Is there anything left to say, really?
Aren’t we all just imitating the masters?
I guess that’s okay anyway.
And aren’t we guilty of devouring the classics
and going on and on about absinthe binges
and thank god wormwood is legal in the states again.
And how exciting it is to fall in love, swallow pints of beer
–not necessarily in that order–
come, quote Hemingway and fall out of love over meager breakfasts!
We shouldn’t be ashamed, at any rate,
To live these cliche moments if in such intensity that they cease to be cliche.
Like fruity wine and sentimental country songs, there being nothing left to say, anyhow.
Filed under: Adventures, Spirituality, Travel | Tags: Border Patrol, bus trip, El Paso, Immigration, Interstate Ten, Jesus, Juarez, Mt. Cristo Rey, new mexico, spirituality, statue of christ, Travel, United States
July 30th cont…
(It is with great trepidation that I sit down to write this, almost exactly a year since we began this crazy trip, this is the final entry from my journal, in almost illegible script due to the bouncing, shaking bus.)
We drove along that great expansive border fence that ensures American “freedom”, as if a fence can grant freedom, built by the same architects that construct wars, paid for by you, the “free” citizen. At some point that looming fence disappears, and there is only the Rio Grande, which has been a border for longer than America has been a country. We took a left, down a dusty, rocky road that looked like it probably led to those underground cock fighting rings Ben was talking about, and entered New Mexico.
As we passed a border patrol car, partially obscured by the gathering dust, Pual asked, “Are you guys sure we’re going the right way?”
“Well Pual, there’s never any way to be sure about anything, really. But this looks right, according to Tyler’s map,” I replied curtly.
Ben pointed out the window from his spot on the couch, “There’ s the sign for it, take a left up ahead.”
The road, which supposedly led to Mount Cristo Rey, was more of a dirt trail than anything, and it led up a steep hill into what looked to be a rock quarry, not a parking lot. Hoping this wasn’t a trap for drug cartels to kidnap unsuspecting blonde tourists, I pushed the pedal down as hard as I could, like I was squashing a beetle, and we bounded the hill, kicking up rocks behind us.
The trail led past yet another border patrol car, and weaved up and and down a few more gravel hills. Everyone was holding onto something as the bus bounced along, looking out the windows nervously, worried that we wouldn’t make it, or worse, we weren’t even heading in the right direction, but the heat was brutal, I was tired, and I just didn’t care. If this is where the bus met its fate, let it be, I’d pack my bags and hitch hike home, leaving it there to be swallowed up by the dust.
Finally, after a doubtful drive, we came up on the parking area, which was desolate except for one rusty work truck. Two Mexicans were putting tools and a ladder into an old shed. I parked the bus, leaped out into the rocky parking area and went to ask them if we could hike up, going over in my head how I would ask them in Spanish if need be.
Both men were wearing matching red caps that read “Mt. Cristo Rey, 69 anos”, and as I walked up to them, one of them took off his cap and wiped his sweaty forehead with a raggedy kerchief.
“Hey guys, is it okay if we go up?” I said, pointing at the lumbering statue of Christ on top of the hill, his arms outstretched as if waiting for an embrace.
“Sure, man, but remember, it’s at your own risk. We aren’t liable if anything happens to you and your buddies,” one of them replied from behind a patchy beard.
“There have been banditos in the area, and reports of assults. People go up there looking to pray, and sometimes they come back down in just their underwear. The banditos wait in the rocks and jump out and rob them,” The other one added.
“And there are a lot of rattlers this time of year, so no shortcuts, okay?”
“Yes sir, no short cuts. Got it.” I said, and started to walk back to the bus.
“I mean it, man!” he called after me. (more…)
Filed under: Adventures, Travel | Tags: Beatles, bus, California, El Paso Texas, Gatorade, illegal immigration, Las Vegas Nevada, mexican food, Mojave Desert, new mexico, piss, Salt Lake City, Travel, United States, wal-mart, West Texas
July 30th
Tyler drove us into El Paso that night blaring Beatles songs over the loudspeaker, drumming on the big steering wheel that had become so familiar and comfortable, singing along, his voice mixing with the rush of dry air coming in through the windows, that constant breathy roar. He drove carefully and intentionally, as he always did, his mind married to the road.
while I sat in the blue table, scratching the remnants of my Californian souvenirs.
