The Damned Highway (8 page)

“You are not an easily definable man, Mr. Smitty. Indeed, you remind me, in some ways, of myself. I like the cut of your jib.”

“Thanks . . . I think?”

“I'm being sincere. Are you a political junkie?”

“Not so much, no. I mean, I can't remember the last time I voted. It's all just the same thing since Kennedy died. Know what I mean? Ever since he was shot it just seems like America is going downhill faster and faster, and nobody cares as long as they still have money, a roof over their heads, a Ford or a Chevy in the driveway, and a piece of ass to keep them warm at night.”

“A chicken in every pot,” I whisper. “The American Dream. Not a burned-out slab of concrete in Las Vegas, but the real deal. The real American Dream. The guiding principle that made this country great.”

“Yeah, but I don't reckon Kennedy would have fixed things either. I don't think they would have let him. This country is going to hell in a fucking handbasket, and I don't think either side has our best interests at heart anymore. They all answer to someone else.”

“Indeed, they serve dark masters. Different masters, as I'm discovering, but malignant all the same.”

“What's that?”

“Nothing,” I say, waving my hand in dismissal. “Ramblings of a diseased mind. I have been up working all night and am low on medicine. How close are we to the airport?”

“Not far now. About another ten minutes. Which terminal are you flying out of?”

I tell him, and perhaps it is the tone of my voice or the look in my eye, but he leans harder on the accelerator and the big rig's speed increases. Trees rush by in the darkness. The tires thrum.

“Need for speed, eh?” I ask with a wink.

Misunderstanding me, Smitty shakes his head. “No, I don't mess with that stuff. Some of the other drivers do. They pop those black beauties and shit like that, but not me.”

“You don't use anything at all?”

“I got high a few times in the Nam. To be honest, I liked it. It's natural, ya know? Not like this chemical shit people are snorting and shooting and swallowing. Weed comes from the earth. But I don't do it much anymore. It always makes me hungry and sleepy, and ain't neither one of those things good for a long-haul truck driver.”

“Indeed. How about shrooms?”

“Mushrooms? I've heard about them, but I ain't never took one. Saw a thing on TV once. Cronkite was talking about them and peyote. Some folks want to use them in religious ceremonies and such. I can't say as I see the harm in it, but I've never had them. Only mushrooms I eat is on my pizza.” He laughs at this, and I chuckle along with him, even as my great and terrible mind is seized with an idea. I need to find out if what I'd seen while under the shrooms' influence was a real, transcendental experience or simply yet another nonsensical, drug-fueled hallucination, and what better way to find out than to test Mac's stash on someone else? And a pigeon like my new friend Smitty is an absolutely perfect test subject. Here is a man who very rarely uses drugs, let alone powerful hallucinogens. He has a belief structure that he seems firm and steadfast in, and a relaxed demeanor. He is a solitary man who probably spends much of his day in a forced-laconic silence broken only by his occasional interactions with truck-stop patrons, waitresses, fuel-station attendants, and the flotsam and jetsam of America's highways—hitchhikers like myself. If Smitty sees the same things I saw, if he reports Nixon squirming in shame and embarrassment while some writhing green-black tendril shoots a jet of semen over Kissinger's face, then I'll know the trip was real. If he doesn't . . . well, the high is still an enjoyable one, and I'll take the rest of the mushrooms eventually. Perhaps I'll try to write while under their influence. There could be a new book in it.

The only risk in dosing Smitty is that I can't do it while he's behind the wheel. Oh, I could, I suppose, but I need to make that flight. I can't risk him missing our turn or wrecking the big rig. My only option is to wait until we arrive at the airport, and hope the psilocybin kicks in before I have to leave. Of course, before I can do any of that, I have to convince the trucker to be my guinea pig, so I start laying down some heavy patter. I tell him all about how natural it is, and the long tradition of medicinal and shamanic uses for mushrooms, and how it will give him an extra boost of energy for the long drive back home, and that there are no side effects or danger. No indeed. Mushrooms are a mild drug, milder than weed. Everybody knows that, don't they? I trot out my best lies and my patented smile, the kind I use when I need to rob a bank or get into someone's bed or secure an interview that no one else can get, and of course, it works, for my powers are great and varied and wondrous. “It'll cut two-tenths out of every mile,” I tell him. An eyebrow jerks. “Girls like it. It's like a first hug from a topless woman who likes a shy man.” By the time we pull up to a loading dock near the terminal, my new friend is ready to try it.

