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  I stifle a cough.

  “I’d almost forgotten acid rain,” Anise sighs, her eyes suddenly far, far away. “Towards the end, it could eat through steel. We had to replace our roofs every eight weeks. Fran--I’ve told you about Fran--she got caught out in it once. Not long, just half a minute. Poor thing spent the next six months getting skin grafts and reconstructive surgery.” She says all this with longing, not a hint of bitterness.

  I can’t fathom what she finds so pleasurable about this. The Earth is a perfect stranger to me, distant and unknowable, but the only way I’ll begin to learn is if I engage in this moment. I stop holding my breath. All I smell is soot. “What is that, the prominent smell? Factory smoke?” I’d heard of the abundance of factories, refineries, and industrial centers, puffing clouds of black up into the atmosphere.

  Anise shakes her head. “They were all abandoned by then, no one left to run them once the dais blight hit. We napalmed towns for many years, before we found the vaccination. Dogs, cats, livestock, people--anyone who’d eaten or handled infected plant material became a host to fungal spores. It was the only way to keep it from spreading faster than it did.”

  “That must have been awful.” I sit down beside her, lay a hand on her thigh.

  Anise takes another long sip from her wine. “It was what it was. But through it all, we were always able to cling to hope. We fought hard every second of our lives, and because of that, each breath we took became something precious.”

  I try to imagine how powerful this scent memory is for her, but I’d grown up with sterilized, formulated air--any odors that happened to occur during my formative years were sucked up through the filters and scrubbed clean before they could imprint on my memories.

  “It’s sort of…beautiful,” I say, but she finally looks directly at me with hard, spiteful eyes. I see I’ve said the exact wrong thing.

  “I don’t expect for you to understand.”

  We’re sitting inches from each other, and yet the rift between us grows. I thought the Earth air would fix things between us, but it’s only highlighted how different we really are. I think of her patient, Kitpeh, a wounded creature with so much anger seeded into her DNA. Sooner or later, despite all of the hours Anise spends with her, Kitpeh will slip up. She’ll assault someone or make threats against the Station, and she’ll end up on VACI’s watch list. It’s inevitable, and yet Anise keeps trying to save her. It makes no sense to me--all those resources poured into a cup with a crack running through the bottom.

  “There’s no shame in trying to change the inevitable,” I repeat The Atmosphere Man’s words, searching for understanding, but Anise thinks that I’m talking to her. She moves her hand on top of mine, and the void between us feels a little warmer at least.

  When we make love that night, it’s like there’s a stranger in the room with us. I taste him in her mouth--her saliva, like a spray of napalm scorching my tongue. I try to ignore him, but with each passionate breath I take, the soot of dead bodies tickles my lungs. Tears stream down Anise’s cheeks. She writhes underneath me and calls out my name, but from the distant look in her eyes, I can tell it is the stranger that she holds most dearly in her heart.

  Tenderly, I kiss her cheek, her bitter tears tasting of acid rain. “Happy Anniversary, Love,” I whisper, ready to fight the good fight, and hoping beyond hope that I’m not a few years too late.

  La Bamba Boulevard

  Bradley Denton

  One of the two reprinted stories in this collection,

  Denton’s lyrical piece functions as an ideal companion

  to his award-winning novel, Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede,

  as well as a stand alone tale of ghostly Hollywood.

  It was my first visit to Hollywood, and I was fascinated by Hollywood Boulevard after dark: The souvenir shops, nudie bars, lingerie boutiques, dance clubs, pickup joints, and Scientology museums, all decked out in bright white lights and red, blue, and green neon. The worn-down, granite-and-brass Walk of Fame stars on the sidewalk. The occasional whiff, an actual odor, of something that had once been alive that was now in an advanced stage of decay. The throngs of tourists with their cameras and baggy shorts. The beautiful young people strutting in their precarious heels, abundant hair, and not much else, just hoping to be seen by someone, anyone, who might actually matter.

