As for how long I was out, who can say—maybe it was a matter of minutes; maybe it was an hour. All I know for certain is that by the time I came to we had been lashed to wooden crosses and raised, vertically, so that we were even with Penny and whoever had been covered with the tarp—probably Fred—easily a full 10 feet off the ground (or rather the fountain, for the crosses were secured somehow beneath whatever filled it; something I was now convinced was gasoline).
Blake, meanwhile (who was still on the roof of my car) was busy playing; soloing, working his guitar like a demon as Valerie danced n***d on the hood and the crowd waved lighters and the band laid down a muscular beat—all of which had proven too much for Penny, who had passed out on her cross so that her head hung heavy and the
