The Damned Highway (7 page)

But never mind that. I have no patience for America's greatest pastime, unless I'm betting on the game. I've always been more of a football fan myself. But so is Nixon. In fact, as far as I know, that's the only time Nixon ever told the truth about anything. I interviewed him in the back of his limo and all we talked about was football. He knew the name of a second-string Oakland flanker who only played seven plays in one Superbowl and was never used again. Indeed, here's the rub. Nixon not only knew the player's name; he knew where the son of a bitch had gone to college. Nixon takes his football very seriously. He openly talks about politics and international diplomacy as if they were a series of plays. He doesn't want to be president. He wants to be coach. He thinks in terms of end sweeps and touchdowns and mousetrap blocks. Football is Nixon's game, and it's my game too. It's a sport for ugly brutes and vicious bastards, and there is nothing uglier or more vicious or more brutish than Richard M. Nixon. Oh, I get along fine with some of the folks around him. Ray Price and Nick Ruwe seem like good people, and Pat Buchanan can hold his own with me and a bottle of whiskey. Indeed, I've always seen Pat as sort of a wild-eyed Davy Crockett for the Nixon team, and if that's so, then I wonder what Nixon's Alamo will be? I only hope I am there to see it. But it doesn't matter how many good people he surrounds himself with. Nixon himself is evil, a congenital liar who would let the Devil himself fuck his own mother if it meant a rise in the polls. For my entire adult life, Nixon has been a national bogeyman of sorts. There have been other evil men. Lyndon Johnson, King Herod, and Adolf Hitler come to mind. But they are mere punters compared to old Tricky Dick. Sooner or later, he will fail and fall, and I hope I am there to give the final push.

Ye gods, now I'm rambling. Where am I and, more importantly, where was I? Oh, yes. Van Doren and Kissinger and Nixon. We will reach a point in this country, perhaps only a decade from now, when our politicians and our celebrities will be indistinguishable. Trust me on this, for I am wise. I have medicine. And Mamie Van Doren is a great example of this malady. Not only did she date a baseball player just like Marilyn Monroe, but when Monroe fucked Kennedy, Van Doren apparently decided to do the same. Why else would she volunteer to serve on the Committee to Re-elect the President (and sweet Jesus, how is it just now occurring to me that the acronym for that is CREEP)? I feel a stirring in my loins when I imagine Monroe spread-eagled on Kennedy's desk in the Oval Office, but I feel no such lust that night in the motel room, as mushroom-induced visions of Nixon and Kissinger and Van Doren and the rest of the Happy-Fun Club frolicking naked and rolling around with each other in some subterranean bunker beneath the White House invade my brain. The things I bear witness to . . . I must testify, for confession is good for the soul, and what I experience leaves my soul feeling dirty and raped.

Everyone knows there are underground tunnels beneath Washington, but do we really know what goes on there? I see Kissinger, lathered with some sort of noxious grease, wiry body hair glistening like a mountain ape hosed down with vegetable oil, as he slides his remarkably fat prick into Van Doren's backside, while some vague and indefinable form in the shadows does the same to him. I concentrate on Kissinger's suitor, trying to see it better, but it remains shadowed, which is odd, since the entire orgy is brightly lit. I have a sense it is not human. Indeed, unless human silhouettes are suddenly shaped like eight-foot-tall cactuses with tentacles, there is nothing human about it at all. It's one of these whipping tendrils that the creature thrusts into Kissinger's rump, and all the while he moans and writhes with Van Doren doing the same beneath him, and everyone else in the room joins in the terrifyingly perverse festivities, fucking with a frenzy their kind usually reserve for killing brown people or gooks or long-haired hippie types. I recognize most of them. None of them is aware of my presence, lost as they are in their throes of passion, and for that, I am glad. One doesn't watch the Speaker of the House fornicate with his twin daughters and live to tell about it too long. Not these days, and not in this town. I walk among them, stepping over copulating bodies like they are cordwood. I bear witness to sodomy and bestiality and masochism and incest and things that are impossible to describe. Those creatures lurk in the background, thrusting forth with their long tentacles, filling every orifice, regardless of function or gender. It is very loud, a cacophony of grunts and squeals and screams and sighs, and only some of them are human. The air stinks of sex and ammonia and fish, like worms on a sidewalk after a warm summer rain. And there in the midst of it all sits Nixon, looking squeamish and uncomfortable and about to vomit. This is a man who does not look like he's having fun. Ho ho! He looks like he's constipated and depressed and absolutely miserable. I've often heard rumors from other reporters that Nixon keeps an Asian mistress on a houseboat in San Francisco, but I've never believed it. In truth, Richard Nixon always struck me as asexual more than anything else. His overall demeanor at the spectacle surrounding him seems to verify this, his presence notwithstanding.

