change that came with nightfall. The potholed alleys that were deserted in the day's heat became busy with shifty buyers and sellers who would lounge with practiced innocence every time a black-and-white rolled past. The car washes, too, filled in the daytime with pimps scrubbing their Cadillacs, were even busier at night as their girls steered a procession of Johns into the car stalls for, well, knob polishing. The place used to make SoCo look like Mayfair.
Lately, though, economics had succeeded where the cops had failed to crack down on crime. The worst parts of East Austin were too close to downtown for the developers to ignore, and the slum landlords developed dollar signs in their eyes, unable to resist the hefty sacks of cash being dangled in front of their greedy, sniffing noses. This meant a slow death to the excitement of Charlie Sector as eco-friendly homes popped up alongside crack houses, and solar-powered town houses nudged aside crumbling, cinder-block duplexes. The yuppies moving in needed organic-food stores and coffee shops, not crack and hookers, and they didn't hesitate to call the cops about the hoodlums lurking on the street corners.
As I drove, I spotted several clubs I'd heard about but not played in, new and hip and cool places to see, be seen, and pick up chicks. I felt acid in my stomach, that flash of anger as I realized that I may not get to play in those clubs, ever, and reminded myself that my extracurricular time needed to be spent tracking down the snake who'd lied about me stealing his music, rather than risking life and limb for Gus and his crush.
The violence and discord moved farther east, away fromdowntown and into the ramshackle apartment complexes and trailer parks already inhabited by the poorest people who moved to the outskirts of Austin, the Mexicans and Hondurans who felt unwelcome and didn't much want to be seen unless it came to their lawn-care business. Or the gaggles of day laborers who gathered early in the morning hoping to feed their family that day and maybe pay some rent.
The address Gus gave me was in this new war zone, a patch of unused land that lay between East Austin's jugular, Ed Bluestein Boulevard, beside a sprawling mobile-home park. About the size of a football field, it was all rock, dust, and broken beer bottles. If I'd looked closely, or perhaps remembered to bring a flashlight, I knew I'd have seen a sprinkling of used condoms and needles, too. Sometimes it's better to stay in the dark.
It was 11 p.m. when I pulled up behind Gus's car. I doused my headlights and sat looking into the darkness for signs of the mayhem I'd been expecting. All was quiet. I opened my car door, and the ding-ding from the dashboard startled me until I whipped the key from the ignition.
I got out and walked slowly toward Gus's car, reassured by the weight of my gun in the small of my back. The day's heat seemed to have settled on this place, pressing down on me and provoking the millions of cicadas, setting them to a cacophony of noise that blanketed the field. The moon fed down its light intermittently, wisps of cloud fanning across it like fingers playing Guess Who?
I followed a dirt track that curved to my right, and stopped when I saw another car, a van. Two people stood watching me, and I knew who they were. I looked past them, and then down at their feet to see if they stood over a body, and when I didn't see anything I wondered if there was already one in the van. All seemed calm, normal. Safe for me to leave.
That moment, I think, was my last chance to walk away, to turn and set my boots on the path back to my car before the dust settled behind me. I didn't do that. I couldn't because in a life so repressed, socontrolled and so unnatural to me, I found myself presented with an adventure. Not just a theoretical one, either, but one that lay not more than twenty yards away in a dark field, an adventure that pitted me both with and against the closest thing I'd had to a
Lately, though, economics had succeeded where the cops had failed to crack down on crime. The worst parts of East Austin were too close to downtown for the developers to ignore, and the slum landlords developed dollar signs in their eyes, unable to resist the hefty sacks of cash being dangled in front of their greedy, sniffing noses. This meant a slow death to the excitement of Charlie Sector as eco-friendly homes popped up alongside crack houses, and solar-powered town houses nudged aside crumbling, cinder-block duplexes. The yuppies moving in needed organic-food stores and coffee shops, not crack and hookers, and they didn't hesitate to call the cops about the hoodlums lurking on the street corners.
As I drove, I spotted several clubs I'd heard about but not played in, new and hip and cool places to see, be seen, and pick up chicks. I felt acid in my stomach, that flash of anger as I realized that I may not get to play in those clubs, ever, and reminded myself that my extracurricular time needed to be spent tracking down the snake who'd lied about me stealing his music, rather than risking life and limb for Gus and his crush.
The violence and discord moved farther east, away fromdowntown and into the ramshackle apartment complexes and trailer parks already inhabited by the poorest people who moved to the outskirts of Austin, the Mexicans and Hondurans who felt unwelcome and didn't much want to be seen unless it came to their lawn-care business. Or the gaggles of day laborers who gathered early in the morning hoping to feed their family that day and maybe pay some rent.
The address Gus gave me was in this new war zone, a patch of unused land that lay between East Austin's jugular, Ed Bluestein Boulevard, beside a sprawling mobile-home park. About the size of a football field, it was all rock, dust, and broken beer bottles. If I'd looked closely, or perhaps remembered to bring a flashlight, I knew I'd have seen a sprinkling of used condoms and needles, too. Sometimes it's better to stay in the dark.
It was 11 p.m. when I pulled up behind Gus's car. I doused my headlights and sat looking into the darkness for signs of the mayhem I'd been expecting. All was quiet. I opened my car door, and the ding-ding from the dashboard startled me until I whipped the key from the ignition.
I got out and walked slowly toward Gus's car, reassured by the weight of my gun in the small of my back. The day's heat seemed to have settled on this place, pressing down on me and provoking the millions of cicadas, setting them to a cacophony of noise that blanketed the field. The moon fed down its light intermittently, wisps of cloud fanning across it like fingers playing Guess Who?
I followed a dirt track that curved to my right, and stopped when I saw another car, a van. Two people stood watching me, and I knew who they were. I looked past them, and then down at their feet to see if they stood over a body, and when I didn't see anything I wondered if there was already one in the van. All seemed calm, normal. Safe for me to leave.
That moment, I think, was my last chance to walk away, to turn and set my boots on the path back to my car before the dust settled behind me. I didn't do that. I couldn't because in a life so repressed, socontrolled and so unnatural to me, I found myself presented with an adventure. Not just a theoretical one, either, but one that lay not more than twenty yards away in a dark field, an adventure that pitted me both with and against the closest thing I'd had to a
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