WHEN had Brock ever possessed1 her? There might have been about a minute and a half, just after the events at College of the Surf, the death of Weed Atman, and the fall of PR.3, though he was no longer sure. He remembered a morning drizzle2, at first light, at the camp up north, pulling in in a motor-pool Mercedes with his partner, Roscoe, at the wheel, cruising past the cloudbeaten rows of barracks, stopping out on the asphalt, waiting in the cyan glare of the security lights. Officially he was up to have a look at the physical plant and inspect the population of his Political Re-Education Program, or PREP, Brock's own baby, his gamble on a career coup4, his thin-ice special, just about to be put in as a rider to what would be the Crime Control Act of 1970 by a not-so-neo fascist5 congressman6 from Trasero County, a friend of friends in returning whose several kindnesses this solon had more than once found himself creeping within squinting7 range of the chain-link perimeters8 of Allenwood, Pa. But then again — Brock could get excited just thinking about it — suppose the gamble paid off. The law, his law, would provide that detainees in civil disturbances10 could be taken to certain Justice Department reserves and there examined for snitch potential. Those found suitable might then be offered a choice between federal prosecution12 and federal employment, as independent contractors13 working undercover for, but not out of, the DOJ's Political Intelligence Office. After undergoing a full training curriculum that included the use of various weapons, they could be transferred — the contracts essentially14 sold — to the FBI and under that control be infiltrated15, often again and again, into college campuses, radical16 organizations, and other foci of domestic unrest. So that in addition to immunity17 from the law, another selling point for hiring on would turn out to be this casual granting of the wish implied in the classical postcollegiate Dream of Autumn Return, to one more semester, one more course credit required, another chance to be back in school again — yes, as long as it was paid for in services useful enough to them, the FBI could even put you on the time machine if that's what you wanted, is how heavy those coppers19 were even back in those days.
Brock Vond's genius was to have seen in the activities of the sixties left not threats to order but unacknowledged desires for it. While the Tube was proclaiming youth revolution against parents of all kinds and most viewers were accepting this story, Brock saw the deep — if he'd allowed himself to feel it, the sometimes touching20 — need only to stay children forever, safe inside some extended national Family. The hunch21 he was betting on was that these kid rebels, being halfway22 there already, would be easy to turn and cheap to develop. They'd only been listening to the wrong music, breathing the wrong smoke, admiring the wrong personalities23. They needed some reconditioning.
This morning at PREP, there would be no breakfast call — the mess hall wasn't yet up to speed, so only staff ate regularly, leaving the "guests," in endless negotiation24, to eat as they could... as they did. Brock had not come to see that. He'd come for Morning Assembly, Morning Reports. Whether they would wake hungry, however they had slept, warm enough or not against these North Pacific fronts, the reveille on the PA would bring them outside . . . then he would see. What even he knew he'd really come for was the sight of Frenesi among them, the long-haired bodies, men who had grown feminine, women who had become small children, flurries of long naked limbs, little girls naked under boyfriends' fringe jackets, eyes turned down, away, never meeting those of their questioners, boys with hair over their shoulders, hair that kept getting in their eyes ... the sort of mild herd25 creatures who belonged, who'd feel, let's face it, much more comfortable, behind fences. Children longing27 for discipline. Frenesi might not — short of torture, anyway — believe that he could ever imprison28 her. He knew she would try to keep guarded what she thought to be some inner freedom, go on imagining herself secure, still whole . . . but there he'd be, her inescapable witness, watching her in a context she couldn't deny — the rest of them, all she had for human company, as they were. Cold comfort for Brock Vond — though back in the deep leather upholstery, with one eye on the "Today" show and an ear to the tactical frequencies patched to front and rear speakers, breathing the steam of his decaffeinated coffee, he wasn't all that surprised to find himself with a hardon.
Roscoe knew that this A.M. visit was confidential29. So far, officially, with the enabling and money bills still making their way through Congress, this place didn't even exist. He could tell how nervous Brock was — the rearview mirror was full of furtive30 gestures. Here they were, him and the Hotshot, in DOJ transportation, on DOJ time, playing out one more of young Vond's confusing power-and-sex games, which he would have denied if Roscoe'd been fool enough to bring it up. Roscoe sure 's heck wouldn't be here himself if his time were his own, which it hadn't been since that fateful four in the morning the Internals had shown up all Kevlar and Plexiglas, and blacked gunmetal at the ready. "Fellas!" he tried to protest thickly through the last mouthful of free L.A. cheeseburger deluxe31 he would know for a while. "Jeez I know I'm bad but —" He wanted to quote the Shangri-Las and point out, "But I'm not evil," but had inhaled32 a piece of burger roll and started to cough instead.
Since he'd been with Brock, Roscoe had come to see himself not as sidekick so much as Cagey Old Pro3, passing on all kinds of useful lore33 if the pup would ever bother to listen. These birds in this facility here, for instance — "Don't know," he'd muttered, "you've been out there on the line, seen these kids close up — some of 'em's in it for real, all right, and they're tough cookies, long hair and all. Never turn 'em — never trust 'em if you did."
"They'll get remanded someplace else — we always knew what to do with them. I'm counting on that other 90%, amateurs, consumers, short attention spans, out there for the thrills, pick up a chick, score some dope, nothing political. Out in the mainstream34, Roscoe, that's where we fish."
No point in pursuing it when Brock could always shut him up by finding a way to remind Roscoe how much he would forever owe, but also because he'd let himself believe that young Vond was profound enough to interpret his silences, some of them eloquent35 as lectures. Brock, for his part, valued Roscoe's silences, all right, and the more of them the better. They were part of his conception of the perfect underling, whom he imagined as a sort of less voluble Tonto. And to the extent that he tried not to bother the Prosecutor36 with details of how, often semimiraculously, he got things done, it may also have been how Roscoe imagined it. Who, after all, besides teaching him every Indian piece of know-how37, had saved the Lone38 Ranger's life?
Yet not even that ultimate favor had wiped out his debt to Brock, who once, exactly when it had swung the most weight, had intervened for him. The payback was to be in units of unconditional39 loyalty40, including but not limited to lifesaving, one shift after another till retirement41, with the question of his pension still up in the air, and with lawyers on both sides looking into it. Not only had he literally42 saved Brock's life, but more than once this job he knew he was lucky to have as well, making this unhappy phase of his own career out of covering the backside of Vond's. In that memorable43 dope-field shoot-out, Brock had followed Roscoe dumb and terrified as a recruit obeying his sergeant44, through the dense45 resin46 smell, as a great nation pursued its war on a botanical species, rounds whinging and burring hotly by through shade leaves, breaking stems, knocking seeds out of colas, Brock following every move of Roscoe's stuck like a shadow, till they made it to the chopper and rose so swiftly, like a prayer to God, like a pigeon to the sky — "Roscoe," Brock Vond was babbling47, "I owe you, oh boy do I, the very biggest one, the Big L itself, and maybe I don't always know when I do, but this time I swear —" Roscoe still breathing too hard to ask him to put it in writing. When he did speak, wheezing48, it was to holler over the beat of the blades, "Feel like we been in a Movie of the Week!"