I scribbled furiously into my notebook , the last one I’d be using on the trip, before I forgot the happenings of the days before. I was way behind in my writing, and my hazy recollection of the past few days was fleeting at best. The lights that hung from the ceiling swung back and forth as the bus swayed with the highway, the dull light bending and curling on the beat blue table, illuminating autographs, paint from the past, dry vomit, crudely drawn penises, and mantras written in permanent marker.
Pual sat on his bunk, as he often did, earphones in, looking out the window at the passing landscape. He remained quiet during most of our driving times, his eyes fixated on landmarks he may never see again, as if he were trying to memorize them. His head resting on his hands, his feet kicking like a child’s, he absorbed the beauty that is the Great West from the bus window.
Ben sat across the tiny aisle from me on the worn out couch on his computer. His new computer, I should say. The shiny reminder of his failed relationship, of the tiny little human being that we abandoned like she was an animal that refused to be house-trained. He was going home to Houston, where he would inevitably run into her, and her friends, and have to relive those confused, angry moments again in her burning face. I did not envy his lot. (more…)
I heard the dogs beneath the house as I readied myself for bed.
I lay there, mattress flat on the floor, as four strays fought
Beneath my floorboards, heads knocking pipes, snarls and growls
Primal exasperation– all panting and thirsting for one bitch pup,
With two different color eyes, who waited, in heat for a desperate suitor.
I listened as they tore at each other’s throats under the boards,
and I knew we were one in the same, so I did nothing to stop it.
Even as growling heads clanked against rusty pipes and arched backs
Thudded against my floor, I readied myself for bed
Because I knew that their aggression was mine.
Filed under: Adventures, Travel | Tags: Albuquerque, bus trip, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Nevada, Lone Star, Nevada, new mexico, Sushi, texas, Travel, United States
July 29th
I woke up this morning feeling mostly refreshed. My brain was still a bit hazy, and the past three days had run together like a three car locomotive stuck on the tracks, black and dusty. Tyler had driven all night, and after walking into yet another Wal-Mart, I determined we were in Gallop New Mexico.
I walked around the supermarket eating a free corn dog and some jalapeño cheese poppers, using my eat while you shop method that seems to work so well. After my off-balanced and greasy breakfast, I waited for everyone to get up, and then drove us on towards Albuquerque. The orange dots on our map, which was still hanging up on the back wall of the bus, had completed their meandering loop. Our adventures were almost over: from Alburquerque we would drive south to El Paso, and then back east through Texas, backtracking t0 Austin, where we would meet up with our friends and finally sit down, take our shoes off, and sigh.
The landscape from Gallop to Albuquerque, east on I-40, is a fantastical myriad of mesas springing up from the earth, red mountains shedding their rocky shells, and ancient black lava flow piled up along the highway, evidences of a violent geologic past. We stopped in a dilapidated vapor of a Native American town, a victim of the death of old Route 66, so Ben could search for “some crazy liquor with an Indian chief or somethin’ on it”, a souvenir for one of his friends back home. Of course, he didn’t find the boon for which he searched, but he did manage to find a ten-dollar bottle of Green chili wine and a for a dollar six-pack of a beer called “Beer:30″, and determined not to give up.
After driving a few more dry, listless hours, the next punctuation in our trip was a truck stop across the highway from an Indian Casino. I pulled the bus up next to rumbling semi trucks and let everyone off. Tyler and Ben ran across the road to do some last-minute gambling, Pual sat in his bunk on his phone, and while the bus was filling up, I bought a package of herbal energy pills made for those few truckers who don’t do amphetamines.
