CHAPTER 31--LAST RITES

June 1997

I am the resurrection and I am the light, I couldn't ever bring myself to hate you as I'd like.

-Stone Roses

G

inny was standing up the slope, looking down at me, DDT's warm pistol still in her hand.

"Nice shot," I said.

She didn't say anything, turned and quietly disappeared over the horizon. Walked back up the slope.

She was standing over Louie's body. Not far from her, my empty Glock lay in the dirt. I walked over to it, picked it up, and pointed it at my temple. I pulled the trigger.

Click.

Turned and saw Ginny walking towards me, still holding DDT's gun. She held it out to me, staring at me with bloodshot eyes. Noticed her face and arms were scratched up from crawling through the mesquite for the gun. Took the gun, turned, and walked back down the slope to the edge, and threw both pieces off the cliff.

I figured, with DDT dead, the only thing left to fear was a court martial. Hell, maybe I'd even own up one day, turn myself in, and give my side of the story. Maybe. But what a great way to honor that brave son of a bitch Louie-who always thought guns were chickenshit and cowardly- by ditching the things.

Listened as the metal and plastic bounced against the goddamned Grand Canyon. Hoped they would hit trashed, crashed Tony's bloodied, crushed skull one more time. Leave one more dent in that asshole's head. One more time for Louie. And Rooster.

And all the innocents killed in a Vietnamese jungle back in '70.

That's when I realized that Rooster's specs for his pornware were gone as well, buried in the twisted carnage below.

Remember thinking it was just as well. No box. No pornware. Shit, I just might have had to get a real job, I thought. Of course, I had Rooster's front money, which would help in the interim, help with some sort of transition. Had always wanted to live in Northern California and maybe work on a farm or something. Lord knows I was sick of living from casino to casino.

Walked over to where Louie lay face up. Ginny was now draped over him like an American flag on a coffin. Her white blouse was red, red with the blood of a guy who couldn't love her enough, and red with the blood of a heart that beat for her every day during the last days of its young life.

She continued to sob. I walked up to her, Queen, and put my hand on her shoulder.

"He's in a better place, now, sis," I said not knowing what else to say. She stood, turned around and looked me straight in the eye: "Look, I'm not your sister, so don't ever call me your sugar-spun sister again. I hate that name. Hate it!"

She was so mad she jumped up and began flailing her arms at me, hitting me.

Tried to back off.

"OK, OK, I’M EVER SO FUCKING SORRY, Ginny. Go ahead," I said. "Hit me harder. If you hate me so much, then push me off the goddamned cliff. But I'll tell you something."

I could feel the emotion rising, stirring in my gut.

"I was his friend for a helluva lot longer than you were. DON’T YOU FUCKING THINK I’M GONNA MISS HIM? I'm not the one who ditched him in Winslow. I didn't ditch him in downtown Vegas," I shouted. "I NEVER CALLED HIM A CRIPPLE."

Got choked up and started crying. Then she stopped hitting me and just fell into my arms; we hugged and cried in each other's arms that way for a long, long time.

"I'm sorry Louie," she repeated over and over.

Suddenly, she withdrew.

"Got a cigarette, Jack?" she asked solemnly.

"Yeah. Of course," I said, pulling out my crumpled pack of Camels and offering her my last.

"That's your last one."

"What do you say we share it? We can get some more when we get back to town."

She took the cigarette. Pulled the lighter out of my pocket and lit it for her. She took a couple of puffs and handed it back to me.

"It's going to take us about an hour to two hours to make it to a gas station," I said. "We can get some gas, and have someone drive us back to get the Dodge. But we should leave soon, cuz it gets hella cold out here at night."

"But what about Louie; what are we gonna do about him? We can't just leave him out here like this."

Knew she was right, Queen. But what could we do? Notify the authorities? Anonymously, maybe, and they could have his family bury him. Yeah, right. We were his family. His only blood relative was dickhead Uncle Sam back in Henderson. Most likely, the authorities would just dispose of the body like they do all the other John Does. Well, the least I could do was to give him a proper burial. It sucked, but it was the best I could do.

Ginny helped, and we were both pretty tired when I finally smoothed out the dirt over the makeshift grave. And the whole time I was thinking about everything he claimed to believe, like how he believed that to know God's will all you have to do is realize that everything you see, everything that happens, is God's will.

Yeah, ya know, just because it's God's will doesn't mean it doesn't ever suck. It sucks. God's will sucks sometimes, you stupid Mexican asshole.

Like out of some goddamned Western I'd seen, I rigged a crude cross out of some desert twigs. So as to not attract morbid curiosity, I made it inconspicuous. Still, I felt his grave needed some marker.

As I tried to think of something appropriate to say, something religious-like from the Bible, something Louie would appreciate-Ginny just sat there and stared at the fresh mound of dirt, with a dull look on her face.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," I finally said, "everything that sparkles will one day rust."

Sank to my knees and started sobbing.

She came and put her arm around me.

