Rudolph Wurlitzer - Slow Fade

CUT TO. . four small black balls of opium in the palm of Bodhi’s hand; in the background, through the train window, the setting sun sinks over bleak rolling hills. Bodhi passes everyone a ball. “The best, most efficient way is to shove it up your ass. But if you can’t handle that you can swallow it.”. . He and Sita proceed to execute the first option. Jim swallows his but Lacey hesitates. “I’ve never done anything like this,” she says with an awkward giggle. . “No one’s forcing you,” Bodhi says. “It just smooths and grooves a boring trip. Takes you off the clock.”. . Jim puts an arm around Lacey, pulls her to him. “C’mon, sweetheart, it’s like a Perc or Valium.”. . Closing her eyes, she swallows the opium with a sip of wine. . Sita pours more wine into a copper offering bowl that rests on a makeshift altar set up underneath the train window; it’s created from a yellow silk cloth laid cross the width of one of Jim’s suitcases. She and Bodhi have made themselves at home, having claimed the upper two bunks for themselves. At the rear of the altar, on either side of a burning candle, are a smoking incense stick and an ancient skull bowl. A many-colored paper cutout of a mandala rests in front of the altar next to a bell and a sickle-shaped bone knife. On the window they’ve taped two photographs: a reproduction of the goddess Kali, her blue four-armed body standing triumphant over two headless corpses, and a black-and-white photograph of a ferocious smooth-skinned yogi covered with ash sitting naked underneath a banyan tree, his pupils raised upward so that only the whites of his eyes are visible. . Bodhi lies back on a lower bunk, his hands locked behind his neck, very relaxed and satisfied with the way things are going. “Sita and I might do a little puja. Jump the energy level. Sanctify the space and pacify the demons.”. .“Well sure,” Jim says. “Whatever it takes.”. . Sita, seated in a half lotus in front of the altar, nods and clasps the palms of her hands together, bowing slightly. Then she touches the top of her head and intones: “Om Hum Hrim Siva Saktibyham Svaha.”. . Lacey curls up inside Jim’s embrace as they lie on the opposite bunk. She can’t stop giggling. “This is all a little theatrical, don’t you think? A little bit hippie-dippy.”. . Sita turns to stare at her, a slow sad smile on her thin lips. . “I didn’t mean anything,” Lacey says. “I just don’t know what’s going on.”. . After a long pause, Bodhi says: “It’s theatrical, all right. If you know that, you’ll come through the dreams okay.”. .“Come through what dreams?” Jim asks, struggling to make sense through faculties that are spinning away from him. . “Whatever dreams Mother India has in store for you,” Bodhi replies. “This country doesn’t work, you understand. It doesn’t want to work. It’s in a time switch. Everything that’s repressed back home is on the street here. The outside becomes the inside or is it the other way around? Certain things become available. Our guru teaches us not to shrink from the senses but to conquer them through experience. He says perfection can be attained by satisfying all desires. Take it right to the street, he says. Every event is sacred. That’s our Baba’s special message for you this evening. Just watch and accept. Every rip-off, betrayal, slimy surprise; they’re all opportunities to jump your level.”. .“What’s he saying?” Lacey whispers to Jim. She is beginning to feel stoned and paranoid. . “Something occult, no doubt,” he says. As if from a great distance they watch Sita ring a little brass bell, softly repeating a mantra: “Om Jaya vijaya vijaya.”. . Lacey tries to sit up but falls back on the bunk. “Oh, God,” she moans. “What’s happening to me?”. .“You’re on hold,” Bodhi explains, standing up and smiling down at them. “We dipped your opium into a little elixir of snake juice. Copped it from an old jungle Baba back at Goa. You’ll be paralyzed for a few hours, nothing more than that.” They watch him, unable to move or speak as he systematically goes through their luggage, emptying out Lacey’s purse and Jim’s wallet and trying on Jim’s clothes. Sita remains absorbed in meditation, her eyes half closed, the mantra a whisper through her lips. . “You’re observers now,” Bodhi goes on. “Tantric TV watchers. Pranayama is a great yoga. Very pure. Watching your breath and your thoughts and your money and possessions come and go.”. . He tries on one of Jim’s white linen jackets, admiring himself in a hand-held mirror. Impatiently, Sita tells him to get on with it. . Bodhi sighs, folding up the jacket and putting it with the rest of his chosen wardrobe. “We have to complete the puja. We’re on the sixth day of a seven-day puja devoted to getting Sita knocked up. We’re neophytes, you understand, and a lot can go wrong when you’re working the kundalini up the spinal column and touching base with all the chakras. That old inner woman can cause you grief if you don’t stay on the point. So we have to perform when the moon tells us to perform. Tomorrow will be the fertile time for a god-child to be conceived. Now we store the energy, hold back the sperm until the auspicious moment, and then let the saki unite with Siva.”. .“Please,” Sita implores. . “All right then,” Bodhi says, turning back to Jim and Lacey for one final word. “Don’t worry about your passports. We just want to meet our needs, nothing more. A few clothes, your money, tape deck, stuff you can easily replace. You’re loaded, after all. Hey, we’re not out to do anyone in. Although, as our Baba says, we occupy the places of the gross. But in his infinite compassion he gave us the tools to process it.”. . All this while he’s quickly removing his clothes and joining Sita, who is sitting naked on a bedroll in front of the altar. They stare into each other’s eyes with great seriousness, intoning “Hrim, Shrim, Kleem,” as Lacey and Jim lie pinned to the bunk unable not to look. . Sita’s fingers slowly circle the tip of his cock. His breathing becomes rapid as he squeezes Sita’s nipples. For a moment they have to pull back, shutting their eyes as they regain control. . “We need music,” he suggests. . Sita looks at him impatiently. “Don’t be an asshole. Concentrate on the gap between breaths. Abandon yourself to those gaps. You remember what Baba says.”. .“I’m not keeping the Atma in mind,” Bodhi says. “All I feel like doing is fucking your brains out. . ” She looks at him with disgust. “If you shoot your filthy load into me I’ll never forgive you.”. .“No danger in that,” he says, looking at his wilted cock. . “It’s five minutes to twelve,” Sita reminds him. “We’ve come too far to throw it away. . ” She bends down to give him an efficient blow job. As he becomes erect she pulls away and slowly lowers herself toward him. But before she can settle herself over him, he ejaculates in short spasmodic bursts. “You creep,” she cries out. “You’ve ruined everything.” She turns away and bursts into tears. . A few hours later the train pulls into a dark and nearly deserted station. Jim and Lacey sleep the dreamless sleep of the drugged while Sita and Bodhi prepare to leave the compartment, looking resplendent in white linen suit and clinging silk dress, a gang of porters carrying all their bags except two, which they have left behind as a gesture of goodwill.

After A.D. went through his stack of one-dollar chips he went back to the room and found Walker asleep. The pages were on the floor beside the bed. After A.D. read them, he wrote out a rough contract establishing that he had paid Walker ten thousand dollars and therefore was part owner of the script, along with Wesley, who up until then had paid out seventy-five hundred. Before he went to sleep he found a secretary in the casino’s office to type up the contract in legalized English.