“Mr. President,” I say, wading through naked bodies to reach his side. “We meet again.”

“You!” Here is a reaction, an emotion other than revulsion. Surprise. Shock. Anger. Here is a man who is not happy to see me. I am about to ask him more when the bunker vanishes and I find myself back in the dingy motel room, fingers hovering over the keyboard. I still don't know what country Yuggoth is in, but their psychedelic mushrooms are incredible.

——

At around three a.m., there is pounding on the door. I'm unarmed and in nothing but boxer shorts and thick black socks. The Mojo Wire squeals and shivers as it eats my last page ever so slowly. I quickly get the sense that the knocking has been going on for hours, as the hinges of the door have been beaten halfway free of the doorjamb. But I am a serious writer and at serious work, and their interruptions be damned. It's easy enough to match the timing of the banging with my own exhalations, and at the right moment I open the door and in flies, then tumbles, the hotel manager, a fire extinguisher-cum-battering ram leaving his hands and flying right out the window with a musical crash.

I plant a foot on his neck, realizing as I do so that there is a hole in the toe of my stocking. “What's this all about, junior? Speak quickly and truly, and I may let you live.”

“Y-you dirty son of a bitch,” he sputters. “The phones, what the hell are you doing to my phone system? Nobody can make any calls. The other guests are complaining. Even the pay phone is just howling like an amateur-night microphone.” Then his eyes, wide and froggy as ever, spot the Mojo Wire. “And what the hell is that! Are you one of those Red Chinese spies? I should have known.”

“Yes,” I tell him. “I'm a Red Chinese spy. You've found me out, you bastard. I'm here to track down President Nixon and give him a special herbal remedy that he mistakenly left behind in Peking. It's very important—without it Trish may go mad-dog crazy on her Secret Service detail. We don't want that now, do we?”

He's excited. “Yes! Please, may I see it? Will you be delivering it to the man in person? Will you? Oh, boy! Won't you tell Mr. Nixon that I love him? Please!”

“Yes, yes, I'll do all that. Get a grip on yourself, man. Now let me see . . .” It's a gamble, but I'm pretty sure this cat has never seen real-life marijuana, and I'm sure I have a reefer somewhere. I consider giving him some of the mushrooms, but I want to experiment with them more later. Such medicine would only be wasted on a rube like this. He stays prostrate on the ground where he landed, almost worshipful, as I dig through my sweaty bags. I find a bit of hash wadded up in the bottom of my knapsack, and then he is on me. He slams against my back, slides an arm under my chin, and starts choking me like a judo expert. I throw myself backwards. He howls, “Lies, lies! You goddamn son of a bitch, you think I don't know who you are? I know damn well who you are! You're that guy who rode with the Hells Angels! You're the one in the comic strip. You're what's wrong with this country. You think I won't be rewarded for bringing Nixon your fucking stone heart!” as we roll around. He's a little guy, this Korean War–vet motel manager, a real Renfield, but scrappy as hell. I manage to dig my chin into the guy's forearm and get a little breathing room, but then he sinks his teeth into my ear. I reach out and yank the power cord of the Mojo Wire hard as I turn onto my belly. The corner of it must have got him right in the temple, because he goes limp. I bite my tongue as my own head slams into the floor, and then my mouth fills, not with my blood, but with something blacker and sticky. Ichor. It takes a minute or so for me to crawl out from under him. He's alive, twitching even, and bleeding. It was his blood that gushed into my mouth, but it wasn't blood at all.

“Sweet Jesus in a jumped-up sidecar.” Muttering, I fumble a cigarette from a crumpled pack and light up, catching my breath. It's a good thing the credit card I used to check in wasn't mine. I don't know how much of the story I managed to file via the Mojo Wire, but I know I have to leave—and quickly. I am better off putting on a shirt and walking right back out onto the highway. Nothing good can come of sticking around, of trying to explain myself to the authorities, or paying the bill. I snuff the cigarette, wash the manager's ichor from my mouth, pack up quick, put the hash in my little bowl, and hit the parking lot, toking up good, wishing I had some Ibogaine, some something else, anything better to take the edge off this evening of revelations and assault. I am a marked man now, and the long tentacles of the Republican establishment are uncoiling my way. Twice now, in my journey to find the American Nightmare, I've rubbed shoulders with them. They will not be pleased. But the Democrats . . . Moloch? I am already a journalist; I may as well throw myself into the fiery maw of Moloch, if only to avoid the suspense of a future assignment. I turned pro a long time ago, but the world grew weirder than I ever knew it could be.

