H: Chapter Eleven

We dropped Coach off at a diner. After that we drove from North Carolina to Maryland in the span of a day. None of us wanted to pay the tolls, so we were forced to use the back-roads. Trust me when I say this, you do not know monotony until you’ve just spent an entire twelve-hours driving down endless roads of dirt.

It was when we were about to enter Maryland, that we realized we needed to take a detour. Yet again, there was a toll booth blocking us from entering The Old Line state. We decided to go through West Virginia, up to Ohio, and then to Pennsylvania.

It was when we entered Beckley, West Virginia that we noticed a shoddy-looking gas station. The OPEN sign, which once held flashes of neon colors, had gone out, and the “E” had fallen right off. There were only two gas pumps, and they were rusted beyond belief. I probably would’ve got Tetanus just by filling up the van.

I pulled in to the parking lot, right next to one of the dilapidated gas pumps and stepped outside. The air was unusually dry with an aftertaste of smoke. Everyone was asleep except me, so I went around to the back of Bessie, and hammered my fists into the window. Instantly, they jolted awake. Thomas shot his head up and climbed out. Travis followed Thomas while Jack flipped me off and mouthed, “Fuck you.”

We entered through the glass-doors (which had water-stains on them), and split up through the aisles of processed slop. I walked through the aisles and eyeballed the food, taking my time to read the labels and imagine how they tasted. Sandwiches, chips, cookies, cake, it all looked great. Though, it was so processed, it shouldn’t even be called food. Soylent Green would be a better term for it.

The man at the counter must’ve been in his late sixties. He had a white beard and wore thin spectacles. I could feel his stares while I walked the aisles. He was judging me, and I knew it. He saw my hair, and how stupid it looked. He looked at that one stain on cuff of my collar and decided that I was a disgusting human being, absolutely beyond any help. I suddenly felt the urge to kill him, but decided that that would be a really stupid way to ruin my life.

I walked further down the aisles, and crouched below the bags of chips, desperately trying to avoid the man’s stares. I peeked my head slightly over and looked at the man again. My heart began to beat faster and faster as I saw that he became fixated on his phone, and not me. I knew I had to do something. At that point, I would take any insult or words, as long as he paid attention to me.

I stood up, preparing to scream or put on a little dance. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I knew that I was going to do, something.

“Hey, Payte!” Thomas called out.

I jumped back. I put a little smile on my face and relaxed my eyes. “Yeah, what’s up?” I asked.

Thomas reached into his pockets and retrieved a little bag that was rolled up into a cylinder. “I found weed behind the toilet.”

“Well what the fuck are you waiting for? Let’s smoke it.”

Thomas paused and raised an eyebrow. He pointed behind him and said, “Shouldn’t we wait for the other guys?”

I chuckled and maintained the friendly little stare. “No, man. This is ours for the taking, fuck em’. Now let’s get to the van”

We started walking to the doors. I waved to the cashier, but he did not look up. For a second my face twisted and contorted into something ugly, but I brought my little side-smile back, and carried on.

Back at the van, I rolled the joint using the gas-station weed, but there was something off about it. It smelled like chemicals, almost like cleaner or something. But, I decided that weed was weed, and I’d take it. I lit it and took a hit. It was smooth, too smooth. I passed it to Thomas, and then I realized something was really, really, wrong.

It was like I was suddenly hit by a brick, and now I was viewing myself in third person. “T-Thomas…”

Thomas was just about to take a hit. He brought it away from his mouth and looked at me strangely. “What?” He said softly.

I was suddenly aware of every little part of my body. My heart pumping, my eyelashes, the little pimples in my pubic area, the blood rushing in my ears, everything. “Don’t… I mean, do not… I… I…”

I tried to speak, but nothing was coming out except mongoloidal sounds. It was like I was suddenly sent back a million years and I could only communicate through a twisted series and grunts and howls. But finally, after many attempts, words came out. “That’s not weed man. Or, maybe it is, I don’t fucking know. But, what I do know, and I know that I know this, t-this little thing. That is not, completely, I mean… don’t fucking smoke it. Stop it, just don’t. Just stop, please, stop.”

But it was already too late. By the time I finally managed to speak, Thomas had already taken a hit. He stared at me with wide eyes frozen in horror, and a grotesquely open mouth, revealing stained teeth. I could tell by his face that he was already on the fucking moon. Hell, he was probably busy talking to God by then.

