Mobile (The Dharma Bums Remix)
Oxnard.
Even the name of the place screamed "dusty little ass-end of Southern California." They didn't have Oxnards just anywhere, after all. There was something about California that just attracted crapmounds with crap names and crap locations.
It was just close enough to Buffy and Sunnydale to keep Faith nervous. Just far enough away from Angel and LA to keep her painfully lonely. But she needed money and the strip club by the highway was hiring. If there was one thing she did well, it was killing. A close second was taking her clothes off. And it wasn't like she could sell used cars for a living.
She walked in like she'd done it a thousand times before, and there wasn't a man alive who could prove she hadn't. No one so much as glanced at her - she had the attitude and she had the clothing, but so did the girls on the poles, and they were wearing less of it. And the only people who'd go to a strip bar at 3:30 PM on a Tuesday were more drunk than interested.
She got a gig on Thursdays, $100 a night. Not bad for a fresh face. She knew she'd get much more than that; she was Faith, and Faith knew her way around poles and she knew her way around men. This wasn't work. It wasn't play, either, but it sure as hell wasn't work.
She and her duffel checked into yet another dirty little motel room with suspicious stains on the walls and sheets, paying with a sweaty wad of cash she wasn't going to talk about. It had one of those ancient black-and-white TVs with the turn dials. Better than nothing, she supposed, and flipped it on, tearing open a package of candy. Life sucked, but there were always gummy bears.
Thursday came and so did the drunks, wedging money everywhere she let them reach. She knew she had a raise when she saw a couple come back with friends and more quickly emptied wallets. No one carried a lot of cash in Oxnard - nothing to buy but alcohol and used cars - but what little they bothered to bring ended up in her brastrap or the cashier on the bartop. She gave them what they wanted, predatory grins and impossible contortions until the cheap wood catwalk thundered with thumping hands and catcalls.
Oxnard, California. Ass-end of the ass-end of the world.
By the time she left, kicking her way through outstretched arms with dollar bills and phone numbers, she had $300 in tips and the $100 from the manager, seventeen slips of paper from ambitious drunks, and a half a bottle of Jack Daniels. Not bad for a first night. Frank offered her Saturdays, $150 a night. She gave him her fuck-you smile and told him she'd think about it.
She jammed the money behind a broken tile in the grimy bathroom and tossed the slips of paper out the window without a second glance. She didn't leave the motel room again until Saturday, except for a trip to the liquor store for Slim Jims and beer.
On Saturday she stayed for three hours and left with $700. She folded the scraps of paper into footballs and flicked them at the manager while he counted out her fee.
It was Monday night when she worked her way through to the bottom of the duffel, finding something hard and pulling it out. Her eye twitched when she got a good look at it. She gripped it so hard her hand shook and blood dripped out of her palm. Fuck her. She'd left Sunnydale, she'd left LA, but pieces of B still found their way into her life. Even in fucking Oxnard.
She gripped the cross until it popped out of her, slick with blood.
Faith stripped twice a week for two months, stained cross reflecting the colored lights. She didn't know why she wore it. Frank called her the "Christian Schoolgirl" one night and she kicked him hard enough to send him flying into a wall. The crowd loved that. So did she. She missed the thrill of killing, or at least a good old-fashioned brawl.
One night she started one. She brought her duffel bag along and just beat the crap out of a good two dozen who were really no challenge at all. It was the first time she'd had fun in months.
She went to the car dealership, one of two dozen with a faded sign and a faded clerk who looked at her with dull eyes, like he hadn't really expected a customer. It was a mystery how so many dealerships managed to stay open in one place. No one needed that many cars - there simply weren't enough people in Oxnard to be constantly driving off. He asked her what kind she wanted and she told him she didn't fucking care, just something that wouldn't die on her like everything else always did. He brought her to a dull little car with a dull blue paint job. A '57 Bel Aire, he told her, and she tossed him the twenty-five hundred and jumping in, tossing the duffel into the back seat. She felt alive again, a rush from the brawl and the obscene wad of ones and fives she'd just thrown down. She asked him to come with her and he got in the other side, asking where she was going. Boston, she said. As far away from fucking Oxnard as she could get. The guy nodded and told her the car'd been sold for a job. Some kid got stuck here with no gas and no money. Happened a lot. She knew what he meant and threw him another wad of ones. He got out again, waving gravely at the exit and telling her to look in the glove compartment.
She was in Nevada before she thought to check. Far away from Oxnard, from LA, from fucking Sunnydale. She flipped it open and fumbled around until her hand found -- a book. As worn and dull as the car and the salesman and everything else in fucking Oxnard. She ran a finger over where the title had been once and glanced at the title page.
Who the fuck was Jack Kerouac?