1965
Twelve hours at the cannery was more than enough for Dorian. It was two days too late to stop himself from taking that second shift. Too late to remind himself that the 30 minute drive home was hell after a double, especially with all the stoplights and buildings and paving the city had been puking all over the landscape lately.
His face involuntarily twisted into a resentful scowl.
There was nothing wrong with driving a dirt road according to Dorian. But apparently the new folks moving into the neighborhood insisted on digging everything up and putting up asphalt and concrete everywhere. God knew what sorts of weirdness they were pulling up in the process; Snakes, spiders, rodents, cursed sarcophaguses, gremlins, demons and whatever else one could think of, probably. He heard once that some urban developers unearthed some living dead and that they were a horrible pest that took months to eradicate.
It was good enough before.
But good enough wasn’t good enough for the young white-collar professionals rolling in.
Dorian sighed away his disdain and leaned back into his plump bench seat.
The cool evening air from his dumpy Ford’s criss-crossed windwings was a true respite from the hellish summer heat that soiled even the late evening. He let himself enjoy that but only for a moment until his ears adjusted to the radio.
From the speakers, Roy Orbison was weeping about something; a girl, a lost love, a gained love, whatever it was, Dorian found it lulling him into a boredom nap. Determined not to pass out behind the wheel, he slapped his cheeks and twisted the tuner dial for something heavy like the Ventures or the Kinks.
To his dismay, all the radio stations were infested with mopey boys singing about love.
Now, there was a topic that got far too much attention.
Defeated, he reached down beneath his dash and popped the lever on his Press-A-Lite cigarette dispenser. The little coil in the catch burned red until a thin ream of smoke curled up to Dorian’s nostrils.
He plucked up the cigarette and took a drag. His forehead felt heavy now, like he could finally relax without nodding off, but the sappy blubbering screeching out from the speakers still clashed with this breath of un-fresh air.
He twisted the tuner again with a dissatisfied grunt.
The Beatles wanted to hold Dorian’s hand. Mary Wells insisted that Dorian know every boring detail of her guy. J. Frank Wilson was busy sobbing about his dead girlfriend like Dorian was supposed to be his shrink. And Manfred Mann was apparently never informed that if you see a woman walking down the street, loudly singing Doo-Wah-Diddy, she should be handled with leather gloves and taken immediately to the nearest dog pound.
Dorian sighed insistently up at the red light where he always made the final left turn onto his quiet little suburban street. He gazed up at the light and frowned. They’d tacked up a new sign beside the stoplight. Dorian cocked his head as he read it.
“No,” he started. “You turn. Huh.”
Dorian took a puff of his cigarette and attempted to make sense of it.
Another set of headlights appeared across the intersection from him in the left hand turn lane. The driver turned his blinkers on. Two lefts to head opposite directions, that thought amused Dorian, anything to distract him from the music.
Dorian leaned forward and squinted at the stranger’s car.
It was a Facel-Vega, imported, an older model, but still fancy for the neighborhood. The kinda ride someone with soft hands would drive. Dorian grumbled curses to himself.
Damn Desk-Jockey.
He flicked the butt end of his cigarette out of his window and swallowed hard. He glanced back up at the strange sign.
No. You. Turn. Who was that directed towards? Was that an order for him or what he was meant to say to the other driver? He cursed all this urban development.
His light turned green and suddenly Dorian found his palms were sweating.
He realized he hadn’t the foggiest idea what they were both meant to do now with that cryptic sign looming overhead.
Maybe the other car’s light was green too. What would happen if they both went? Would it end in an accident?
He swallowed hard and leaned out of his window, praying he was making the right move.
“Go ahead,” he shouted across the way with a wave of his hand. His voice cracked.
He watched, his breath shortened as the other car’s window rolled down.
“No,” the voice said. “You turn.”
An unsettling anxiety washed over Dorian.