I reached my hand out to talk to Thomas, try to comfort him, but he would not move. He just sat there, as still as a statue. Tears began to well up in my face, and then the door opened. Travis walked through and dropped his grocery bag on the floor. “What the fuck happened here?” He asked.

I crawled over to him, hopping over the seats. I grabbed his shirt while on my knees and dragged and tugged at it. “Thank you! I’m so glad you’re here, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

“What is going on?” He cried out.

“Travis you don’t understand. I… I need you to drive me to heaven. I-I’m the new messiah. Okay? Understand? You got it? You understand? DO YOU?”

Travis grabbed my hands and flung me off of him. “Get the fuck off me, I ain’t driving you anywhere.”

Travis moved away to the seat, staring at me with fear and bewilderment. I kept crawling towards him as I sobbed, “You don’t understand, man. You don’t. I am the chosen one! The one who will give others hope! I can turn water into wine!”

At this point, I was gripping onto his leg with my nails, scratching and eviscerating his skin. “Get off of me!” He shook his leg and kicked me in the head. I flew backwards, shell-shocked. Blood dripped from my nose and I wiped it away, then I began to cackle.

Jack climbed in and froze, staring at us. “What the hell’s going on? I could you hear you guys inside the mini-mart.”

None of us answered. Travis stared at all of us in absolute shock. Thomas had fallen over and was paralyzed, not even bothering to try to speak. Then I just started laughing and laughing.

* * *

I woke up in the passenger seat, my feet propped up on the dashboard. After harassing Travis during the weed trip, I hopped into the driver’s seat and slammed on the gas pedals. I don’t know why I did this. I just remember feeling like I had too, you know? After slamming down on the gas, I then hit this poor fucker’s motorcycle, and broke the mirror. It fell onto the asphalt, denting it’s side. It was then that Jack grabbed the steering wheel from me, and drove for me. I settled into the passenger seat, and went to sleep.

Jack was sitting next to me, driving, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Travis was laying down across the front row of seats, staring out the window, and Thomas was sitting in the second row, with his nose in a book.

“So you’re finally awake.” Jack said, taking a drag from his cigarette.

I rubbed my eyes and yawned. I sat up in my seat and said, “Yeah… finally.” I looked out the window and saw grassy hills with bonafide mansions on top of them. “Where the hell are we?” I asked.

Jack took the cigarette out of his mouth and said, “Well, we wanted to go to the beach.”

“So is this where all the rich assholes live?”
Jack turned to me and asked, “What, you jealous or something?”

“Not jealous, just confused. What city are we in?”

Jack shrugged, “I don’t know man, we just looked at a map and followed the roads here.”

We were lost and Jack didn’t want to admit it.

“You know what these roads remind me of?” Jack asked turning to me.

I looked out the window and saw a mountain range stretching over the horizon. I could almost imagine each individual insect, animal, and tree, all living together in divine symbiosis. It’s like when astronauts view the Earth from space and realize just how beautiful everything is.

“Payte?” Jack said again.

I shot my head back to face Jack, “Yeah? What do they remind you of?” I opened the glovebox and retrieved a pack of cigarettes. I stuck one in my mouth and lit it, then took a drag.

“Montana. I’ve been there a couple times, just to visit family, y’know?”

My eyes glazed over, and my cigarette dropped out of my mouth. “Montana?”

Jack turned to me with a worried face, “Yeah…”

* * *

JACK’S FIRST EVER TASTE OF AN ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCE

Jack and his little sisters sat in the back of their father’s pickup truck, basking in the sunlight and wind. This car ride to Montana would’ve been quiet if not for Jack’s little sister, Sarah. Halfway there she leaned out of her car-seat, which rested unbuckled on the metal, and her binky fell out of her mouth, and onto the road. What would ensue was an hour of nonstop crying fits, and Jack desperately trying to calm her down. He hugged her, kissed her on the cheek, and gave her a noogie, but nothing would stop the onslaught of toddler snot and tears. It was only when Jack climbed through the window into the truck and retrieved another binky, that Sarah stopped crying.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jack’s father, Joe DeMarcy, boomed.

“Grabbing another binky for Sarah.” Jack said with a voice full of pubescent attitude. “Her’s fell onto the road.”

