The weather was warming and a high volume of pedestrian traffic strolled past our large first floor window.
That thin pane of glass separated us from what my increasing paranoia deemed outside insanity, the pagan world at large.
But wasn't this what I wanted? Complete freedom, anarchy, adventure in a godless world?
JD was dating a girl named Mya who had a friend named Lucy. Both girls told us how dangerous the location our new home was. Mya was English and at peace with the big city life but not with her own inner landscape. They came over one night on their way to an Oasis concert. I sat in the floor, quietly sketching in crayon.
We'd pulled our belongings out of storage in Bakersfield.
I mulled over my old writings -- They seemed inspired, ecstatic with life, from a simpler more electric time.
Now I was in the middle of the lightning bolt and wanted out, but afraid to admit it to myself. I listened to old recordings JD and I made only 8 months earlier. They were near personal seances, they taunted me.
These girls mocked me, this culture mocked me. I was mocking myself.
What was going on? Had I been duped?
Life was a real thing, it wasn't an image in a book, a written splash of insight -- it was surging through my veins daring me to mold it, and it was twisting my mind.
I felt like that Orwellian elephant put down with a self inflicted gunshot, my bones stripped by the natives...
I thought certain people around me were demon possessed.
I must have been running on base instinct at this point.
At midnight I went to the theater alone and watched "Cemetery Man."
Afterward to the coffee shop looking for Meredith. She was there. I wanted to kiss her, to reach out to her, in some sloppy 'human being on the verge of a breakdown' way.
I couldn't express what I desperately wanted to say.
Knowing how much I liked them, she'd made more dolmades for me, asked how she could get in touch with me... possibilities open...
I told her bye quickly and left. I caught the bus heading downtown.
I never saw her again.
(Downtown Los Angles, 2am)
All the buses converged here for a changeover.
There was me and 30+ zombies swarming the street, waiting.
They eyed me, circled me.
I lit a cigarette. A black man approached me for one. I obliged.
Then another and another.... One had puke down the front of his shirt. There was a real tall fat queen leaning against the bus stop sign with small stud earrings in each ear. He said, "Do you know where you are?"
The skyscrapers loomed high above, cold moon shone through against a black merciless sky -- The same back drop for numerous histories: american civil war battlefields, german death camps. cain and abel.
I had on my backpack and brown corduroy jacket.
The bus arrived and we boarded.
The homeless ride all night to avoid the elements.
Sitting across from me was a wise-eyed hispanic in black cowboy boots, silver tips.
He was holding a golden framed picture.
Looking at me, he said, "DTA"
I gave a quizzical look.
"Don't trust anyone."
I smiled and turned toward the window.
I took the bus to the greyhound station.
They had a special deal on a ticket to El Paso, Texas -- I bought one.
I had to wait 5 hours.
In the crowded bathroom I heard someone knocking on the door to the stall next to mine.
The man inside said "just a minute."
There was another knock, another "just a minute."
This same thing happened a few more times with increasing impatience in the answering voice.
Finally the man exited his stall and said loud and gravelly, "I thought he wanted to wipe my seat for me!"
I chuckled out loud.
The bus for El Paso boarded and I was seated next to a white kid about my age. We made friends and he gave me a little plastic figurine, called it a talisman.
I reached in my pack and pulled out a bright green plastic grasshopper I'd found on the boardwalk of Venice my first night there. I gave it to him, called it a talisman.
His name was David. He was headed to Phoenix to meet up with his fiancee and uncle, who had the equipment and plan to film a movie.
We discussed music. Howlin' Wolf was his favorite, and at the time I was unfamiliar with that form of blues in general.
David told me a story involving himself and two friends -- They'd drove to Los Angeles because one of them, friend B, said he had a place for them all to stay and secure jobs. When they got to town everything turned up bogus. They were homeless and broke.
After driving 2 hours up the coast because friend B had another last ditch plan that turned up nothing, they left friend B stranded at a gas station.
Seemed a bit harsh, but I could understand.
David and I parted ways in Phoenix.
I still have the talisman.
**I feel I talked to David in a dream much later, years later. He said his uncle went crazy and the film was botched and abandoned.
The uncle took David and his fiancee and friends to all sorts of faraway places in the desert, wanting them to do bizarre things for the camera.
I'd like to think they shot him and buried his bones in the dry earth.
Now there's a film.**
***And as I write this my consciousness travels back through those lands. The humid-less air shrinks my skin to its bone.
My mind in heaves, my head heated, my brain pulsating with thought and dreams.
My heart beats, electronic devices work improperly.
A girl friend sends me a message, "you're redirecting your spell, be careful..."