So the other driver had the new sign too. And now they were trapped. Left on their own to interpret whatever the hell the sign was supposed to mean. With its big black scooped parabola body and triangular, snake-like head, and of course the red line that cut through it like tire tread, leaving a gory smear through the creature. Like a Loch Ness monster of asphalt; The sign should have read “Here there be Monsters”.
With shallow breaths, Dorian rolled his window up halfway. If there was danger of snakes or poisonous eels in the area now, he wanted nothing to do with it.
With all the construction, there was no telling what horrors they were digging up. Then again, he couldn’t quite determine what all that had to do with letting one person turn before the other.
But if there was a threat of life and limb, he sure as hell would not be the first to test the waters.
He stuck his cheeks and lips through the crack he’d left in the window.
“No, you’re good to go, hoss,” said Dorian.
“No thanks, hoss,” the stranger returned. “My sign says you first.”
He’s mocking me, Thought Dorian. His blood boiled. First, a 12 hour shift and now this clown is mocking me? What did he do all day? Sit at a pretty desk and try to peek up his secretary’s skirt?
“My sign says you first,” Dorian finally responded. “So why don’t you get on with it and get out of my way?”
“Sure, hoss. Whatever you say, but it sounds like you’re kinda chicken,” the stranger responded. He proceeded to step out of his car and flap his arms like wings, clucking in circles.
Heat radiated off of Dorian’s face and left a humidity blob on his windshield.
Little Richard howled like a rabid wolf on the radio. Finally the DJ decided to play something with fangs.
Without considering the consequences, whether it be snakes or eels, Dorian kicked his door open and leapt out of the car with his fists clenched.
“You wanna say that to my face?” Dorian belted.
The stranger’s chicken impression came to an abrupt halt.
“Maybe I do!”
The stranger stepped towards Dorian.
For a moment, Dorian hesitated, considered jumping back in his car and taking off.
“You getting cold feet, chicken-boy?” the stranger was still approaching, still taunting.
Dorian took a step forward, then another, Little Richard screamed fire into his ears from his car speakers.
“Why don’t you quit flapping your yams and start talking with your fists, Softhands!” Dorian said back.
The stranger came into view, illuminated by the sickly green light overhead, but something made Dorian pause. The stranger was tall, strong and trim. Looked like maybe once upon a time he had been a boxer, but without the pancake nose and cauliflower ears. Like a boxer who dealt blows but never received one.
Dorian’s heart fluttered. But it wasn’t fear.
The stranger’s hands didn’t look soft either. They were big and rough-looking even from afar.
No, this wasn’t just some desk-loafer. The person approaching him was a real man.
Something awakened in Dorian as the stranger drew closer, something that had perhaps been lying dormant in his chest for his whole life.
And here came this strange man, just-a walking down the street. Doo-wah-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-doo.
“Oh no,” Dorian breathed shakily to himself as the stranger met him nose-to-nose, chest puffed. The stranger’s hot breath like steam dilated the pores on Dorian’s skin. Dorian weakened in the stranger’s looming presence.
But something about the stranger changed too. Dorian spotted it instantly. The stranger’s eyes softened, and his hands rested gently at his sides.
For a long time they just stared at each other.
“So,” the stranger hesitated, his voice gentler than Dorian expected. “Are we doing this or what?”
“Yeah,” said Dorian, and cleared his throat. “Yeah, let's do it.”
Dorian shook his head so his cheeks flapped, like it might banish the absurd encroaching thoughts. Dorian lifted his fists but immediately, the stranger cupped his own big rough hands around Dorian’s knuckles. Dorian turned to stone.
“Are we doing this?” The stranger asked, his voice just a tender whisper that caressed the soft fissures of the inner labyrinth of Dorian’s ears.
Dorian couldn’t crack his tonal code, but he shuddered at the thought that the stranger might leave him there in the middle of the intersection, confused, horrified and alone if he said no.
Dorian couldn’t choke out a single syllable. He nodded just as the light blinked into red overhead, casting them both in a sultry glow that matched the sauna heatwave of each other’s mingling breaths and the oven that the asphalt had become on this hot, lonely summer night.