In the clarity of that crisis, at least, the Prosecutor had nailed it. He really didn't know always how much, or even when, he owed anybody. In their first days together Roscoe, mighty49 annoyed, had taken it for such snot-nosed ingratitude50 that he nearly decided51 to hell with it, he'd put in his papers and go find some security-consultant hustle52, far from our nation's capital — who needed this? Only after more scrutiny53 did he find out how dirt-ignorant his boss actually remained, on quite a number of occasions, of real-world steps being taken on his behalf. It wasn't that Vond was following any moral code of his own, though he might have wanted it to look that way — but Roscoe recognized it as simple, massively protective insulation54. Some things in life had just never touched this customer, he would never have to think about them — which could only give the kid an edge, but maybe not begin to account for Brock's supernatural luck, the aura that everybody, winners and losers, picked up, which Roscoe swore under oath he'd observed during that pot-plantation run-in as a pure white light surrounding Brock entirely55, which Roscoe believed would keep him, then and after, immune to gunfire. Who had been sticking close to whom, that fragrant56 morning long ago?
Iron speakers up on stripped fir poles crashed alive with the national anthem57. Brock got out of the car and stood, not at attention but leaning one elbow on the car roof, watching as one by one the detainees began to appear out on the assembly ground. They only came as close as they had to to make sure Brock wasn't bringing something to eat — then they withdrew into small clusters at the margins60 of the asphalt, speaking together, at this distance inaudible.
Brock scanned face after face, registering stigmata, a parade of receding61 foreheads, theromorphic ears, and alarmingly sloped Frankfurt Horizontals. He was a devotee of the thinking of pioneer criminologist Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909), who'd believed that the brains of criminals were short on lobes62 that controlled civilized63 values like morality and respect for the law, tending indeed to resemble animal more than human brains, and thus caused the crania that housed them to develop differently, which included the way their faces would turn out looking. Abnormally large eye sockets64, prognathism, frontal submicrocephaly, Darwinian Tipped Ear, you name it, Lombroso had a list that went on, and skull65 data to back him up. By Brock's time the theory had lapsed66 into a quaint67, undeniably racist68 spinoff from nineteenth-century phrenology, crude in method and long superseded69, although it seemed reasonable to Brock. What really got his attention was the Lom-brosian concept of "misoneism." Radicals70, militants71, revolutionaries, however they styled themselves, all sinned against this deep organic human principle, which Lombroso had named after the Greek for "hatred72 of anything new." It operated as a feedback device to keep societies coming along safely, coherently. Any sudden attempt to change things would be answered by an immediate73 misoneistic backlash, not only from the State but from the people themselves — Nixon's election in '68 seeming to Brock a perfect example of this.
Lombroso had divided all revolutionists into five groups, geniuses, enthusiasts74, fools, rogues75, and followers76, which in Brock's experience about covered it, except for the unforeseen sixth, the one without a label Brock was waiting for, who at last came striding toward him now through the drizzle, a few pounds thinner, her hair full of snarls77, barelegged, her camera taken away, no weapon of witness but her eyes. She stopped a few feet from him, he stared at the glistening78 of her thighs79, as he moved closer she shivered, tried to cross her arms, hug herself into an invisible shawl or the memory of one she used to wear . . . but he was too close. He reached with one finger to lift her chin, force her to look at him. They faced each other in light from which all red was missing. She looked in his eyes, then at his penis — yep erect80 all right, creating pleats in the front of the pale federal trousers.
"Been thinking about you too," her voice ragged81 from a pack and a half of jailhouse smokes a day.
Smart mouth. One day he would order her down on her knees in front of all these cryptically82 staring children, put a pistol to her head, and give her something to do with her smart mouth. Each time he daydreamed83 about this, the pistol would reappear, as an essential term. But now, as his heartbeat picked up a little, he gave career advice instead. "How do you like our campus?" He waved around going mine-all-mine. "Full athletic84 program, chaplain's office with a minister, a priest, and a rabbi, maybe even a few rock concerts."
She started to laugh, coughed a while instead. "Your taste in music? It's outlawed85 by the Geneva convention. Not a selling point, Cap'n."
"Did you think we were negotiating?"
"I thought we were flirting86, Brock. Guess it's one more disappointment I'll have to live with." She caught herself watching his cock again, then saw he was grinning at her, amorously87, he must've thought. "The commandant here has my number. Don't delay, operators are standing88 by." He brought away his finger with a flip89 that sent her chin a half inch higher.
She breathed through her nose and glared at him. The politically correct answer would have been "When your mother stops giving head to stray dogs." Later she would think of others she might have used. But just then, when it could have still made a difference, she said nothing at all, only stood, head up, watching the old heartbreaker's ass18 till he'd taken it back inside the Germanic sedan. She had a vivid, half-second hallucination of Brock in the Oklahoma stormlight, the hard blued body, the unforgiving shore against which, on breaking waves whose power she felt but would never understand she had ridden, would ride, again and again. . . .
Roscoe started up the car. Watching the bedraggled girl in the stained miniskirt, he hit the gas pedal to make the engine sing in a rising, suggestive phrase. "Don't blow my effect here," Brock Vond leaning forward from the back, more than a little annoyed, "OK? All I need right now is one of your old-time comedy routines, to undo90 all the work I just did out there. Trying to destabilize the subject, not serenade her."
"Only to let 'em know we've been here's all," muttered Roscoe, hooking a U and peeling away, halfway to the gate getting into a skid91, leaving behind a set of big S's that remained awhile on the wet blacktop.
A provincial92 whiz kid called early, brass93 choirs94 on the sound track, to power in the white mother city, where he would become, as he had dreamed, the careful product of older men, Brock, of medium height, slender and fair-haired, carried with him a watchful95, never quite trustworthy companion personality, feminine, underdeveloped, against whom his male version, supposedly running the unit, had to be equally vigilant96. In dreams he could not control, in which lucid97 intervention98 was impossible, dreams that couldn't be denatured by drugs or alcohol, he was visited by his uneasy anima in a number of guises99, notably100 as the Madwoman in the Attic101. Brock would be moving through rooms of a large, splendid house belonging to people so rich and powerful he'd never even seen them. But while they allowed him to stay there, it was his job to make sure that all doors and windows, dozens of them everywhere, were secure, and that no one, nothing, had penetrated102. This had to be done every day, and finished with before nightfall. Every closet and corner, every back staircase and distant storeroom, had to be checked, till at last there was only the attic left to do. The day would have grown, by then, quite late, the light almost gone. It was that phase of twilight103, full of anxiety, when mercy in this world and the others is apt to be least available. Energies were on the loose, masses could materialize. He climbed the attic stairs in the dusk, paused in front of the door. He could hear her breathing, waiting for him — helplessly he opened, entered, as she advanced on him, blurry104, underlit, except for the glittering eyes, the relentless105 animal smile, and accelerating leapt at him, on him, and underneath106 her assault he died, rising to wake into his own rooms, the counterpane white and neatly107 folded as butcher's paper around a purchase of meat — face up, rigid108, sweating, shaken by each heartbeat.
Out in the waking world, of course, he was an entirely different fellow, so thoroughly109 personable, in fact, that maintaining even dislike for the Prosecutor was always a chore, even for the criminal degenerates110 he helped put away. He projected a charm that appeared to transcend111 politics, and was known both inside the Beltway and out in the field as a sought-after raconteur112 and bon vivant who appreciated fine distinctions in food, wine, music. Women found him intensely appealing for reasons they later could or would not specify113. Colorful little third-world grandmothers tending flower stalls on forlorn city street corners would rush to embrace him and present, curtsying, bunches of violets to Brock's invariably impressed dates, usually beautiful high-fashion packages to the memory of whose merest peripheral114 appearance in the street that day any number of men would already have rushed back into some kind of privacy to masturbate as quickly as possible, without asking too many questions.