I stepped back onto the bus with a styrofoam cup full of cherry coke, and popped the herbal pills. Pual and I were both anxious to get home. Since Las Vegas, this trip had lost much of its sheen for me. Even the Grand Canyon seemed a little lackluster after exchanging blows with Tyler in a sleep deprived, heat induced nightmare. We had said very few words to each other beyond necessity, and I was ready to get away from him, and the trip in general; ready to be comfortable back home. (more…)
Filed under: Travel, Adventures | Tags: United States, Grand Canyon, Arizona, Flintstones, Bedrock City, Grand Canyon National Park, Kurt Vonengut, Breakfast of Champions, Fred Flintstone
July 27th cont…
I woke up in the afternoon, bouncing along the Arizona highway, feeling like about ten bucks, which is much better than I’d felt in days. IT was raining for the first time since, I don’t know, Wyoming? The air was cool and I was so thankful to be out of hellish Nevada, thankful to be rid of that suffocating, slithering heat. It rained most of the way to Flagstaff, where we stopped for some barbecue in some kitschy place in the basement of a shopping center. You know the kind of place, with licence plates on the walls and a stuffed moose head above the fountain drinks.
After we ate, I stood out in the rain and listened to the hustle and bustle of Flagstaff. Music played on jukeboxes in lonely bars. Couples pranced through puddles. Water dripped from strings of white lights on closed shop windows. I stood out on a sidewalk and stared up at the dark sky, memories of the day rushing back into my mind.
We had tried to go over Hoover Dam. It was the last summer they were letting people drive across it, but there were no buses allowed due to the fear of terrorism. We had stopped at a truck stop that had a bar that served seventy-five cent beers, had a mini-bowling alley in it, and a coin operated machine that had a banjo, a piano, a guitar, and a tiny drumset inside of it, and would play whatever song you chose. I chose “Africa” by Toto, and stood there shuffling around in my flip-flops to the tune. I hadn’t talked to Tyler the entire day. I had, though, eaten at Mcdonalds.
I’d been in a daze all day, in and out of sleep. The drug-induced rest was appreciated, but it wasn’t refreshing, I needed more. I popped a few more sleeping pills once we got to the Flagstaff Wal-Mart parking lot, which was full of RVs and travel trailers.
July 28th…
From Flagstaff we drove in a succession of tourists in mini-vans, RVs, and station wagons up to the Grand Canyon. One would assume that there would be a legitimate highway system running to such a national landmark, but no, we wound up on a dusty highway that dead ended in a T with another dusty highway. At that T, was Bedrock City, the Flintstones themed camp site/restaurant our friend Leaf had given up his trip to the Grand Canyon for. He has seen Bedrock City, but he still hasn’t seen the Grand Canyon.
“Okay, anyone up for a Dino-burger? We have to stop here.” I said excitedly, possibly the first time I’d been excited since I was flying in the wind tunnel in Vegas. “We’d be letting Leaf down if we didn’t stop”.
“Yeah let’s do it,” agreed Ben. “I’m down for some greasy, dinosaur related menu-items.” (more…)
Filed under: Adventures, Travel | Tags: bus, Casino, cops, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Nevada, Nevada, poison ivy, police, search without warrant, weed
July 28th…
“Oh the Places You Will Go”, I thought to myself with a chuckle. No one bought me that book when I graduated high school. My mother bought be an acoustic guitar and my grandpa bought me cowboy boots, you know, because my family isn’t bullshit. But let’s pretend they had bought be that goofy book like so many cheesy families do, so I could presently reminisce back on those zany pages and laugh at this exact moment, with my hands behind my back in handcuffs, on my knees in Las Vegas, with red and blue lights whirling like carousels.
It turns out that an officer had seen the whole “altercation” and radioed for backup. Once we were in handcuffs there were three cops on our bus with flash lights, searching for stowaways. I made it very clear that we weren’t consenting to any searches and that, without a warrant, what they were doing was unconstitutional. Ben tried to convince them that everything was fine, but the officer said we weren’t qualified to decide that, and if we didn’t shut up, we’d all be taken to jail.
If I had a nickel…
They kept asking if any of us were related.
“No, we are friends. We aren’t a cult. That ain’t the partridge family bus,” I explained venomously.
“Dude, cool it,” Ben whispered.
They had Tyler off by himself down the sidewalk, and he was refusing to answer any of their questions. The officers came off the bus with their flashlights, “Nobody else is on there. It’s clear.”
They claimed that since we were living on the bus, our fight was technically a domestic dispute.
