H: Chapter Sixteen

“Maybe we should go to rehab.” Thomas muttered. He was laying across the seats with his eyes closed, bathing in the warmth of smack.

After Travis came to the bar, we had a few drinks and then went on our way. We made it out of Pittsburgh and headed to Cleveland for more supply. H, acid, coke, weed, your name it, we had it. What would commence after the gathering of the supply, would be a fucked-up psychotic episode of hedonistic drug-use. There was no edge anymore, we had gone over it.

The sun was currently setting, creating an orange and pink hue throughout the sky. Such sights are regularly seen on the road. In hindsight, if we weren’t drug fiends, we probably would’ve had a much better time on the road.

“Fuck rehab.” I said. I was sitting in the driver’s seat with a cigarette clenched between my teeth. I had just dropped a tab of acid, and the road was currently swarming like a snake. “Rehab is nothing but a corporate scam that profits off of repeat customers. It ain’t what you think it is.”

Thomas rolled his eyes and said, “Well, have you ever been to rehab?”

I nodded. “Sure, I have. And it sucked!”

Jack snickered, “I’m pretty sure you’ve never been to rehab, Payte. It’s pretty nice.”

“Well why don’t you get the fuck out of here and go off to rehab? Since you apparently need it so much.”

Jack shook his head, “Men don’t argue with boys, Payte.”

I stuck my hand out from behind me and flipped Jack off. “Fuck you.”

“Uhuh,” Jack mumbled.

We continued driving in silence. Travis was busy looking at the porno-magazine, while Thomas and Jack were busy doing fuck-all. Every once in a while I’d have Travis hand me another tab, which I would then place on my tongue. Soon, the road was now wavering like that of ocean waves. Before I knew it, I was looking into the rear-view mirror. I noticed that my reflection had transformed into that of a goat-man. No fur, or anything, but my jaw was distended like that of a goat. I had become an animal, surrendering to the instincts in my genetic memory.

I could see it now. My cave-man ancestors all fucked and danced around the fire while they slaughtered hundreds of tigers and rabbits. I could see all their enemies heads on the stakes around the fire. For them, it was time to eat.

The day’s drive ended when we hit a long-ass traffic jam just outside Columbus, Ohio. We would’ve gone straight to Pittsburgh, but the highway was closed due to a rock slide. No cars had moved for an hour. It was certain that we’d be there for quite a while, so I had Jack sift through the trunk for more substances.

“We still have some coke.” Jack said.. “Some absinthe too.”

“Fuck it, I’ll do a bump.” I said.

“Me too.” Travis and Thomas said at the same time. For the past hour they had been engrossed in one big poker-game. They were using the stems of shrooms to bet.

I watched Jack in the rear-view mirror, sifting through the trunk. He paused for a moment, and I could see the cold rage in his eyes. “Alright…” He growled. “Who the fuck stole it?”

“Who stole what?” Thomas asked, innocently.

“THE FUCKING PERCS! WHO STOLE MY FUCKNG PERCS?” Jack bared his teeth and began throwing shit all over the van. He knocked over bags of trash and landed his fist into the walls of the van.

Jack turned around and stared at Thomas. “You stole them didn’t you? You better fucking tell me where they are!”

Thomas tried to speak, but he couldn’t. All that could come out were gasps. The poor kid was terrified beyond belief. It took Travis and me grabbing Jack by the shoulders and throwing him to the ground for him to finally stop his tantrum.

“Fuck you all.” Jack called out as he kicked a trash-bag, sending it flying into the air. “I’m hitching out of here.” Jack slid open the van door, and jumped out of the van.

We all stared at each-other, wondering what the fuck just happened. There was a few minutes of silence until Travis sat up and said, “I’ll go after him. The idiot’s gonna get himself killed.”

Thomas raised his head and said, “Yeah, I’ll go too.”

“After all that?” Travis said.

“Yeah…”

* * *

Thomas and Travis wandered the highway. The sun had just fully set above the mountains, creating a dim gradient of blue to black. Together, they checked each ditch, gas station, and hill. But still, they found nothing. It had been two hours, and they were already exhausted.

I had gotten out of the shit-heap that was traffic, and parked at a truck-stop. There I sat, waiting for the call telling me they found Jack. Every now and then I’d get bored of the silence and call them:

“You find him yet?”

“Nope, still looking.”

Then they’d hang up, and I’d phone them again:

“You haven’t found him yet? The fuck’s taking so long?”

“We’re still looking, Payte.”

Was Jack just a fucking ghost? Had he disappeared to Narnia?

But the last time I called them, I was given good news. They saw Jack in a ditch just up ahead, about three miles away from the van. The fucker had traveled far. It was impressive how short it took him.

