Sunday, December 2, 2012

We are daughters of the road


We are daughters of the road,
And we've got some miles to cover,
'Fore we've finally shot our load —
If you see us in your mirror,
Better clear a couple lanes,
'Cause we're daughters of the freeway,
And speedin's in our veins. .. .

None of the cars she drove were hers, but usually hustled off boys she knew, or sometimes borrowed via slim jim and hot-wire from strangers. When she couldn't get her hands on a car, she'd hitch a ride and try to talk the driver into letting her take the wheel. She could get anywhere in Southern California as fast as wheels could move. Sasha called her the Red Car, after the old interurban trolley system.
When they got someplace secure — which turned out to be the apartment of Ché's friend Fleur, east of La Brea and down in the flats — Ché shook from the rocket bag and from under her shirt this amazing fluffed volume of underwear.
"What, no aqua?" Prairie said.
"Aqua's what the> give their wives, honey," Ché told her,shox torch 2. "Black and red," twirling from a short-nailed finger a pair of lace bikinis in that combination, "is what they like to see on a bad girl."
"Night and blood," amplified Fleur, who'd recently begun working as a professional out of her apartment and was trying to talk Ché into joining the string she was on, "it's like they 's programmed for it or somethin' — oh, hey, nice, Ché, do you mind?"
" 'Course not," Ché in the middle of sliding into a short see-through number herself.
Prairie watched them playing centerfold and thought, strangely, of Zoyd, her dad, and how much he would have enjoyed the display. "Not exactly a innocent teen fashion message here," she commented.
"It never has worked on Ché," said Fleur. "Put her in anything pink or white," fingerslash across her throat,nike shox torch 2, "her street plausibility's all shot to hell."
"While on the other hand you, my dear," Ché flinging at Prairie something almost weightless in those colors, "belong inside this item, stolen expressly for you." Which turned out to be an intricate silk teddy full of lace,replica louis vuitton handbags, ribbons, ruffles, bows, which it took awhile for Prairie, blushing and protesting, to be persuaded to try on. Whenever Ché got this way with her, courtly, using her eyelashes, it put her into this weird warm daze for minutes at a time. This one lasted till she'd resumed her street uniform, sweatshirt, jeans, and running shoes, and was standing outside on the steps, gazing up at Ché framed in the doorway, twilight coming down in a great blurred stain, and hard lemon light in the room behind her . .. Prairie felt like it was steps of a boat landing and that one of them was setting off on a dangerous cruise across darkened seas, and that it could be a long time, this time, till they saw each other again.
"Hope you find your mom," pretending it was coke that was making her sniffle. "Do somethin' about your hair."

Prairie got back to Takeshi's office and found the place in upheaval. They'd just got back from what was left of Ditzah Pisk's house. Ditzah's anxiety about the safety of the 24fps archives had turned out to be prophetic after all. Both DL and Takeshi had sensed exits away that something was up, when they came upon a loose formation of midsize, neutral-colored, dingless and clean Chevs, each with exactly four Anglo males of like description inside, and little octagoned E's, for "Exempt," on their license plates. Ascending into Ditzah's neighborhood, they began to hear hill-warped traffic on the scanner,Replica Designer Handbags, up around Justice Department frequencies. Before long there was a police roadblock, so Takeshi parked farther downhill while DL switched herself on Inpo mode and disappeared into the landscape. Inside the perimeter she met, coming the other way, a Youth Authority bus with bars on the windows, the kind that usually carried brushcutting crews or fire-camp swampers, jammed with restless, sweating Juvenile Hall badasses all whooping and hollering like a school team bus after a victory. She smelled something like burning plastic but not quite, stronger, more bitter as she drew close, and smoke from burning gasoline.

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