3 – Never Let Me Down Again

By the way people were scrambling about in the otherwise sedate lobby, Dylan knew something had gone horribly wrong. He just bet Roan had something to do with it.

He was right. He took the elevator up to Roan’s floor, and was almost immediately greeted by a metal security door, where Rosenberg and several butch orderlies, some with drug guns that looked distressingly like sniper rifles, were waiting as if preparing for a siege. Rosenberg looked at him and opened her mouth to speak, only to be silenced by an angry roar, loud enough that she winced and most of the orderlies cringed. The two biggest orderlies were peering through bulletproof glass windows into the IU – also known as the “infected unit” – and one of them muttered in Spanish, “I didn’t sign up for this shit.”

Dylan moved beside Rosenberg, and asked, with an even mixture of disbelief and weariness, “Roan got out?”

“He was number two.”

“Number two?”

“Remember that problem with the panther infected that cut my dinner short? Before I even got here he escaped his room, transformed. A twelve oh two – emergency evac – was called while they got the cat wranglers up to drug him, but before they could move in, Roan burst out of his room and got into a roaring contest with it. The panther tried to attack him, and he threw it behind the check in desk. It’s still making noises, but I think it’s hurt, as it ain’t coming out of there. I’d say its given up, but Roan isn’t accepting surrender.”

“Wasn’t he drugged?”

The big orderly closest to him, a Hispanic built like a bouncer but with a more military style buzz cut, snorted and said, “Fuck yeah man, he had enough Phenobarbital in him to put down a pair of bull elephants. He shouldn’t have gained consciousness ‘til Christmas.”

Oh god, Roan and his drug tolerance. Surely Rosenberg knew of his pill popping, but apparently his tolerance was greater than anyone had imagined. “Well, shit. He survived elephant tranquilizers; I guess that means he can survive anything.”

Even though Dylan had been speaking to Rosenberg, the orderly looked at him funny. “He’s had elephant tranqs?”

Rosenberg chose to ignore him. “I’m hoping maybe you can disrupt him.”

“How?”

“Talk at him, or, more probably yell at him. He may recognize your voice, and it’ll throw him off enough that we can fill his ass with new tranqs.”

“What?” Dylan couldn’t really believe what he was hearing. “He hasn’t recognized my voice once.”

“This is a stress situation,” she said. “His adrenaline is up, he’s frayed. I’m hoping you can get in through the edges.”

As a theory, it was interesting. Viable? Probably not. “No offense at all, but that’s a sucky plan.”

“Tell me about it, but it’s all I got. You got anything better?”

Dylan nudged the bouncer orderly aside and looked out the bulletproof portal into the ward beyond. There was Roan, crouched on top of the reception desk, completely naked, IV tubes snaking out behind him, still attached to his arms and making his blood ooze out in long crimson trails on the white floor. Of course he still looked human, save for the odd way the muscles in his arms, chest, back, and legs bulged and twitched, like they were undergoing simultaneous but separate spasms. But he hadn’t transformed, not one bit. Save for his eyes, which had that flat lack of humanity in them; they were pure animal, all inarticulate rage. He was snarling loudly, lips pulled back painfully to reveal darker than average gums and shorter than (lion) average teeth, although his canine teeth did kind of look pronounced. Then again, lately, they always looked kind of pronounced. He could still remember kissing him a couple weeks’ back and cutting his tongue on one of them.

“No, I guess not.” He felt an unaccustomed swell of anger towards Roan, and looked around for whatever released the security door. He found it and threw the latch, but the burley orderly grabbed him and held him back.

“Let him go,” Rosenberg ordered. And for an elderly woman, she could give you orders like a drill sergeant. “Just open the door a crack, Dylan. Miguel, aim your gun through it, and when you have a clear shot, take it.”

“Through a crack in the door?” he complained. “What the fuck am I, a sniper?”

“Just try.”

“Let me talk to him first,” Dylan said, although he knew almost immediately “talk” was wrong the word. He shouldered open the door a crack, and angrily shouted, “Roan, stop this now!”

Roan cocked his head, looking in his direction, but he wasn’t quite looking at him. He wasn’t sure the lion’s vision was good enough to make him out, or if it at all cared.

“Are you making a point, is that it? You’re stronger than the lion, so this means you’re doing this on purpose! Give it a rest, Roan, you’re embarrassing yourself!” He didn’t know if any of this was true, but Dylan felt a sort of grim satisfaction shouting it.

Now the lion was interested. He jumped off the check in desk, landing easily on his feet, and started stalking towards the door. As slender as he was, naked, tattooed and scarred and dragging tubes leaking blood, he should have been pathetic, but he was truly frightening. It wasn’t just the growling, although that helped, and the hard look in his eye, although that was most of it. He was actually stalking, walking in a way that was partially stiff although occasionally fluid, a gait just not built for the body that was using it.

“I can’t get a shot,” the orderly complained. “Unless you want me to drug his ankles.”

“Ankles would do,” Rosenberg told him.

“Stop it Roan, now! I mean it! This has gone far enough!”

Roan’s snarl ratcheted up several notches in volume, and the way his upper lip curled so dramatically, it looked like he was tearing his mouth with the force of it. “Damn it, Roan, stop!” He screamed it, so angry he was actually starting to cry. He didn’t realize it immediately, he just felt tears on his cheeks, and knew his eyes weren’t just watering from the orderly’s aftershave. (Although it was pretty powerful.)

Amazingly, Roan froze. Something like confusion passed over his face, a fast moving cloud of an expression, but for a moment the lion wasn’t dominant. He seemed to be wavering unsteadily on his feet for a moment, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed to the floor.