That just made me cry even harder. Maybe it was owed to the fact that at times she reminded me of you, Queen. She was almost your age, Queen, the age you remain frozen in time.

Times like those, I really wanted to come join you, Queen, I really did. But then again, if the sun was shining and my heart was beating, the way I saw it I was alive and had to do what I had to do. Seriously, if it weren't for her in that moment, I considered throwing myself over the edge of the canyon and joining Tony in that huge hole in the ground. But here was a broken-hearted, grieving 17-year girl who needed a lift back to somewhere. And after that, who knows? Life was starting to look real empty without the one-armed small-change bandit by my side. Sure, looking at her then, having gone through what we'd just gone through, the fact that she'd be 18 in just a few short months did cross my mind, Queen.

My mind flashed back to that night in Puerto Peñasco a few weeks ago, the moonlight cascading in on Ginny in that secret stolen moment of lust and loneliness, that now seemed like it was centuries ago.

And if not her, someone, a friend, like the best friend I had just buried. A companion. Companions. As long as we live, Queen, there will be people who need friends. And I guess that's as good a reason as any for sticking around. Guess I've always wished you'd have seen it that way, Queen, all those years ago. Wish you hadn't lost the faith, because I always meant to come back for you, Queen. Always. This realization revealed a hole in my soul, a hole as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon before me, that I guess had been there all along, ever since I sat down on my father's couch that first day back, and he looked at me and said, "I don't know how to tell you this, son."

And I remembered that day, how deep the hurt really went that you'd lost the faith. Even if I had never come back, Queen, I just wish you'd held out for the hope. Because without hope we have nothing. I just wished you'd seen it like that, Queen. We may have grown old together, that's all. Tears flooded my eyes, as my gut wrenched with the kind of hard pain that we accept in life as more and more of those whom we call friends pass on.

And I cried for you more that day than ever before, Queen.

After what seemed like an eternity, Ginny gently removed her arm, inched forward, and kissed the dirt on top of Louie's grave, whispering something I could not hear. She sat back up, and looked out at the darkening sky. Suddenly, she spoke. "Jack, after we get back to the van, can you take me to a bus station? I want to go back to Austin. I think I should go be with my dad."

She stood up.

"Sure," I said, relieved that she was doing the right thing, and saddened because I knew that when that bus left the station, I would cry for her as well, because my gut feeling was that would be the last time I ever saw her. I almost wanted to offer to drive her back to Texas, just to spend a few more days with her, but somehow I knew that wasn't right. My destiny lay elsewhere. I guess that really, ultimately, my destiny is with you, Queen.

Pulled myself up.

A thought occurred to me, and I said to her, "I'll be right back."

When I got back to the Dodge to get the guitar, and the piece of notebook paper with Louie's words on it, I noticed the envelope partially sticking out under the floor mat. Rooster's front money and the instructions. I picked it up and looked inside. In addition to the money there was a Voice-It. I hit play and Rooster's disembodied voice-the voice of a dead man-described my now-aborted mission.

"Jack, my friend, you and the boy should be well on your way to Los Angeles by now. The contact you're going to meet is Larry Flanders. His father, Mel Flanders, wants to merge Virtual Fuck with his X-rated movie business."

I hit the play button again to make it stop.

I'd heard of him, finally.

Made up my mind right there and then to split the money with Ginny. But that was for later. Grabbed the guitar and headed back down the slope.

Told her that I was going to sing a song Louie and I had written for her, and promised her the piece of paper with the poem on it after I sang it. I was able to hold back the tears for most of the song while Ginny pretty much cried throughout. Started breaking down when I got to the phrase:

I won't forget you, and I won't let you, fall from grace...

When I got to this line it became clear to me I was no longer mourning just the one-armed bandit, but the sugar-spun sister as well, and that I meant every word of it as much. And I sang it for you, as well, Queen. I was crying so hard that I was shaking. Finally, I let an E minor chord resolutely resound out across the Grand Canyon, a dark, sad, and final chord for Luis Carlos Mejia.

It occurred to me that once again, like deja vu or something, Queen, that I had lost my second family, that we had been a family, the three of us. And, just as Vietnam had come between me and you, unfinished business of that war had come between our family. And I thought about Grandpa Joe, all those years ago, thinking his last thoughts, saying his last prayer, as the lights went dim around him on the dying fields of France. He'd only lost one family, one life.

And here I was in a very different place, my second family, my second life, having become a casualty of yet another war, a third war, a very private one between me and a dead man who once went by the initials DDT. And how many times can a man lose his life? I don't know; Queen, I honestly don't know.

And we sat there for a good while longer, neither of us saying a word, with just the native sounds of the desert landscape washing up against our silent anguish. A long thin black plume of smoke from DDT’s wreckage rose into the darkening sky.

Finally, we both knew it was time.

It was time to go.

We both stood.

There, but for the grace of God, go I.

We looked to the west to where the sun, which was setting majestically into the Grand Canyon, offered one last fading ounce of warmth on this, one of the shittiest days of our lives, and dried the tears in our eyes.

We turned and got the hell out of there.