Louisiana
I looked around the shrublands. The roadside foliage here was verdant and tall. The few trees poking above the lush landscape were covered in moss and hunched and twisted like some little old arthritic lady. Mostly it was tall bushes and long dwindling golden grass along the I-10. I was somewhere between Lafayetteville and Baton Rouge. Where small lakes and rivers swirled around the highway. Appearing out of nowhere. Marshland.
It felt like if I ventured far off this risen roadside into the swampy forest I might end up calf deep in some pocket of rank water that had been sitting there since the last ice age. That was of course if I was able to push ten feet past the wall of green. Whoever had the contract from trimming back this canopy didn’t get paid enough. It was like a barricade over a stinking moat you couldn’t rightly see. Of course I was adding my own water to it.
I shook and zipped up my pants.
This little offshoot of a dirt road wound further ahead. But I could still see the highway traffic zooming by behind me. Chewy played tug of war with a stick for a bit after he relieved himself. He won by breaking the branch off the tree and prancing around proudly. He dropped it by my feet. He didn’t want to get back to the car. I understood we had been driving for a long time now. Only stopping for a quick midnight nap until the sun had risen. That’s what I assumed at least. I had been sleep deprived and almost falling asleep at the wheel before we called it a night. I didn’t know if I had slept for 4 hours till the sun started coming up. Or 28 hours and pissed a whole day away.
I figured it was only 4 hours. I still felt like absolute shit. Also, It didn't help that I was munching on loose adderall I found in Zeke’s stash box. In there I also found some money (I didn’t feel good about taking it but he told me too, so fuck it, I thought). A one hitter pipe with about three grams of weed. And casino vouchers. Three vouchers to be exact. They were dollar sized pieces of receipt paper with a barcode and money amount they equaled. Each were for under a dollar, BUT they had the name and logo of the casino they belonged to. Zeke’s favorite casino I assumed. Hopefully the one he blew all his loan shark money at. Harrah’s Casino in the sinking city of New Orleans herself.
“Come on Chewy back in the car.” I said as my arm holding the stick was yanked back and forth by the growling dog. He dropped the stick and huffed at me. Stepping back into the tall grass. He sat down. Staring at me stalwartly. He wasn’t about to go. He was sick of it. So we took a moment.
“Yeah,” I stretched my back. “You ain't really a travel dog. More of a running around on a farm dog. We are gonna get you a farm buddy. One day.”
~
The long trip was my fault, we should have been there by now. Hell, we should have been there last night. However, my adrenalin had been going fast after my seance with Zeke. I stumbled out of Mr. Jordan’s home with his hidden lunch box of goodies. Saying goodbye to that poor blind man quickly. Hoping that SUV of goons wouldn’t find him.
It was best to leave as fast as I could, I figured. So I drove north an hour before even trying to figure out where I was going. Most likely because I was looking in the rearview mirror more often than I was looking out the windshield. Trying to search for that blacked out SUV coming up behind me. Those blue LED headlights that seemed burned into my retinas. But it never showed. For that I was thankful.
But it lead me to think some.
I wondered how it had even found me again?
How did it know I was in Austin?
Was it cleaning up after Tim’s wake? Did it just happen on us?
Not likely. It found us at just the right moment. In the middle of nowhere and in the middle of a sizable city. Couldn’t be coincidence I surmised, and they weren’t pulling up for Mr. Jordan because they didn’t find the way to his place, at least not when I was there. No, they were following me, and I didn’t know how. But on that hectic drive outside Austin it hit me.
Duh.
This was the future we were in. Star Trek technology was in every person's pocket. Or Enemy of the State technology to be more realistic. It was my phone of course.
Chewy practically pointed it out. He clawed at the center console for a bit. I thought he heard my phone buzzing in it. But no. He’s a smart pooch. If he could talk he’d probably say he was smarter than me. It also might have been because he caught a whiff of the half-a-bag of dried ramen that was open in there. But no, I think he was on to something. I wiped the curly crumbs off my phone and thought for a moment. It felt like a brick in my hands. Black screen and inert. But heavy. Heavy with bad vibes one might say, if you were a hippie crystal girl.