Dylan shoved open the door all the way, intending to go to Roan, but the beefy orderly grabbed him and held him back, while the other one, a thinner white guy who was almost seven feet tall, moved on ahead, aiming his drug gun down at Roan. He wasn’t moving. “Let him go, get the panther,” Rosenberg said, although it was actually an order.

Reluctantly, the orderly took his hand off his shoulder, and went to the check in desk. Dylan and Rosenberg both went to Roan, who was being watched carefully by the giant orderly. She put a hand on his neck, searching for a pulse, while Dylan wasn’t sure whether to slap Roan or hug him. It didn’t matter, as he seemed to be out cold again. Even his muscles had gone back to being still.

“Pulse is erratic,” she reported. “I think he’s okay, we just really need to stop the bleeders.”

The bouncer orderly shot the panther, and the pneumatic hiss and clunk of the drug gun made Dylan start. He’d learned to hate that noise as much as a gunshot.

Rosenberg patted him on the back, and said, “Good job, kiddo. He heard you.”

But did it do any good? He looked down at Roan, still and pale, blue veins pulsing faintly beneath adrenaline flushed skin, eyelids looking bruised. Dylan didn’t need to ask Rosenberg if he was comatose again, because he already knew the answer.

He honestly wondered if Roan would ever wake up again. It was all he could do not to start crying even harder.

****

How long ago was it that he was sharing a joint with a hockey player, watching a science show? Holden couldn’t remember right now, but he was having a curious sense of déjà vu. Although sitting on a roof sharing a joint with an Asian transvestite hooker wasn’t really the same thing at all.

His initial scoping of his old corners turned up no one familiar, until he ran into Ravyn, and she seemed surprised to see him. After ribbing him about going “big time” on all of them, she said she was taking a break as her feet were killing her, and invited him to join her. Her place to go and smoke in peace turned out to be the roof top of a seedy bar, which had a single floor transient hotel just above it. To access the roof, they had to walk through both. The dive bar was straight oriented but little attended, and the bartender, an older bald guy with a head surely as wrinkled as his ball sack, seemed to not really notice or care about Ravyn passing through the bar, suggesting he was used to it. They encountered no one in the hallway of the hotel, although Holden smelled mildew, cigarettes, burned soup, and despair, suggesting someone was staying up here. He wondered how long they’d last before they committed suicide, because this was pretty much the last stop before death.

Upstairs, the roof was a mess of gravel, peeling tar paper, bird shit, and cigarette butts, as others apparently used her rooftop getaway at times. And it was her until she took off the wig. Ravyn was very serious about this; when he was in female drag, he was a she, Ravyn. When the guise was off, he was a he again, simply Alan.

Ravyn popped off her shoes, dramatic but cheap heels, and sat down against the emergency stairwell doorway. Holden joined her, mainly because there wasn’t much else to do. She pulled a short but fat blunt out of her padded bra, and once she lit up, she seemed to just assume he would be joining her. He took a toke, mainly just to be friendly, but the stuff was heavy duty and hit him hard; he felt momentarily dizzy. Maybe he hadn’t eaten enough beforehand.

After some minor chit chat, catching up on each other’s sordid lives, he got to what he wanted to ask: all about Rico. She’d heard what had happened to him and, much like him, was surprised Rico had lived so long. She hadn’t seen him for maybe eight months, so she wasn’t a great witness and he was probably wasting his time with pointless nostalgia. But then she said, “You should ask Newt. If Rico was out partying, it was with him.”

“Newt’s back? I thought he was in jail in Vegas.”

“Eh, that was just a drunk tank thing. It got blown out of proportion.” Ravyn took another toke and offered him the joint, but he shook his head, taking a pass.

Newt was a fellow street kid, generally a hustler, but sometimes a low level drug mule. He was the Hunter S. Thompson of hustlers, but only if you considered the character of Hunter S. Thompson in the Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas movie and not the writer. He took so many drugs he seemed to be perpetually stoned, even when he was sober. He’d rewired his own brain with serious substance abuse, and it wasn’t just a miracle he was alive, but a miracle he hadn’t been involved in some kind of multi-state crime spree where he died in a hail of bullets. That was still on the table, and if you were betting on Newt’s death – and some surely were – that had to be the lead vote getter. He wasn‘t violent, but he was a perpetual fuck up who was inherently unpredictable. “Where’s Newt staying now?”

Ravyn snorted before releasing the smoke through her nostrils. “Knowin’ him? Under the viaduct or in someone’s bathtub. But what I’ve heard is he’s been crashing at the Night Owl motel.”

Holden groaned. The Night Owl. What a shithole. You didn’t even have to rent the room by the hour, you could get it in twenty minute intervals. “The one on Franklin?”

“One and the same.”

“He’d be better off under the viaduct.”

Ravyn laughed more than was warranted, indicating she was really fucked up. Well, her feet probably didn’t hurt anymore. “Yeah, I think I once got crabs from the bedspread there.”

“I think everyone has.” He got to his feet, and took a deep breath to try and clear the cobwebs away. “I’m gonna go see if he’s around. See you around, huh?”

She gave him a strangely sad look. “No, honey, don’t. Didn’t your preacher daddy teach you about Lot’s wife? Once you escape, you should never look back. Fox, you should just get the hell out of here and count your blessings that you were smart enough and fast enough to do it. There are no happy endings here. I’m sorry for Tika an’ all, but even dead, Rico may have ended up one of the lucky ones. No good is gonna come from pokin’ around.”

As depressing as that was, he knew she was probably right. But he had started this, and he felt compelled to finish it, or at least try.

It was just one step up from being completely useless.