“Why not?” He turns toward me, his expression eager. “Ain't nobody gonna be able to load me up for another hour anyway. Damn union workers don't come in till later.”

“Well then, this will be a great way to pass the time.”

“And you're sure I'll be able to drive later?”

“Oh, absolutely. Have I ever lied to you, my friend?”

“Well, I don't really—”

“Never mind that! You can trust me. I am not like the others.”

I sweep my kit bag off the seat and rummage through it, producing the brown paper bag. I pull out a shroom and hand it to Smitty, who accepts it gingerly. He seems unsure.

“Aren't you gonna take one, too?”

“I already have. I took one earlier before I started hitchhiking. I'm still under its effects right now. And I'm fine. We had a nice, civilized conversation about John Fitzgerald Kennedy and underground comix, and I didn't mention bats or lizard people once.”

“Is that the kind of thing you normally do?”

“Only when I'm in Bat Country.”

He visibly relaxes, shoulders slumping and face growing less taut. “Well, you seem okay. Don't guess it will turn me into an axe murderer or anything.”

“Of course not.” I glance at my watch. “Let's go. Down the hatch. Airborne!”

“All the way!” He takes a tentative bite and scowls. “Ewww. It's bitter.”

“Chew the whole thing and swallow. Try not to taste it. Just let it hit the back of your throat, rather than your tongue. There you go. That's the way.”

While he does as I've instructed, I search through my kit bag some more and produce my tape recorder. I test it, making sure the batteries are fresh. I once lost a great interview with Grace Slick because I was so stoned that I forgot to put batteries in the damn tape recorder. Satisfied that this won't be the case now, I place the machine on the seat between us and press record.

“What's that for?” Smitty eyes the tape recorder like it's a skinned raccoon.

“Professional tool of the trade. Nothing to worry about. How do you feel?”

Smitty leans back in the seat and closes his eyes. “I feel . . . I dunno. It doesn't really feel like anything. Are you sure these things can—” And then, before he can say anything else, his body begins to spasm.

“Hot damn,” I shout. “Now we're getting somewhere. This is science!”

“I'm proud to be a stogie from Tuskegeee,” Smitty shrieks in a high singsong voice. “A place where even balls can have a square!” He flops on the seat, arms and legs jittering, head lolling back and forth so hard that for a moment I fear he might snap his neck. Frothy saliva bubbles appear on his lips, and when he moans, it is a deep, mournful sound—the kind that breaks your heart, if you happen to have one. But I have no time for tugging heartstrings or sad sentiment. I am a man with a mission.

“What do you see, Smitty? Quick! Tell me everything. Where are you? Do you see President Nixon?”

“No. Oh, God. Oh, goddamn. They're shooting up the high school. All dressed in black . . . They . . . Where'd they get guns like that? Hell, they've got better rifles than what we had over in the Nam. And they . . . oh, I can't watch. I don't want to be here. The blood . . . that poor girl's head. It's just like fucking Nam . . . It's like being back in the jungle . . . I've got to go! They'll find me. Better hide behind one of these tables.”

“Where are you, man? Beneath the White House? Talk to me, damn you.”

“No . . . not the White House. I'm . . . I'm in a . . . in a high-school cafeteria, I think. Or maybe . . . no . . . no, it's changed. It's all changing. The world turned . . . changed colors for a second . . . I think I'm in New York City now. Yeah! That's it. New York City. God, I always wanted to see this place! It's really something. Look at those buildings.”

“What's happening in New York?”

“Nothing and everything. People are rushing around. I guess on their way to work. Oh, look! Look, Lono. There's the Twin Towers, all bright and shiny. Damn if that ain't something to see.”

I check my watch again and decide it would be best to just let him ramble, rather than trying to guide him through the vision. Obviously, he isn't seeing what I saw, but his hallucinations are interesting nevertheless. I can easily record it all now, until it is time for me to go, and then play it back later and try to make sense of it.

