This was the last time, and I meant it. That bastard, Jerome said that we were going out and he was already an hour late. We were supposed to be at "The Underground" at ten o’clock and it was already eleven. My makeup was perfect, but I couldn’t stand up all night, trying not to get my dress wrinkled.

It had been a rough day. Everyone was coming in and out of the office with stories about people disappearing. Pets, kids, the elderly, and some folks who had gone out to shop or jog were simply not showing up where they were supposed to be. These events had been happening over in San Francisco, and it smelled like a serial something.

The doorbell rang. My heart jumped a few beats, and then came the rush of joy and relief, followed by the shame at being happy and relieved.  When was I going to learn to stand up to Jerome and his thoughtlessness?

I slowly made my way to the door. It was not Jerome. It was Linda Wadley. Linda never waits to start talking, talking waits for Linda to stop.

“You’re coming with us!”  She screamed. “I just knew that Jerome was going to be a clown, tonight, so we came to get you. You’re not staying home on a night like this!”

It took me no thought whatsoever. I grabbed my coat from the front closet, snatched my bag from the sofa and dashed out into the rain with Linda.  We were screaming and laughing the whole way.  Linda’s date, Franklin was driving, so I felt safe. Linda drove like a banshee back in those days, and her car smelled like fifteen kinds of perfume.  Tonight, the freshest layer of perfume was Lair du Temps, for some reason. She got off on vintage sniffs.

“Do you know that when a…” Franklin started.

“Franklin!” We both yelled. Franklin was a Doctor, and a vast, humanoid repository of every scientific joke imaginable. Once he got started, there was no hope for the mascara or eye shadow, because the tears were guaranteed to flow.  Neither Linda nor I could afford his humor right now because we were bearing a dangerous mascara load. Even if it was waterproof, a mascara breakdown of that magnitude could have been fatal.

We wanted to be perfect for “The Underground”.

Suddenly, Franklin swerved and swore. “What the fuck was that? Sorry, ladies... What the Fuck?”

A lumpy, misshapen figure had bumped into the car, careened off the front bumper, and was now barreling on through the night.  We had crossed over the Bay Bridge and had just taken the branch that headed toward Fell Street.

“Are you all right, Franklin?” we both asked. For some reason, Linda and I both talked together whenever we were in the car with Franklin and something awful happened. Franklin was always a bit of an awful magnet, but this night was proving to be a deviation from the norm. That moving thing did not look right. No homeless person or druggie could take a ding from a fast moving car, and then barge off like that.

I waited. Franklin and Linda were talking a mile a minute, but I could barely hear them.

One minute later, the Violet Long Light came. This time it was streaking out from a room that was on the third floor of an otherwise pitch black Victorian.

I didn’t say anything to them, but something made me want to tell Franklin to turn the car around and go back to Berkeley, where we could party in peace at Benita’s house. Benita always put on the best parties, and we would be safe there.

   Linda was my best friend in the world, but I had never told her about the Violet Long Light. It always came when it made no sense. Always, later, sometimes years later, I would discover that I had been close to something so evil that it was incomprehensible. I kept my mouth shut and decided that The Underground would be fine. After all, I hadn't died yet from seeing that light.

Franklin was fine, so we moved on, silent, through the wet and shiny streets. A fog was rolling in, which meant that the rain had stopped. We could smell the bay and sneak glimpses up into the lit up houses, wondering if people were having elegant appetizers and cocktails.

We were not cynical enough at the time to wonder if someone was fucking their brains out with the wrong person up in those elegant and expensive rooms.

We rolled up to Fort Mason, where the base had been closed, but where some of the buildings were “available” to those who had the connections…like the Mayor and the Chief of Police.  There was a warren of underground bunkers that no one ever knew existed, and one of them was the killer destination for those who were in the know.  

Franklin, Jerome, Linda and I, along with a few others, had been to The Underground a couple of times. Each time was an event to remember. One event was so wild that it went on for two days, and no one even knew it. We knew not to talk about The Underground outside of our little group. We feared that no invitations would ever come again.

Tonight, there was supposed to be a special show, so we were overdone with excitement. I had a conflicting and sinking feeling about Jerome, and feared that our business was over. It hurt me to think of leaving him to fend for himself in the world, but it also felt just a taste wonderful to think of moving on to a life that did not involve sitting up on Saturday nights waiting for him to stand me up again.

As we pulled up to the parking area, something caught the corner of my eye. I jumped and turned to look, but only saw the edge of something moving quickly through the gnarled trees, and then disappearing.  I decided that it was a racoon and left it alone.

Until the violet light came, and I knew that something was going to go terribly wrong, maybe that night. This time the Violet Long Light was on a boat, shooting far out onto the bay.

“Do you have your gun, Franklin?” I asked, out of nowhere.

“Why are you asking?” Franklin replied, indignant. Franklin was a doctor and an F.B.I agent. What a wild combination of stuff he was. Linda could never understand how the F.B.I ever saw Franklin as an agent of anything but chaos.

“I just have a feeling that it would be good for you to have your gun.” It was all that I could say. This may sound like a strange exchange, but Franklin and Linda knew better than to make a big deal of such pronouncements out of me. I had been right too many times for them to argue or freak out. 

But two Violet Long Light in less than twenty minutes…

To be continued…