“Well that’s the asshole down there that hit me,” I said, pointing at Tyler. “He’s for sure an asshole, but I’m not pressing charges on anyone. There’s no reason for you to be here.”
Pual sat there in silence, shaking his lowered head.
“It sounds like you boys just need to go on home,” One of the officers said, shining a flashlight at the bus. “What the hell is ennuey?”
They let us out of our handcuffs one by one, and as soon as we were “free” their demeanor changed completely. We were no longer deemed a threat, and a few of them were even interested in the details of our trip. I answered a handsome blonde cops questions about the bus, and we all loaded up, first Tyler, and lastly myself.
Pual drove us in silence to a Hawaiian restaurant where we ate cheap burritos and discussed what had just happened. We left Tyler with himself, sulking on the bus.
I looked down at my bleeding knuckles and sipped from a glass of ice-cold water. “I’m sorry guys. I’m sorry any of that happened”.
The clock ticked on the wall. It was two thirty in the morning. Back at home, my parents were sound asleep, my girlfriend tossing and turning in her bed, my grandpa waking up for work. This was it for me. I’ve had fifteen hours of sleep total in the past five days, it is hot as hell here in Vegas, my skin was swollen and itchy, and somewhere in that tussle, I’d lost my damn Astros hat.
“Its okay,” Ben finally responded.
“You know, “Those cowboys just go crazy in the heat,” said Pual, with a toothy grin.
And that was that. We’d avoided getting arrested in Vegas. There would be no calls home for bail money. Pual had successfully hidden his newly packed pipe. The four of us were still free men, but as I pulled clumps of hair out of my dirty mohawk, I knew nothing would be the same.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Pual parked the bus at a Wal-Mart, and having given up on sleep, Ben and I walked to a casino called “Arizona Charlie’s” with inexplicably had a portrait of Wild Bill Hancock as their logo. We wasted a few early morning dollars and hours, wandering around the ghostly casino sitting next to frustrated Jews, sleepy old women with feather boas, and red-eyed men, all pulling at the slots. They looked like automatons, creaking as they moved.
At four thirty we made it back to the bus to find Pual asleep on a cot in front of the bus, wearing nothing but his boxers. It was still as hot as ever, even in the pale moonlight; it seemed like the heat was rising up from the ground. I fell briefly fell asleep on the couch, but awoke before six, clawing at my itchy red arms and legs.
I went into Wal-Mart to buy itch cream and called my mom to tell her happy birthday. I wanted so badly to be at home with her, rather than wandering around Wal-Mart before sunrise like a zombie. I told her the story, and she said to just be civil, and get back home.
“I don’t have the money to bail you out, Russell,” she said from fifteen hundred miles away.
I bought a package of sleeping pills, popped three, and spent the rest of the miserable morning passed out in a drug induced, half-daze in my bunk, sweating out all my fury, frustration, fear, and sadness in the god-awful Nevada heat.
Filed under: Adventures, Travel | Tags: boa constrictor, bus, bus trip, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Gambling, kerrville, Kerrville Texas, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Nevada, Nevada, The Hangover, Tom Petty, Travel, Video slot Machine
July 27th cont…
After reluctantly climbing out of the relaxing swimming pool and over the chain link fence, back into the sultry Vegas night, we wound up at a little bar called “Champagne’s Cafe” that claims to be the oldest casino in town. It was in old “historic” Las Vegas, away from the bustle of tourists, and we parked the bus in an unlit parking lot outside.
Inside the bar sat two old men in a far corner table, talking loudly about snakes, boa constrictors to be precise; a solitary old woman sat at a video slot machine, dropping quarters into the slot; a man in a ten gallon hat, with a wild mustache sat on the opposite end, in the dark, nursing a drink. The bartender, a tired looking, but attractive blonde in her late thirties, with fake breasts and an obvious nose job, was on the phone with her babysitter as we walked in the bar.
“Well, its about time for Brendon to go to bed, just tell him Mommy will be home when he wakes up. Ok, ok, thanks, sweetie.”
The four of us sat down at fancy red barstools and ordered whatever was cheapest on the menu, which happened to be a beer and a shot of peppermint schnapps for three dollars. I figured I could afford to spend three bucks, since I had actually walked away with my five dollars from our casino hopping earlier.