“If you’re gonna haul me back to the van, you can just leave.” Jack whimpered. His eyes seemed frozen on the ground, quivering with sadness.

“We’re here to take you back to the van. But, if you wanna leave, you can leave. I wouldn’t recommend it though.” Travis chimed in.

Jack shook his head, “It’s for the better that I just stay away from everyone.”
“That’s not true.” Thomas said.

“Jack, we had some good times. Remember when we all got chased out of the strip club?” Travis said.

Jack let out a stiff chuckle. “Yeah, I do.” A melancholic smile stretched over his face.

Thomas cleared his throat, “Remember back in San Francisco when we popped a tire—“

“And I stole one off the back of a Jeep?” Jack finished, laughing to himself.

The three of them fell into silence. Jack held a stick in his right hand and absentmindedly etched lines into the dirt. Travis looked around lazily, taking in all of the cars cramped on the highway. Thomas breathed in and out, slowly and methodically.

“I had a dream…” Jack said, half-whispering.

“Oh? What was it about?” Thomas asked.

“My mom… I think. She walked out when I was little.”

“What was she doing?” Thomas queried.

Jack shrugged, “The one memory I have of her. I was… under a table or something, hiding.”

“At least you had a mom.” Thomas mumbled. “I just grew up in foster homes.”

“Why were you hiding?” Travis asked.

“From her. I don’t know her too well, you know?”

Travis chuckled, and Jack gave him a crooked side-eye. This shut Travis right down, who then said, “Sorry, I was just thinking. How did we go through all of this, and still be here? It feels like we should’ve just been gone a long time ago.”

Jack gave another half-hearted shrug. “You know why that is?”

“No.”

“Because we like living.”

* * *

Thomas’s first foster-home was anything but a home. His foster-mother was an eighty-year-old who had boarded up all windows and doors, named Linda. To even step foot inside the home, you would have to take your shoes off and place them in a plastic bag. Linda would regularly speak about how the government was spying on her. They also supposedly put micro-chips in her food. It didn’t help that Linda was a massive stoner, and always had a joint in her hands.

The second foster-home was a cabin in New Hampshire owned by a man named, “Weasel.” He was a veteran of the Vietnam war. Weasel would regularly tell Thomas about his adventures in Vietnam. When talking about fucking a forty-year-old prostitue, he used the phrase, “It was like fucking a jar of mayo,” to Thomas’s dismay.

It was here in Flagstaff that Thomas gained his love of reading. Weasel had a myriad of novels and stories. Everything from Thomas Pynchon to Joe Myers was on that book-shelf. Thomas would regularly spend hours after school, reading. Even in math class he would place his book in his lap and not-so-discreetly read.

Weasel sadly died on the afternoon of a hunt. When aiming for a deer, a gust of wind shot his gun up and fired it into his stomach. Luckily, he survived by bandaging himself up. It was only when he ate a part of Thomas’s banana that he died of anaphylaxis.

After this stint in Flagstaff, Thomas moved to New Hampshire to leave with a woman named Sammy. Sammy owned and operated a weed farm. She was also an advocate for psychedelics. One time, Thomas got a hold of her DMT pen, and thinking that it was weed, took a ten-second long rip. He never did speak about the high, but we all assumed it was very bad. Whatever had happened during the high caused CPS to get involved. Sammy was then sent to prison and Thomas found a new “home” in San Francisco.

You could probably say that Thomas was the most experienced traveler out of all of us. The poor bastard had traveled since the day he was born. Though this type of traveling had taken it’s toll on him. He fell behind in school and never really made any good friends. I mean, how do you even establish good relationships if you’re only spending a few months at most, in each town? It’s nigh impossible.

When a human goes through the same suffering day after day, you become accustomed to it. After a while, it felt strange to Thomas if he stayed in the same place for so long. His brain was so used to traveling, he became anxious if he wasn’t constantly on the move.

Thomas learned to accept the cards he was dealt. He was forced to learn that he would never have a home. It would always be a temporary stay.

* * *

We were part of the generation raised on near endless entertainment. What this has done to our already short attention-span has been costly, to say the least. Feeling bored? Scroll. Wanna see a hot woman who doesn’t know you exist? Scroll. Why go out and have a beer with friends? I got all I need right here. Perhaps this is where our addictions took root, where they sunk their fangs in and injected their poisoned-love into our hearts.

When you’re traveling on the road, you wait. A lot. It’s monotonous. Kind of. Like this. It goes on. And on. And on. There’s no end in sight.

During these times, you have three things you can do:

1. 1. 1. Masturbate

      2. Meditate

      3. Masturbate

If you’re by yourself, it can also get pretty lonely. With all these things said, traveling has it’s perks. That is, if you can look past all the negatives. You get to see your dumbass friends nearly kill each other. You get to see beautiful sunsets. And, lastly, you learn a lot about yourself.

