Burn Down The Night by Craig Kee Strete Page A

away
from her.
    I get halfway
across the room when she shouts something at me. I turn and look back at her, sitting on the
floor now, in a little puddle of her own blood.
    "I lied!" she
yells at me, waving one bloody palm at me. "That wasn't an upper! I don't know what it
is!"
    She laughs
hysterically, and begins licking the blood off the palm of her hand.
    "Oh, shit! I'm
gonna die!" I shake my head. It's my fault. I'm too kind to people and they're always taking
advantage of me because of it. It's the nice, normal ones like that girl that always give me the
most trouble. It's the crazy ones that never bother you. Right?
    I stagger off
through the wreckage, expecting at any moment that my head will explode with some kind of wonder
drug as yet unknown to science, turning me into a lightning bolt. I manage not to trip over
any­thing or step on anyone, almost a magic act in itself.
    The cannibalism
number kinda woke me up. I head for the kitchen, with a little more energy than I came in with.
Terror is good methedrine.
    I have to move a
girl's legs away from the kitchen door. The legs are attached to a body that has said a firm
goodbye to Saturday night in L.A. She's passed out with an ashtray on her forehead, and cigarette
butts all over her face. When you can't have any more fun, you can at least be useful.
    Open the kitchen
door and find something new there. Morrison is under the kitchen table. Dead drunk. Or drugged
out. Or maybe just dead. Hard to tell.
    Some girl in a
Mexican poncho is trying to take his jacket off. Having a difficult time of it with him sprawled
out under the table like a cold-cocked matador. He's just a dead weight in her arms and she's no
tow truck strength-wise.
    I bend down and
watch her. She tugs the jacket off finally. I wonder if maybe I should applaud but don't because
persistence is its own reward.
    Her head almost
bumps into mine.
    I shake a finger
at her. "Naughty! Naughty! Shame on you!"
    She sees me,
jumps, banging her head against the bottom of the table.
    "Thou shalt not
steal. Unless you are white and have signed a treaty." I hold out my hand. "Gimme!"
    "Screw you!" She
folds her arms protectively against her stomach.
    I can see tracks
on both of her arms. Just another junkie chick trying to pick up some loose change. Probably went
through Morrison's pockets too.
    She starts backing
out, trying to get away on the oth­er side of the table. I reach in, grab her by one arm and yank
her out from under the table.
    She struggles
against me, slips and then falls forward on her face. She tries to crawl through my legs so I
grab her by one leg and hold on. She coils up in a ball, protecting the stolen coat with her
scrawny legs.
    "My friend isn't
going to like waking up to find some little junkie's made off with his coat. So better let go of
it."
    "Let me go, you
stupid bastard!"
    She reaches up and
tries to jab me in the crotch with her fist. I lean back, knocking her hand away and letting go
of her leg. This one plays nasty, believes in dialing direct.
    She tries again so
I grab her by the hair, holding her out at arm's length, protecting my lap. She tries to pull her
head away, wincing with pain.
    "You're hurting
me."
    "I'm not trying
to."
    "Owwwww!" I give
her hair a little yank, so she knows I'm not kidding around.
    "C'mon, play nice.
Give it up. It doesn't belong to you."
    "Screw you! It
doesn't belong to you either," she says, looking around wildly as if looking for reinforce­ments.
She seems to be thinking, holds that pose a few seconds and then tries this one on me. "Hey,
look, he's dead. Okay? He don't need the coat no more. Okay?"
    I don't believe
her, though this is the kind of party where it's not that unlikely. "That makes you a grave
robber and that's even worse."
    She spits in my
face suddenly, taking me by surprise. The spittle is stinging my eyes and it makes me madder than
hell. I let go of her hair, put my arms un­der her