Charlie Huston: Sleepless

“This your prescription, asshole?”

“What about this?”

The partner shook two large brown plastic bottles, one in each hand, like maracas.

“What we have? Ritalin? Xanax? Got ADD issues? Anxiety attacks? Can’t really tell with these unmarked bottles. Pharmacy forget to print the labels, asshole?”

The first plainclothes, the one wearing a black Harley-Davidson T and chrome wraparounds, kicked Park’s feet a little wider apart.

“He’s got an anxiety attack now, motherfucker. Got anxiety about how far he’s gonna have it up his ass once they see him inside.”

The partner tipped his Angels cap.

“Too true, too true, he’s a looker. Sistahs are gonna eat him up.”

Park shifted, trying to peel his face up before it blistered.

The plainclothes grabbed him by the hair and gave his head a shake.

“Fuck do you think you’re doing? Did I or did I not say not to fucking move?”

He nodded at his partner.

“This guy, he thinks he can get up and walk away when he wants. Thinks he’s at liberty to split.”

The partner pulled his head out of the car, flipping through the plastic zipper wallet that contained Park’s registration, insurance card, AAA, and extra fuses. All of it, except the fuses, essentially useless at this point.

DMV had frozen up when the state went broke; it was unlikely there was an insurance company left with the holdings to cover a claim on a dented bumper; and the phones at AAA had been playing the same recorded apology for nearly a year now: “We regret that membership services have been suspended indefinitely.”

Suspended indefinitely.

Thinking about those words, Park had a sudden mental image of the world, its activity and life frozen, paused, suspended indefinitely, waiting while this overlay of the world reeled about, aping the original.

At some point this interlude would expire, and that true world would resume from where it left off, transition seamless, strange interruption erased.

The partner slapped his face with the zippered wallet of useless paper.

“He’s at liberty, at liberty to get his face fucked up if he fucking moves again.”

He tossed the wallet back in the car.

“Nothing else in here.”

The plainclothes yanked on the cuffs that locked Park’s hands behind his back.

“’Kay, fuckstick, let’s go to jail.”

He pulled Park up, frog-walked him to the unmarked, and pushed his head low as he shoved him into the backseat.

“Try not to piss yourself.”

He slammed the door, slid behind the wheel.

“And away we go.”

The partner climbed in on the passenger side.

“Off to see the wizard.”

The Crown Victoria pulled from the curb, leaving behind the small crowd of rubberneckers that had surrounded the scene right after the unmarked had screeched up to where Park was idling at Highland and Fountain and the two cops had jumped out, guns first. They must have hung about to watch the old-fashioned novelty of a drug bust. It may or may not have occurred to any of them that this was a suspiciously frivolous use of law enforcement resources in a time of pandemic, economic collapse, and general social upheaval, but if they did notice, no one chose to speak out.

What would they have said?

Unhand that man.

Go do your job somewhere.

Tell the Fed to go back on the gold standard.

Put more resources into alternative energy sources.

Begin talks with the NAJis.

Find a cure.

Nothing the cops were doing was going to make that big a difference, anyway, so why not stand around and watch the bust?

Still, it was odd.

Except to Park.

The plainclothes started a low machine gun mutter of curses and hit the grille lights and siren.

“Fucking civilians. Fucking bulletins on the fucking TV, radio, fucking Internet, they still gotta get in their fucking cars and come out on the road. Tell them, straight up, the alert level is fucking black. Black! What is that, subtle? We got to change it to alert level everyone fucking dies? Mean, no one saw the news? No one knows the NAJi blew up forty-something people last night? What do they think, it’s a rumor? Government plot to keep them safe at home? Motherfucker!”

He jerked the steering wheel to the left, using the heavy bumper of the Crown Vic to shove a wheezing Focus farther into the left turn lane, making room for himself, gunning to beat the light at Sunset.

“Got to be just about the only functioning street light in the city, and no one pays it any mind. Fucking assholes.”

He jabbed an elbow at his partner.

“So what the fuck, Kleiner?”

Kleiner was spilling pills from one of the brown bottles into his palm.

“Valium.”

“No fucking.”

The plainclothes shot Park his eyes in the rearview.

“Who the fuck is buying Valium? That’s bullshit. That’s your bullshit stash, isn’t it? Mean, no one wants Valium. Where’s your fucking ups?”

Park braced his feet against the back of the front seats as the plain-clothes slammed the brakes to make the sharp right onto Franklin.

“It’s for a sleepless guy.”

“For a sleepless? Don’t give me that shit. Valium does shit for sleepless. All they take is ups.”

He wrenched the wheel, cutting across southbound traffic on Western, carving his own path onto Los Feliz Boulevard, gunning up the hill, past the fire-gutted hulk of the American Film Institute, where Park and Rose had once been invited by a friend to watch Some Like it Hot, Rose’s favorite movie.

They jumped a curb, rode at a cant, half on the sidewalk, and bumped back even, past another logjam of cars.

Kleiner braced his hands against the door and the roof.

“Jesus, Hounds.”

Hounds killed the siren.

“What else we got? Dreamer?”

A new note in Hounds’s voice as he said the word. Same note that might have come into the voice of a drunk playing a scratcher at a gas station, before the state leased the lottery, before the company that bought it went bust. A note of hope and disbelief in the bare second before he confirms that the number that looks like it might be worth a million is indeed his usual two-buck winner. Just like he knew it would turn out to be.

Kleiner dropped the caps back in the bottle.

“No, Demerol.”

The sedan lurched as it was broadsided by a hybrid edging into traffic from North Vermont, and the plainclothes pointed at the driver.

“Motherfucker! Fucking shoot that motherfucker!”

Kleiner ignored the request, opening the baggie.

“Who has Dreamer? No one has real Dreamer. Just bootleg crap.”

Hounds turned to look again at Park.

“And you, what’s this bullshit about a sleepless taking Valium?”

Park looked between his knees.

“This guy in Koreatown. Says they help. He takes them ten at a time. Drinks a bottle of red wine. Says he almost naps.”

Hounds chewed his lip.

“Ten at a time. Does it work?”

Park shrugged.

“He thinks it does. Never heard of it before. But they all have things they try. Know a lady, she chops up melatonin and snorts it. Twenty, thirty grams at a time.”

“Yeah, but the Valium?”

Park shook his head.

“I doubt it.”

“Fuck. Fuck.”

Griffith Park loomed brown on their left.

Park looked at the fire-scorched hillside. Tents were starting to repopulate it now that the wreckage and dead bodies from the original refugee camp had been mostly cleared away and the smoldering ground fires extinguished.

Hounds slapped the dash.

“Hey, what about the Demerol? That help sleepless any?”

“Not that I ever heard of. I sell that to a regular old pill head. Guy used to be a roadie for Tom Petty.”