversation grew less and less meaningful to what few outsiders had blundered in, shunpike tourists who had only a dim idea tonight of just how far from the freeways they'd come. "Chickeeta, what's with all these people?"
"See how slow they're moving, Dr. Elasmo!"
"It's Larry, remember?"
"Ups, rilly.. . ."
"Uh-oh, here comes one of them, now remember, it's not the office, OK?"
"Evening . . . folks . . . you . . . seem ... to ... be ... from . . . out ... of... town. ..." It took some time to get said, and both Dr. Larry Elasmo, D.D.S., and his receptionist Chickeeta began to break in more than once, mistaking for pauses the silences between his words. Because Thanatoids relate in a different way to time, there was no compression toward the ends of sentences, so that they always ended by surprise. "Wait, I think I know you now," continued the slow-talking Thanatoid, who turned out to be Weed Atman in his eye-catching Spandex tuxedo183, "we had appointments. . . kept rescheduling . . . years ago? Down south?"
"Maybe you saw one of Doctor's commercials?" Chickeeta suggested, while the embarrassed Dr. Elasmo went "Larry! Larry!" out of the side of his mouth. These days he ran a chain of discount dental franchises273 called Doc Holliday's, famous for its $49.95 OK Corral Family Special, advertising275 in all major market areas in the West — but back when he'd crossed Weed's path he'd been a low-rent credit dentist known around San Diego for his stridently hypnotic, often incoherent radio and TV commercials. Somehow, in Weed's deathstunned memory, Dr. Elasmo's video image had swept, had pixeldanced in, to cover, mercifully, for something else, an important part of what had happened to him in those penultimate days at College of the Surf, but faces, things done to him that he could not. . . quite. . . .
It was right at the steepest part of his curve of descent into irresponsibility, or, as he defined it at the time, love, with Frenesi Gates, and he was spending a lot of hours out on the freeway, going through the empty exercise of trying to fool Jinx, who was having a relapse into anger and hiring private detectives to keep an eye on everybody. One day, as Weed was heading for a strip of motels in Anaheim, doing about seventy, palms aching and dry, pulse knocking in his throat, awash in thoughts of incredibly seeing Frenesi again, whom should he notice, first in his mirror, then slowly drawing abreast276 in the lane to his left, but the well-known video toothyanker himself, in a long chocolate Fleetwood, clearly on his own horny way to an illicit277 rendezvous278 — a deep glittering sideswung gaze, flipping279 away to check the road, then back to stare at Weed again, the two of them blasting along at dangerous speed, up and down hills, around curves, weaving among flatbeds and motorheads, Weed at first pretending not to see, then, tentatively, nodding back. But there was only that stare, chilling in its certainty that it knew who Weed was. Soon, in beach-town bars and country saloons, in rock and roll hideaways up canyons280 full of snakes and LSD laboratories, anyplace inside a hundred-mile radius that Weed and Frenesi tried to slip away for a quiet minute, there at some nearby table would be the silent, staring Dr. Larry Elasmo, or a person wearing, like a coverall and veil, his ubiquitous screen image, grainy, flickering281 at the edges . .. usually in the company of a tanned and lovely young blonde who might or might not have been the same one as last time.
In some way, as it developed, the lascivious282 tooth physician enjoyed a franchise274 to meddle283 in the lives and with the precious time of people he didn't even know — one that Weed, beached these years beside the Sea of Death, still didn't understand. Somehow the Doc had been authorized in those days to send people, Weed included, a form that required them to come to his offices at a certain time. No-show penalties were never exactly spelled out, only hinted at. The place was all the way downtown, in a setting of old brick hotels, sailors' bars, aging palm trees towering above the streetlights — a stark284 sprawling285 maze286 of cheap partitions inside a gutted287 former public, perhaps federal, building, now stained and ruinous, its classical columns airbrushed black with fine grime on their streetward halves, except for the fluting288, letters across the frieze289 overhead long chiseled290 away, no longer readable, ascended toward by a broad littered flight of steps that seethed291 with visitors on appointments, small business deals up and down at all levels and into the great echoing cement lobby, lined with geometric statues who loomed overhead, staring down like the saints of whatever faith this building had served.
