ROAD WARRIORS

Even before I took anything, I felt like we were going too fast somehow. Tucked into the backseat like an old suitcase, I had no easy way to check the speedometer and my sanity. Monty and Vern had been talking between themselves for miles, keeping themselves awake by chattering endlessly about nothing as the sun set behind us. So much so that I was starting to feel like an invisible man. A useless arm or leg silently flopping from the center of someone's chest. It hadn't bothered me much initially, getting away with one-word answers and brief bursts of fake laughter. Until the daylight started to fade, and my anxiety started asking questions. 

How long had we been driving already? Where did they plan to stop? Should I say something or just keep sitting here? The idea of breaking my silence seemed almost as scary as letting it play on all night.  The only thing I knew for sure, was that we had crossed the Alberta border into Saskatchewan around 20 minutes ago. before I could stop myself, I blurted out “Any joints left, Monty?” He tilted his head and shot me a grin. “He lives! And he’s hungry!!!” Monty exclaimed, like a mad scientist in a 1950s monster movie. As Vern roared with laughter, Monty was checking his pockets. I heard the sound of change, pill bottles, and half-empty lighters colliding. “Don't tell me you're out already”  Vern groaned. “Relax Julie, don't forget about old Faithful” Monty assured him. Lifting it from between his legs, he grabbed the same overstuffed satchel bag he had carried around since Edison Junior High. Once he had it opened, he didn't need to look around much before he saw something he liked. Curious about its contents, Vern took his eyes off the road and peered into the bag for the first time. His face changed instantly. “Holy shit! I mean I knew you were cool and all, but holy shit!” Vern beamed, grinning like a kid on Christmas. “Most of it's my dad’s, but I doubt he will even notice it's gone,”  Monty said absently. Reaching into the satchel, he pulled out a small baggie and held it up for all to see. “Still want that joint?” Monty teased, with the bag of mushrooms flopping loosely at the end of his long yellowing fingers. 

I didn't know what to say. We had all started smoking weed around the same time we turned 15, and all I knew about mushrooms was the stories people told. I had always been curious about giving them a try, but my anxiety warned me this might not be the most romantic way to have my cherry popped. Words like ego death and hallucination floated through my overcrowded mind like phantoms as I thought it over. “How much do you take?” I asked, trying to sound as excited by the whole thing as they were. My anxiety cried out in frustration. “Normally I would say about 2-3 grams if we had a scale…” Monty was telling me, but I was barely there. 

My anxiety could be distracted momentarily, but the more I tried to push it down the louder it howled. Normally? Jesus Christ, this kid’s gonna kill me. Get me high as a fucking kite and leave me here in the backseat to wiggle around for a little entertainment. Maybe tomorrow when the radio gets boring, they will slip something into my drink and laugh as I drool. Animals, man, fucking animals. What else is in that bag, huh? What if we get pulled over? Jesus fucking…. As he spoke, Monty opened the small Ziploc baggie and grabbed two of the small dried mushrooms. The bitter smell of them was indescribable, and all of us cringed backwards a little without realizing it. Once they were out of the bag, Monty studied them for a second and started to chew. “But that should be enough” he finished, finally swallowing with a grimace. He was already grabbing more. Vern and I were left in awe. Monty and I locked eyes. Without saying anything, he placed two twisted mushrooms into my cupped palm. I tried not to smell them any more than I already had. As Monty was separating the final dose for Vern, I stared into my palm. The mushrooms looked like some poison dipped indigent to an ancient potion, with the faintest hint of purple varicose veins beneath the surface. “You should eat those pretty quick if you want to catch up” Monty warned, and soon enough Vern and I were chewing and swallowing and gagging as fast as we could. In the moments before that swallow, I am reminded of something that happened years ago back Home in Edison.

Vern and I had been walking home down the alley, only to stumble upon a small group of older boys passing around cigarettes and frustrations. Dyke bitch, I heard one of them mumble, before they noticed us heading their way. I tried to pass them without passing them, to look without looking and failed. One of them locked eyes with me, and smiled. “Want one?” he asked us both amiably, using his cigarette how a school teacher would use a pointer. Just like with the mushrooms, I blurted something out before I could say no. “Sure,” I said simply, taking him by surprise. Even Vern seemed shocked. “You serious kid? Not gonna puke on your shoes?” the bigger kid teased, suddenly sounding less friendly. Again, Vern looked at me nervously. “Give me one, and I'll prove it” I retorted, with some bizarre kind of confidence that usually came out when it was least needed. Without saying anything else, he lit up his cigarette and handed it over. I had never smoked anything in my life. Trying to look unfazed, I took my first puff. Everyone stood frozen, waiting for me to hack up a lung. I didn’t so much as clear my throat. When the laughing started, I was confused. “Ya know you're supposed to inhale those, right?” He jeered, before falling back into the crowd of laughing voices. I wasn't ready to give up. Already knowing what to expect, I took a deep smoke-filled breath. Again, I was the center of attention. The laughs fell into almost silence, as I exhaled without a single cough. Having earned their respect, I passed him back his smoke. 