Well, what a life, you'd ordinarily say. But Brock coveted115 more.
He'd caught a fatal glimpse of that level where everybody knew everybody else, where however political fortunes below might bloom and die, the same people, the Real Ones, remained year in and year out, keeping what was desirable flowing their way. Prosecutor Vond wanted a life there, only slowly coming to understand that for someone of his background there would be no route to this but self-abasement, fawning118, gofering, scrambling119 for tips and offering other such hints of his eagerness to be brevetted on life's battlefield to a rank higher than he would ever, by the terms of his enlistment120, have deserved. Though his defects of character were many, none was quite as annoying as this naked itch11 to be a gentleman, kept inflamed121 by a stubborn denial of what everyone else knew — that no matter how much money he made, how many political offices or course credits from charm school might come his way, no one of those among whom he wished to belong would ever regard him as other than a thug whose services had been hired.
But Brock didn't feel like any thug or, more important, look like one either. Whenever he shaved, the humming small life solid in his hand, what he saw was Lombrosian evidence of a career plausibly122 honest enough to sell his ideas, his beliefs, to anybody, at any level. And the same went for his body image, Brock in those days being known as something of a recreational-area Don Juan, for whom sport and sex were naturally connected. Over time he had learned to extend his Lombrosian analysis from faces to bodies, and discovered that there were such things as criminal bodies. He would see them often in his line of work and would also, less consciously, look for signs of transgressor123 status in women he met and even desired, the guilty droop124 of head, the bestial125 turn of an ass-cheek, the spine126 furtively127 overflexed. Some of these women turned out to be "'great fucks," as Brock later described them, mainly for the sake of his reputation, because secretly, though he enjoyed and even got obsessed128 about sex, he was also — imagine — scared to death of it. In nightmares he was forced to procreate with women who approached never from floor or ground level but from steep overhead angles, as if from someplace not on the surface of Earth, feeling nothing erotic but only, each time it was done, a terrible sadness, violation129 . . . something taken away. He understood, in some way impossible to face, that each child he thus produced, each birth, would be only another death for him.
When news of Frenesi's escape from PREP reached him back in the great marble plexus, Brock went right around the bend — flew back to L.A., came storming into the fortress130 at Westwood with this out-of-control mind-hardon, and for a brief time acted like a terrorist holding the place hostage. Nobody knew anything. At that point they were all running around trying to manage the public-relations overtime131 arising from his "success" at College of the Surf. All the files on the 24fps film collective, including Frenesi's, seemed to be temporarily out of the building. The case was no longer Brock's, and he couldn't find out whose it was. By the time he might have, he'd driven himself past exhaustion132, adrift in the unsleeping clockless iterations of some hotel near the airport, where men in wrinkled suits, jet-lagged and aimless, populated the corridors and the uproar133 in the sky never took a break. He cried, he beat himself with his fists on head and body, did all that old stuff, feeling like a skier134 on an unfamiliar135 black-diamond slope, seized by gravity, in control, out of control. . . this descent took him all night and wore him at last into unconsciousness. On the plane back to Washington, the little girl he sat down next to got one look at his face and started screaming. "He's gonna molest136 me, Mom! We're all gonna die!" Brock, croaking137 something about being a U.S. Attorney, went fumbling138 for his ID, though some onlookers139 thought it was for a weapon and began wailing140 and crossing themselves. The plane wasn't even moving yet. Too depressed141 to believe he had anything to lose, Brock doggedly142 proceeded to bully143 flight attendants and crew into ejecting the little girl and her mother from the airplane. "Snotty bitch," he whispered as, trembling, the child arose and had to slide the backs of her thighs past his knees.
In Washington again, scrambling to explain his behavior and protect his back, Brock really might have had no time to track Frenesi down, as he told it later, but it didn't stop him having fantasies about her. Pretty soon he was jerking off every night to images he remembered of her, lying in bed, sitting on the toilet, walking down the street, on top and bottom, dressed and naked, Brock lying all alone in the air-conditioning on a rented psychedelic-print sofa in his new apartment out on Wisconsin, in the sullen144 Tubeflicker, straining into his past, feeling the pressure of tears he was confident would never come. It wasn't that things weren't fine on the job, the compartments145 in his brain were all Frenesi-tight as far as work went, though now and then lust58's drowsy146 watchman left a latch147 open, usually around the full moon, when he'd find himself heading down to Dupont Circle and other gathering148 spots of the young and uncritical, trying to mingle149 with the hippies, blacks, and drug abusers, to put up as sportingly as he could with their music and closeness, looking for strong slender legs, a fine rain of hair, with luck, fatally, those eyes of Pacific blue, hoping in light cooperative enough to find a girl to project Frenesi's ghost onto, someone who'd hand him a flower, offer a joint150 — groovy! — agree to be led back here, to this come-stained couch, and be taken, and — Brock, Brock, get a grip on yourself! But some other adviser151 lay coiled in ancient shadow, whispering Kick loose. Brock knew how much he wanted to, feared what would happen if he couldn't contain the impulse. Once, not too many years ago, sober, wide awake, he'd begun to laugh at something on the Tube. Instead of reaching a peak and then tapering152 off, the laughter got more intense each time he breathed, diverging153 toward some brain state he couldn't imagine, filling and flooding him, his head taken and propelled by a supernatural lightness, on some course unaccounted for by the usual three dimensions. He was terrified. He glimpsed his brain about to turn inside out like a sock but not what would happen after that. At some point he threw up, broke some cycle, and that, as he came to see it, was what "saved" him — some component154 of his personality in charge of nausea155. Brock welcomed it as a major discovery about himself — an unsuspected control he could trust now to keep him safe from whatever his laughter had nearly overflowed156 him into. He was careful from then on not to start laughing so easily. All around him in those days he was watching people his age surrendering to dangerous gusts157 of amusement, even deciding never to return to regular jobs and lives. Colleagues grew their hair long and ran off with adolescents of the same sex to work on psychedelic-mushroom ranches158 on faraway coasts. Stalls in the glass-block and travertine toilets of the Justice Department itself boomed and echoed with Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. Everywhere Brock looked he saw defects of control — while others, in their turn, were not so sure about Brock.
Internal review boards within Justice had had him under surveillance at least since his early gypsy jury days, when he was spreading around the smart-assed charisma159 on local TV news, call-in radio shows, and speaking engagements before "private" groups in the banquet rooms of suburban160 eateries known for forms of red meat. When Frenesi came into the picture, interest perked161 up. Here was entertainment — a federal prosecutor carrying the torch for some third-generation lefty who'd likely've bombed the Statue of Liberty if she could. Weeks' salaries were wagered162 and lost over how long Brock could hold on to his job, with the over-under line usually reckoning his longevity163 in days. Brought in, at length, for the Basic Little Chat, he was exactly as forthcoming as he knew he needed to be to quiet the Board, but not a word beyond. If inside a certain radius165 all lay camouflaged166 and deeply fortified167, nonetheless he did deny her, joked about her with his interrogators, about her tits, her pussy168, refusing to react, to seem to defend her. "Next time, Brock, just come on in, let us know, we can punch you up anything you want, you like radical snatch, hey, no problem, bro." He got crazy enough once in a while to take them up on it. They offered a wide choice of sizes, colors, and ages, not to mention neo-Lombrosian face and body types. But he chose women most likely from their files to have crossed paths with Frenesi, living for the off chance of finding her name tucked casually169 into small talk over drinks. With a patience and gentleness that cost him, Brock tried to steer170 the dialogue always toward that one dim star.
