H: Chapter Four

We came to learn that the other man in our jail cell was named Johnny. He was in there for the attempted murder of a guy who was stealing his car. Johnny knew that he was gonna get sent to prison, thus he made a deal with us.

“They don’t prosecute for drunk-driving here, the police have better things to do.” Johnny explained.

“But, we also stole a car…” Travis said.

“Yeah, but the car hasn’t been registered as stolen yet. They’ll let you out in, like, a week.”

Travis and I both locked eyes and smiled. It seemed things were going to turn out well for us.

“Once you two get out, I want you to deliver a package to this strip club. It’s shrooms”

“Which club?” I asked.

“Lizzy’s, on Bank street.”

“So you have the shrooms on you?” Travis asked.

Johnny gave a slight smile and laughed, “Yes.”

“Where?”

“…”

“Oh…”

Travis and I faced the wall while Johnny did his business. We wanted no part in it.

“Aw, dude.” Travis said after something dropped into the toilet. He grimaced and plugged his ears.

“Don’t look!” I growled.

“I wasn’t!”

Johnny stood up and grabbed his pants. Once he pulled them up, he turned around and began fishing through the toilet. He grabbed the two bags of shrooms and tossed them to us. Travis squirmed away as they landed on the bed. “There you go.” Johnny said. He took a seat on the floor in the corner.

“Thanks…” I mumbled.

* * *

“Come on, you can keep walking, we’re almost there.” Jack said.

“Yeah, only ten more miles to go…” Thomas replied sheepishly.

Thomas and Jack had been walking down the highway for three hours. It seemed as if every car in existence had suddenly disappeared. You would think that there would be many people traveling to Des Moines, but not at that hour. The only thing around them was the lonely road, the corn-fields, and the mountains in the far-off distance. But every once in a while, and out of the blue, they would see a rock.

“I can’t walk anymore, man,” Thomas said as he panted, “I can’t.” He fell onto his knees and pressed his palms to the ground. Spit bubbles oozed from his lips and leaked onto the asphalt. Snot ran down from his nose and down his throat. His voice was raspy and deteriorated. Thomas would speak in between coughing fits. “We need to get a ride…”

“Do you see any cars around here? How can we hitch-hike?” Jack said as he started walking away from Thomas. He got a few steps away, before he looked back. Thomas was laying down on the side of the road, his face buried into the dirt. “If you don’t get up, I’m leaving your ass here.” Jack said.

Thomas looked up and wiped snot from his nose. “You say that, but you also know that you won’t.”

Jack sighed and walked over to where Thomas was laying. “Yeah, you’re right.” He laid down next to him and asked, “You really can’t walk anymore?” Jack already knew the answer from the sound of Thomas’s ragged breathing. The air entering his nostrils and exiting them sounded like a ventilator machine.

“I can’t…” Thomas muttered.

“Then I’ll carry you.”

Jack was obsessed with becoming a Navy Seal. Back at his home in Oregon, he followed a brutal exercise regiment. A hundred push-ups, a hundred sit-ups, a hundred mountain climbers, and fifty pull-ups three times a week. Then on the days in between that, he would run three miles each day and do a hundred squats as a fifty pound weight was balanced on his head. (He actually amputated his thumb when the weight fell on him one time) And finally, on the weekends, Jack would relax and soak in ice baths. So when the time came to finally put his training to use by helping Thomas, he did it in a heartbeat.

“Really? You’d do that?” Asked Thomas as he barely lifted his head up.

Jack nodded his head, “Totally.”

Thomas slowly got to his knees and stood up. Jack crouched down and allowed Thomas to climb onto him. With Thomas clinging on to his shoulders, Jack began moving forward. At first, he walked at a snail’s pace. But, as soon as he got used to the weight, he began moving much faster.

An hour had passed when Jack needed a break. He was determined to prove something, though he wasn’t sure what that was. Perhaps it was to prove that he was strong and meant something, but no one truly knows what’s going on in a person’s mind. Not even the person in question does.

He only rested when he physically could not move anymore. By the end of it, Jack’s legs felt like jello. His bones felt like they were crushed and the feeling of fire ran up and down his veins. This being said, Jack’s shoulders didn’t hurt in the slightest, they were just completely numb.

When the hour was over Jack and Thomas sat on the side of the road. Thomas was almost completely fine, though his arms hurt from holding on to Jack. Meanwhile, Jack panted and groaned.