As I walk by it, the pay phone rings a plaintive ring, and I pick it up.

“Hello, Super 7 pay phone. Lono speaking.”

It's my editor, and he has another assignment for me. Luck and happenstance are mine again. A plane ticket is waiting, he says. My per diem, in cash, is at the airport's Western Union and currency exchange. I have thirty minutes to get to the plane. My assignment is to travel to Arkham, Massachusetts, and cover some problem with the Democratic Party's rogue county committee. A rental car, paid for by my editor, will be waiting in Arkham. I'm instructed not to wreck it, but I barely hear the reprimand because my mind is making connections and swimming in synchronicity. Arkham, it just so happens, is very close to Innsmouth and a town called Dunwich. I don't give a damn about the latter. It's the former that interests me. Suddenly somebody is paying for this little journey into America's dark and twisted heart. Luck and happenstance, my friends. Happenstance and luck. Lines within ley lines. Synchronicity and such. Ho ho, hey hey. I'd started out going to Arkham. Then I had set my sites on Innsmouth. It looked like those plans might have been stymied when I missed my bus, but now here I am, on the road again and on someone else's dime, and continuing onward to the same destination.

Looking back, it occurs to me now that I should have just killed myself then. Things would have been far easier that way.

The Third Eye . . . Keep on Truckin' . . . The Ballad of the Human Guinea Pig . . . The Good Doctor Meets the Professor and the Starry Wisdom Wacko . . . The Nutcracker . . . Please Wait Until the Captain Has Turned Off the No-Smoking Sign . . . No Sleep till Innsmouth . . .

——

With only thirty minutes to get to the airport, I don't dawdle or even wash my hands, especially because I do not want to be there when the weirdo motel manager recovers his senses. Sticking around for such an eventuality would only lead to more great and terrible violence or a visit from the police, or both, and I am in no mood for such nonsense. I have a job to do, damn it, and a plane to catch. The hash has leveled me out some, but I still feel edgy and wired. I want to eat another shroom, but experience has taught me that those things are dangerous. I can't afford to get sucked into another vivid nightmare, only to wake up in a gutter somewhere along the side of the road and nowhere near the airport. Not now. Besides, the previous one has left a nasty aftertaste in my mouth, as if I've bitten into a gorilla's stomach. My tongue feels like it has hair on it, and the insides of my cheeks are dry. My head throbs slightly, right in the center, and I wonder if the hallucinogen has somehow affected my pineal gland.

A strange thing, the pineal gland. Oh, the human body has many strange things inside our workings, most of them nothing more than leftover tissue that evolution has made obsolete; the appendix, tonsils, and adenoids serve no useful purpose anymore, yet still we have them. The pineal gland is a different sort of organ. It's in charge of our waking and sleeping patterns, makes melatonin, and helps our bodies adjust to the changing seasons, but some people believe that it serves another, more metaphysical purpose. Some people believe that the pineal gland is where the human soul resides, and who knows? Maybe they are right. That old Frog philosopher René Descartes believed it to be so, but he also believed that the external world didn't exist, and he also had a hard-on for God, so he is not to be trusted. Never trust a man who works from his bed, especially if that man is French. I have worked from many strange places, including beaches and my kitchen, but I have never written in bed. But never mind that. Many other cultures give special significance to the pineal gland, as well, believing it to be a third eye, of sorts, and that if one learns to utilize it properly, one could then see into the future and all sorts of other things.
Was that what happened to me
, I wonder as I prepare to leave. Did the shrooms Mac gave me somehow stimulate my pineal gland, allowing me to see what was actually occurring at that exact moment in the subterranean dungeons beneath the White House? If so, I'll need to obtain more of them, because what few caps I have in the bag won't last very long at all.

I leave the motel, kit bag in tow, and begin hitchhiking in the darkness. It's cold outside, and the dampness seeps right through my shoes and clothes. Within minutes, they are numb. Traffic is nonexistent, so I start walking, keeping one arm cocked and my thumb outstretched. Like everything else in this country, hitchhiking has turned into a dangerous and foolhardy thing to do. There are a lot of sickos in America these days, and not all of them reside in Washington or Hollywood. You have to be crazy to hitch a ride from a total stranger, and when it comes to being crazy, I am just the man for the job. The only thing I need is a passing car, but that sudden burst of luck and happenstance has apparently already faded, because transport is not forthcoming. The kit bag weighs heavy on my back, and the throbbing in my head is growing worse. The numbness spreads to my arms and legs. I fear that my ears and nose might blacken from frostbite and fall off to be eaten by rats.