Still, eyes were upon him, and if he'd actively171 initiated172 any search after the Gates woman's whereabouts, most easily through her mother in L.A., a longtime Person of Interest, Brock's overseers would have known about it immediately, and what the memos173 referred to as a fecoventilatory collision might very well have ensued. It was the old, unhappy tale, Brock would insist, of romance versus174 career. He didn't want to choose and so he temporized175, pursuing his PREP master plan, clearing the brush and leveling the lots. By the time things were solidly enough in place and he could finally get back to California for an extended season of mischief176, the ache was no worse than a Beltway sinus, the lunar prowls among the hippies had all but ceased, and sometimes a week would go by in which he only took hold of his penis for pissing.
In the year that had elapsed, Frenesi had met and married Zoyd and given birth to Prairie, none of which Brock had known about, none of which she volunteered when at last they were face-to-face again. The year before in Las Suegras, standing at the edge of a gas-station apron177 watching DL in the Camaro ascend178 to the freeway and vanish, rolling blind into her own future, Frenesi had considered calling Brock, going back into PREP. There was no way back to 24fps, or to the person she'd been — beyond any way to clear it she had set up Weed's murder and was in the federal law-enforcement files now and forever, shared with every last amateur cop groupie in the land, listed as a species her parents had taught her to despise — a Cooperative Person.
"It's what you want, isn't it?" the dark apparition179 of Brock Vond questioned her from continental180 distance. " 'Forever,' isn't that supposed to be as romantic as it gets? Well, we can provide you with Forever, no sweat. What DOJ promises, we deliver." Did he know what she wanted? Even have any right to say he did? Just because she didn't? As night fell, she'd wandered down to Phil's Cottonwood Oasis181, which was a tavern182 with a motel in back, beside a darkening green piece of creek183-bank crowded with Fremont cottonwoods, with a dance deck built out over the creek. She sat in front of a beer bottle and a glass and couldn't focus on anything, while twilight drinkers technically184 on the way home came drifting in, and motel occupants looking for supper, some famished185, some quarreling, and then the Corvairs, billing themselves here as the Surfadelics.
As standard practice, just to get it over with, the band started off the set with "Louie Louie" and "Wooly186 Bully," whether or not anybody wanted to hear these traditional favorites. By then Zoyd, in those days a generic187 longhair with a Zappa mustache and wire-rimmed yellow shooting glasses, casing the room, had spotted188 Frenesi, called one of his own compositions, taken the mike and the vocal189.
Whoo! is this the start of a
Cheap ro-mance,
Nothin' much to do with
High fi-nance,
Is it th' start of,
Another cheap ro-mance?
(Here Scott Oof, as he had for thousands of identical renditions, filled with a phrase stolen from Mickey Baker190 on "Love Is Strange" [1956].)
This hot tomato's lookin'
Mighty sweet,
Uh just th' thing to git me,
Off my feet,
Oboy, the start of,
Another cheap ro-ho-mance!
Yep — looks like the start of
Another cheap ro-ho-
Ma-a-a-a-ance .. .
Gits ya thinkin', is it
Me, or is it mah
Pa-a-a-a-hants?
Well cheap romance is my
Kind of thing,
Uh just in case you were
Wondering,
"Is it the start of,
Another cheap ro-wo-mance?"
"That's what made her fall in love at first sight?" Prairie inquired, years later, when Zoyd told her.
"Well, that and my good looks," said Zoyd. But when everything was coming apart he'd also screamed at Frenesi, "It could've been anybody, Scott, the two junkie saxophone players, all's you was lookin' for was some quick cover."
The baby slept on silently in the other room. Frenesi had been watching Zoyd for weeks as he clumsily pieced the story together. She could have helped but was hoping, by then naively191, that he'd take a false turn, come out with a version where she'd look a little better, caring less about his opinion, finally, than about her mother's. Zoyd, anyway, didn't oblige — just kept stumbling and bullying193, missing details but getting it basically, mercilessly right, Brock, Weed, Brock's return, all of it, allowing her no pathways to safety.
Though to the romantically inclined observer it might seem like Brock had come looking for her, at least had included finding her on his list of chores during his West Coast visit, Frenesi had been making it as easy for him as she could, spending more time than she normally would have over at Sasha's on the assumption that the same surveillance she remembered growing up with, the creepy twitching194 highlights off camera lenses, the threatening forms and sounds at night, all was again in place, and that she would be seen, and seen by him. And that sooner or later he would come and get her.
She moved into the house at Gordita Beach as "Zoyd's chick," then "Zoyd's old lady." Pregnant with Prairie, she sat with a few other young women in the band's social orbit out on the screened deck of the house, facing the sea, spending sometimes whole days together, drinking from earthen mugs infusions195 of herbs thought to promote higher mind/body states, listening to KHJ and KFWB, ice plant in bloom spilling down to the white beach, sea breezes swirling196 in through the screens. The line of girls' eyes gazing in a locus197 of attention fixed198 at the horizon ... in her second trimester she fell into UFO reveries, saw them clearly any number of times, though she got teased, popping in and out of the sky-blue Rayleigh scattering199 as if through a perfectly200 elastic201 sheet, advance units for some other force, some pitiless advent202. Meanwhile, landward, back up the long built-over dunes203, across the coastal204 highway, the great Basin, intoxicated205, traffic-infested, shadow-obsessed, extravagantly207 watered and irradiated, drew Zoyd away from the beaches he was musically supposed to be representing, out on restless commutes208 as long as working hours into thickest billowings of smog soup, roof and gutter209 work during the day, Corvairs gigs at night, in smaller clubs and bars from Laguna to La Puente. It happened to be the ripe, or baroque, phase of L.A.'s relations with rock and roll, which had swept in on what to Zoyd, with his surfer's eye, judged to be a twenty-year cycle — movies back in the twenties, radio in the forties, now records in the sixties. For one demented season the town lost its ear, and talent was signed that in other times would have kept on wandering in the desert, and in what oases210 they found, playing toilets. On the assumption that Youth understood its own market, entry-level folks who only yesterday had been content to deal lids down in the mail room were suddenly being elevated to executive rank, given stupendous budgets, and let loose, as it turned out, to sign just about anybody who could carry a tune116 and figure out how to walk in the door. Stunned211 by the great childward surge, critical abilities lapsed. Who knew the worth of any product, or could live with having failed to sign the next superstar? Crazed, heedless, the business was running on pure nerve, with million-dollar deals struck on the basis of dreams, vibes, or, in the Corvairs' case, minor212 hallucination. Scott Oof had somehow hustled213 the band a species of recording214 contract with Indolent Records, an up-and-coming though bafflingly eclectic Hollywood label, and the day they came in to sign the papers, the head of A & R, not yet out of high school, having just made the mental acquaintance of some purple acid with a bat shape embossed on it, greeted them with unusual warmth, believing them, as it developed, to be visitors from another dimension who, after observing him for years, had decided to materialize as a rock and roll band and make him rich and famous. By the time they left, the Corvairs were believing it too, although they had to take the standard contract of the day just the same, further clauses being impossible to get, written as they would have had to be in some human language, a medium for the moment inaccessible215 to the by now audibly vibrating department head ("Department head!" he screamed, "everybody around here's a department. . . head! Ha! Ha! Ha!").