Past fear becomes palpable and I no longer want to write about this. The bathroom sink's water tap is running for no reason and I walk in to turn it off.
Retrospect becomes present and night threatens***
After the changeover in Phoenix I was back on the road, this time near the front of the bus. A fat native lady boarded and sat across from me.
She was alone. She knitted crafts and spoke no english. She hummed strange melodies. I heard people in the back giggling, their volume and social audaciousness increasing as the miles. She had the bearing of a young girl on the playground, but her face was lined and ugly, scary.
Her singing turned to near incantation. I tried to ignore her and the mockery from behind. Out the window the landscape transformed to large green cacti, bright red formations, like bones of dishonored ancestors.
The weather changed, we drove into a thunderstorm -- This approaching darkness seemed to scare her. She pulled out wooden trinkets from her bag and spoke to them. I fell asleep.
Come early morning, looking out the window at New Mexico, sunbeams casting rainbows and refractions, I saw the Indian woman's reflection on the glass, looking at me. I slowly turned my head and faced her. She was forming her fingers into a crucifix symbol, pointing it at me, meant for me, like I was a vampire.
She mumbled inaudibly -- A curse?
Her eyes looked past me, or through me.
I turned back to my book.
We arrived in El Paso.
The Greyhound station sits on the border of Juarez, Mexico.
I'd been reading Kafka and Kerouac: One a paranoid social misfit with grotesque visions of reality.
The other a 'poetry in motion' post-world war II writer, out to re-imagine the american dream...
It was early morning, still dark. I walked outside. The attendant got my attention.
"See those girls over there?"
He pointed to 4 harlots standing on the Mexican border.
I nodded.
"They'll cut your throat quicker than a man"
"Anything else I should know?" I asked.
"Yeah. Be wary of scorpions in the desert"
Keeping a safe distance, I gave the fishnet ladies a smile.
I was about to cross over when a carload of thugs on the other side sped near, hollering and shattering beer bottles against vacant buildings.
The station attendant said I should come back inside. I agreed.
At 7am I left, walking across the downtown.
By afternoon I was in the desert east of the city. It was early June and hot.
I was on Interstate 10, attempting to hitchike. No one stopped.
Later I got thrown out of a truck stop for vagrancy by a fat mexican security guard -- He made me sign a form saying I understood I'd be arrested if I stepped foot back on the property.
I crawled inside a culvert under the pavement for shade and a nap.
I continued walking.
One car finally stopped but could take me only as far as his exit, 5 or so miles.
He asked what I was doing out there, asked if I had family worried about me.
He had kind eyes. As I was getting out he placed his hand on my shoulder and prayed.
The sun was readying to set. I didn't feel good.
I'd seen a motel 15 miles back. I decided to get a room.
It was a long walk.
Around 10pm I'd made it to the off ramp leading to the inn. On the darkened side road a wine colored car pulled beside me. The white driver asked if I needed a ride -- I didn't, but accepted anyway. His brown-skinned passenger got out and ducked into the backseat. As I was getting in I noticed a seven inch knife blade under the driver's right thigh. I shut the door.
The guy in back was in the U.S illegally, wanted for unnamed crimes in his native country.
The driver had just been released from the Georgia prison system.
Somehow we ended up splitting a motel room.
Once inside the quiet Mexican started pacing, manically casing the place, shutting curtains...
The other was calm. He looked at me and said,
"Man, if someone told me they got in the car with two strangers late at night I'd think they was crazy..."
My blood froze -- I was seriously scared.
I could imagine him pulling out a pistol while smirking "You must be one dumb sucka" right before he killed and robbed me...
But instead he said, "On the other hand, if someone told me they picked up some hitchiker on a deserted road late at night I'd think they was crazy!"
Nature. In the wilderness.
I was tired, hungry and dehydrated. My clothes were dusty.
The three of us shared some sort of outlaw respect,
"live and let live," I suppose.
Then they started making what looked to be some kind of drug.
I don't know.
They left and I went to sleep.
It was later that summer, late July.
There was a party in the desert, 2hours east of los angeles. Nothing for miles, just rock formations in the distance. and maybe the faint outline of mountains. but they were so far away they may as well have been dreams.
Samantha was now with me, we were in her car. JD was, too. And Lester, a mutual friend who'd recently come to California.
The night started at the parent's house of a guy JD worked with -- He had all the information. There was a red pool table and a silly family portrait on the wall. He had thick curly hair and a muppet face.
We listened to Frank Zappa's Freak Out! album.
We headed for the party. Porno for Pyros' "Tahitian Moon" played on the radio.
I put on Neil Young's Dead Man soundtrack followed by Lou Reed's Set the Twilight Reeling -- "Finish Line" had become a prescient favorite.