“Not bad kid,” the big kid told me before we started walking away. Not bad at all. Walking home with Vern, I felt like a hero. And for just a second, he had looked at me like one. The same way he looked at Monty after peeking inside his magic bag. I wondered if he would ever look at me like that again. “How long until they kick in?” Vern asked. “Just relax, take it all in, and wait. It shouldn't take long for you to notice” Monty told us both calmly as he turned up the radio. On the air this evening, the man in black was mourning the loss of Delia. Delia, oh, Delia, Delia all my life. If I hadn't a-shot poor Delia I'd a-had her for my wife. Even with that outlaw guitar jauntily keeping time behind his words, it felt a little eerie. Everything did. 

Suddenly, I was looking at every mundane object as if there was a secret meaning hidden inside of it. Outside the window flat Saskatchewan prairie stretched out forever in almost total darkness, only occasionally breaking off into clusters of light and life. I felt like the world's smallest astronaut, waiting for some unheard countdown to end and blast me off into uncharted territory. I couldn't keep still no matter how hard I tried. “Should we take more?” Vern asked in an imitation of his normal speaking voice. He seemed both far away and too close for comfort at the same time.  It was impossible to tell how much time had passed since we shot up. “Nah, just look at your hands” Monty assured us, and when I did just that I was nothing short of amazed. All the familiar lines and swirls were moving as slowly as cold cream carefully poured into hot coffee. The anxiety attempted to sound my alarms but failed. The whole thing felt like magic, like Christmas time and summer sun. Good magic. I laughed, quietly at first but louder as everyone slowly joined in. As Slim Whitman called out his Indian love call, perhaps in search of the tragically beautiful Delia, I was higher than I had ever been. Vern and Monty were back to talking like I wasn't there, and I was grateful. I was staring out the window at watercolour countryside blurring past, feeling hypnotized by brief blasts of oncoming headlights. My teeth feel funny, someone said suddenly, and his words twirled around my head like a ribbon dancer. I pictured teeth lined with fire-engine red gums, slowly swirling like the lines on my hand. I pictured a mountain of chattering teeth the size of a skyscraper, I pictured the sterile clean environment of a county morgue. 

I pictured my mother, sitting comfortably in a hospital waiting room for her autopsy. Half cut open like a shiny red zipper. I was trapped in here. When Vern pulled over at some nameless rest stop, I barely noticed. “Can you drive?” Vern asked him, and Monty nodded. “Of course,” he said finally, smiling as if this were something obvious. 

Monty turned back to face me, I could see my reflection in his glasses as he spoke. The van kept getting smaller and smaller. “Are you good, bro?” Monty asked, and I saw my reflection give him a thumbs up. “Where….” I started to ask him but never finished. “It's ok, man. Fucked if I know. According to the map…” Monty trailed off a bit before finishing. “The next town should be… Caronport. C-A-R-O-N-P-O-R-T.” For some reason this was hilarious, and we all shared a good laugh. For a while, it seemed like I could only look up. Far away from any real light pollution, it felt like the whole universe could be seen overhead. A thousand pinpricks of light shine through the black-purple curtain of space. I wonder how many of those stars are already long dead, having sent their final bursts of light through the endlessly expanding cosmos. I never want to go anywhere but here. “You coming?” Monty asked, having reentered the van while I was too busy stargazing to notice. Vern was hanging out of the passenger seat, waiting for me to say something. I didn't want to get back in that car, but I found I was anyway. While my traitor's body did all the hard work, my briefly silenced anxiety spoke up again. Don't, it whispered to me in the voice of a lifelong lover. 

Stay, Stay, and watch. All that is good, is already behind you. Stay, and be saved. I knew I couldn't. I knew we were damned. And I went on anyway, without saying a word to the boys up front as I climbed back into my cell in the backseat. If they didn't already know, they would soon enough. 

Thinking of Cameron T, and Josh P