Weed could have ignored the form in the mail, but he was haunted by that first gleaming whammy on the freeway, so he showed up on time and wearing a jacket and tie, but had to wait, as it turned out all day, in the bullpen just off the lobby, on a flimsy folding chair, nothing to read but propaganda leaflets and withered292 newsmagazines from months gone by, afraid even to go out and look for lunch. This was to happen again and again. Dr. Elasmo always ran late, sometimes days late, but each time he insisted Weed fill out a postponement293 form, including "Reason (explain fully)," as if it were Weed's fault. Weed felt more and more guilty as he became an old bullpen regular, one of a throng294 of what should plainly have been dental cases but always proved to be something else, none of them smiling, who passed nervously both ways through the gates in the railing that stood like a bar in a courtroom, an altar rail in a church, between the public side and the office penetralia full of their mysteries. Sometimes Dr. Elasmo would be rolling a table carrying a tray of shining — why couldn't Weed ever make them out clearly, was it the low-wattage light in the place? — dental equipment of some kind? "Welcome to Dr. Larry's World of Discomfort," he would whisper, going through the paperwork. There was a recurring295 message, one too deep for Weed, always about paper. "I can't accept this form. This will all have to be renegotiated. Rewritten. You'll figure it out." It was some long, ongoing296 transaction, carried on, like dentistry, in a currency of pain inflicted297, pain withheld298, pain drugged away, pain become amnesia299, how much and how often . .. sometimes Use, the hygienist, stood waiting by a door into a corridor, leading, he knew, to a bright high room with a tiny window at the top, impossibly far away, some blade of sky.. . she was holding something . . . something white and ... he couldn't remember. . ..
And Weed at the close of the workday would go back down the chipped and crumbling300 steps, back across a borderline, invisible but felt at its crossing, between worlds. It was the only way to say it. Inside, at that well-known address he could no longer remember, was an entirely different order of things. He was being exposed to it gradually during these repeated, required visits. Each time there he returned to PR3 less sure about anything — deeply confused about Frenesi, whom he loved but didn't completely trust, because of gaps in her story, absences neither she nor anyone else in 24fps would explain. He was also being driven ever crazier by the swarm301 of disciples302 who clustered around him more thickly and frantically303 as days gathered and a feeling of crisis began to grow, all making the basic revolutionary mistake, boobish, cheerful, more devoted304 the louder he screamed at and insulted them. "Yes my guru! Anything — chicks, dope, jump off the cliff, name it!" Tempting44, especially that part about the cliff — but even more seductive were the seekers of free advice. "Weed, how about picking up the gun? We know it's supposed to be wrong, but we don't know why."
Once he would have proclaimed, "Because in this country nobody in power gives a shit about any human life but their own. This forces us to be humane305 — to attack what matters more than life to the regime and those it serves, their money and their property." But these days he was saying, "It's wrong because if you pick up a rifle, the Man picks up a machine gun, by the time you find some machine gun he's all set up to shoot rockets, begin to see a pattern?" Between these two replies, something had happened to him. He was still preaching humane revolution, but seemed darkly exhausted306, unhopeful, snapping at everybody, then apologizing. If anybody caught this change, it was much too late to make a difference. They still came trooping up the alley60 to Rex's place at Las Nalgas, like ducklings looking for a mother. Surf, somewhere hidden in the fog, didn't crash so much as collapse307 on itself, wetly over and over. Though he lived there, Rex didn't show up much at these gatherings308 anymore, having finalized309 his own plans to fly off to Paris and join whatever was left of the Vietnamese section of the Fourth International. "It'll never work," Weed told him, "you're an Anglo, who'll trust you?"
"Anybody who can rise above racist310 bullshit like that, I guess." Once deferent, these days Rex was getting bitter about his protégé, who hadn't turned out at all the way he'd hoped. Though Rex wouldn't have called it purity, he'd still expected from Weed more thought, less wallowing in the everyday. Rex himself saw the Revolution as a kind of progressive abstinence, in which you began by giving up acid and pot, then tobacco, alcohol, sweets — you kept cutting down on sleep, doing with less, you broke up with lovers, avoided sex, after a while even gave up masturbating — as the enemy's attention grew more concentrated, you gave up your privacy, freedom of movement, access to money, with the looming247 promise always of jail and the final forms of abstinence from any life at all free of pain.
"Kind of pessimistic?" Weed suggested.