  Oh, and hucksters galore. I’m talking about the dudes who’ll not only ask you for money, but will follow you for a block, complimenting your clothes or your wife and trying to force their homemade compact discs into your hands. I’m talking about the buskers who’ll shove their hats in front of you as you try to walk by. And especially, I’m talking about the street performers, dressed as movie stars, who’ll approach you in character, cajoling you into paying to have your photo taken with them. Marilyn Monroe, Luke Skywalker, Humphrey Bogart, and Spider-Man are all there on the Boulevard on any given night. To name but a few. Marilyn, in particular, will zero in on you, just to save you from being lonely. Even if you’re not.

  As I said to a Los Angeles writer friend as we strolled the Boulevard on my first night there, the first Monday in September: “It’s like Vegas, only less genuine.”

  But I should have known better than to be a smartass about how others live their lives. Sooner or later, that sort of thing will come back and bite you in the backside.

  What happened was, I returned to the Boulevard the next night. But this time, I came alone. It was late, and I couldn’t sleep, so I’d decided I might as well go take a look at the celebrity body-part prints at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. My writer friend and I hadn’t walked far enough west from my Hollywood-and-Vine hotel to do that on Monday. And the truth, despite my avowed disdain for contemporary celebrity culture, was that I really wanted to see Grauman’s. Mainly so I could confirm the truth of what Hedley Lamarr had said about Douglas Fairbanks at the end of Blazing Saddles.

  On the way there, as I looked down at the Hollywood Walk of Fame stars passing by, I came across a surprise – a name I knew. That was a rare occurrence on this particular stretch of the Boulevard, so I stopped and pulled my camera from my pocket while the tourists, posers, and freaks flowed around me, as if I were a lump of stone in their glitzy stream.

  Yes, I had a camera. This particular night, I was wearing khaki jeans and a white shirt, not baggy shorts, but there was no point in trying to pretend I was one of the few, middle-aged, hipster locals. No, I was just a tourist like all the others. And I doubted I’d ever be back in Hollywood again, so I was taking photos of anything that struck me as interesting, weird, excessive, or perverse. I’d been seeing a lot of the weird, excessive, and perverse…but this time, I was simply and purely interested.

  You see, the name on the star at my feet was Ritchie Valens. And while his star was in pretty good shape, it had obviously been there a number of years.

  “Dang, Ritchie,” I said to myself as I pointed the camera downward. “You made it here before Buddy.”

  Ritchie Valens, of course, had died in a plane crash along with Buddy Holly and J.P. “the Big Bopper” Richardson on February 3, 1959. Now here it was, September 6, 2011, and Buddy would finally be getting his own Walk of Fame star the following morning. Which was why I had pried myself out of my cozy Austin home to come to L.A. in the first place. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m a big Buddy Holly fan. Oh, and by the way, water is wet.

  As I was trying to focus my shot, the toes of a pair of snakeskin boots appeared on my camera’s LCD screen, just to the right of Ritchie’s star.

  “Hey, Buddy’s not gonna be here,” a clear, young, male voice said. “He’s gonna be back the way you came, over on Vine Street by Capitol Records. They’re putting him next to the Beatles. I can show you, if you like.”

  Annoyed, I shifted my camera so the snakeskin boots were out of frame, then snapped a picture that in
cluded the toe of one of my own shoes. I would have to crop it out of the shot later.

  Once I had my photo, I looked up, glanced to my right, and saw a broad-faced, but handsome, young Hispanic man, dressed in a sharp navy-blue suit with white piping and a ruffled white shirt with no necktie. He had a sunburst Fender Stratocaster guitar at his waist, hanging from a snazzy black leather strap. The strap had the same high gloss as the young man’s thick, neatly combed hair.

  He was the picture of youthful talent and exuberance. So I had to hand it to him. He had the late Mr. Valenzuela’s look down pat.

  “Ritchie Valens, right?” I said. “Nice job.” I didn’t have any cash on me for a tip or a photo, but I thought the kid at least deserved a compliment for authenticity.

  He smiled. “Hey, you recognized me!”

  I smiled back. “Sure. And thank you for your offer, but I already know where Buddy’s star is going to be. All I meant was that you received your star first. Have a good night, now.” I started westward toward Grauman’s again.

