A Scanner Darkly

“I must have gagged. Did I pass out?”

“Not exactly. You did go into an altered state of consciousness, though. For a few seconds. Probably an alpha state.”

“God! I soiled myself!” Unsteadily, swaying with weakness, Luckman managed to get himself to his feet and stood rocking back and forth dizzily, holding on to the wall for support. “I’m really getting degenerate,” he muttered in disgust. “Like an old wino.” He headed toward the sink to wash himself, his steps uncertain.

Watching all this, Fred felt the fear drain from him. The man would be okay. But Barris! What sort of person was he? Luckman had recovered despite him. What a freak, he thought. What a kinky freak. Where’s his head at, just to stand idle like that?

“A guy could cash in that way,” Luckman said as he splashed water on himself at the sink.

Barris smiled.

“I got a really strong physical constitution,” Luckman said, gulping water from a cup. “What were you doing while I was lying there? Jacking off?”

“You saw me on the phone,” Barris said. “Summoning the paramedics. I moved into action at—”

“Balls,” Luckman said sourly, and went on gulping down fresh clean water. “I know what you’d do if I dropped dead—you’d rip off my stash. You’d even go through my pockets.”

“It’s amazing,” Barris said, “the limitation of the human anatomy, the fact that food and air must share a common passage. So that the risk of—”

Silently, Luckman gave him the finger.

***

A screech of brakes. A horn. Bob Arctor looked swiftly up at the night traffic. A sports car, engine running, by the curb; inside it, a girl waving at him.

Donna.

“Christ,” he said again. He strode toward the curb.

Opening the door of her MG, Donna said, “Did I scare you? I passed you on my way to your place and then I flashed on it that it was you truckin’ along, so I made a U-turn and came back. Get in.”

Silently he got in and shut the car door.

“Why are you out roaming around?” Donna said. “Because of your car? It’s still not fixed?”

“I just did a freaky number,” Bob Arctor said. “Not like a fantasy trip. Just …” He shuddered.

Donna said, “I have your stuff.”

“What?” he said.

“A thousand tabs of death.”

“Death?” he echoed.

“Yeah, high-grade death. I better drive.” She shifted into low, took off and out onto the street; almost at once she was driving along too fast. Donna always drove too fast, and tailgated, but expertly.

“That fucking Barris!” he said. “You know how he works? He doesn’t kill anybody he wants dead; he just hangs around until a situation arises where they die. And he just sits there while they die. In fact, he sets them up to die while he stays out of it. But I’m not sure how. Anyhow, he arranges to allow them to fucking die.” He lapsed into silence then, brooding to himself. “Like,” he said, “Barris wouldn’t wire plastic explosives into the ignition system of your car. What he’d do—”

“Do you have the money?” Donna said. “For the stuff? It’s really Primo, and I need the money right now. I have to have it tonight because I have to pick up some other things.”

“Sure.” He had it in his wallet.

“I don’t like Barris,” Donna said as she drove, “and I don’t trust him. You know, he’s crazy. And when you’re around him you’re crazy too. And then when you’re not around him you’re okay. You’re crazy right now.”

“I am?” he said, startled.

“Yes,” Donna said calmly.

“Well,” he said. “Jesus.” He did not know what to say to that. Especially since Donna was never wrong.

“Hey,” Donna said with enthusiasm, “could you take me to a rock concert? At the Anaheim Stadium next week? Could you?”

“Right on,” he said mechanically. And then it flashed on him what Donna had said—asking him to take her out. “Alll riiiight!” he said, pleased; life flowed back into him. Once again, the little dark-haired chick whom he loved so much had restored him to caring. “Which night?”

“It’s Sunday afternoon. I’m going to bring some of that oily dark hash and get really loaded. They won’t know the difference; there’ll be thousands of heads there.” She glanced at him, critically. “But you’ve got to wear something neat, not those funky clothes you sometimes put on. I mean—” Her voice softened. “I want you to look foxy because you are foxy.”

“Okay,” he said, charmed.

“I’m taking us to my place,” Donna said as she shot along through the night in her little car, “and you do have the money and you will give it to me, and then we’ll drop a few of the tabs and kick back and get really mellow, and maybe you’d like to buy us a fifth of Southern Comfort and we can get bombed as well.”

“Oh wow,” he said, with sincerity.

“What I really genuinely want to do tonight,” Donna said as she shifted down and swiveled the car onto her own street and into her driveway, “is go to a drive-in movie. I bought a paper and read what’s on, but I couldn’t find anything good except at the Torrance Drive-in, but it’s already started. It started at five-thirty. Bummer.”

He examined his watch. “Then we’ve missed—”