As the weeks rolled along like less than perfect waves and the weekly tear-off options went crumpling216 one by one with no album commitment from Indolent, not exactly gloom, but a sort of dimmed calm, took over. After all, the Corvairs were working pretty steadily217, getting a reputation as a bar band if not as a "Surfadelic" one. Dutifully, they did keep setting aside time to drop acid together at inspiring day and night locales around the Southland, but nothing much ever happened for them, nothing coordinated218 anyway, Van Meter's reliving of an earlier life as a buffalo219 roaming the plains in a herd the size of a Western state seeming to have little in common with Scott's delight in the om-nicolored streams of cartoon figures that liked to issue from his fingertips. Lefty the drummer had nightmare sessions full of snakes, decomposing220 flesh, and easy-listening music tracks, the sax players, both fond of heroin221, often dematerialized someplace, perhaps to inject their drug of choice, though perhaps not, while Zoyd kept going through endless tangled222 scenarios223 with a luminously224 remote Frenesi, Frenesi his life sentence, she who could make him forget even the eye-catching production values of LSD.
And who meanwhile waited, watched the aliens' steel horizon, or borrowed people's cars to drive in and visit with Sasha, out in the little patio225 in back, drinking diet sodas226 and picking at salads. From the beginning Frenesi tried to get her mother asking the questions it would hurt most to answer. DL's name came up right away. Frenesi said, "She's gone. I don't know. . . ." Sasha sent her a look and, "You two were so close . . .," but soon they were back to the unavoidable subject of the baby on her way.
"You can always stay here, you know, there's nothing but room." The first time this happened, Frenesi semideclined, "Oh, Zoyd might not go for that." To which Sasha nodded, "Great. I wasn't asking him." Later adding, "Time marches along, and I hope you don't intend to have the baby at the beach."
"I wanted her to hear the surf."
"If it's positive vibrations227 you want, how about your old bedroom? A little continuity. Not to mention comfort."
Frenesi hated to admit that her mother had a point. When she brought it up with Zoyd, he nodded, bleakly228. "Your mom hates me."
"No, c'mon Zoyd, she doesn't really hate you. . . ."
"She said 'hippie psychopath,' didn't she?"
"Sure, that night you were trying to run us over, but—"
"I was tryin' to get the fuckin' thing in Park, darlin', it jumped into Drive by itself, 't's what the recall was all about, 'member I showed you in the paper —"
"But, your screaming and stuff, she must have thought it was on purpose. And she could've called you worse than that."
Zoyd sulked. "Yeah? How come she don't even walk us out to the car anymore?" But though a few seconds might remain on the clock here, Zoyd knew the game was over and the women would prevail, the only question being, would they allow him in Sasha's house to see his own kid get born?
Of course they would and so it came to pass, one sweet May evening, with mockingbirds singing up and down the street, that Prairie's slick head came squeezing into this world, Sasha holding tight to her daughter's hands, Leonard the midwife easing the rest of the baby on through, and Zoyd, who at the last minute had dropped just a quarter of a tab of acid on the chance of glimpsing something cosmic that might tell him he wouldn't die, gazing mind-blown at the newborn Prairie, one of her eyes plastered shut and the other rolling around wild, which he took to be a deliberate wink229, the lambent faces of the women, the paisley patterns on Leonard's Nehru shirt, the colors of the afterbirth, the baby with both eyes open now looking right at him with a vast, an unmistakable, recognition. Later people told him it wasn't personal, and newborns don't see much, but at the moment, oh God, God, she knew him, from someplace else. And these acid adventures, they came in those days and they went, some we gave away and forgot, others sad to say turned out to be fugitive230 or false — but with luck one or two would get saved to go back to at certain later moments in life. This look from brand-new Prairie — oh, you, huh? — would be there for Zoyd more than once in years to come, to help him through those times when the Klingons are closing, and the helm won't answer, and the warp231 engine's out of control.
What no one acknowledged — certainly not Zoyd in his cheery haze232 of paternity, less certainly Sasha — was how deeply, for an unbearable233 day and then the weekend, Frenesi was depressed. No amnesia234, no kind leaching235 bath of time would ever take from her memories of descent to cold regions of hatred for the tiny life, raw, parasitic236, using her body through the wearying months and now still looking to control her . . . there were no talk shows back in those days, no self-help networks or toll-free numbers to learn anything from or ask for help. She didn't, so surrendered to her dark fall, even know she needed help. The baby went along on its own program, robbing her of milk and sleep, acknowledging her only as a host. Where was the clean new soul, the true love, her own promised leap into grown-up reality? She felt betrayed, emptied out, watching herself, this beaten animal, only just hanging on, waiting for everything to end. One 3:00 A.M., in front of the Lobster237 Trick Movie, Sasha rocking the baby, Frenesi in a slow tuned238 throb239, breasts in torment240, bathing in Tubelight, whispered, "You'd better keep her out of my way, Mom. . . ."
"Frenesi?"
"I mean it —" oh fuck, why bother? lurching toward the bathroom, taken over by a rising hoarse241 groan242 that broke into such terrible spasms243 of crying that Sasha was unable to move, could only remain holding the sleeping Prairie while her daughter wrenched244 out tile-echoed sobs245 painfully into the world one by one . .. was the baby getting this primally246 unhappy message by ESP link, and how, Sasha wondered, did you throw yourself between them, absorb the assault? She cried, "Oh, Punkin . . . please, no, it'll get better, you'll see . . .," waiting for Frenesi to answer, answer anything. She thought of what was available in the bathroom, and all the ways Frenesi could do herself harm in there. About the time she put down the baby and started in, Frenesi came back, took her mother by one wrist and in a voice Sasha had never heard, ordered, "Just — get her the fuck out of here." Her blue eyes, with this precise placement of room lamps, gathering most of the light, eyes so long loved, glaring now, savage247 with a fore-glimpse of some rush into fate, something shadowless and ultimate.
It was in those hours of hallucinating and defeat that Frenesi had felt Brock closer to her, more necessary, than ever. With his own private horrors further unfolded into an ideology248 of the mortal and uncontinued self, Brock came to visit, and strangely to comfort, in the half-lit hallways of the night, leaning darkly in above her like any of the sleek249 raptors that decorate fascist architecture. Whispering, "This is just how they want you, an animal, a bitch with swollen250 udders lying in the dirt, blank-faced, surrendered, reduced to this meat, these smells. . .." Taken down, she understood, from all the silver and light she'd known and been, brought back to the world like silver recalled grain by grain from the Invisible to form images of what then went on to grow old, go away, get broken or contaminated. She had been privileged to live outside of Time, to enter and leave at will, looting and manipulating, weightless, invisible. Now Time had claimed her again, put her under house arrest, taken her passport away. Only an animal with a full set of pain receptors after all.