“We need to hitch-hike.” Jack moaned. “There’s no fucking way I’m walking anymore. I’m done.” Jack collapsed onto the ground. “I’m done!”

Thomas nodded, “Yeah, I understand that.”

Jack slowly sat up and groaned. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to help them, man.”

Thomas sighed, “Yeah, how are we even going to come up with the money?”

Jack shrugged and felt a deep cramp in his shoulders. He reeled his head back and winced, “We could sell the coke, but there’s not enough for a thousand dollars worth. We only got like one bump left.”

Just as the words left Jack’s mouth, there was a sudden light on the highway. Thomas craned his stiff neck to the side and saw two circular lights. “Dude, look! It’s a car!” Thomas said.

“Flag it down!” Jack shouted.

Thomas leapt into the middle of the road to get the car to stop. The driver slammed on the brakes and stepped out. To Thomas’s surprise, they weren’t angry.

“You two need a ride or something?” The driver said. He had long brown hair and reeked of weed. His eyes were red and he had a stupid-looking smile on his face.

“Yeah. We need to get to Des Moines.”

“That’s only ten miles away, we’ll get you there.” As the driver climbed back int the car he said, “Hop in!”

Thomas pulled Jack off from the ground and they climbed into the car. The inside of the vehicle smelled just about as expected. There was a middle-aged lady sitting in the passenger seat with a joint in between her fingers. She had long brown hair just like her husband, the driver.

The four of them exchanged pleasantries and introduced themselves. The driver was named Kent and his wife was named Sam. They had been traveling the entire Western World in their van after retiring at thirty-five-years-old.

Daniel and Sam were able to do this, as they started a little company in 1995 that specialized in making ribbed, and flavored, condoms. These condoms were also delivered to people. All you would have to do is call them and say that you would like an extra-pepperoni-pizza. In no less than fifteen minutes you would get a pizza and a ribbed condom that tasted like artificial grapes.

At the height of the company, Sam and Daniel were making two-thousands-dollars-an-hour. Once they decided to move on to greener pastures, they sold the company for one-million-dollars to a Russian business-man by the name of Daniil Urakava. Instead of only selling grape-flavored condoms, Mr. Urakava decided to sell flavored, XL, curved dildos, specifically designed to stimulate the G-Spot. This made the company worth seven-million at one point in time. But once he decided to sell Borscht flavored condoms, the company suddenly went bankrupt. Thomas and Jack learned all of this information from Sam and Kent in less than ten minutes.

Fifteen minutes into the car ride, Sam reached into the glove-box compartment and retrieved four, equally-sized, tabs of acid. “You guys ever smoke a joint while on the peak of an acid trip?” Sam asked.

Thomas shook his head sheepishly. For the entirety of the car ride, he had been focused on the cleavage in Sam’s shirt. Sam did notice Thomas staring, but decided not to say anything about it.

Jack instinctively reached over and grabbed the acid and joint, from Sam’s fingers. In one swift and decisive motion he put the tab of acid on his tongue and took a long, and drawn out, hit of the joint. He handed the joint back to Sam just as the tab had fully dissolved.

Kent turned his head back to look at Jack, “Hey,” He said, drawing out the ‘y’, “You guys never told us why you are hitch-hiking? Are you travelers like me and Sam?”

Thomas put a tab of acid in his mouth, and said, “Kind of. Our van broke down and when our friend went to get to a new battery, he got arrested. So… now we have to bail him out.” Thomas spoke in a slight sarcastic tone, which Kent picked up on. This made Kent believe that Thomas did not like me. But Thomas loves me. He even said that he would jump in front of a bullet for me, at one point in time.

Kent turned to Sam. “Hey, there’s an envelope in the glove box, could you get it?”

Sam nodded and retrieved the envelope. She gave it to Kent who took out a wad of cash and handed it to Jack. “This is two-thousand-dollars. Is that enough to bail your friend out?”

Jack looked at Thomas for a second, unsure of what to say. He turned back to Kent and said, “The bail is set at five-thousand. I don’t think you have that kind of money..”

Kent nodded and pulled out more cash from the envelope. “I told you guys that we were the CEO’s of a company. Trust me, we have enough.” He handed the cash to Jack, who counted through it and learned that it was six-thousand. Jack smiled and winked at Thomas, then shoved the cash into the pockets of his hunter-green, military jacket.