“Up next is our Little Richard Party Hour starting with Tutti-Fruity. Don’t be afraid to get down, kids. Your parents are fast asleep by now!” The DJ announced over the radio before docking the record on his turntable.
As the song began, the stranger leaned closer as if there were some sort of magnetic force between them that wouldn’t let Dorian escape. Not that he wanted to.
Are we doing this? Dorian’s thoughts blared like an emergency klaxon.
Then, before he could squirm out of the stranger’s grasp, their lips met and Dorian’s mind went blank.
When their faces parted, Dorian could not see beyond the stranger’s eyes. He found his arms wrapped around the stranger’s waist and the stranger’s hands cupped Dorian’s cheeks.
He didn’t want it to end.
The light went green over the stranger’s head. Dorian swallowed hard and rubbed his lips together, savoring that single, defining, insane moment.
“What’s your name?” Dorian asked, his voice quivered.
“Oscar,” the stranger said. “You?”
Dorian told him his name.
They lingered there for a moment, unable to break eye contact before Dorian forced himself to look away, back out into the quiet late-night intersection. He forced an uncomfortable chuckle.
“So, what should we do now?” Dorian asked, not sure what he was asking.
Oscar shrugged and a smile peeled across his face.
“I was gonna go home, but I’m thinking I might want to find a late night cup of coffee,” Oscar said. “Know a good diner around here?”
Dorian ran his tongue over his teeth with a grin that he was so ill-equipped to contain.
“Yeah, just a block or two that way, there’s a Denny’s,” said Dorian and rocked his head over his shoulder to indicate the streets behind him.
“Hungry?” asked Oscar.
Dorian nodded.
“See you there, then,” Oscar said as he turned towards his car.
He stepped away, then stopped abruptly and glanced back at Dorian. “You smoke Spuds?”
Dorian nodded. Oscar licked his lips.
“Thought so,” then Oscar turned and completed the trek back to his car.
Dorian rushed back to his car with his heart leaping up into his throat.
For a moment, Dorian sat in his seat and just let the old beater Ford idle, while he watched Oscar pull his Facel-Vega into reverse and then straighten out again in the middle straightway lane.
Then Oscar rolled down his window and waved Dorian along to lead the way.
The Little Richard Party Hour had ended apparently and Johnny Cash’s voice crooned through Ring of Fire. Not Dorian’s favorite, but he wasn’t really listening anyway. The butterflies in his chest and stomach made his whole body hum louder than any other sound.
With all of his effort, Dorian forced himself to focus, despite the jitters making his fingers twitch. He rolled his window the rest of the way down and peered out at the center divider between the left hand turn lane and the fast lane of would-be oncoming traffic. No other cars on the road at this hour, luckily.
He would have to flip around, make some kind of lower-case-backwards-n turn, a little asphalt parabola. He chuckled at the thought as he twisted the wheel as far as it would go and accelerated when his light turned green.
He spun around the divider and into the lane, now facing the opposite direction. He checked his rearview for Oscar, who was now right behind him. Dorian smiled and hoped that Oscar saw.
As he accelerated, Dorian shook his head incredulously. All this because of a strange and silly sign. It felt impossible.
Then something dawned on him. He frowned.
His heart rate increased into a gallop, not with pleasure, not with arousal. A sudden terror sent ripples of goosebumps up and down his arms and back.
Could it have been possible that the U in U-turn was not shorthand for ‘you’? Could it have been possible that U-Turn was the term for what he had just done when he turned the car around? Could it have been possible that U-turn was not You Turn, but that You Turn was, in fact U-Turn, and that such an act was forbidden?
But the image on the sign did not indicate a U. If anything it indicated a lowercase-backwards-n. But the sign did not specifically say “no lowercase-backwards-n turns” It said no U-Turns. So then what, in god’s name was the sign warning against? What were the eerie black snakes and eels?
As he finished the thought, his front tires crushed something. Kerplunk. Then his rear tires. Kerplunk. Dorian snapped up and watched Oscar’s car bob up and down behind him as he also ran over whatever was in the road.