There was a candle at every table, the tiny flames casting a dim light on the red velvet wallpaper that covered the wall. Ben and Tyler played video poker while I watched Baseball highlights on the TV above the bar. I couldn’t wait to get back home to the Astros to watch the rest of a typically terrible season.
The bartender, named Christine, gave us a few extra shots of schnapps on the house. “Where are you boys from? You look tired, like sailors at port.” She said with a charming smile, wet rag draped on her shoulder.
“Texas,” We all said in unison. The peppermint liqueur had opened up my sinuses.
“Oh well that explains it, I guess,” She said.
Tyler sat his glass down and leaned forward. “Explains what?”
She never answered him. Instead she asked what we were doing in Vegas, and I sat back and let Ben and Tyler explain our trip, the bus, etcetera.
“What, like a hippie bus?” She asked.
“No,” I spoke up, “We aren’t hippies. We have too much hate in our hearts to be hippies.” I leaned back and kept my eyes on the Diamondbacks and Phillies game. “If only we had pitchers like that,” I mumbled. (more…)
Filed under: Adventures, Travel | Tags: Casino, Desert, Eldorado Springs, Elvis Presley, Gambling, glory hole, God, Longboarding, Los Angeles, Mojave Desert, Nevada, Paul Hunter, penny slots, Russell Womack, Skydiving, sun, Tom Petty, truck stop, Tyler Jordan, United States, wind tunnel, Zen
July 27th
I woke up just before sunrise, completely miserable, sprawled out sweaty on the couch and scratching my skin like a maniac. I’d slept maybe two and a half hours, and that was all my degenerating body and mind was going to allow. I grabbed my itch cream and stepped out the door, eyes still heavy with sleep, and headed for the restrooms.
The pink sun was just starting to leak out over the distant mountains in the east, and in the dry desert twilight I could make out smooth rocky hills just on the other side of the highway, towering above the earth. Every state may look the same in the dark, but as the tender sunlight began to bleed across the desert, this definitely looked like Nevada.
A trucker stood outside the bathroom, admiring the same scene I was, but without acknowledging him I went inside and chose the only stall with a door, sat down, and began to apply my itch cream liberally. I had only been sitting there a few moments when I noticed a three inch hole in the stall divider at just about eye level, allowing a clear view into the next stall. I got the worst kind of chills, that reverberated from my spine into the pit of my stomach. This was some gay trucker gloryhole bullshit. I knew these things existed, but I’d never actually seen them before. What are the odds that out of all the rest stops and all the bathrooms I’d be alone at dawn in a stall with a gloryhole.
Before I could even begin to process what perversions took place in that stall I heard footsteps, and then there he was, the trucker who had been loitering outside, now standing on the other side of the divider, just hovering at the hole in his khaki shorts and long socks. Oh Christ, this was about to get ugly.
I pulled up my pants, flung the door open, and bolted out of the restroom as fast as I could, without looking back. Just the thought of what atrocities might have occurred was enough to turn my stomach. I instantly became physically ill. Whatever doubts I’d ever had about my sexuality were settled right then and there: case closed.
I walked back outside just as the raw desert sun crashed over the horizon like a pinkorange tsunami. A crow landed noisily on a lamp post in front of me. God was I tired. Tired beyond exhaustion. Everything seemed like a dream, hazy and muddled. I turned my back to the sun and saw that the moon was still hanging in the sky, clear as ever, a great full moon so big it looked fake; the third full moon I’ve seen on this trip. At that very moment, I was ready to go home. (more…)
Filed under: Adventures, Travel | Tags: bus trip, capital records, Everclear, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Mulholland Drive (film), Neon sign, River Phoenix, Sunset Boulevard, Three Dog Night, Tom Petty, Travel, Travelogue, Viper Room
July 26th
Last night, after the bar, we all went to bed, but only three of us went to sleep. I had another three or four hour night of itchy half-sleep, scratching myself raw. But today is our last day in Los Angeles, and our last day in California, so there’s no time to worry about how much sleep I didn’t get. There are things to do.