“Well, shove a sock in it or something, I can fucking hear it all way from here!”

What Jack wanted to say was, “And your fatass did nothing?” But all that managed to squeak out of his mouth was a seething of rage, “I know…”

Jack dug through an old, and tattered, duffelbag for Sarah’s old binky. He sifted through baby clothes climbed back through the window and sat on the metal, right next to Sarah. He gave her, her old binky, which she soon put in her mouth. A wide smile appeared on her face and she patted the back of Jack’s head in thanks.

The car ride continued on from there as normal. The sun blazed in their faces, illuminating their pale skin. Jack spent a good thirty-minutes with his hand over his eyes, blocking the sun out. Sarah sucked on her binky. She would regularly address Jack as, “Jag.” The second youngest sister, Sarah, read her children’s novel, “Cassandra Esquire, International Spy.”

They were heading to a farm owned by Jack’s uncle, Mike DeMarcy. It was twenty-five acres of wheat. The farmhouse was a stunning four-bedroom and two-bathroom, built in the 1920s. To the right of the farmhouse was a silo which held ground wheat.

The original owner, Matthew Gaites, was blind and had died by walking into the silo, thinking it was a bathroom. He was then suffocated by hundreds of pounds of wheat. If you asked Jack, he’d swear that Matthew haunted the damn place

Eventually, they got to the farmhouse and Jack and his little sisters climbed out of the truck. Mike and his wife, Gertrude, met the four of them on the porch.

“Hey there!” Mike called out. Joe walked up to him and they embraced.

Gertrude walked up to Jack and pinched his cheeks. “Oh, how you’ve grown! How tall are you now?”

Jack backed away from Gertrude and stared at her with a death-glar. “Five eight.”

“Well, don’t you want to be a Navy Seal? You need to grow some more to do that!” Said Gertrude, letting out a laugh that sounded more like a vulture’s cry.

The family chatted with each other for a couple hours and then it was time for dinner. Gertrude served a green bean casserole with chicken breast. She seemed to have no idea how to cook chicken as the inside was completely pink and resembled a rare steak than anything else. This made Jack wonder how it was possible to completely char the outside of a chicken breast, but have the inside remain raw. Obviously, Jack skipped that meal.

Jack’s room during the vacation would be the attic. At night he laid awake staring up at the spiderwebs on the ceiling. If Jack stared at them for too long, he would start feeling like things were crawling on him. He’d rub his arms and lift the blanket up to make sure that no spiders were on him.

He tossed and turned for what must’ve been an hour, until he decided to get out of bed. He climbed down the attic stairs on the tips of his toes, so as not to make too much noise. When he found himself downstairs, his eyes located a strange jar on top of the refrigerator, just behind a couple cardboard boxes. Being a curious thirteen-year-old, Jack used a chair and climbed on top of it to reach the jar. He grabbed it, and studied it. There were little red and orange gummies inside, some were slightly melted, and some were stuck to the edges of the glass.

“Is this… candy?” Jack softly whispered to himself.

Jack twisted the lid open and grabbed a handful of them. He stuffed the entire handful into his mouth and chewed them. His face contorted as he tasted the weird plant-like aftertaste on his throat. Once the taste passed, Jack shrugged it off and went back upstairs.

Soon, another hour passed and he felt a strange sensation of warmth pass over him as his entire body began to vibrate. He sat on the bed giggling madly.

During this time, many thoughts passed through his head:

“What if dogs are like us, and they have, like, feelings and shit?”

“Maybe everyone just has the same soul?”

“Holy shit, these animal crackers are good.”

It wouldn’t be long until he went back to the kitchen to raid the pantry for snacks. Whatever seemed good to him at that moment would be viciously eaten. By the end of the night, the pantry was almost entirely bare.

* * *

We were out in the middle of nowhere, treading down a dark highway. The moon and stars were above us, shining their ominous light down upon us. We had been heading somewhere North-West for a good hour or too. So far, we had seen no other cars. And, if I’m being honest here, I was starting to get the creeps. Here I was in bum-fuck-Egypt with nothing around me but the moths circling the head-lights, and the fucking trees. It was as if we had been sequestered out of civilization. Though, we had already done that to ourselves.

