Wednesday, July 30, 2014

South of Nacogdoches, Stoned, Stuck in the Mud, Listening to Dr. Brinkley while the Rain Comes Down

The next morning it starts raining while I’m downstairs having breakfast. I tell myself that once it stops, I’ll go to the station and just catch the first train out. But the rain doesn’t stop and I’m up in my room with nothing else to do, so I open the windows and light up another reefer. And next thing I know, I’m flying high and next thing I know after that, I’m feeling the fear again. Have I stayed in Nacogdoches too long? Could Hamer be back on my trail. Could he be lurking around somewhere one or two blocks away, waiting for the moment to open up on me again, this time without any benefit of warning? This rainstorm may be the only cover Imo get. I decide what I need to do is put as many miles as I can between this place and myself.

So I pack my bags, carry them downstairs, pay my bill at the front desk, and then I load them into the back seat of my Ford. At that point, my plan was to drive to the station, ditch the car and get on the first train heading out. But instead of going there, I see a sign pointing south for Lufkin and head that way and I’m mentally slapping myself on the back at just how dang clever I am.

Two hours into my drive, the rain is still coming down and the road is mostly empty. I’m feeling so good about everything I decide this calls for a reefer! It’s my last one and I was intending to save it for later, but now I’m thinking, what the hell? This in itself is a perfect moment that needs to be observed. So I take it out from my pocket, stick it between my lips, grab a strike-anywhere match from the carton in the glove box and light it. But before I can even bring it to where I got the reefer stuck in my lips, the car blows a tire, goes into a spin and goes off the road. And that, dear friends, is how, two hours ago, me and this dang car ended up stuck in this ditch.

I’m stuck here, so I turn on the radio to see if there is anything worth listening to. Once again, it appears the Blood of the Lamb loses to the Gonad of the Goat.

"Can a man be… re-activated?” asks a husky female voice. “I need him to satisfy me just like he used to. Is there any hope?”

"Yes!” answers the friendly radio announcer. “Write today to the Brinkley Hospital, Del Rio, Texas, and be sure to enclose ten cents. Do it now!

Absolutely! Do it now! Don’t wait another minute. And make sure the envelope is postmarked before midnight tonight, because this is a special limited offer and the supply of goat testicles is liable to give out at any moment. Meanwhile, my reefer has gone out. I fetch another wooden strike-anywhere from the glove box and rip it across the dashboard’s surface. It bursts into flame and I bring it up against the long stub of a reefer I’ve got in my mouth and start sucking the smoke into my lungs, where it might do me some good.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah! My mood is definitely improving.

Just doing my job, answers the reefer, now just sit back and relax!

Then I take another good long hit and, oh, man, I am cooked! I’m not sure if I’ve ever been this high. Maybe it’s a good thing this is my last reefer.

Doctor Brinkley is once again addressing all his friends out in Radio Land.

"I know right now a lot of you folks are telling yourselves that you can’t afford it. That you don’t have the money right now. That in the current economic climate you can’t afford to spend a lordly sum like eight hundred dollars for something that doesn’t actually put food on your table. Well, folks, nothing could be more wrong. Because nothing affects your economic well-being as much as your sexual health. Ask yourself, how hard-charging can a gelding be? Why, just today I received a letter that I have in my hand now. It reads, ‘Dear Doctor Brinkley, I am writing just to let you know that, following your surgery and recuperation at your fine institution, I have made a full recovery and my wife and I are once again enjoying sexual joy of a sort not experienced since our earliest days as a young buck and doe. What I paid you was a reasonable sum, indeed, but what you have given me in return has been truly priceless. Thank you, Doctor, and God bless you!”

I stub the reefer out. Eight hundred smackers? That’s a fortune in anyone’s book! That’s more than most people make in a year. In this day and age with a depression going on, how can anyone afford it? And for what? To con yourself into believing he can make your Johnson ten hut and stay ten hut!

(Excerpt from Friend of the Devil, available on Kindle).

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