flashback: tuscon

[anyone who has done some serious lsd will recall with joy the shivers that slide up your spine when the trip is coming on. recall…yeah, the recall is fun…but when the shivers hit for no apparent reason when you are not on it, well…that can be very different. so when the chills came on recently, i wondered: are they around? were they on this same highway? were they watching me? would they be back? did i say that? could they hear me? were they listening? perhaps we passed in the night…i bet it’s what omniscience feels like…i felt it then, and i just felt it a little while ago, and that’s why i’m recalling tuscon.]



DATE: APRIL 21, 2003 FROM: DR. JOHNNY ST. CLAIR, ESQ. SUBJECT: TUSCON: NOTES ON A MEETING WITH REAL AMERICAN MONSTERS...THEY WERE RUTHLESS AND SNEAKY, AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN CHOKED...BUT THEY WERE, AFTERALL, FEMALE.


some sleazy motel in tuscon on the way back from tijuana…we got in around sunset and loaded up…there was a movie on about skinheads that chased us right out of the motel room and into the streets. the plan was to find a bar with outdoor seating and while away the hours taking in the natives, getting into the thick of it all while getting out of our heads, see what happens, you understand. the doktor managed to maneuver two girls to our table…one ‘a friend’ and the other younger one – a newer stranger – vaguely mexican or puerto rican.

i turned my back on the doktor…indulged his little game, allowed it to go on. i shouldn’t have turned my back on the drug.

bad idea.

we had a grand time for a while, loading up on alcohol and ether…then they went to work, plying and persuading me and the doktor with:

stories
tales
lies
exaggerations
bong hits of pcp
threats to inform the dea, cia, fbi, and tva
whispers of violations from rabid weasels
promises of monkey torture
pee-wee herman videos
reruns of the bachelor
oprah

they even had a life size cut-out of george bush, whose mouth had been cut-out and somehow made to talk. cruel, wicked bastards. we were forced to rob a string of convenience stores while they drove getaway. if we refused, they said they would use their ‘aura,’ and i fuckin’ believed it. these bitches were mad niggerish yo. and that was only the beginning…i vaguely recall a trip to a zoo, a last call at a place called the ‘manhole’ and a blood-promise to vote republican, but these events cannot be verified and i loathe to dwell long on that evening. i eventually blacked-out, most likely as a defense mechanism, and the doktor still refuses to believe any of this happened [we all deal with shit in our own way, don’t we, mr. manhole t-shirt owner…]. we awoke many hours later in that same sleazy hotel room to the light jazz of the weather channel. they had taken everything of ours from inside the room: our supplies, a mirror, the remote control, my new guitar cords, and an old skateboard. all of our clothes, all of the money. our car, graffitied with ‘scumfucs’ and ‘honky lips’ in fluorescent green spray paint. the doktor accused me of stealing all our gear and selling it to a mexican gang for three fresh adrenal glands, and he promised if i didn’t share 50-50, he was gonna go nuts. i was glad he was tied up in the shower curtain, because he threatened to kill me if i didn’t give him a gland to chew on or get more ether, and let’s face it – it’s tough to hit the streets in tuscon in search of ether or organs when you’re only wearing boxers. you know what, scratch that last part about organs…

they left behind a locker key, a bootleg CD, and a stack of polaroids…mostly of me and the doktor engaged in armed robbery. the polaroids were burned, but i’ve got the key, baby. do you like CD’s?

they remain a puzzle wrapped in an enigma encased in a shadow of i-don’t-know-what-the-fuck. what vile and foul creatures had we encountered? had they sought us out, or were we only the recipients of bad, bad luck? perhaps they are the yin to our yang, the day to our night, or the dang-a-lang to my lang-a-long-ling-long.

i am left to wonder: do we want to find them again?

or worse…what if they find us?