We drove up the famous Mullholland drive and blared Tom Petty over the speakers. It was a Tom Petty kind of day anyway, Mullholland or not, the sky lit up slowly, and the sun beat down on us dirty, temporary Angelinos.
The bus barely made it up the winding ascent, slowing down to ten and sometimes five miles per hour around some of the turns, and rich people honked from behind us, not able to pass us on the two lane road, anxious to get to where ever they were headed. “Free Fallin’” came on over the speakers and I turned it up and waited for the perfect moment, when Tom Petty would croon that last great verse just as we overtook the final hill, but the CD skipped through the entire song, and our sonic moment was ruined–cold reality.
We stopped and pulled over in a gravel pull off, and exited the bus gleefully, cars honking at us as they passed. We stood at the edge of the road, and there was all of Los Angeles, sprawled out before us, all grand, all tortured, all golden, all desperate, all genius, all forlorn, neverending Los Angeles.
“You know, all of those people down there, all of those rich people, they’re all rich because we’re so stupid,” Ben said, climbing up on a guard rail to get a better look at the sweeping panorama. “You go and pay twelve dollars to see Transformers or whatever drivel your girlfriend wants to see and it pays for their house, their pool, their cars. You can’t hate them for being rich. We make them rich.”
Mansions, that according to Ben, we paid for, cascaded down the mountain below us, and beyond that was downtown, the L.A skyline, the Capital Records building, highway 101– suddenly I wish I had a date, a convertible, and a Three Dog Night song playing over the radio, man I’d be set.
From our lookout spot on Mullholland we drove through Compton at Tyler and Pual’s demand. I was against it, but I guess they were hoping to get a stray bullet hole in the bus from some gang war or something; poverty tourism, I suppose. We drove through without seeing any scenes from “Boyz in the Hood” played out in front of us, thank God. Some kids chased after the bus yelling, like I guess they do with Safari Jeeps in Nairobi, but the Compton we’d heard about only from rap videos and late night television was not the Compton we were seeing, which was fine by me.
We were supposed to see Victoria play a show across town, and being that it was almost rush hour, we decided to head over there. The sun shone hot through the windshield and I absentmindedly scratched my right thigh, where more poison ivy rashes were bubbling up. It seemed that as the original strains were getting better, new ones were appearing. My crotch felt a lot better (oh sweet relief) but there were new spots on my legs, in between my fingers, and running down my ass. How miserable, baking in that vinyl driver’s seat.
L.A is just too damn big. The venue was twenty five miles away, and I can honestly say that I appreciate the sheer volume and terror of Los Angeles traffic; from the wheel of a thirty six foot school bus at that. I twitched and scratched and tapped on the steering wheel nervously, and we eventually got Tyler to Victoria’s show, which was held in a tiny, dingy DIY space down the road from Echo Park.
Ben, Pual and I ducked into a tiny Mexican corner market that had a hand painted sign hanging above the screen door. The floor was dirty concrete, the shelves were dusty, and most of the light in the place was emanating from a buzzing Corona sign in the corner. Pual and Ben bought a 40 a piece, and I purchased something called an El Jefe for novelty’s sake. It was a thirty two ounce can of purple flavored twelve percent malt liquor for just three dollars. That’s like eight beers.
So within thirty minutes we’re crammed into a tiny venue with a bunch of hipsters, listening to Victoria’s overly reverbed voice, and I’m holding an empty can of El Jefe with a huge dumb drunk smile on my face. Victoria played the same ethereal finger picking four chord song in seven variations, and then we listened to a boyfriend/girlfriend indie folk duo play some bright, understated songs. The girl in the group looked exactly like an old flame of mine, at least in the drunk dark, and I stared intently at her mouth and neck as she sang their cute little diddies.
I know a third band played, but between bathroom breaks and somehow drinking more beer, I can’t remember anything about them. I was constantly looking at my phone to check the time. We had to be in West Hollywood by nine to see Everclear, and I was getting antsy, fearing we wouldn’t make it. But the general consensus, when I’m worrying and tapping my feet, is “Oh sure, we’ve got plenty of time, we’ll be fine”, but something always goes wrong and inevitably we’re late to everything.
But after the third band was done, and everyone was good and ready, we left.