The four of us had stayed up for eighteen hours doing nothing but smoking weed and taking tabs of acid. Usually, smoking weed would’ve made us pass out in just a couple hours. But, the weed we got at the gas-station, made us stay awake. That, and the occasional psychotic episode.

“Payte!” Travis called out.

Whatever was in the weed made me feel like I was on crack. My eyelids were glued open, my muscles were tense, my heart was beating so loud I could feel it through my entire—

“PAYTE!”

I slammed my fist into the steering wheel, “What?! What is it?” I turned to Travis, bearing my teeth.

“You’re going eighty in a forty-five.”

“Oh shit, you’re right.” I pressed my foot onto the brake pedal and gently slowed down to a calming speed of fifty-miles-per-hour.

“Travis.” I said, sneaking a glance towards him, “Pass me another tab, and take one for yourself too. Actually, fuck it, have everyone take two tabs. It’s gonna be a long night.”

Travis froze for a moment looking at me with raised eyebrows, “Are you alright? That sounds like a lot.”

“Yes, it is. Congratulations, you can do basic math! Now, are you gonna pass me a tab or what?”

“Yeah, yeah, totally.” Travis said sheepishly. He opened the glove box and pulled out a whole sheet of blotters. “Uh, Payte?” Travis said softly, in a heavy breath.

I shot my head to the right, staring into Travis’s soul. “What is it?”

“There’s only like four left.”

“You’re lying to me. Come on, give it.” I sniped the sheet away from Travis and held it up to the windshield, focusing on the road, and on the acid. Originally, it was a little colorful bear on it. But, now all that was left, was the feet of the bear. It might’ve been the weed talking, but I almost felt bad for the bear. If only I could’ve apologized to it.

“Fuck it…” I said under my breath.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m taking all of them.”

“Come on, man! Don’t—“

Travis’s words were futile. By the time he opened his mouth I had already stuffed the entire thing into my mouth. I guesstimated that it was at least six-hundred micrograms of high-powered, eye-watering, psychotic, acid. Combined with the acid I had already taken during those eighteen-hours, it must’ve been somewhere around sixteen-hundred micrograms. Oh, you can bet your ass I was flying.

The last time I had taken that amount, everything around me turned into a dark void. I believed that I was God and had made everything up for my own amusement. During this trip I had supposedly pissed on Thomas while he was sleeping. He then shot a left hook to my face, which knocked me out of the trip.

We drove on for a good thirty more minutes, the darkness to our backs. I came to a sign that said, “COLUMBUS, OHIO, THIRTY MILES,” and I found myself unable to take my gaze off the sign. There was something about it. It’s shade and lettering that was just beautiful. It was my muse, and it was hypnotizing, like the stares of a cat circling on your chest. This is how I knew the acid was kicking in.

I soon found myself with the desire to vomit my fucking brains out. Whether your taking mescaline, shrooms, or acid, it’s common knowledge that once you puke, that’s when the real trip begins.

I slammed on the brakes and flung my door open. As the world spun before me, I fell to my knees on the ground and began vomiting. Everything that I had eaten was suddenly spewing out of me. Once it was over, I wiped my mouth and laid on the ground, panting.

I caught my breath and climbed back inside the van. I sniffled and said, “Man, I think it’s hitting.”

Travis stared back at me. The color of his skin had turned pink. His appendages all stretched and swarmed around the van. “Og ot deen, etyaP” His speech had turned satanic. The Travis I knew was gone, and had been replaced by a demon.

Thomas stared at me behind the seat. His jaw was stretched out like that of a horse. His beady eyes morphed and changed into an infinite amount of particles, a stairway leading to heaven.

Jack bounced and hopped around like a chipmunk on methamphetamine. Or maybe dimethyltryptamine. His orange saucers peered into the cosmos and sunk down into the pockets of his flesh.

Nothing is okay. Everything is wrong. Nothing is okay. Everything is wrong. Nothing is okay. Everything is wrong. Nothing is okay. Everything is wrong. Nothing is okay. Everything is wrong. Nothing is okay. Everything is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Everything is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Everything is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Wrong.

I took off running into the space fields of emeralds, panting like yesterday. The fields of martian architecture stretched out over the horizon, blanketing the sky in an ocean of the blood of the masses. Hyper-extended chords wrapped and choked around my membrane. They stretched out to pull down the curtains of my isosceles and kill it.

