Stealing Light from Shooting Stars

NONFICTION

NOVEL

CURRICULUM VITAE

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Below is the first chapter of my novel, Stealing Light from Shooting Stars to be published in 2004. It's a little bit mystery, a little bit action, a little bit fantasy, but mostly it's an offbeat love story featuring two of the most polar opposite lovers ever conceived in novel writing history. He's a heroin addicted street derelict, and she's an ice-cold blonde interior decorator. Is it possible for these two to get together? You must read the book to find out.

Chapter 1

Vincent snapped out of the blackout with a body beneath him. His first thought was that he was supposed to be somewhere. He just couldn't remember where or why. He also realized he needed money to pay for a taxi in order to get there, but he didn't have that either.

Raising himself off the inert figure, Vincent saw it was just a kid. A few yards away, the dawning sun lit up the words "The Bone" written in professional graffiti on a building's brick wall. He surmised the young man must have been in the nightclub last night. What had happened? Vincent couldn't remember that any more than he could remember where he was supposed to be. Thank God they were both fully dressed. If he'd come out of the blackout giving the kid a blow job, Vincent would know he'd sunk so deeply into the streets, he'd never be able to extricate himself.

The young man lay on his back, one arm above his head. Dirt smudged down the front of his red jersey with "Texas Tech" written on the left breast. Vincent, looking at the boy's Dr. J Classic High Tops with envy, untied the sneaker's shoelaces and slipped them off. He tried to force them on his own feet after he'd removed his almost soleless shoes, but the fit was too tight with his socks on. Tugging down the pair of tattered white socks with holes in the heel and big toe, Vincent tossed them aside and pulled the Dr. J's over his bare feet without lacing them up.

He studied the boy's face. It looked white and pasty, almost as if he were dead. Even though he felt uncomfortable searching through the kid's pockets, Vincent needed funds. He hoped the kid hadn't spent every dime of daddy's money in The Bone last night. All he retrieved from the boy's wallet was a five-dollar bill.

"Sorry kid," he said, "but I need this more than you do.

Vincent glanced around quickly, the feeling of being watched making the back of his neck prickle. He saw no one and attributed the feeling to his drug-induced paranoia. Picking up his old socks, Vincent contemplated carrying them with him, but instead dumped them in the trash bin alongside his worn out shoes. He'd pick up another pair at the Goodwill store.

He pulled a pile of dirty papers from the garbage and stripped them into pieces the size of the five-dollar bill. When he had a stack thick enough, he took a rubber band from his pocket he had removed from a dime bag earlier. He rolled the paper in a bundle and wrapped the band around it, leaving the fiver on the outside. Satisfied it would probably fool anyone who didn't take too close a look, he tromped off toward the street corner he usually occupied with his buddy George. Casting one backward glance at the passed-out boy, Vincent felt briefly guilty for leaving him. But he and his buddies spent many nights on the streets of downtown Dallas, and no harm came to them. The kid would be fine.

The feeling of being watched still lingered, but Vincent shook it off and looked at the Dr. J's with pride. The trademark star on the side was appropriate, given he was in the Lone Star State.

***

"You got the money?" the driver asked from the rolled-down window of his taxicab.

Vincent swayed on the curb in front of the Adolphus, a hotel built in downtown Dallas in 1913. Looking up at the building's elaborate Beaux-Arts roof line, a mountain of spirals, arches and balls, made him dizzy. Local folklore said it had been modeled after a Busch beer stein. No wonder he felt nauseous. He glanced at the hotel valet, whose disapproving look indicated it was time to leave. Pulling the roll with the filthy five-dollar bill on top from the pocket of his mud-caked overcoat, Vincent showed it to the taxi driver.

"Want to count it?" When he thrust the roll under the cabbie's nose, the guy jerked back, his snout twitching distaste like a hound dog smelling for rabbits.

"Naw, that's okay. Get in."

Shoving the wad back in his pocket, Vincent climbed in the backseat of the cab.

"Where to?"

Vincent searched his other pocket for the business card he'd been given. The image of the cabbie in the rearview mirror wavered before his unfocused eyes, and he pulled out a snot-soaked handkerchief, some gum wrappers and other slips of paper he couldn't identify. He wanted to keep the handkerchief and quickly slid it back in his pocket. A blond woman on the commuter train had given it to him after he sneezed on her business suit. It had been as white as a Paper Narcissus before he used it, with the initial "D" embroidered in the corner. Impossible to remember what she looked like. The sun illuminated her from behind, shining into his face and never giving him a clear look.

The cabbie rolled his eyes and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "The meter's runnin', fella'."

Vincent handed him the unidentifiable crumbled pieces of paper. The cabbie took them, shook his head and thumbed through each piece.

"This where you're goin'?" He held up a white card with a deep blue symbol on it. Vincent recognized the symbol, nodded, then swiped a trembling hand across his mouth where saliva dribbled out.

