Read Online Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Walter Mosley
Tags: Fiction, Historical fiction, General, Historical, Mystery & Detective, Private Investigators, Mystery Fiction, Missing Persons, Los Angeles (Calif.), African American, Rawlins; Easy (Fictitious character), Private investigators - California - Los Angeles, African American men
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thief, brother.”
The little white man smiled and I realized that his attitude toward me was different from that of most whites. He was protecting his friend from invasion, but this had nothing to do with my being black. That was a rare experience for me at that time.
There was an empty teacup on the dressing table too. It was also dried up. From the smell I knew that it had been a very strong brew.
• 11 •
W hen we were back out on the sidewalk I felt as if a weight had been taken off of me. Something about the house, how it seemed as if it were frozen into a snapshot, made me feel that something sudden and violent had occurred.
“You spend a lot of time with Bowers?” I asked the hippie.
“He gives these big old dinners and your cousin’s always there with some other straights from over in Frisco. Axel buys real good wine in big bottles and has Hannah’s Kitchen make a vegetarian feast.”
Dream Dog was around thirty, but he looked older because of the facial hair and skin weathered by many days and nights outside.
I was smoking Parliaments at that time. I offered him one and he took it. I lit us both up and we stood there on Derby surrounded by all kinds of hippies and music and multicolored cars.
“We trip a lot,” Dream Dog said.
“What’s that?”
“Drop acid.”
“What kind of acid?” I asked.
“LSD. Where you from? We drop acid. We trip.”
“Oh,” I said. “I see. You do drugs together.”
“Not drugs, man,” Dream Dog said with disdain. “Acid. Drugs close down your mind. They put you to sleep. Acid opens your crown chakra. It lets God leak in—or the devil.”
I didn’t know very much about psychedelics back then. I’d heard about the “acid test” that they gave at certain clubs up on Sunset Strip but that wasn’t my hangout. I knew my share of heroin addicts, glue sniffers, and potheads. But this sounded like something else.
“What happens when you drop?” I asked.
“Trip,” he said, correcting my usage.
“Okay. What happens?”
“This one time it was really weird. He played an album by Yusef Lateef.
Rite of Spring
but in a jazz mode. And there was this chick there named Polly or Molly …somethin’ like that. And we all made love and ate some brownies that she was sellin’ door-to-door. I remember this one moment when me and Axel were each suckin’ on a nipple and I felt like I was a baby and she was as big as the moon. I started laughin’ and I wanted to go off in the corner but I had to crawl because I was a baby and I didn’t know how to walk yet.”
Dream Dog was back in the hallucination. His snaggletoothed grin was beatific.
“What did Axel do?” I asked.
“That’s when his bad trip started,” Dream Dog said. His smile faded. “He remembered something about his dad and that made him mad. It was his dad and two of his dad’s friends. He called them vulture-men feeding off of carrion. He ran around the ashram swinging this stick. He knocked out this tooth’a mines right here.” Dream Dog flipped up his lip and pointed at the gap.
“Why was he so mad?” I asked.
“It’s always somethin’ inside’a you,” the hippie explained. “I mean it’s always there but you never look at it, or maybe on the trip you see what you always knew in a new way.
“After he knocked me down Polly put her arms around him and kissed his head. She kept tellin’ him that things were gonna be fine, that he could chase the vultures away and bury the dead…”
“And he calmed down?”
“He went into a birth trip, man. All the way back to the fetus in the womb. He went through the whole trip just like as if he was being born again. He came out and started cryin’ and me and Polly held him. But then she an’ me were holdin’ each other and before you know it we’re makin’ love again. But by then Axel was sitting up and smiling. He told us that he had been given a plan.”
“What plan?”
“He didn’t say,” Dream Dog
The little white man smiled and I realized that his attitude toward me was different from that of most whites. He was protecting his friend from invasion, but this had nothing to do with my being black. That was a rare experience for me at that time.
There was an empty teacup on the dressing table too. It was also dried up. From the smell I knew that it had been a very strong brew.
• 11 •
W hen we were back out on the sidewalk I felt as if a weight had been taken off of me. Something about the house, how it seemed as if it were frozen into a snapshot, made me feel that something sudden and violent had occurred.
“You spend a lot of time with Bowers?” I asked the hippie.
“He gives these big old dinners and your cousin’s always there with some other straights from over in Frisco. Axel buys real good wine in big bottles and has Hannah’s Kitchen make a vegetarian feast.”
Dream Dog was around thirty, but he looked older because of the facial hair and skin weathered by many days and nights outside.
I was smoking Parliaments at that time. I offered him one and he took it. I lit us both up and we stood there on Derby surrounded by all kinds of hippies and music and multicolored cars.
“We trip a lot,” Dream Dog said.
“What’s that?”
“Drop acid.”
“What kind of acid?” I asked.
“LSD. Where you from? We drop acid. We trip.”
“Oh,” I said. “I see. You do drugs together.”
“Not drugs, man,” Dream Dog said with disdain. “Acid. Drugs close down your mind. They put you to sleep. Acid opens your crown chakra. It lets God leak in—or the devil.”
I didn’t know very much about psychedelics back then. I’d heard about the “acid test” that they gave at certain clubs up on Sunset Strip but that wasn’t my hangout. I knew my share of heroin addicts, glue sniffers, and potheads. But this sounded like something else.
“What happens when you drop?” I asked.
“Trip,” he said, correcting my usage.
“Okay. What happens?”
“This one time it was really weird. He played an album by Yusef Lateef.
Rite of Spring
but in a jazz mode. And there was this chick there named Polly or Molly …somethin’ like that. And we all made love and ate some brownies that she was sellin’ door-to-door. I remember this one moment when me and Axel were each suckin’ on a nipple and I felt like I was a baby and she was as big as the moon. I started laughin’ and I wanted to go off in the corner but I had to crawl because I was a baby and I didn’t know how to walk yet.”
Dream Dog was back in the hallucination. His snaggletoothed grin was beatific.
“What did Axel do?” I asked.
“That’s when his bad trip started,” Dream Dog said. His smile faded. “He remembered something about his dad and that made him mad. It was his dad and two of his dad’s friends. He called them vulture-men feeding off of carrion. He ran around the ashram swinging this stick. He knocked out this tooth’a mines right here.” Dream Dog flipped up his lip and pointed at the gap.
“Why was he so mad?” I asked.
“It’s always somethin’ inside’a you,” the hippie explained. “I mean it’s always there but you never look at it, or maybe on the trip you see what you always knew in a new way.
“After he knocked me down Polly put her arms around him and kissed his head. She kept tellin’ him that things were gonna be fine, that he could chase the vultures away and bury the dead…”
“And he calmed down?”
“He went into a birth trip, man. All the way back to the fetus in the womb. He went through the whole trip just like as if he was being born again. He came out and started cryin’ and me and Polly held him. But then she an’ me were holdin’ each other and before you know it we’re makin’ love again. But by then Axel was sitting up and smiling. He told us that he had been given a plan.”
“What plan?”
“He didn’t say,” Dream Dog
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