Hold on, pause. Fast forward. Fast forward. Keep fast-forwarding. Stop, there!

Are humans made of shit? If we were to take a device with three glass-chambers (Going left to right), and place literal shit in the left chamber, a human in the middle chamber, and heat it up, would gold appear? In the movie, The Holy Mountain (directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky in 1973) this is a real thing that happens.

My mission here is to convince you that, yes, you can turn shit into gold. It requires, just like in the movie, hours and hours of heat applied TO the piece of shit, and to the human. Though, I will explain this more later on.

Human shit is precisely seventy-five percent water, and twenty-five percent solid waste. An argument could be made that humans are shit, but this is besides the point.

The twenty-five percent of solid waste is made out of:

Cellular lining. (Ex. What is shed out of the intestinal lining and all that… shit)

Plant fibers.

Fats.

Proteins.

Mucus.

Bile.

And Microbes.

Meanwhile, gold is made out of atoms. But, did you know, that if you keep getting smaller and smaller on the atomic level, all of the atoms are the same? This exact thing is described in Alex R. James’s 2016 article on the scale of atoms.

All we would need to do is break down the piece of shit to it’s molecular compounds, using heat. And using the molecules from the sweat of a human being, the atoms would combine to make, you guessed it, GOLD.

YOU CAN LITERALLY TURN SHIT, HUMAN SHIT, INTO GOLD.

* * *

It was one in the morning (just a few months ago) when I parked Bessie next to a gas pump. There was a mini-mart nearby, with it’s neon signs flashing in the dark. The entire area smelled like those types of hot-dogs on those little rollers that you aren’t really sure is actually meat. It was terrible.

I had just spent the past two weeks driving around Oregon, working odd-jobs for money. My first one was a temporary kennel tech at a veterinarian hospital. I did get to hang out with puppies, but having to clean up vomit, shit, and piss wasn’t fun. I soon quit that job, and moved on to other opportunities. The last one, up until this point, was doing landscaping for a small company. I never got paid much from any of these jobs.

Those two weeks away from home made me realize how fake the bubble I lived in was. There wasn’t a single authentic person in that trailer-park. They all made faces and sang and dance, but given the opportunity, and they’d fuck you over. You could smell their bullshit from a mile away. I was better than them, and I knew it. I was better than the fuckin’ sidewalk they all stepped on. If I had stayed there, I would’ve become just like them.

Back at the gas station, I stepped outside and put cash into the gas pump. I turned to my right and saw a kid sitting on the sidewalk, staring off into space. He kind of looked like a gay Kurt Cobain, but with a larger and more angular nose. He didn’t do much other than stare at me.

Once I was done filling the van up with gas, I started walking to the mini-mart doors. When I passed the Cobain-lookalike he turned to me and stretched his hand out. “Got any cash?”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out five-dollars. I placed it in the palm of his hand and walked inside.

The guy at the counter wore a white bandanna, and was sitting in a chair. I could tell by his red eyes that he was stoned. All he needed was a band t-shirt and he’d be the perfect stereotype.

“Get me a pack of camels.” I said with a smirk.

“Sure, but one thing.”

“Yeah?” I said sharply, my smirk falling.

“Got I.D?”

I bit my lip and looked around with a manic stare. “Listen, your stoned at work. It might be bad if someone were to call your manager. Right?”

The cashier was taken aback. He reached for a pack of camels and placed em’ on the counter. “Listen, man, you don’t even gotta pay for these.”

I grabbed the pack of cigarettes and slid them into my pocket. “Thanks.” I said, walking out.

I stepped out of the mini-mart and stood next to the doors, smoking. The gay little Kurt Cobain looked at me. “Could I have a smoke?”

I nodded, “Sure.” I handed him the cigarette and lit it for him. He took a puff and immediately blew the smoke out. “You’re supposed to inhale it, you know.” I said. This time he took an even bigger puff, coughed a little, and exhaled.”There ya’ go.”

We stood in silence for a while until he said, “My name’s Travis. What’s yours?”

“Payte.”

“So what brings you out here… Payte?” Travis said to me as he took a long draw of his cigarette. He started coughing as he blew the smoke out, though he covered his mouth this time.

“What?” I asked. I didn’t expect (nor wanted) him to talk to me, so I was caught off guard.

“What brings you out here of all places?”