"I don't see you giving up anything," Rex answered, and this, to both of them, seemed a clear sign that their fates were diverging311. Rex had once owned this Porsche 911, as red as a cherry in a cocktail312, his favorite toy creature, his best disguise, his personal confidant, and more, in fact all that a car could be for a man, and it's fair to say Rex had made a tidy emotional as well as cash investment — indeed, he would not have flinched313 from the word "relationship." He called it Bruno. He knew the location of every all-night car wash in the four counties, he'd fallen asleep on his back beneath its ventral coolness, with a plastic tool case for a pillow, and slept right through the night, and he had even, more than once, in scented petroleum314 dimness, had his throbbing manhood down inside one flared315 chrome carburetor barrel as the engine idled and with sensitive care he adjusted the pulsing vacuum to meet his own quickening rhythm, as man and machine together rose to peaks of hitherto unimaginable ecstasy316. . . .
Long might the automotive idyll have gone on had the PR3 Exterior317 Bureau, in its search for allies in the world at large, not initiated318 talks with the Black Afro-American Division, who all wore shiny black Vietnam boots, black-on-black camo fatigues, and velvet-black berets with off-black wide-point stars on them ChiCom-style just to lounge around in, who showed up by invitation at the clifftop republic and got into an all-day argument with its indigenous319, whom they kept referring to as children of the surfing class. They may have been the first black people ever to set foot in Trasero County, certainly the first that many of the PR3 inhabitants had ever seen, so that a good deal of rudimentary history had to be gone over before the discussion even caught up with the present day. As this ground on, Rex grew impatient — he wanted to talk Revolution. But the brothers from BAAD seemed content just to play Trash The Xanthocroid with what, given this crowd, were some pretty easy shots.
"But we're fighting the common enemy," Rex protested. "They'd just as soon kill us as you."
The BAAD contingent320 liked that one, and laughed merrily. "The Man's gun don't have no blond option on it, just automatic, semiautomatic, and black," replied BAAD chief of staff Elliot X.
"No! When the barricades321 are in the streets, we'll be on the same side of them as you!"
"Except that we don't have the fuckin' choice, we got to be there."
"That's it, that's just it! We're choosing to stand with you!"
"Uh, huh."
"What'll I have to do, to convince you guys," Rex with tears on his face, "that I would really go to the wall, that, shit, I would die for your freedom!"
There was a lull322 in the volume. Elliot X said, "What kind of car you drive?"
"Porsche" — he'd almost said "Bruno" — "nine-eleven, why?"
"Give it to us."
"You say, uh...."
"Yeah, come on, revolutionary brother!"
"See you put that Parsh up where your mouth's at."
It is difficult in this era of greed and its ennoblement to recall the naturalness and grace with which Rex, way back then, smiling, simply produced from the depths of his fringe bag the pink slip and keys to the 911 and handed them on up to the podium, where Elliot X, mike in hand, a class act, went to one knee, like a performer to a fan, to receive them. The citizens of PR3 cheered and sang and voted magnanimously to make the Porsche a gift of the community, while the brothers began to negotiate internally about which of them was going to drive it away. Around sundown two delegations323, black and white, proceeded to the parking lot for the formal handover. Rex, already well into second thoughts, holding back sobs324, silently bade farewell to his old companion, to the desert washes and creek325 beds and mountain roads, the shopping plazas326 and green suburban327 streets they'd seen together. It stood in the last Pacific light, headlamps gazing at Rex reproachfully, no longer even Bruno, since it had been redesignated UHURU, for Ultra High-speed Urban Reconnaissance Unit.
"It's OK," Frenesi offered, "you did the right thing."
"I feel like shit." And what business was it of hers? He had no more illusions about infiltrators than he did about sunshine revolutionaries — or, for that matter, the fate of PR3. But seeing how it was with Weed and Frenesi, he knew there'd be no point in issuing warnings. Once he said, "You're up against the True Faith here, some heavy dudes, talking crusades, retribution, closed ideological328 minds passing on the Christian329 Capitalist Faith intact, mentor330 to protégé, generation to generation, living inside their power, convinced they're immune to all the history the rest of us have to suffer. They are bad, bad's they come, but that still doesn't make us good, not 100%, Weed."
"What are you talking about?" Weed standing331 all the way up.
Rex was heading for the land of the May Events, and saw no reason not to say, "Weed — bail332 out."