An awkward time for any more men to be showing up, but not long before breakfast, who of all people should arrive in a taxi lit up like a canteen truck but Hubbell Gates, who'd received word of his new grandchild over the phone from Zoyd, at the opening of a discount furniture store outside Sacramento, just as he was cracking apart the first white-flame carbons of the evening into sky-drilling beams of pure arc light. The band hired for the occasion struck up the Gershwins' "Of Thee I Sing (Baby)," and that was how Hub entered grandfatherhood, among the twinkling spinners and national bunting, the upbeat music, with Sno-Cone and hot-dog stands and kids bouncing on the king-size waterbeds out in the lot, and his own fleet of photon projectors251 aimed at the purple sky, calling out across the miles of great valley to wage-earning families snug252 at the table and restless cruisers out on old 99 alike, here we are, forget the night falling and come on over, have a look, TV, stereo and appliances too, no cosigners or credit references, just your own honest face . . . one of those evenings when everything felt in harmony, at ease, and how long'd it been since that had happened? So Hub decided, "Heck with it, history can go on Pause for a little while," and, leaving the spotlights253 and trailer rigs to his crew, Dmitri and Ace26, hopped254 a complicated system of buses local and intercity, ending up long after midnight at a phone booth way out in Hacienda Heights, where he was obliged to go through a legal-history check before the taxi would consent to charge him an arm and a leg to get here, hence the late, or did he mean early, hour. . . .
Instead of "Just what I need" or "Oh, you," Sasha greeted him with an uncustomary embrace, sighing, clumsy. "Hi there, Hub-bell, we've got trouble."
"Huh? Not the baby—"
"Frenesi." Sasha told him what she'd seen. "All I could do was keep her company, but I've got to get some sleep."
"Where's 'at Zoyd at?"
"He clocked out as soon as the kid was born, probably off on one of the lesser-known planets by now."
"Don't know if I'm any Dr. Spock." He gave her a gentlemanly wink and, following close, a pat on the ass as she crept in on aching feet to collect the baby and keep her from Frenesi.
"Mind if I have a look at this kid?" The minute Hub was in range he got a bleary half a smile. "Oh, come on," he whispered, "I know better 'n that. That's no smile. No. That's no smile."
Frenesi was curled in her old bed, curtains drawn255 against the night street. "Hi, Pop." Well, Jesus, she did look awful. . . almost a different person. . . . Hub's idea of therapy, which he kept trying out on others, was just to sit down and start complaining about his own life. Though he had never known his daughter this defenseless, hurt, grimly he began with a pretty generic tale of woe256, not expecting much, but as he went on, sure enough, he could feel her start to calm down. He tried to drone steadily, not cause any reactions plus or minus. It became a monologue257 he had already recited more than once since the first separation, to seatmates on the bus, to dogs in the yard, to himself in front of the Tube at night. "What it was, 's your mother lost her respect for me. She'd be too honorable to say it, but that was it. She'd think these things all the way through, politically, but I'd only be trying to get out of the day in one piece. I was never the brave Wobbly her father was. Jess stood up, and he was struck down for it, and there was all of American History 101 for her, right there. How the hell was I gonna measure up? I thought I was doing what was necessary for my wife and my baby, freedom didn't come into it the way it did for Sasha, your grandpa understood that taking 'free' as far as you can usually leads to 'dead,' but he was never afraid of that, and I was, 'cause they can drop a Brute258 450 on you just as easy as a tree. .. ." Not that he hadn't taken a hit or two, beginning the first day he reported to the Warner studio and found out there was a strike on and his "job" was to be one of a thousand IATSE goons hired to break it. Turned out they were looking for a larger, meaner type of individual anyway, but Hub just stood there for a while, bewildered, shaking his head — he'd thought he was fighting World War II to keep just this from happening to the world. Fuck it, he concluded, and went around the corner and across the street and asked if he could join the pickets259, even if he wasn't working there, and before he knew it he'd been hit literally with a bolt from the sky, a lag bolt about the size and weight of the bar a steel guitar player uses, which Hub in his time had also been a target of, thrown by one of the IA gents deployed260 up on the roofs of the sound stages. It knocked him silly but also informed him that he'd made the right choice, though it was Sasha who was to become entangled261 in the fine details of the politics in the town at the time. The struggle between the IATSE, a creature of organized crime in collusion with the studios, and Herb Sorrell's Conference of Studio Unions, unapologetically liberal, progressive, New Deal, socialist262, and thus, in the toxic206 political situation, "Communist," had been going on all through the war but now broke into the open in a series of violent strike actions against the studios. All the newspapers pretended it was an organizing dispute between two unions. In fact it was the dark recrudescence of that hard-cased antiunion tradition which had brought the movie business to California in the first place, where it had gone on to enjoy till only recently its free ride on the backs of cheap labor263. The minute this was threatened, in came the studio-created scab locals of IATSE and their soldiers, often in battalion264 strength. And the outcome was foredoomed, because of the blacklist. In one of American misoneism's most notable hours, a complex system of accusation265, judgment266, and disposition267, administered by figures like Roy Brewer268 of IATSE and Ronald Reagan of the Screen Actors Guild269, controlled the working lives of everyone in the industry who'd ever taken a step leftward of registering to vote as a Democrat270. For technical people, rehabilitation271 was straightforward272 — join the IA, renounce273 the CSU. But Hub, stubborn, not yet grown out of his wartime patriotism274, stuck with the losers till the end — without analysis, but less forgivably naive192, he assumed everybody else saw the world as clearly as he did, and so was apt to make remarks out loud that others would either take issue with or else keep silent at, pretending not to differ but later entering a transcript275 into a dossier someplace. Each time a call wasn't answered or a story got back to him about how somebody had named him to yet another kangaroo jury board, a small hurt look came on his face, suddenly a kid's again, thinking, No, it isn't supposed to be this way.. . .