  But the Ritchie character came with me, matching my stride, and I grimaced. This was what I got for speaking to one of these jokers.

  “Well, look at it this way,” Ritchie said. “L.A. is my hometown. I was born in Pacoima. So, you know, they had to honor the native son. And it’s not like they just gave it to me the moment I died. I had to wait until 1990.”

  I didn’t say anything in reply, even though those were good points.

  “Besides,” Ritchie continued, “isn’t it cool that Buddy’ll get his star on his 75th birthday? Not a bad present, if you ask me.”

  I still didn’t respond. Maybe if I stayed quiet, he’d get the message and leave me alone.

  He moved closer to avoid colliding with a pack of young bucks in sparkly suits and the headstock of his Strat whapped me on the elbow. It sent an electric jolt up to my right shoulder, and I flinched away, which made my left shoulder ram into a “No Parking” sign.

  Now I was beyond annoyed. I glared at Ritchie and walked faster.

  But Ritchie, still smiling, sped up as well. “You’re going to Buddy’s unveiling ceremony tomorrow, right?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “That’s good. That means you’ll get to see him.”

  We had reached the sidewalk in front of Grauman’s Chinese, where Marilyn, Luke, Darth Vader, Bogie, and SpongeBob Squarepants, among others, were all accosting passersby with snappy, seductive patter and sporadic lightsaber battles. Meanwhile, watching it all, Spider-Man was crouched atop a garbage can chained to a lamppost.

  I stopped walking and looked at Ritchie.

  “Yes, I’ll see Buddy’s Walk of Fame star tomorrow, along with everyone else,” I said. “But I don’t think I’ll see Buddy. You guys only come out at night.”

  Ritchie’s eyes widened, and then he threw back his head and laughed. It was loud and chiming, and it echoed back from the tall, ornate facade of Grauman’s. But no one else on the sidewalk seemed to notice.

  I tried to step around him to get to the plaza in front of the theater where all the movie stars had left their marks. But at that moment, Ritchie stopped laughing and swung the neck of his guitar to block my way.

  “You’re wrong,” he said then, his voice suddenly serious. “You’ll see Buddy tomorrow. You’ll see him over and over again. In the flesh. I’ll make you a bet on that.”

  I began glancing around for a police officer, but the only one I saw in the milling crowd was RoboCop.

  All right, then. Maybe if I humored Ritchie, he’d bug off. “Okay,” I said. “What’s the bet?”

  Ritchie grinned. “If I’m wrong and you don’t see Buddy, I’ll play any song you want, as long as it’s not ‘La Bamba.’ And if I’m right, you promise to do two things tomorrow, before midnight: One must be something new and different that you haven’t done before, but that you plan to do again. And the other must be something new and different that you haven’t done before, but that you’ll never do again. And I’ll still play any song you want, as long as it’s not ‘La Bamba.’”

  I’d been expecting him to work things around to the subject of getting his picture taken for cash. But instead, after stating the terms of the bet, he just stood there with his Strat, grinning and waiting.

  “Uh…what the hell kind of bet is that?” I asked.

  Ritchie shook his head. “Oh, no. Ain’t nobody going to hell!” He lowered the guitar, stepped closer, and spoke into my ear before I could back away. “Let me explain. I only lived seventeen years. Seventeen! Even Buddy had five more years than I had, and J.P. had a few more than that. And you’ve already had, what, almost twice what J.P. had? Three times what I had? But while each one of us did something new and different almost every day of our lives… Well, it bothers me when a man with a whole lot more time does a whole lot less with it. Especially when he’s from Texas. I mean, the last two guys I knew from Texas were as fun as all get-out and adventurous as heck. So you just make me sad. I’d expect more from a Buddy Holly fan.” He stepped back again. “Now, you taking the bet or not?”

  This character was not giving me a happy Hollywood experience. I didn’t know how he’d guessed where I was from, or why he was messing with me, but I’d had enough. Douglas Fairbanks was waiting.

  “Yeah, fine,” I said. “I’ll take the bet.”

  Ritchie nodded. “Good. You can come back to the Boulevard tomorrow night to settle up.” And with that, he stepped around me and headed for Spider-Man’s lamppost, where Luke and Darth were chatting with Bogie and Marilyn.