"Yeah, then what?"
"Math. Discover a theorem."
Weed frowned. "Urn34 — I don't think that's what you do with theorems."
"I thought they sat around, like planets, and . . . well, every now and then somebody just, you know . . . discovered one."
"I don't think so." They remained then, looking at each other directly, for longer than they ever would again. Neither one could know how few and fortunate would be any who'd be able to meet in years later than these and smile, and relax beneath some single low oak out on an impossible hillside, with sunlight, and the voices of children, "And we actually thought we were having it out over these points of doctrine," as some fine-looking young teener appears now from nowhere with a picnic spread, as they all sit and eat cracked crab333 and sourdough bread and drink some chilly334 gold-green California Chenin Blanc, and laugh, and pour more wine, "really obscure arguments, typewriters rattling335 through the windows all over campus, all night long, phone lines humming, amazing amounts of energetic youthful running around, and all for what?"
The pleasant package with the eats looks over. "I was beginning to wonder."
"Well, we were being set up all the time, it turned out. The FBI was in there like some little guy in a bar going let's-you-and-him-fight. Anonymous336 letters and phone calls, night riders, flat tires, job and landlord trouble, all made to look like it was coming from ol' what's his name here and the BLGVN/US."
She is aware of her importance here, shaded, safe, saved, a person for them both to pretend to explain things to, as a way of negotiating an agreeable version of history.
"Yes, old Rex here, he nearly 'blew me away.' "
"Rex!"
"Afraid so, kid."
"Kept saying, 'You get it yet? Huh? You get it?' I said, 'Get what?' He said, 'Oh well maybe you should get it now. Huh? You think now's a good time for you to get it? I could see he was carrying something in his bag — one of those rough-out shoulder bags with all the fringe that guys carried for a while. Something concentrated, heavy, but you couldn't tell for certain. Could have been a part for his car."
"Rock specimens337." The two of them chuckle338 at the distant memory. "Just a pair of innocent hippies, one with a service .38. Hard to say which was the bigger fool."
Weed had found himself a classical pigeon, with no exit but the one Rex was standing in and no resources beyond an old Case knife someplace in a box down the back of the crawl space, as he watched the object in Rex's purse, much as another man in a different context might want to watch the one in his pants, noting subtle rearrangements of pleats and ripples339 each time he moved, trying to guess length, diameter, and so forth. . . . "What are you looking at?" Rex clearly agitated340 and getting more so.
"Nothing."
"You were looking at my bag. You think my bag is nothing?"
"You seem upset tonight, Rex, what is it?"
收听单词发音 |
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legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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shimmered
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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cypresses
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| n.柏属植物，柏树( cypress的名词复数 ) | |
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somber
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| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
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subversive
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| adj.颠覆性的，破坏性的；n.破坏份子，危险份子 | |
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tambourines
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| n.铃鼓，手鼓( tambourine的名词复数 )；（鸣声似铃鼓的）白胸森鸠 | |
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8
gulches
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| n.峡谷( gulch的名词复数 ) | |
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9
antennas
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| [生] 触角，触须（antenna的复数形式） | |
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10
sentries
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| 哨兵，步兵( sentry的名词复数 ) | |
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11
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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12
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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13
terrain
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| n.地面，地形，地图 | |
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14
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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15
airfields
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| n.（较小的无建筑的）飞机场( airfield的名词复数 ) | |
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16
polytechnic
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| adj.各种工艺的，综合技术的；n.工艺(专科)学校；理工(专科)学校 | |
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17
docile
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| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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18
stodgy
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| adj.易饱的；笨重的；滞涩的；古板的 | |
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19
dissent
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| n./v.不同意，持异议 | |
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20
prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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21
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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22
ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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23
cult
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| n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜 | |
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24
ambled
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| v.（马）缓行( amble的过去式和过去分词 )；从容地走，漫步 | |
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25
celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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26
plaza
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| n.广场，市场 | |
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27
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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28
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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29
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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30
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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31
violation
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| n.违反(行为)，违背(行为)，侵犯 | |
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32
statutes
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| 成文法( statute的名词复数 )； 法令； 法规； 章程 | |
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33
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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34
urn
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| n.（有座脚的）瓮；坟墓；骨灰瓮 | |
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35
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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36
undesirables
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| 不受欢迎的人，不良分子( undesirable的名词复数 ) | |
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37
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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38
stashes
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| n.隐藏处( stash的名词复数 )v.贮藏( stash的第三人称单数 )；隐藏；藏匿；藏起 | |
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39
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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40
syndrome
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| n.综合病症；并存特性 | |
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41
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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42
ail
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| v.生病，折磨，苦恼 | |
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43
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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44
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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45
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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46
bummed
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| 失望的，沮丧的 | |
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47
coordination
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| n.协调，协作 | |
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48
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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49
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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50
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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51
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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52
fatigues
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| n.疲劳( fatigue的名词复数 )；杂役；厌倦；（士兵穿的）工作服 | |
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53
ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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54
auditorium
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| n.观众席，听众席；会堂，礼堂 | |
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55
reprisal
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| n.报复，报仇，报复性劫掠 | |
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56
obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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57
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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58
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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59
steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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60
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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61
thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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62
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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63
junta
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| n.团体；政务审议会 | |
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64
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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65
crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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66
ominously
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| adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地 | |
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67
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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68
format
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| n.设计，版式；[计算机]格式，DOS命令:格式化(磁盘)，用于空盘或使用过的磁盘建立新空盘来存储数据；v.使格式化，设计，安排 | |
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69
depreciation
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| n.价值低落，贬值，蔑视，贬低 | |
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70
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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71
secede
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| v.退出，脱离 | |
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72
get-together
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| n.(使)聚集；(使)集合 | |