So I chucked it out the window.
I didn’t need it anymore. Didn’t need to listen to all the screaming voicemails on it. And definitely didn’t need my location pinging off through whatever state I was in. Whoever these suited agents were, I bet they had the technology to find my GPS signal even with the phone off. I mean they wore sunglasses at night. You don’t wear sunglasses at night and not look like an idiot unless you know what someone else doesn’t have a clue to.
~
But there is a whole reason I'm telling you this… The point is. The phone could have come in handy for directions. I drove almost five hours into the night before stopping and buying a map. And that was how I realized that we were far off from where we were supposed to be. Good thing I had plenty of low grade meth to consume for the drive. Maybe I shouldn’t say good. And I didn't really know anything about meth. I had never done meth. More recently, I had done crack cocaine (Maybe? I wasn’t sure what that weird dishwasher had given me or where it had all gone) so let's describe it closer to that.
~
To me adderall was a lot like a lesser crack, definitely not as fun/scary. It made me focused. Tunnel vision. Minutes flew by and sleep was like the wiley coyote chasing after me. But this roadrunner couldn’t be caught. At least that’s what you think at the time, as well as thinking you are so goddamn talented and quick and you could finish a puzzle of 1000 pieces in record time. But it definitely doesn’t make you smarter. I came to that realization after reading some poetry I wrote down when I was singing to myself past 2:30 in the morning.
I’m sure the college students normalizing their caffeine and adderall addiction could tell you that, at least the ones that actually proofread their terrible term papers after coming down off the high. And it doesn’t chase off sleep. Sleep is the cousin of death after all. Both of them will always take what they are owed. Always.
So after a bit of more delirium, where I was paying such close attention to the red taillights ahead of me, thinking they were morse code signals of someone who was trapped in the trunk, I didn’t realize that the cars in front of me were at a dead halt after a big wheeler flipped a mile up the road, I almost rear ended a green minivan who’s license plate read KI55MYB.
After that scare and my most recent adderall wearing off, I pulled off and slept some. How long exactly? Who knows? Like I said, I still felt like shit. Fuck, maybe I could have slept a day away. I get two day hangovers from an alcohol bender in my old age. Maybe all the drugs and trauma had stacked up more than I thought. Not that it mattered. I could have slept a week for all I know. I wouldn’t be able to figure it out. I didn't know the date before I tossed my phone and I don't have a phone now to check. I was on my own completely. On a wild chase across these southern states. Following signs saying NEW ORLEANS and thinking about warm seafood gumbo in my gut. Watching the power lines along the road dance in rhythm with the thumping of the wheel wells beneath my feet. Changing lanes in manic style. Racing across the states in a chase no one else was aware of.
~
I couldn’t believe I was even still alive! Look at this beautiful world around me. It was hard to even look at it.
I started laughing. First a small chuckle, just thinking about how horrified I'd be if newly married me saw what I ended up as. Then louder at what my wife would say to me. How she would look with that disappointed but understanding frown. Like how you look at your dog when they get into the trash when you forget to feed them. I laughed louder, breaking out in a long winding wheeze synonymous with my life right now. I was laughing so hard some tears welled up in my eyes.
Chewy cocked his head towards me.
“It’s so funny Chewy, god damn.” I held my pinched side, cackling. “I’m fucking losing it. It’s like before.”
He crept up a little bit, half-wagged his tail and then dropped it. He seemed concerned more than anything else.
“What the fuck am I doing? I need a fucking hospital.” At that I leaned back and whooped out a boisterous noise that was more yelling than laughing. Some birds flew out of the treetops. I held my throat as some pain racked it. Like my duct taped together vocal cords had finally split in half. “Oh shit! My throat is closing up Chewy!”
I gave my face a slap. Hard.
