Duncan MacLeod - 5150: A Transfer (The Psychotic Break Series Book 1)

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CHAPTER ONE

I hear the alarm ringing, but I dont get up.If I wait one whole minute, it will stop ringing, and I can stayhere. There is a place called home and I am still looking for it.It is in my dreams, and the alarm is taking it away from me. Idont want to give up looking. Nor do I want to go looking forwork. I have a great job in the dream. The alarm cant take thataway from me.

All this week Ive felt like there were tinyearthquakes in my bed. Just before I fall asleep, I feel the roomshaking. Donny says its just my heart beating. We live in a tinyapartment in the Tenderloin. We each took a walk-in closet as ourroom. Donny is over six feet, so his feet stick out of the closetwhen he sleeps. Donny looks like a gargoyle on a Gothic church. Ilove Donny. He is the most important person in my life. I wouldntknow what to wear, what to smoke, what drugs to do, none of it if Ididnt know Donny. When we smoke pot we always get the giggles. Ihave a recording of us on pot, and all we do is laugh. We gotkicked out for getting the cats high at our last house, and thatspretty much why were living in the Tenderloin in this dingystudio.

The walls of the apartment are stained withage. The landlord could not blot out the grease and cigarette smokewith mere paint. Mildew creeps through the bone white in strangepatterns that are starting to remind me of Tibetan sandpaintings.

Eighteen-year-olds dont buy furniture. Wejust pile all our worldly possessions in heaps, which we sortthrough. The apartment is littered with heaps of clothing; tufts offake zebra fur and black leather mark the different piles. Zebrafur is pants, leather is jackets. I dont have a job-hunting heapyet. I dont know what to wear to an interview, and I dont knowwhere I want to work. I used to think I wanted to work in a gay barfor the rest of my life. I lied and said I was 21. Today I dontknow what I want to do. Im meeting Sue for coffee at the CafFlore in an hour, so Id better get in the shower and find myjob-hunting clothes somewhere in the heap of night-clubclothes.

I love the smell of Aqua Net. My hair doesntlook good without a good, long spray of white Aqua Net, a crimp anda tease. I cant figure out how to put on makeup, so I usually justrely on my natural good looks to get me by. Donny knows how to puton makeup. Not me. I found my black suede creepers, so Im ready toleave. Donny is still asleep. I can hear his snores from inside thecloset.

The Stud closed last Friday. I worked thereduring the last six months before the evil transsexual owner of thebuilding evicted the bar so she could open her own bar. The Studhad been there for 21 years, in an old building that once housed achurch called The Universal Life Corral. The first time I went tothe Stud I was 17 years old, last year. I used my fake ID that Ibought in New York to get in. I remember being so nervous that mystomach hurt and I had to go to the bathroom, which wasnt veryprivate.

They say the Stud was a really sleazy bar inits day, back in the dark ages, during and after Stonewall. But inthe 1970s, it became known as the place where the hippies dancewith the punks. Now in the 80s its just the coolest fuckingplace on Earth. Or it was, until last Friday. Now were allsupposed to go down there and help make the New Stud, two blocksaway, into a great place. For NO PAY. Were just supposed tovolunteer to strip and varnish the whole damn place, no questionsasked. Just show up, work, go home, starve. They dont even buy uslunch. I cant live like that. And I know they wont let me workthere if I dont do it.

If you work at the Stud, youre family.Family helps each other out. Some of the creepier members of thefamily perv on you and tell you that they can get you fired becausethey know youre not 21, and theyre going to tell someone. Familycan get you pot and coke for a good price. But they dont have anyheroin, never touch the stuff. You have to go to darker, seedierplaces to find heroin. Or so Donny tells me. Ive never triedit.

*

If you sit under the wisteria at the Flore,you can totally get away with smoking pot. Sue and I are reallystoned. An old man in OshKosh BGosh overalls and an engineers hatshares a toke with us. He has the pot. The crags of his face arelined with a light dusting of dirt. He rides the rails. He tells mehow I can catch a train to LA from the train yard in Oakland. Suethinks its not such a good idea. But theres a whole city downthere Ive never seen. I dont have any reason to stay here, do I?The Stud is closed, they want to enlist me as a slave laborer. Howam I supposed to pay my rent in the meantime? Not only do they payme under the table, its also against the law for me to work there.So unemployment is out. Fuck it, Im going to Hollywood.

The engineer says you got to go early if youwant to hop a train. They run all day, but he always has betterluck in the morning. You get off at West Oakland, go a few blockseast until you come to where the railroad tracks cross Peralta. Andyou wait. And when it comes, there are always empty boxcars.

Sue is older, more experienced, and verycool. She doesnt have any job ideas for me. But shes going to asance at Wandas house, do I wanna go? Yeah. Wanda lives just afew blocks away in the Lower Haight. It used to be an all-blackneighborhood, but recently some punks moved in, and its startingto change. Wanda lives in a pink stucco apartment building withaluminum windows, the only modern building on the block. Suegiggles as we enter Wandas house. Wanda is sprawled out on thepeach-colored sofa, watching the Prince Special on MTV. Wanda is abeautiful, buxom blond from West-by-God-Virginia who shrieks whenwe walk in.

Suzie! Where did you find the fop? Hes justa Little Lord Fauntleroy of Dickensian foppery on a wheeledstick!

This is Ethan. A new inductee to yourcoven! Sue giggles as she says coven.

Ethan! Oh, were glad to have you. Imhoping we can get to the bottom of my linoleum mystery.

Im feeling bashful in spite of the fact thatI immediately like Wanda. Ive never met anyone as smart as Wandabefore. She looks at me and says to Sue, Where did you findhim?

Sue just snickers and says, The Stud.

Wanda grows earnest. Sue, you find so manyvaluable things down there at the Stud. Its just a treasure troveof gay fabulousness.

It turns out that the purpose of the sanceis to find out why the bubble in Wandas kitchen linoleum wont goaway. Apparently, shes tried everything from nails to hot glueguns, and it just keeps coming up, a sure sign of a haint. Wandaleaves me in the living room while she half flies, half walks intothe bedroom and starts setting up for the sance. Kim follows herin to whisper secret stuff about me. While Im waiting, I flipthrough an Aleister Crowley book on Wandas coffee table called777. The stuff in there doesnt make any sense at all to me, but itis definitely affecting my mind. The words are coming at me, likelittle men with arrows, attacking me. Im not THAT stoned, thisbook is freaky shit. Im starting to think that maybe its castinga spell on me, so when I hear Wanda crow like a loon, I gladly put777 down and run into the bedroom.

The sance starts. We turn off the overhead,light the candles, and put the tape recorder on. This reminds me ofbeing eight years old and talking to ISIS on the Ouija board. Wandacalls forth the spirits of the North, South, East, and West winds.She brings sacred healing energy into the space. She then invites aspirit to make itself known. Wanda asks the spirit why she wontlet her linoleum lie flat. Nothing. Then she asks the spirit totell our fortunes. Nothing happens, the candle flickers. At theflicker, Wanda gasps. I realize that its the little things, likethe flicker of a candle or the slight tremor of a Ouija device,that mark the contact with the spirit world. Spirits are definitelyin the room now.