Dorian peeled off towards the right and frantically parked. He jumped out of the car and ran towards the center lane. Oscar, who parked just behind him followed, with horror streaked across his face.
“Did we hit something?” Oscar asked, breathless as he trailed behind Dorian.
Before Dorian could answer, he spotted it: the thing in the road.
It throbbed and churned as it labored to breathe; inky black, with an oil-slick shimmer reflecting the red and green lights that made it look like it was as much liquid as it was solid.
As Dorian approached he spotted the four tracks that ran through it and tattooed tire tread onto its flattened body. As long as a garden hose and as thick as a steel beam, the thing still writhed where it wasn’t mashed onto the asphalt.
Dorian studied it, frozen. Its tail ended deliberately like canned, jellied cranberry sauce and slapped wet against the center divider. But its head was what made Dorian’s blood chill.
There it was, the triangle, snakehead of the black eel creature, just like he had seen on the sign, except in three dimensions it was a cone with a ring of black eyes that encircled it and a small opening for a mouth. A barbed proboscis whipped out of the opening and snapped at them, desperately, as if trying to bargain for its life.
With all the urban construction around and about, Dorian thought. You never knew what horrors they were unearthing.
“What in god’s good name is . . .” Oscar started.
Before he could finish, the ground erupted at the intersection they had just escaped. The earth swelled like a blister, near bursting and split, spewing debris in all directions.
Phil Spector may have invented the wall of sound, but this was more akin to a nuclear blast of sound.
Dorian and Oscar were both thrown to the ground by the force.
Dorian scrambled to his feet and helped Oscar to his as asphalt rained over them with the misted spray of tap water from a busted main.
Rising up into the moonlit sky like smoke from a fire, two more eels emerged, entangled and a hundred times the size of the little one, so that they loomed overhead like two inky, organic skyscrapers.
It was mom and dad, Dorian was certain. And he had just flattened the baby.
Dorian felt fingertips brush his knuckles, before a whole hand seized his sweating palm.
Dorian turned to see Oscar, still stupefied and gawking up at the monsters. His chin trembled, but he opened his mouth to speak.
“We should go,” Oscar stammered.
Dorian agreed.
“You drive a faster car,” Dorian said.
Oscar nodded, then turned to Dorian, his eyes wide and skin pale. For the first time Dorian could see the color of his irises, unsullied by the red or green stoplights. Hazel. The most beautiful hazel Dorian had ever seen, like two sun-stained twilights in either of his eye sockets.
“I can come with you?” Dorian asked.
The two monsters released a deafening roar of despair into the night sky, but Dorian and Oscar did not break eye contact, even as they felt the creatures bearing down on them.
“Yeah,” said Oscar. “I hope you’ll come with me.”
“Can I choose the music?” Dorian asked.
Oscar flashed him a confused look that came and went in a second.
“Sure,” he said.
Dorian smiled.
Oscar smiled.
And before the two eel-snake-things could gut them with their snapping probusces, the two men bolted for the Facel-Vega.
Oscar cranked the ignition switch, shoved the shifter into first gear and bashed down on the gas pedal. The car took off with a squeal from the tires and smashed out the left tail lens on Dorian’s old Ford before it lurched down the road, away from the writhing nightmare in their wake.
Dorian glanced back only once, then dedicated all of his attention to the radio.
The dial scratched and hissed with static as the DJ announced the next song.
“This next one’s for all you long-distance lovers out there. Go ahead and give that photograph a kiss before you hide it back in your wallet, and while you may be out there pining for that sweet gal or swell fella, remember that the weekend is only two days away, and no drive is too long for the one you love,”
Dorian placed his hand on Oscar’s knee and watched as Oscar’s shoulders relaxed, even if just a little as he flung his car through the streets.
The DJ continued.
“This little ditty is called Have Love, Will Travel, by the Sonics!”
Interesting, Dorian thought as the song played, as the ground rumbled beneath them, and the monsters raced after them, devastating everything in their paths. Very interesting. This might be the first love song I’ve ever liked.