“It's such a pretty day, too. Ya know, I always figured the sky over New York would be all polluted and cloudy, but it's not . . . It's very blue. And warm. And . . . holy shit. Look at that! It's a fucking airplane. I reckon he's flying too low. He ought to . . . Oh my God. He . . . goddamn . . . the fire. Oh, Lord, I can't look. Two of them. How could there be two of them? That ain't no accident . . . And the people are jumping . . . and . . . and . . . where did they go? Where did the skyscrapers go? There was all that dust and smoke and now they're . . . oh, wait a minute. I see . . . they're not there because I'm not there anymore. Hey, mister, it's . . . your father or someone. Oh man, a gun. The words on a typewriter—no, just one . . . counselor.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Smitty? Something happened to the World Trade Center?”

“No, I'm in New Orleans . . . Hell, I know this place. Done so many runs to New Orleans and back. But it looks . . . different, somehow. More . . . I dunno. The sky is . . . Boy, this storm is really bad. I reckon it's gonna . . . oh, hell no! Oh, Christ. Jesus fucking Christ! The wind . . . the wind! Sounds like a goddamned freight train. The water keeps getting higher and it's full of . . . there's oil and . . . bodies . . . The stadium. And they're in the streets . . . all those people . . . and . . . here come the cops. They'll help, right? The police always help . . . they . . . why is he drawing his gun? What does he think . . . Fuck! The cops are shooting them . . . wait, something's happening again . . . where am I? I don't . . . urrrggghhh . . . maybe India? There's a lot of Indian people on the beach . . . not the
Woo-Woo
kind . . . the kind with the dots . . . they . . . Oh, Jesus, oh sweet Jesus . . . fuck . . . FUCK . . . fuckfuckfuckfuck . . . the goddamned ocean . . . the goddamned ocean rose up and attacked . . . I swear to God the ocean just declared war . . . it can't . . . water everywhere . . . here it comes . . .”

A particularly strong spasm rocks Smitty. His entire body shudders as if he's touched a live wire, which he probably has. His teeth chatter like nuts cracking. The cab suddenly smells like piss. I glance down and see a spreading stain on the crotch of his jeans. I check my watch. It's almost time to board.

“Listen,” Smitty wheezes. “This is important. South forty-seven . . . nine . . . West . . . one twenty-six . . . forty-three . . .”

I realize that he's giving me coordinates. Latitude and longitude. But where do they go? What do they lead to?

“He's coming! Oh, he's coming, Lono . . . They said he would! This has all . . . this has all been written.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
. . . In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming . . . That's not dead . . . which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die! Don't you see? He wasn't dead. All this time, he wasn't fucking dead. Only sleeping . . . Gods never die . . . He's . . . He's coming back. Great Cthulhu is coming back . . . R'lyeh is rising, you see? The Mayans . . . they knew, man. They fucking knew!”

R'lyeh. The word runs around in my head, looking for something to connect to. I've heard it before, but I can't remember where. I turn my attention back to Smitty. His eyes have rolled up into his head, and he's bitten his bottom lip. Blood runs down his chin.

“I reckon all these things are like ripples,” he says. “The shooting, the towers . . . the water. It's like he's sending shock waves across the world as he gets closer and closer . . . Wait . . . R'lyeh is there now, like an island . . . Except that it's a city. It's a huge fucking city from the . . . bottom of the ocean . . . It was down there in the Pacific . . . and now it's . . . and . . . All dripping and covered with slime and seaweed . . . The pillars . . . oh, the pillars, Lono . . . And now there's . . . I ain't . . . I can't . . . A mountain walks! A mountain walks . . . I don't understand, Lono. It's big, whatever it is. Like them pictures of . . . It's . . . oh my God, his face!
IT'S HIS FACE! Ia ia, Cthulhu fhtagn . . .
”

“Sorry, Smitty, but I have to run. Got a plane to catch and other places to be. I wanted to stop at the duty-free store. I mean, I know I have a domestic ticket and so can't quite buy anything there legitimately, but I usually find that a smile works wonders over the course of any sort of transaction. Thanks for the lift.”

“He has a squid where his face should be! How can he have a fucking squid for a head? Lono? Are you there? His face is . . .
moving
.”