  I stared after him. And then, surprising myself, I yelled at him.

  “Hey!” A few people on the sidewalk gave me worried glances, but most ignored me.

  Ritchie stopped beside Darth Vader and looked back, his eyebrows raised. “What is it, Tex?”

  “I want to know,” I said. “Just what do you have against ‘La Bamba’?”

  Ritchie threw back his head and laughed again.

  “Man, I love ‘La Bamba’!” he cried. “I love it so much that I made myself learn how to sing it phonetically, because I was raised speaking English! I really didn’t know much Spanish at all.”

  Then Ritchie reached into Darth Vader’s cloak and pulled out a guitar cable. He plugged one end into the Stratocaster and the other end into the box of blinking lights on Vader’s chest.

  “No, I could never have anything against ‘La Bamba,’” Ritchie said. “I just don’t want to play the same song for you tomorrow that I’m playing for you tonight.” He raised his right hand and brought it down on the guitar strings.

  The Strat rang out from Darth Vader’s chest, and Ritchie Valens sang:

  “Para bailar La Bamba! Para bailar La Bamba, se necessita una poca de gracia! Una poca de gracia para mi, para ti! Ay arriba ay arriba! Ay, arriba arriba! Por ti sere, por ti sere – ”

  Ritchie jumped, swaggered, and tore it up while Marilyn, Luke, Spidey, Bogey, SpongeBob, and RoboCop danced. But Vader, having been pressed into service as an amplifier, stood stock-still. I thought he looked a little pissed-off. On the other hand, who could tell?

  The music was good, and my leg muscles twitched in time. But since this Ritchie Valens lookalike had basically told me that I was wasting my life, I was a little pissed-off myself. So instead of enjoying the show, I turned my back on him and went into Grauman’s plaza to look at the celebrity hand and footprints in the concrete.

  I discovered that Hedley Lamarr had been right. Douglas Fairbanks did have little feet, although Rita Hayworth took the prize in that department. That girl must have weighed twelve pounds.

  About the time I reached Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, the music behind me stopped in the middle of a chorus. And when I turned to look, only Bogey, Marilyn, Luke, Vader, SpongeBob, and RoboCop remained by the lamppost. Ritchie Valens and Spider-Man were both gone.<
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  #

  The unveiling ceremony for Buddy Holly’s star the next day was moving, musical, rock’n’roll-royalty-studded, and pretty amazing. But I’ll write more about that ceremony elsewhere.

  For now, I’ll just write about the crowd.

  For a Walk of Fame unveiling, the crowd was huge. If there weren’t at least a thousand people on the sidewalk just outside the Capitol Records building on September 7, 2011, there were enough that it felt like at least a thousand or more. It was a small space, and people were crammed together, jammed together, and slammed together.

  But instead of jostling or elbowing each other, or getting cranky in the late-summer Los Angeles heat, they did something else.

  They sang. They sang along with the Buddy Holly tunes that played over the loudspeakers, and during a quiet moment, they offered a heartfelt rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

  As I snapped photographs, I spotted at least a dozen people, male and female, who had come dressed as Buddy. They were wearing sharp stage suits and thick black-framed glasses, and a couple were carrying Stratocasters. And as the ceremony proceeded, perhaps a hundred more folks in the crowd donned Buddy glasses while they sang and clapped.

  I didn’t join in any of the singing, because public singing just isn’t the sort of thing I do. But I leaned against a palm tree growing out of the sidewalk, shook my head, and stifled a laugh at my own expense.

  Because I had just realized that I’d lost my bet.

  Oh, I could argue that I hadn’t seen the real Buddy Holly in the flesh, over and over again. But I knew that hadn’t been the bet. And in Texas, when we lose a bet fair and square, we pay up.

  So that night, about 11:00 PM--after all the ceremonies, the parties, and a rocking Buddy Holly tribute concert, while still wearing my dress-up duds consisting of a snazzy gray Western-cut suit, black linen shirt, and bolo tie – I went back to Hollywood Boulevard one more time.