I shrugged. My cigarette went out and I reached into my pocket to retrieve it. “Reasons.”

“Reasons, huh?”

“Yeah, what’s it to you?”

“I don’t know, just trying to make some friendly conversation. That’s all.”

“Well, stop.”

We both fell into silence, enjoying our cigarettes. As I began to think about the interaction, I felt a pang of shame. How could I be such a dick to him? Acting that way made me look bad, and that’s not something that I would accept. I had to do something.

I took one last drag of my cigarette and threw it on the ground, then stomped it out. I walked over to Travis and put on a little smile. “We got off on the wrong foot there, sorry about that.” I said, stretching my hand out.

Travis looked up at me and shook my hand. His handshake was strong, and I knew that I had to be stronger, so I gripped his tired old bones as hard as I could.

“You think I could steal a bottle of wine from this place?” I asked.

Travis took a puff of his cigarette and blew out smoke. “Probably. But you gotta share it with me.”
I grimaced. “Sure.”

I walked back inside the gas station and saw that the cashier had fallen asleep in his chair. His head hung low, his chin touching his chest. Little snores came from his open mouth.

The wine-rack was right next to the door. What a stupid place for liquor, I thought. Now, which bottle should I grab? The one with the pony on it, or the one with the grape-branch? Red wine, or white wine? Eh, fuck it, I’ll grab both. I grabbed the two bottles of wine and walked to the door. I waved a goodbye to the sleeping cashier and walked outside.

“Here ya go.” I said, handing the bottle of red wine to Travis.

I took a seat next to him and I popped open the wine cork with my thumb. Travis struggled to get his open. I took it from his hands and pressed my thumb to the cork. It popped open and I handed it back to him.

We spent the next two hours sitting on that curb, drinking and chattering like school-girls.

“You know something, man.” I blurted out. There was about half of the wine remaining. I brought it to my lips and took a sip.

“Wuh-what is it?” Travis said. The kid could not handle his alcohol. He was near drunk and had only taken four or five swigs. There was still a good amount of wine remaining.

“I was feeling quite lonely before I talked to you. But you made me feel better, I think I’ll keep you around for a long time.”

Travis giggled, “Well, thanks.”

“You know, I’m on a road-trip.”

“To… to where?” Travis said, wiping his mouth.

I shrugged. “I don’t quite know where yet. Right now I’m kind of just going wherever the road takes me.”

“That, uh, sounds… nice.” Travis burped.

I downed the rest of the wine and threw the bottle. It shattered against the asphalt, a few shards landing near my feet. “You wanna come with?”

Travis’s eyes went wide. “You really want someone like me to come with?”

“Well, yeah. Your a nice kid, funny too. I think you’d make some great company.” My eyes had gone flat.

“Alright, when do we leave?”

“Right now.”

“But… we’re drunk…”

“So?” I said, laughing. “That shit doesn’t matter. I’ve never gotten pulled over. I’m the best fuckin’ driver on this planet, I’ll beat anyone in a race. Your in good hands, trust me.”

Travis nodded. “Alright.” He wiped his mouth and stood up. “Let’s go!”

* * *

During the acid trip, I had run out of the van, and into the woods. The guys chased after me, and had to hold me down as I squirmed and flung punches their way.

“Payte’s right there! Get him!”

Because of my acid-soaked brain I was convinced I was being hunted by ghosts. I turned around and swung a right-hook into the ghost’s face.

“He fucking hit me! The little shit!”

Once the ghosts gained control of me, they hauled me into the van. Now all I could do was wait for the trip to calm down. I must’ve spent an un-calculable amount of hours, laying in the passenger seat, shaking and squirming.

Eventually, the trip passed and I fell asleep I turned my head to the left and saw Travis sleeping soundly with his seat back, and his feet propped up on the driver’s wheel. The fact that we had not gotten in a crash soothed me. If we had, Travis’s legs would’ve been completely fucked.

I shook my head, trying to get the image of Travis getting kebabed by his own bones out of my head. The keys to Bessie were still in the ignition. I twisted them and Bessie started up with a rumble, almost a gurgling.

We had been parked in the dirt for a long time. “Travis.” I muttered. “Travis!”

Travis shook awake. “Payte, what the fuck? I was having a good dream.”

“We need to get going. Let me drive.”