The music combination conjured a thick atmosphere. Pair this with a confusing relationship with Samantha and an uneasy alliance with both ay and Lester...
I was about to embark on the moment the past 6 months had been culminating into.
We were 10 miles off the desolate interstate.
a huge bonfire. a full moon. gigantic pumping sound system, people dancing, glow sticks. hand drums hiding in the crevices of the rocks...
She and I broke away and climbed to the top of one, serene, with stars like snowflakes.
I ripped off my shirt. my eyes became black onyx. I tried to eat the boulders. creases tightened under the sides of my eyes. The universal beating steadily increased, synchronized with my blood's brain.
And when the sun started to rise there was mass hysteria, no one understanding from where it came.
I'd had enough and came down from the mountain.
Girls with smeared mascara walked by and I never knew if they were real or not. My supposed friend turned into my cousin, and I could no longer pretend I liked either of them.
"we're the same, you and me," he said.
It was almost too much to bear. I hated him.
"we're all one," he said.
I agreed, but not like this. not this way.
Samantha was crying, calling for maternal guidance no longer there.
I thought I saw a rape behind the sage brush.
I walked away.
"where are you going, CDL? You can't leave the group..."
I was a large cat lounging in the sun.
I had reached nirvana somewhat, but cheated. there was no peace.
We laid there on top of the world, the three of us, an animal truce.
"this is the point of life," one said.
i couldn't believe it. it was golden, but ugly.
a man was doing yoga poses next to me, a cactus flower at our feet. I pointed and laughed. A horrid, mad laugh, with my head thrown back. Samantha asked if the ocean still existed. I didn't know. I was so thirsty. people clamored around the water vendor. it was getting ugly.
I felt like an experimental lizard in a cage, my spinal cord pricked by unseen deities, testing the blunt reflexes. A game.
cars were stuck in the sand. no one knew how to leave, or even where the road out was. a tall black man walked over carrying a tire jack. He set it down and asked if we needed help. I looked down and thought of killing my friend, Cain and Abel style. He read my mind. we both shuddered as he said, "let's not think about that."
people began bouncing on the backs of cars, adrenalized monkey things.
I asked JD if we were indeed stuck. He said yes, and that it was serious.
After a flash of logic, like the history of the world, I told all three to get in the car. I drove out in reverse as a whole line followed in mad pursuit. I didn't dare slow down until we reached the interstate.
The girl was in the passenger seat. she complained of severe abdominal pains. she stared out the window, muttering under her breath. it was like an insane asylum. the two in the backseat were wide eyed and evil, gnawing on gum like hyenas. I kept glancing in the rear view mirror, looking at my face. my eyes were vacant, had lost their twinkle. my hair stood up on the sides. I tried to console the girl, but in vain. I could hear the cries and calls of this whole side of existence. I drove on auto pilot. JD in the backseat leaned up, asking "how fast are you going, man?" I looked down and saw the speedometer buried, 120mph.
I was in the left hand lane passing it all, mainly diesels and cars holding snakelike denizens from the party I had just escaped.
I don't know how we made it back from the six lane interstate.
JD had to be at his job by 4 that afternoon -- An outdoor coffee cart underneath the skyscrapers of Wilshire Blvd. Lester was dropped off with him.
I just wanted to lie down.
Me and she made it back to Venice. I could still hear the manic screams of human insanity. As if giant vikings had descended upon the city, eating the heads of men and women like Goya's SATURN painting.
Inside the apartment I stripped off my clothes and stared at my face in the bathroom mirror. My urine was thick and dark. I walked back to the living room. a large glass window was all that still separated me from the bustling street nightlife of a summer saturday night.
it felt thin, too thin to keep the goblins away. I was vulnerable and trapped, desperate yet unable to escape from myself. she ground her teeth, i could hear them. I stuffed the corner of a quilt into her mouth to stop the chattering. My ears were ringing. I felt violated. I felt like an E.Allan Poe story... steps in the hallway, the slam of the front door...
I dozed off. I shot awake, running to the bathroom, inspecting my mouth in the mirror, a dream of rotting teeth, decayed. I brushed them frantically, relieved after finally convincing myself it was a dream.
Vanity in the midst of a breakdown.
(And this dream haunted me for several months, loose teeth, rotted and decayed.
Like large stalactites jutting monstrous...)
I walked back to the living room and caught my reflection in her full length mirror: Naked, 12 pounds lighter.
The organism in survival mode -- Some sort of strange warrior. running on instinct. The mind of a boy ripped apart, the last vestiges forever.
(C)2011 CDL Music
(Abridged)