“Ben are you sure you don’t want to come?” Tyler asked him before we boarded the bus.
“No, I’m going to stay behind with Victoria and her friends. They’re going to take me out,” he said, sipping on a Tecate.
“You’re going to miss seeing Everclear… at the viper room… where River Phoenix died?” I asked incredulously.
“Listen, man” he began. Though we were about the same height, I suddenly felt as if he were looking down at me. “I just can’t enjoy things like nineties pop-rock for the sake of itself. Have fun with your Third Eye Blind or whatever.”
“You, sir, have no soul,” I retorted in my best English accent, and off we were.
Pual drove us up to West Hollywood, and Tyler hung out the bus, counting the block numbers on Sunset Boulevard impatiently against the clock. The strip was lit up like July Fourth. Girls hobbled in high heels from club to club beneath blazing neon signs, burning bright against the black backdrop of the Hollywood night. No stars shone in the sky, just the neon pinks, greens, reds, purples, advertising drink specials, live music, cheap women.
“There, the viper room! Pual, park the bus!” Tyler hollered.
Pual stayed in the bus to sleep. He didn’t have fifteen dollars to spend on a show, so we left him there and hurried down Sunset Boulevard. We got to the club in which River Phoenix died right before it reached capacity.
And there we were, In Hollywood, in a packed club, watching a band resurrected straight from my childhood. They played every song of theirs I like, every song of theirs anyone likes for that matter. It was surreal. It was that scene in my movie where tears start welling up in my smiling eyes during “Father of Mine” and a grainy childhood montage of myself and my friends starts to roll. We’re running down the streets, barefoot and sincerely happy, back when nothing mattered, and in fact, in that moment, nothing did matter, except, well, Hollywood and Everclear and the magical, wonderful bus. I don’t know if it was the El Jefe running through my system, or just pure thirteen year old endorphins, but “THIS IS A SONG ABOUT SUSAN. THIS IS A SONG ABOUT THE GIRL NEXT DOOR” and I was elated.
After the show, we had to drive down to pick up Ben on the side of the road near Echo Park, and then we dashed out of L.A. Tyler and I spoke ecstatically about our nostalgic experience while Ben tisked tisked in the background, cool California air rushing in through the open windows.
I’m running on just twelve hours of sleep over the past four days, and I know I’m not going to fall asleep anytime soon anyway, so I pull over just outside of town and load up on energy drinks and sunflower seeds, and decide to just drive all night, getting as far up the road towards Vegas as possible before my mind crashes.
I drove through the quiet night, reveries of the evening still playing in my head, and left California behind. Every time I leave a city or a state, or a trail, I have this overwhelming fatalistic sense that This might be the last time I see this place, and as I drove across the California line, with my friends asleep, that feeling was unusually strong.
And as I drove further east, out into the desert, that sinking feeling was accompanied by a slow, crawling burn. It seemed to climb up my muscles and joints from the floor of the bus, rising up from the road, or Hell, or both, and making its way through my tired body in a wave, before sitting on my brain, just behind my eyes.
California at our backs, death-pale desert ahead of us, I tried to stay awake. There’s a sort of droning hum roar mmm rrrr to the bus that is as as much of a maternal lullaby as anything my mother ever sang me. I was nervously scratching at my poison ivy, eating handfuls of sunflower seeds a time, letting their discarded shells pile up on the stairs by the door. There were no natural features outside the bus windows to look at. Every state looks the same in the dark. With nothing to keep my eyes on, to keep my interest, my eyes were locked solely on punctuation, on yellow lines dashing by, and they felt like hot coals in my head.
I tapped my shoes and felt that raw burn emanating from beneath the bus, crawling up my feet into my legs and thighs like a hellish centipede. My eyes were getting heavy at around four thirty in the morning. I had already taken off my shirt, and my jean shorts felt like they were plastered to me. There was a fire on my brain and I was sweating and I couldn’t tell if it was a fever or just the God damn desert.
I pulled over at the next rest stop I saw, parked between two sleeping big rigs, pulled my pants off and threw myself on the couch. “GOD HAVE MERCY ON ME,” I thought as I slowly drifted to sweet, sweet sleep.