And they'd started off such happy-go-lucky kids, driving down to Hollywood, Sasha at the wheel, Hub with a uke from Hawaii singing "Down Among the Sheltering Palms" to Frenesi the baby between them, wearing one of the crateful276 of Hawaiian shirts he'd brought back from Pearl, sleeves just the right length for a colorful baby outfit277, and easy to wash and hang-dry too. The Hollywood Freeway was brand-new, some evenings they'd go out just for a spin, city lights flowing and checking along chrome stripes and wax jobs, passing back and forth164 a Benzedrine inhaler nose to nose and singing bop tunes117 like "Crazeology" and "Klacto-veedsedsteen" to each other, switching off sax and trumpet278 parts. They were living in Wade279 and Dotty's garage — the L.A. housing shortage had people out in trailers and tents, and on the beach too — spending nights at the Finale Club on South San Pedro in what had been Little Tokyo before the residents were all shipped off to detention280 camps, and listening to Bird, Miles, Dizzy, and everybody else then on the Coast, under the low metal ceiling among all the boppers, reefers, goatees, and porkpie hats. The world was being born again. The war had decided that, hadn't it? Even Sasha found herself looking at Hub a little gaga for what it seemed he'd done, gone out day after day to fire hoses and tear gas, saps, chains, and pieces of cable, hit, arrested, Sasha up all night bailing281 him out, working when he could, still trying to apprentice282 as a gaffer, repairing table lamps and toasters on the side, finding jobs at the margin59, beyond the official reach of the anti-communist machine, giving and taking kindnesses, off the books, studying under ancient electricians, masters whose hands, especially about the thumbs, had been blitzed and scarred solid from the years of testing line current and ignoring wattage ratings, who'd saved his life many times over by teaching him how to work with one hand in his pocket so he wouldn't ground himself. "But that was just my problem, according to your mother, I'd always, in some political way that was a bit deep for me, had one hand in my pocket and not out there doing the world's work, implying o' course that if I wasn't greedily counting my spare change over and over, why then I was selfishly enjoying a quiet round of pocket pool, ask your husband what that means, it's sorta technical... it wasn't her fault she wanted me purer than I was. And then the other life was happening, the work itself ... it was just when the Brute was first coming in. Jesus, all those amps. All that light. Nobody told me about the scale of it. After a while I couldn't see that much else. I needed to work with that light. Maybe it was some form of insanity283, except that lets me off too easy. Then there was Wade, my ol' canasta partner and picket-line buddy284, fighting shoulder to shoulder all those years, one day he went over, and we stayed friends, and finally you saw what'd it matter who'd be taking those dues off the paycheck, Al Speede's people, th' IATSE, whatever. It'd been over for a long time anyway, though we'd had to pretend otherwise, and what was it for, all those sets we lit, those exotic nightclub sets, the hotel rooms with the neon outside, the passenger coaches with the rain against the windows, all of it just shadows, even if it's on safety stock in some air-conditioned vault285 that's still all it is, I let the world slip away, made my shameful286 peace, joined the IA, retired287 soon's I could, sold off my only real fortune — my precious anger — for a lot of got-damn shadows." He gazed at the young woman lying face up now, her eyes shut, at first glance a simple fine-featured long-haired beauty, though a closer look would reveal, not so much in the eyes as around her mouth and jaw288, a darkness of expression, a held secret Hub knew he wouldn't be asked to share. "Hey there, Young Gaffer?" he whispered, to see if she was asleep. No answer. "Well Pd've called you my Best Girl," he went on, "but that was always your mother." Frenesi's tears would slow and dry, her postpartum lust for death would cool, she would on a day not far off actually find herself liking289 this infant with the offbeat290 sense of humor, and she and Sasha would take up, not as before, but maybe no worse than before. But there were still the secrets, Trasero County and Oklahoma secrets. More than any man she had ever wanted for anything, more than a full pardon from some unnamed agency for what she'd done, more than DL in her arms, the State in final rubble291, guns silent, tanks and bombs all melted down, more than anything she'd ever wished for over a lifelong childhood of praying to a variety of Santas, Frenesi wanted, would have given up all the rest for, a chance to go back to when she and Sasha had talked hours, nights, with no restraints, everything from penis folklore292 to Mom, where do we go when we die? Of all her turnings, this turn against Sasha her once-connected self would remain a puzzle she would never quite solve, a mystery beyond any analysis she could bring to it. If her luck held, she'd never have to know. The baby was perfect cover, it made her something else, a mom, that was all, just another mom in the nation of moms, and all she'd ever have to do to be safe was stay inside that particular fate, bring up the kid, grow into some version of Sasha, deal with Zoyd and his footloose band and all the drawbacks there, forget Brock, the siege, Weed Atman's blood, 24fps and the old sweet community, forget whoever she'd been, shoot inoffensive little home movies now and then, speak the right lines, stay within budget, wrap each day, one by one, before she lost the light. Prairie could be her guaranteed salvation293, pretending to be Prairie's mom the worst lie, the basest betrayal. By the time she began to see that she might, nonetheless, have gone through with it, Brock Vond had reentered the picture, at the head of a small motorcade of unmarked Buicks, forcing her over near Pico and Fairfax, ordering her up against her car, kicking apart her legs and frisking her himself, and before she knew it there they were in another motel room, after a while her visits to Sasha dropped off and when she made them she came in reeking294 with Vond sweat, Vond semen — couldn't Sasha smell what was going on? — and his erect penis had become the joystick with which, hurtling into the future, she would keep trying to steer among the hazards and obstacles, the swooping295 monsters and alien projectiles296 of each game she would come, year by year, to stand before, once again out long after curfew, calls home forgotten, supply of coins dwindling297, leaning over the bright display among the back aisles298 of a forbidden arcade299, rows of other players silent, unnoticed, closing time never announced, playing for nothing but the score itself, the row of numbers, a chance of entering her initials among those of other strangers for a brief time, no longer the time the world observed but game time, underground time, time that could take her nowhere outside its own tight and falsely deathless perimeter9.
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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drizzle
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| v.下毛毛雨；n.毛毛雨，蒙蒙细雨 | |
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pro
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| n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者 | |
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coup
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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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Congressman
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| n.（美）国会议员 | |
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squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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perimeters
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| 周边( perimeter的名词复数 )； 周围； 边缘； 周长 | |
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perimeter
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| n.周边，周长，周界 | |
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disturbances
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| n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍 | |
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itch
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| n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望 | |
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prosecution
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| n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营 | |
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contractors
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| n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 ) | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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infiltrated
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| adj.[医]浸润的v.（使）渗透，（指思想）渗入人的心中( infiltrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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radical
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immunity
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ass
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coppers
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| 铜( copper的名词复数 )； 铜币 | |
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touching
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hunch
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halfway
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personalities
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negotiation
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herd
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ace
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longing
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imprison
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| vt.监禁，关押，限制，束缚 | |
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29
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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30
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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31
deluxe
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| adj.华美的，豪华的，高级的 | |
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32
inhaled
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| v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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33
lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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34
mainstream
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| n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的 | |
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35
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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36
prosecutor
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| n.起诉人；检察官，公诉人 | |
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37
know-how
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| n.知识；技术；诀窍 | |
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38
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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39
unconditional
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| adj.无条件的，无限制的，绝对的 | |
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40
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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41
retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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42
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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43
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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44
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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45
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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46
resin
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| n.树脂，松香，树脂制品；vt.涂树脂 | |
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47
babbling
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| n.胡说，婴儿发出的咿哑声adj.胡说的v.喋喋不休( babble的现在分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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48
wheezing
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| v.喘息，发出呼哧呼哧的喘息声( wheeze的现在分词 )；哮鸣 | |
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49
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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50
ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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51
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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52
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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53
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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54
insulation
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| n.隔离；绝缘；隔热 | |
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55
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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56
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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57
anthem
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| n.圣歌，赞美诗，颂歌 | |
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58
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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59
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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60
margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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61
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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62
lobes
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| n.耳垂( lobe的名词复数 )；（器官的）叶；肺叶；脑叶 | |
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63
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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64
sockets
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| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
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65
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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66
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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67
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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68
racist
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| n.种族主义者，种族主义分子 | |
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69
superseded
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| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
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70
radicals
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| n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数 | |
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71
militants
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| 激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 ) | |
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72
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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73
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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74
enthusiasts
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| n.热心人，热衷者( enthusiast的名词复数 ) | |
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75
rogues
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| n.流氓( rogue的名词复数 )；无赖；调皮捣蛋的人；离群的野兽 | |
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76
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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77
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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78
glistening
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|
| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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79
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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80
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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81
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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82
cryptically
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83
daydreamed
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|
| v.想入非非，空想( daydream的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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84
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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85
outlawed
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| 宣布…为不合法（outlaw的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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86
flirting
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 ) | |
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87
amorously
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| adv.好色地，妖艳地；脉；脉脉；眽眽 | |
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88
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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89
flip
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| vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的 | |
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90
undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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91
skid
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| v.打滑 n.滑向一侧；滑道 ，滑轨 | |
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92
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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93
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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94
choirs
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| n.教堂的唱诗班( choir的名词复数 )；唱诗队；公开表演的合唱团；（教堂）唱经楼 | |
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95
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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96
vigilant
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| adj.警觉的，警戒的，警惕的 | |
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97
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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98
intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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99
guises
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| n.外观，伪装( guise的名词复数 )v.外观，伪装( guise的第三人称单数 ) | |
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100
notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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101
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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102
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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103
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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104
blurry
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| adj.模糊的；污脏的，污斑的 | |
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105
relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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106
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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107
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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108
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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109
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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110
degenerates
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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111
transcend
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| vt.超出，超越(理性等)的范围 | |
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112
raconteur
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| n.善讲故事者 | |
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113
specify
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| vt.指定，详细说明 | |
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114
peripheral
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| adj.周边的，外围的 | |
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115
coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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116
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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117
tunes
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| n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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118
fawning
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| adj.乞怜的，奉承的v.（尤指狗等）跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的现在分词 )；巴结；讨好 | |
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119
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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120
enlistment
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| n.应征入伍，获得，取得 | |
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121
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
plausibly
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| 似真地 | |
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123
transgressor
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| n.违背者 | |
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124
droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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125
bestial
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| adj.残忍的；野蛮的 | |
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126
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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127
furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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128
obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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129
violation
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| n.违反(行为)，违背(行为)，侵犯 | |
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130
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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131
overtime
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| adj.超时的，加班的；adv.加班地 | |
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132
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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133
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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134
skier
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| n.滑雪运动员 | |
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135
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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136
molest
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| vt.骚扰，干扰，调戏 | |
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137
croaking
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的现在分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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138
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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139
onlookers
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| n.旁观者，观看者( onlooker的名词复数 ) | |
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140
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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141
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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142
doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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143
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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144
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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145
compartments
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|
| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
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146
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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147
latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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148
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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149
mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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150
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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151
adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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152
tapering
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| adj.尖端细的 | |
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153
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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154
component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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155
nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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156
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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157
gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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158
ranches
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| 大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 ) | |
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159
charisma
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| n.(大众爱戴的)领袖气质，魅力 | |
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160
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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161
perked
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| （使）活跃( perk的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）增值； 使更有趣 | |
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162
wagered
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| v.在（某物）上赌钱，打赌( wager的过去式和过去分词 )；保证，担保 | |
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163
longevity
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| n.长命；长寿 | |
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164
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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165
radius
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| n.半径，半径范围；有效航程，范围，界限 | |
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166
camouflaged
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| v.隐蔽( camouflage的过去式和过去分词 )；掩盖；伪装，掩饰 | |
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167
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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168
pussy
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| n.(儿语)小猫，猫咪 | |
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169
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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170
steer
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| vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶 | |
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171
actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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172
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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173
memos
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| n.备忘录( memo的名词复数 )；（美）内部通知 | |
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174
versus
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| prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下 | |
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175
temporized
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| v.敷衍( temporize的过去式和过去分词 )；拖延；顺应时势；暂时同意 | |
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176
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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177
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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178
ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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179
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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180
continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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181
oasis
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方 | |
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182
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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183
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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184
technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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185
famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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186
wooly
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| adj.毛茸茸的；糊涂的 | |
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187
generic
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| adj.一般的，普通的，共有的 | |
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188
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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189
vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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190
baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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191
naively
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| adv. 天真地 | |
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192
naive
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| adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的 | |
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193
bullying
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| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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194
twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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195
infusions
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| n.沏或泡成的浸液（如茶等）( infusion的名词复数 )；注入，注入物 | |
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196
swirling
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 ) | |
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197
locus
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| n.中心 | |
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198
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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199
scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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200
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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201
elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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202
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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203
dunes
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| 沙丘( dune的名词复数 ) | |
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204
coastal
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| adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的 | |
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205
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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206
toxic
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| adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的 | |
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207
extravagantly
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| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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208
commutes
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| 上下班路程( commute的名词复数 ) | |
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209
gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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210
oases
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲( oasis的名词复数 )；（困苦中）令人快慰的地方（或时刻）；乐土；乐事 | |
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211
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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212
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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213
hustled
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| 催促（hustle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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214
recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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215
inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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216
crumpling
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| 压皱，弄皱( crumple的现在分词 )； 变皱 | |
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217
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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218
coordinated
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| adj.协调的 | |
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219
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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220
decomposing
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| 腐烂( decompose的现在分词 )； （使）分解； 分解（某物质、光线等） | |
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221
heroin
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| n.海洛因 | |
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222
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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223
scenarios
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| n.[意]情节；剧本；事态；脚本 | |
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224
luminously
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| 发光的； 明亮的； 清楚的； 辉赫 | |
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225
patio
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| n.庭院，平台 | |
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226
sodas
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| n.苏打( soda的名词复数 )；碱；苏打水；汽水 | |
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227
vibrations
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| n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动 | |
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228
bleakly
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| 无望地，阴郁地，苍凉地 | |
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229
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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230
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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231
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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232
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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233
unbearable
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|
| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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234
amnesia
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| n.健忘症，健忘 | |
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235
leaching
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| n.滤取，滤去v.（将化学品、矿物质等）过滤( leach的现在分词 )；（液体）过滤，滤去 | |
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236
parasitic
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| adj.寄生的 | |
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237
lobster
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| n.龙虾，龙虾肉 | |
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238
tuned
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| adj.调谐的，已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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239
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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240
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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241
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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242
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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243
spasms
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| n.痉挛( spasm的名词复数 )；抽搐；（能量、行为等的）突发；发作 | |
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244
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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245
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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246
primally
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| adj.第一的，最初的；原始的；首位的，主要的；根本的 | |
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247
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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248
ideology
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| n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识 | |
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249
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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250
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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251
projectors
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| 电影放映机，幻灯机( projector的名词复数 ) | |
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252
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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253
spotlights
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| n.聚光灯（的光）( spotlight的名词复数 )；公众注意的中心v.聚光照明( spotlight的第三人称单数 )；使公众注意，使突出醒目 | |
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254
hopped
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| 跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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255
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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256
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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257
monologue
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| n.长篇大论，（戏剧等中的）独白 | |
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258
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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259
pickets
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| 罢工纠察员( picket的名词复数 ) | |
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260
deployed
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| （尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的过去式和过去分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用 | |
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261
entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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262
socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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263
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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264
battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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265
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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266
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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267
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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268
brewer
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| n. 啤酒制造者 | |
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269
guild
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| n.行会，同业公会，协会 | |
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270
democrat
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员 | |
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271
rehabilitation
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| n.康复，悔过自新，修复，复兴，复职，复位 | |
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272
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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273
renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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274
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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275
transcript
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| n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书 | |
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276
crateful
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| 篮[箱]的量 | |
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277
outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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278
trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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279
wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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280
detention
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| n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下 | |
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281
bailing
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| （凿井时用吊桶）排水 | |
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282
apprentice
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| n.学徒，徒弟 | |
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283
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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284
buddy
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| n.（美口）密友，伙伴 | |
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285
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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286
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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287
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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288
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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289
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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290
offbeat
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| adj.不平常的，离奇的 | |
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291
rubble
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| n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾 | |
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292
folklore
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| n.民间信仰，民间传说，民俗 | |
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293
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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294
reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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295
swooping
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的现在分词 ) | |
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296
projectiles
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| n.抛射体( projectile的名词复数 )；（炮弹、子弹等）射弹，（火箭等）自动推进的武器 | |
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297
dwindling
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| adj.逐渐减少的v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的现在分词 ) | |
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298
aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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299
arcade
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| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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