Travis let out a groan, but stepped outside nonetheless. He slammed the door, and I hopped into the driver’s seat. I reversed off the dirt and onto the road. We came onto the asphalt with the tires bouncing. I slammed on the gas pedals and the tires spun in the dirt. Soon, we accelerated down the road, and off into the sun-rise.

The hours passed slowly. When you drive for long periods, you tend to enter this almost dissociative daze. Your head becomes foggy, so much so that you literally feel the fogginess. I only snapped out of this driver’s-fog when I came close to veering off the edge of the road.

Everyone soon woke up on their own, by the third hour the van was lively with idle chatter.

“Look at the tits on this chick!” Travis said, holding up a page of the porno mag. Thomas stared with lustful eyes, while Jack maintained the same cold glare he always had on.

“How many times have you looked at that photo?” Asked Jack.

“Hey man,” Travis started. “It’s not like we got a billion porno-mags laying around, alright? We gotta take what we already got.”

Thomas sniped the magazine out of Travis’s hands and turned around. “I’m going in the trunk.”

Travis gasped. “Hey! That’s mine.” As soon as the words left his mouth, the trunk had already been closed.

Jack’s eyes sped across the room. Eventually, they landed on Travis, and he asked, “Well, you wanna split a joint?”

Travis shrugged, “Sure.”

thump thump thump

Jack reached over for the plastic ziplock bag of weed. As he rolled the joint, Travis fidgeted with a tear on the leather seats, desperately trying to ignore the sounds of Thomas jerking off in the trunk.

thump thump thump

“Hey!” I called to the back of the van. “Where the fuck’s my joint?” I put my hand behind me and made a grabbing motion.

“You can get the roach.” Jack said, staring at Travis while they both giggled.

thump thump thump

“Hey, fuck you too then. I drive you guys everywhere, sometimes I like a joint after a long day.”

“Every day’s a long day, for everyone!” Travis snickered, locking eyes with Jack.

thump thump thump

Jack finished rolling the joint and he lit it, twirling the J in his hands so it could get an even coating of the flame.

thump thump thump thump

Once it had cherried, he brought it to his lips and took a hit.

thumpthumpthumpthumpthump

He exhaled little smoke rings and passed it to Travis.

thumpthumpthumpthump thump… thump… thump… aaahhhhhhhh

Travis then took a hit and exhaled smoke rings too, though they looked more like little rectangles.

Soon the van was completely engulfed in smoke. It was so thick I was having trouble seeing the road. Hell, I’m pretty sure I got a contact high from the smoke a lone.

Thomas had gotten out of the trunk. I noticed his eyes were scanning the room. He must’ve been trying to tell if we heard him in the trunk or not. The truth is, everyone knows you masturbate. Maybe it’s when you grab tissues from the bathroom and say, “Man, my nose is really runny today.” Or maybe they can hear you huff and puff like a fucking dog. Or, maybe, just maybe, it’s the fact they can smell your three-day-old cumrags stuffed in the side of your bed. In short, we didn’t say anything to Thomas out of fear of making it awkward.

After another hour or two, we reached a truck-stop and I parked just outside the diner. I climbed in the back and rolled a joint. We passed it around in circles, and as my mother would say, we talked about nothing. Nothing at all.

“Dude,” Travis said softly, “Earth is a prison.”

Jack exhaled the smoke and passed the joint to Thomas. “Yeah? What, uh, what do you mean by that?”

“I mean, man, you can’t leave the atmosphere. Even NASA couldn’t.”

Thomas snickered and passed the J to Travis, “Bullshit. The moon landing was real.”

“No it wasn’t, dipshit.” I said. “The flag was moving, even though space is a vacuum. And, plus, the bootprints don’t even match the boots that Louie Armstrong, or whatever, wore.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “Your a moron. The flag was moving due to the solar wind.”

“Yeah? And what about the bootprints? They don’t fucking match!”

Travis and Jack locked eyes, trying to stifle the laughter. Jack pressed his lips to the joint and inhaled. He blew out smoke and said, “Yeah, and what about those uh… those um… those hairs on the rocks and shit. Right?”

“Fuck you guys,” Thomas said, “I’m going in the trunk. Your ignorance is clouding my vision!”

“Don’t forget the tissues!” I called out.

Thomas flipped me off one last time and closed the trunk.