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73
convoy
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| vt.护送，护卫，护航；n.护送；护送队 | |
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74
taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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75
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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76
parlors
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| 客厅( parlor的名词复数 )； 起居室； （旅馆中的）休息室； （通常用来构成合成词）店 | |
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77
intrigue
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|
| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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78
exempt
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|
| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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79
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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80
initially
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| adv.最初，开始 | |
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81
joints
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|
| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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82
input
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| n.输入(物)；投入；vt.把(数据等)输入计算机 | |
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83
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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84
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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85
subsiding
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的现在分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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86
seduce
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| vt.勾引，诱奸，诱惑，引诱 | |
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87
offbeat
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|
| adj.不平常的，离奇的 | |
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88
lengthy
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|
| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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89
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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90
zooming
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| adj.快速上升的v.（飞机、汽车等）急速移动( zoom的过去分词 )；（价格、费用等）急升，猛涨 | |
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91
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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92
technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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93
custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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94
certified
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| a.经证明合格的；具有证明文件的 | |
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95
infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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96
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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97
reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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98
abounding
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| adj.丰富的，大量的v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
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99
provocative
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| adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的 | |
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100
attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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101
trysts
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| n.约会，幽会( tryst的名词复数 )；幽会地点 | |
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102
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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103
meridian
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| adj.子午线的；全盛期的 | |
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104
hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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105
giggling
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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106
giggles
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| n.咯咯的笑( giggle的名词复数 )；傻笑；玩笑；the giggles 止不住的格格笑v.咯咯地笑( giggle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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107
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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108
radar
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| n.雷达，无线电探测器 | |
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109
glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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110
tornadoes
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| n.龙卷风，旋风( tornado的名词复数 ) | |
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111
commentators
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| n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 )；时事评论员；注释者；实况广播员 | |
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112
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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113
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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114
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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115
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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116
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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117
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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118
authorized
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| a.委任的，许可的 | |
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119
subvert
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| v.推翻；暗中破坏；搅乱 | |
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120
lipstick
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| n.口红，唇膏 | |
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121
smeared
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| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
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122
sprawl
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| vi.躺卧，扩张，蔓延；vt.使蔓延；n.躺卧，蔓延 | |
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123
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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124
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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125
peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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126
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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127
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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128
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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129
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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130
stylishly
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| adv.时髦地，新式地 | |
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131
lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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132
synthetic
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| adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品 | |
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133
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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134
mathematician
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| n.数学家 | |
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135
wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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136
pussy
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| n.(儿语)小猫，猫咪 | |
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137
scampering
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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138
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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139
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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140
parable
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| n.寓言，比喻 | |
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141
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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142
concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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143
opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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144
maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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145
syrup
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| n.糖浆，糖水 | |
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146
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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147
aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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148
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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149
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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150
mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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151
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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152
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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153
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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154
clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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155
funnel
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| n.漏斗；烟囱；v.汇集 | |
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156
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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157
patio
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| n.庭院，平台 | |
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158
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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159
lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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160
surmounting
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| 战胜( surmount的现在分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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161
radius
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| n.半径，半径范围；有效航程，范围，界限 | |
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162
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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163
hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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164
dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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165
adulthood
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| n.成年，成人期 | |
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166
perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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167
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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168
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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169
redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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170
amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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171
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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172
fascist
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|
| adj.法西斯主义的；法西斯党的；n.法西斯主义者，法西斯分子 | |
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173
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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174
prurient
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| adj.好色的，淫乱的 | |
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175
overflow
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| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
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176
eyelids
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|
| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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177
jolted
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| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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178
dedication
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| n.奉献，献身，致力，题献，献辞 | |
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179
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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180
weirdness
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|
| n.古怪，离奇，不可思议 | |
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181
mediated
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| 调停，调解，斡旋( mediate的过去式和过去分词 )； 居间促成； 影响…的发生； 使…可能发生 | |
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182
tuxedos
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| n.餐服，无尾晚礼服( tuxedo的名词复数 ) | |
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183
tuxedo
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| n.礼服，无尾礼服 | |
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184
complexities
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| 复杂性(complexity的名词复数)； 复杂的事物 | |
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185
outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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186
dribbling
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| n.（燃料或油从系统内）漏泄v.流口水( dribble的现在分词 )；（使液体）滴下或作细流；运球，带球 | |
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187
toxic
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|
| adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的 | |
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188
subterranean
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|
| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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189
ensembles
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|
| 整体( ensemble的名词复数 )； 合奏； 乐团； 全套服装（尤指女装） | |
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190
motifs
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| n. （文艺作品等的）主题( motif的名词复数 )；中心思想；基本模式；基本图案 | |
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191
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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192
lures
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| 吸引力，魅力（lure的复数形式） | |
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193
athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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194
complicate
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| vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂 | |
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195
defectively
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| adv.有缺陷地，缺乏地 | |
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196
injustice
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|
| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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197
modulating
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| 调整( modulate的现在分词 )； （对波幅、频率的）调制； 转调； 调整或改变（嗓音）的音调 | |
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198
inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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199
relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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200
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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201
flirting
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 ) | |
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202
starch
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| n.淀粉；vt.给...上浆 | |
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203
entirely
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|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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204
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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205
barons
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| 男爵( baron的名词复数 )； 巨头； 大王； 大亨 | |
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206
warp
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| vt.弄歪，使翘曲，使不正常，歪曲，使有偏见 | |
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207
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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208
legitimacy
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| n.合法，正当 | |
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209
coverage
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| n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖 | |
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210
thumps
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| n.猪肺病；砰的重击声( thump的名词复数 )v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的第三人称单数 ) | |
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211
mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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212
pickup
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| n.拾起，获得 | |
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213
coastal
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| adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的 | |
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214
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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215
subpoenaed
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| v.（用传票）传唤（某人）( subpoena的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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216
neutralized
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| v.使失效( neutralize的过去式和过去分词 )；抵消；中和；使（一个国家）中立化 | |
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217
precursor
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| n.先驱者；前辈；前任；预兆；先兆 | |
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218
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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219
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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220
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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221
binoculars
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| n.双筒望远镜 | |
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222
radars
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| n.雷达( radar的名词复数 )；雷达装置 | |
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223
densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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224
aromatic
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| adj.芳香的，有香味的 | |
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225
resinous
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| adj.树脂的，树脂质的，树脂制的 | |
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226
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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227
activists
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| n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 ) | |
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228
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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229
advisers
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| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
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230
Nazi
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| n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的 | |
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231
dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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232
invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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233
paranoia
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| n.妄想狂，偏执狂；多疑症 | |
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234
pacified
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| 使（某人）安静( pacify的过去式和过去分词 )； 息怒； 抚慰； 在（有战争的地区、国家等）实现和平 | |
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235
reclaimed
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|
| adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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236
watershed
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| n.转折点，分水岭，分界线 | |
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237
civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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238
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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239
continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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240
seasonal
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|
| adj.季节的，季节性的 | |
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241
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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242
payroll
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|
| n.工资表，在职人员名单，工薪总额 | |
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243
snarls
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| n.（动物的）龇牙低吼( snarl的名词复数 )；愤怒叫嚷（声）；咆哮（声）；疼痛叫声v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的第三人称单数 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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244
smuggler
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| n.走私者 | |
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245
swooping
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的现在分词 ) | |
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246
jittery
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| adj. 神经过敏的, 战战兢兢的 | |
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247
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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248
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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249
peculiar
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|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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250
wrangler
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| n.口角者，争论者；牧马者 | |
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251
batches