"Christ, man, keep it together until we get there." The cabbie tossed the other pieces of paper in Vincent's lap. "I'm sure your stock portfolio's in there somewhere. Don't want to lose that." He jerked the car into the traffic moving east on Commerce Street. Five o'clock rush hour had ended long ago. The people leaving downtown now must have worked late. Long streaks of the sun's rays trapped the skyscrapers and transformed them into flaming monoliths.

"Madam Magdalena, Psychic Reader" flashed from an advertisement on the back of a bus. Vincent blinked and tried to remember where he was going. A cellphone would be handy about now. When he had asked a commuter on the street to use his cellphone, he'd refused. The suit-clad guy took one look at Vincent and probably wondered who the hell he needed to call. He always asked, though. If you took a person by surprise, they often gave you what you wanted, like the woman on the train and the handkerchief.

No phone, no Madam Magdalena. He'd have to remember on his own, so he forced his brain to focus. It was important to get wherever he was going. He just couldn't remember why. His last fix had been around noon today, though he couldn't be certain, since he'd also been drinking on their street corner with George.

Now he sat in the back of the taxi, muttering to himself and hoping the cabbie couldn't hear him. He'd think Vincent was crazy. Probably didn't care as long as he got paid. Might be a little difficulty there, but Vincent would deal with it when he got to . . . wherever.

The cabbie rolled down his window and stuck his nose outside. April represented the best of Dallas weather. Once it stopped raining, the days dawned sunny and cool, crisp breezes swayed the bluebonnets and released their fragrance in the air. The wind hit Vincent in the face, but he couldn't smell anything, thanks to the booze and the drugs.

He tried to remember when he'd last bathed. He liked to wash up, but there never seemed to be a place to do it. Not much he could do about his hair. The twisted mass of dreadlocks hanging almost to his shoulders was the way his hair grew. The overcoat came from the Salvation Army, and it had been quite nice when he first got it. After he had spent many nights in the rain, mud caked the bedraggled coat's hem.

"Here we are." The cabbie swerved in the parking lot of a strip shopping center. The business he parked in front of would have looked closed, except blue fluorescent light leaked through the bent slats of its tightly drawn miniblinds. "That'll be fifteen bucks . . . plus tip." The cabbie smacked his hand against the steering wheel and guffawed. "Tip, yeah, sure!"

Vincent sat in the backseat without moving, his chin resting on his chest.

"Hey, fella'! You awake? Pay me and get out."

Lifting his head, Vincent moved to open the cab door.

"That's fifteen bucks."

The door swung open when he pulled up the door handle.

"You pay me before you leave this cab," the driver said, his voice a threatening growl.

After swinging his legs onto the ground, Vincent stood.

The cabbie leaped from the driver's side and ran around the vehicle. He shoved Vincent back into the seat and forced his hand in Vincent's overcoat pocket. Even though he was bigger and stronger than the cab driver, the heroin made Vincent languorous and weakened his resistance. He grabbed the guy's wrist and tried to wrench it out. They struggled on the seat for a few seconds until the cabbie jerked the wadded-up roll from Vincent's pocket. He rallied enough to raise a knee and go for the man's crotch, but his aim was off, and he merely kneed the cab driver's thigh. Vincent struggled to sit.

The cabbie peeled off the five. "Goddammit! The rest of this is just paper. Should 'a known better than to pick up a fucking wino!" He threw the rest of the wad down and put the bill in his shirt pocket. He jerked Vincent's arm, dragged him from the backseat and dumped him on the paved parking lot. The man hammered a sharp-toed alligator boot into Vincent's ribs.

"Owwwwww!" Vincent yelled as loud as he could and tried to protect his ribs from the blows. He disliked violence when he was on the receiving end.

The cabbie kicked him again. "Scum!"

A Hispanic man in a red shirt ran over. "What the hell are you doing?"

"He gypped me out of my fare." The cabbie kicked Vincent one more time, then leaped in his taxi. "At least I didn't kill the son of a bitch. He's your problem now!" He shot Vincent's rescuer the finger as he burned out of the parking lot.

The man took Vincent's arm and helped him stand. "You okay? That taxi driver must have missed his anger management class today."

Vincent checked his ribs. They seemed fine, but his face burned. He touched it and came back with blood on his fingertips.

"You scratched your face on the pavement. Come inside. We may have a first aid kit." The man indicated the front door of the business Vincent thought was the place he was supposed to be. A name popped in his addled brain as if it were the sun breaking from a cloud cover.

"I'm looking for Luis," Vincent said.

"That's a coincidence. My name is Luis."

"Then you're the man I'm looking for."

"Do I know you?"

"I don't know. Can't remember. Just know I'm supposed to be here."

Luis laughed. "That's obvious."

**********