But then, just as I am about to despair, headlights appear on the horizon, filling my heart with hope—only to have those hopes dashed a moment later when the car speeds by without even slowing. I retract my thumb and extend my middle finger, flashing that universally understood hand gesture, and trudge along, muttering curses beneath my breath. Another car appears, slowing as it approaches me. I hold up my thumb hopefully, smiling the smile I use when I want to convince people that I'm not a madman but just a simple country boy from Louisville, Kentucky, who goes to church and pays his taxes on time and always votes for the correct party, and there's nothing to worry about with me, you can trust me because I am not like the others. The car's brake lights flash, and the driver rolls to a stop about ten yards ahead of me.

“Hot damn!” Grinning, I run for the car, my kit bag swaying back and forth, whapping me in the rump again and again. It is too dark to see inside the vehicle, but I don't care. Charles Manson, or hell, G. Gordon Liddy, could be driving the fucking thing, and I would still accept the lift. As I reach for the door, the car speeds away. I hear the driver laughing inside, cackling like a rabid hyena.

“You pig-sucking bastard!” I shake my fist at the receding taillights. The driver honks his horn in a final farewell. “I hope you slide into a station wagon with a family of six inside it around the next bend and go to prison for manslaughter and get raped so much that you contract ass cancer and shit out your own bloody bowels on a daily basis until you die!” I take a deep breath, preparing to launch another string of obscene threats, when I hear a rumbling sound. A tractor-trailer is approaching, looming over the hill like some great mythical beast. I stick out my thumb again, all too aware that the clock is ticking and I am no closer to the airport. Providence shines down upon me then, as the eighteen-wheeler slows to a stop. The air brakes whoosh loudly and the suspension groans. Gravel crunches beneath the hulk. I approach with trepidation, wondering if this bastard will take off at the last moment too, but the truck remains in place. Grateful, I reach up, open the door, and climb aboard. The cab is dimly lit, and I have to let my eyes adjust, but nothing seems off kilter. The driver is young, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with R. Crumb's Mr. Natural and the Day-Glo block-letter slogan
Keep on Truckin'
overtop the character. Greasy, limp, brown locks stick out from beneath the brim of a green John Deere ball cap. Merle Haggard plays softly on the truck's radio, singing about what it is like to be an Okie from Muskogee, and from what I can gather, it doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun, unless your idea of a good time is a good old-fashioned tent revival with members of the Hitler Youth Party. My eyes drift back down to the trucker's T-shirt. That damn Mr. Natural image is everywhere these days. I wonder for a second if Crumb based Mr. Natural on a real person, and if so, how the poor bastard feels seeing his caricature emblazoned on T-shirts, stickers, and acid tabs. Probably not. I stand alone in that fraternity of one.

“You gonna gawk all night, fella,” the driver asks, impatient, “or are you gonna sit down? I've got a tight schedule to keep and I aim to beat it.” His accent is odd, unplaceable, as if I'm hearing him underwater. Like so many things these days. The shrooms, could it be?

“Sorry.” With a nod I sit down next to him and pull the door shut, then sink into the puke-green Naugahyde vinyl seat. “I've got a schedule to keep as well, friend. I was just momentarily admiring the decor. This is my first time in one of these big rigs. Thanks for the ride.”

The trucker nods back and then grabs the gearshift like it's his own manhood and rolls back onto the highway. The engine rumbles as he quickly shifts gears, and then we're picking up speed.

“Say,” I say, “this thing really moves. I would have thought it would be slower, given the size. And it seems to handle well, too.”

“She'll run like a raped ape once I give her full throttle, on account of that four-stroke diesel and the turbocharger and aftercooler.”

“I'm impressed.”

He glances sideways at me. “You don't strike me as much of a motor head, if you don't mind my saying so.”

“Oh, I dabble. I dabble. I like fast things. Cars. Motorcycles. Women. Secret planets. Never had the opportunity to drive something like this, though. I may have to try it some day. Do you enjoy it?”

“There ain't anywhere else in the world I'd rather be.” He takes one hand off the steering wheel and offers it to me. “My name's Smitty. Nice to meet you.”