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| 一批( batch的名词复数 )； 一炉； （食物、药物等的）一批生产的量； 成批作业 | |
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252
repertoire
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| n.(准备好演出的)节目，保留剧目；(计算机的)指令表，指令系统， <美>(某个人的)全部技能；清单，指令表 | |
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253
jaguars
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| n.（中、南美洲的）美洲虎( jaguar的名词复数 ) | |
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254
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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255
lucidly
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| adv.清透地，透明地 | |
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256
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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257
canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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258
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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259
intimidating
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| vt.恐吓，威胁( intimidate的现在分词) | |
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260
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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261
frets
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| 基质间片； 品丝（吉他等指板上定音的）( fret的名词复数 ) | |
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262
abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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263
grooves
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| n.沟( groove的名词复数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
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264
murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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265
fretless
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| 无忧 | |
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266
perk
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| n.额外津贴；赏钱；小费； | |
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267
glides
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| n.滑行( glide的名词复数 )；滑音；音渡；过渡音v.滑动( glide的第三人称单数 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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268
jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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269
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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270
blues
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| n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐 | |
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271
perennially
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| adv.经常出现地；长期地；持久地；永久地 | |
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272
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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273
franchises
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| n.（尤指选举议员的）选举权( franchise的名词复数 )；参政权；获特许权的商业机构（或服务）；（公司授予的）特许经销权v.给…以特许权，出售特许权( franchise的第三人称单数 ) | |
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274
franchise
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| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
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275
advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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276
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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277
illicit
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| adj.非法的，禁止的，不正当的 | |
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278
rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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279
flipping
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| 讨厌之极的 | |
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280
canyons
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| n.峡谷( canyon的名词复数 ) | |
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281
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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282
lascivious
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| adj.淫荡的，好色的 | |
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283
meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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284
stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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285
sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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286
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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287
gutted
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| adj.容易消化的v.毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的过去式和过去分词 )；取出…的内脏 | |
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288
fluting
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| 有沟槽的衣料； 吹笛子； 笛声； 刻凹槽 | |
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289
frieze
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| n.(墙上的)横饰带，雕带 | |
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290
chiseled
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| adj.凿刻的，轮廓分明的v.凿，雕，镌( chisel的过去式 ) | |
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291
seethed
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| （液体）沸腾( seethe的过去式和过去分词 )； 激动，大怒； 强压怒火； 生闷气(~with sth|~ at sth) | |
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292
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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293
postponement
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| n.推迟 | |
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294
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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295
recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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296
ongoing
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| adj.进行中的，前进的 | |
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297
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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298
withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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299
amnesia
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| n.健忘症，健忘 | |
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300
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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301
swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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302
disciples
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| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
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303
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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304
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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305
humane
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| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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306
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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307
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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308
gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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309
finalized
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| vt.完成（finalize的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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310
racist
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| n.种族主义者，种族主义分子 | |
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311
diverging
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| 分开( diverge的现在分词 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳 | |
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312
cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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313
flinched
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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314
petroleum
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| n.原油，石油 | |
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315
Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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316
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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317
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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318
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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319
indigenous
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| adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的 | |
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320
contingent
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| adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队 | |
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321
barricades
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| 路障，障碍物( barricade的名词复数 ) | |
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322
lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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323
delegations
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| n.代表团( delegation的名词复数 )；委托，委派 | |
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324
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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325
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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326
plazas
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| n.（尤指西班牙语城镇的）露天广场( plaza的名词复数 )；购物中心 | |
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327
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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328
ideological
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| a.意识形态的 | |
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329
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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330
mentor
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| n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导 | |
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331
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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332
bail
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| v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人 | |
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333
crab
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| n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气 | |
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334
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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335
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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336
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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337
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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338
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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339
ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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340
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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