Pull it together. I thought as I spit some blood out onto the ground. It could be from my split lip, or bit tongue or dry throat from the desert, or maybe I picked up the whooping cough from that shithole New Mexico.
Chewy barked at me and whined. Sliding up in front of me he pawed at the air. I pounded my knees, caring not for the pain. It was good, it made me feel close to who I'd lost. My grief made real. Now others could see, know it. Because God, I was so tired of people looking at me and not knowing my life was in ruins.
“Fucking dead people keep talking to me Chewy!” I thumbed my knuckle into my temple like it was a screwdriver, trying to tighten things up. “ Ain’t this funny? I got enough amphetamines in my veins. I feel like the king of the world! At the same time like I'm dozing off and might die. And we are in Louisiana! Fucking Lousianna!” I looked around at the canopy of swampland trees that this dirt road burrowed its way through. “I think we are at least. I don’t really fucking KNOW a damn thing that’s going on!” I laughed in Chewy’s face and his dark eyes darted around confused. He pawed at the air in front of us again.
I held up the white casino ticket.
It was twenty nine cents.
The printed word HARRAH’S for a second caught my eyes, as big building block letters I swore said HURRY. But on unclenching it and looking closely it had faded back. My brain was still firing off in all the wrong directions. I crumpled the note tighter, holding it up in the air.
“You New Orleans snake! You FUCKING loan shark asshole! I don’t know if you work for them or you’re doing your own business. But I know you are gonna fucking pay! We are coming for you! We are gonna find your ass. You hat wearing fucking pompadore FUCK!” I was wheezing and holding onto that pain, that anger. No one could take it from me. It was all a joke, some twisted lie. All of it. And I had fire in my heart. It felt like I was alive again and not just dreaming. Maybe I was seeing it all so clear now?
“I don’t care if I slept for a week! You are gonna need that head start. There’s no place you can’t go that I won’t find you and rip your greasy, southern, mother-humping head clean off. And piss down your throat!” I took a deep breath after coughing some, the hot heavy air forcing me to put my hands on my knees and take some deep breaths.
“I’m… Coming!” I held up the ticket again meekly. Chewy planted his two front paws on my hip as he stretched up to me. I pushed him down. “We are COMING! To get your ass. I’m gonna kill you for what you did! You called Lucien on us! You got Mr. Jordan’s nephew killed! You fucking prick!”
Deep breath.
Deep breath.
It was no good, the air wasn’t catching up to me.
“For what you did to her! To her! To me! To us!” I coughed out.
Chewy circled around me, crying. I went down on one knee. As I did so some tears fell from my cheek onto the raised dirt road. The ruddy brown colored ground darkened with the drops. Chewy raised his head and howled. Long and mournfully. As close to a wolf as he was himself. Which was damn close in breed and even closer in mentality. I raised my head too.
I cried out weakly. It was a sad and pathetic out of breath attempt at howling.
My dog was showing me up but I guess that’s on brand. He wouldn’t be great at preparing a morning cup of oatmeal. I wasn't great at howling. My attempt wasn’t even louder than the cicada’s noise that buzzed in the air.
Far off however, it sounded like a type of honking bird joined our racket too. And another. They were raising to the sky and they were yelling too. The whole world was a cacophony of ill intent and resolve to stay alive in this world. For one more day. I howled again with him. Letting the note fall to the ground and placing both hands on the brown mud to try and scrounge it. To try and hold on to that feeling. I raked my hands through it. Looking at the lines I left behind. Nothing was there. I couldn’t rightly say what I was doing, all I knew I was a fat wheezing crying man in the backroads of Lousianna.
Sad sight. Sad life.
That pissed me off. What it all came to. Where it all went. How easy is it for everything to slip? Was one moment better than the gradual decline? Waking up and realizing your life no longer looked like your own?
I stopped and steadied myself. I tried to catch my breath, feeling the pain in my throat, feeling the water laden air cool my lungs some.
“Alright,” I said to us.
With disregard of the dirt on my hands, I rose.