6:33 PM, Decembering through October (and colder still in November’s harvest-confetti drop down) Johnny Indigo winced at the taste of sherry. Gray-tied, he split la casa and hit the club. The night is long when you start early.
Not much to write home about there, though. A lot of standing, bookended by extended drives to and fro. And then a period of inactivity.
Now.
Clicked into the cool clarity of the twelfth month. Christmas lights: mostly whites and greens, glimmering. His breath making ephemeral clouds. Black seems a good choice for attire.
"I’m a sad panda."
Blurring into the circular booth in the Lava Lounge, he talks smoke. A set piece like something out of Naked Lunch:
"One day, I was walking out to the ocean -- the second biggest one, you know? Anyway. No sandals and the sand is hot, radiating up through the soles of my feet. The sky just towering above me. It was probably July; who knows what year.
"So I’m walking through the dunes and damn if I don’t step on a tiny cactus. Barbs in the heel." Rolling his eyes behind the shades, he takes a long sip of his martini. "So I pull a flamingo, wavering there on one foot, picking the needles out of the other. Swearing bright and quiet, if you know what I mean. But that’s eventually over with. And I eventually get down to the water. Really ready to unwind at that point.
"So I wade into the surf. Not bad. Warm...that lean brine smell. I’m easing back. Swimming, letting the water work the tension out of my body. I roll onto my back, floating.
"And look down at my stomach just in time to see a school of milky-white jellyfish slide casually across my bare skin. Ouch."
He laughs and takes a drag on his cigarette.
"Sometimes when it rains, it pours."
--- JWR, 12/6/99