“Lono,” I say, and I shake his hand. His palm is callused and his fingers are thick and strong, like mine, the hands of a workingman, a kindred spirit perhaps, though his musical choice leaves something to be desired. I would much prefer Blind Boy Fuller's “Truckin' My Blues Away” to Merle Haggard wailing about how the kids in Muskogee don't wear their hair long and shaggy, and still respect the college dean. “Good to meet you, as well, friend.”

“Where you heading, Lono?”

“The airport, and hopefully soon. I've got a very important plane to catch and it leaves in less than half an hour.”

“Well, then I reckon you're in luck. That's where I'm heading, too. Gotta pick up a load of stuff what come in air freight and then haul it back home.”

“And where's that? Home?”

“St. Louis, technically. Or at least that's where my apartment is. Not that I stay there much. In truth, if anything is really home, it's this here cab we're sitting in. I spend more of my time on the road than anywhere else.”

“And you like that, do you?”

“Wouldn't have it any other way. Something about the open road that's always appealed to me.”

“I know that feeling well. Must be hard on your loved ones, though.” I glance at his finger. There is no wedding band or even the ghostly shadow of where one has been. This tells me he's not married. A professional journalist always pays attention to the little details, and I am nothing if not a professional journalist. And he has five fingers. Thank God, five fingers and not six, like Mac.

“Nah,” Smitty replies, pausing long enough to shake a Marlboro from a pack. He offers me one and I accept, partaking in this new dark age's version of breaking bread. I offer my lighter and he thanks me. After we've both lit up, he continues, exhaling a puff of smoke. “Ain't never been married. Hell, I don't even have a steady girlfriend. Oh, don't get me wrong. I ain't no queer or nothing like that. I've got girls I see sometimes along the various routes. Just never seemed to settle down with one. Last steady girlfriend I had was in college.”

“And what happened to her?”

The trucker's mood noticeably sours. “We both dropped out. She headed out to Berkeley while I was in Vietnam. Haven't heard from her since.”

“Berkeley? I used to live there.”

“Ain't never been myself. Doesn't much sound like my kind of place.”

“It's not my kind of place anymore, either. It's changing, and not for the better.”

“Reckon the same could be said of the rest of the country.”

“You may very well be right, Smitty. So, Vietnam, eh?”

“Yep.” He says it reluctantly, and his tone is pensive, as if he's expecting to be beaten.

“When did you serve?”

“Couple years ago. Sixty-eight into sixty-nine. First Cavalry.”

“Airborne, eh? You've got bigger balls than I do, friend. I've never understood the impulse that compels men to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.”

Smitty chuckles. “Helicopter, actually, but in truth, I wasn't all that fond of it, either. Most of our guys were so fucked up half the time, I doubt they even thought about it much. But believe me, looking back on it, I'd have rather stayed in college than parachuting out of a low-flying chopper and into a tree. Fucking gooks used to cut us up before we'd even hit the ground and rolled. Sorry. I reckon I shouldn't use that term.”

“No need to apologize. We live in an era when Hamilton Jordan can run around calling Arabs sand niggers, and nobody seems to mind much. I guess you can get away with calling the North Vietnamese gooks.”

Smitty shakes his head, seeming genuinely regretful. “No, it ain't right. I've been meaning to stop. It just slips out sometimes. Old habits die hard, I guess.”

“You're telling me, friend. I am a creature of old habits, and almost all of them are bad, or so my doctors and my attorney have said. But my attorney is most likely dead, and I've been ducking my doctor's calls because I owe that bastard money, so never mind them, eh?”

“You're a strange one, Lono. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“What do you do for a living?”

I listen carefully to his tone, seeking any sign that he suspects my true identity, and am cautiously overjoyed when I determine that he doesn't. Could this be the one person in America who hasn't read my work or seen me on television or laughed over that goddamned newspaper comic strip? A moment later, he confirms my suspicions.

“I'm a writer.”

“Oh, yeah? What do you write?”

“Magazine articles. Books. Whatever they'll pay me for.”

“I don't read much. No time for it out here on the road. Comics, occasionally, but that's about all.”

“Comics as in the newspaper funnies?” I tense up, once again expecting him to put two and two together and realize who I am.

“No, I don't read that shit. I mean comic books.”

Grinning, I relax, roll down the window, and flick my cigarette butt out into the dark. The horizon is that blue-black color that arrives just before dawn. I glance at my watch and wonder how close we are to the airport. Cold air whips my face. I roll the window up again and say, “I had an adventure with Jack Kirby just a few days ago.”

“The guy who draws for Marvel? I don't read that stuff. Too much melodrama. I like the underground comix.”

Merle Haggard fades away, and the song segues into a duet between Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. I tap along in time with the music. It's not so bad.