When Travis and Thomas left, I decided to pull into the nearest gas-station. I filled up the van, got some snacks for the road, and reclined in the front-seat. And let me tell you, sitting in that parking lot for three hours straight, with nothing to keep your mind occupied, does things to you. First, you notice that the fat guy who just walked in, had his shirt on backwards. But then you question yourself. So, you gotta check again to make sure you were right. And, did that guy walk in holding a gun? And he left with a bag of cash? Did I just witness a stickup? This shit fucks you up.

You always thought that there were two kinds of people: Those who have no idea what the fuck they’re doing, and those who know what they’re doing. And then you finally realize something. No one has a single clue what they’re doing on this Earth. You start to feel better about yourself, and then you feel bad, because you’re just like everyone else. Your uniqueness has been taken away because of your great intellect. You’re such a genius that it’s too… what’s the word? Oh, yeah, to your marring.

You see, all I want is for something real to happen. I want people to actually listen, not just twist their faces like they’re listening. I want humans to feel not just sing and dance and fucking smile as they pretend to feel. I don’t want them to process. I want them to be real. But that never happens.

And then, after all this thinking, you start to have a weird existential crisis. Am I actually feeling? Or am I just so accustomed to putting on a mask I don’t even realize it anymore? How do I know that I exist? What if the only thing that exists is me, and I’m just hallucinating? You realize just how trippy life is. Like the fact that you’re literally a brain trying to figure yourself out. Or, let’s take this another step further, that you’re the universe reflecting in on itself.

You know that if you keep thinking like this you’re gonna have a break. Your heart rate is spiking, you can feel it about to burst in your chest, you suddenly feel sweaty and hot, you can’t stop—

“Alright! That’s it!” I yelled. I had just spent two hours sitting on my ass and twiddling my thumbs, and I was done.

I reached into the glove compartment for a baggy of coke. I opened the bag and stuffed my nose into it. I took just about the biggest inhale of my life and sat back in my chair, letting the mucus drip down my throat. When I felt good enough to drive, I reached for two tabs of acid and placed them on my tongue.

With my mind out of the picture I drove out of the gas station and got onto the highway. The coke and acid must’ve done something my body, as I was shaking incessantly. I began to swerve all over the road, barely missing cars. The road started to sway and morph. Soon enough, I had no idea where I was.

The visuals were so intense, I had no choice but to close my eyes. And when I opened them, I saw a black truck coming straight for me. I screamed and flung the steering-wheel to the left, plummeting down into a ditch.

* * *

I stepped out of the van and stumbled around. I felt like I was in a dream, completely dazed. Nothing felt real. There was also this killer pain floating around in my head.

I leaned against the van and wiped the sweat off my forehead. I looked down at my hand and saw blood dripping off. It was amazing that I didn’t die, though that might’ve been the better option, in hindsight.

Before I knew it, three kids were running up to me. “Holy shit.” One of them called out.

“Is he okay?” A different one called out.

I looked up and blinked a little. Everything seemed kind of foggy. When my vision cleared I saw Travis and the guys standing there. “Travis?” I said softly. “I-Is that you?”

“He crashed the fucking van again.” Jack said. “What are we supposed to do now?”

I groaned from the pain in my head. I sat down on the dirt and buried my face in my lap. “Just… just gimme a second, please.”

“Travis!” Jack called out.

Travis spun around and faced Jack, “What is it?”

“Pop the hood, I’m gonna check the damage.”

They must’ve fidgeted with the van for a good hour. Or that’s what it felt like. I was so disoriented I really had no idea how much time passed.

Before I knew it, Jack was climbing into the driver’s seat. He put the key into the ignition and twisted it. I stood up and reached my hand inside, and onto Jack’s shoulder. “You’re gonna flood it.” I said. “Lemme do it.”

Jack shook his head, “Fuck you, I’m not gonna flood it.” He twisted the key again and the van rumbled, but it still didn’t start.

“See?” I said. “You fuckin’ flooded it.”

“I did not fucking flood it!” Jack twisted the key and the rumbling started, but the van did come to life.

“Just get out.” I yelled. “Get the fuck out!”

Jack grimaced and stared at me with pupils full of rage. “Fuck you, Payte. The van’s all screwed up because of you.” He opened the door and stepped onto the dirt.

I climbed in and twisted the key. The van came to life and I shouted in glee, “See? I knew I could do it! And none of you fuckin’ believed me!” Just as I finished my sentence, the van spontaneously shut off. I sighed and stepped out.

I turned to the group, who were watching with shit-eating grins on their face. “We’re gonna need a tow-strap.” I said.