Why I Committed Suicide Page 5
My third and most important reason for moving is that I found a new place to live. Jim Heines, my friend from the dorms, and his friend Dan found a neat little house on the opposite side of campus, right by the school. I initially didn’t really think they would find any houses at all, so I kind of off-handedly offered to move in with them if they could find one near the campus, knowing that’s a near impossible task in a college town. But less than a half hour after I sent them out on a snipe hunt they came back and had a fresh pad. The rent is cheaper, the house is cleaner and I’ll have my own room.
Ernie wasn’t too thrilled to hear I was moving out on him, but he understood. I think he is secretly ready to get the hell out of the Lodge also, between the crappy room we rent and me being sick and complaining all the time I think it’s for the best. He’s going to move in with Kirk (yet another good friend from our dorm days) so I’m not just leaving him hanging.
Being poor has advantages. I calculate I can move all my belongings in a few quick carloads. I’ll miss controlling the Delta Lodge sound system from my room with the souped up 70’s stereo system I have rigged up with a genuine working 8-track player. But really, how many times can people listen to STYX in a row before the novelty wears off? Still, the feeling of power that goes along with controlling what people are listening too while they are drinking free beer is intoxicating in its own way. I’ll miss being able to subconsciously influence drunken partygoers and exposing various sorts of people to groups like The Smiths, Talking Heads, The Police, Nirvana, Johnny Cash, Mr. Bungle. And some good old N.W.A. & Easy E. The thrill and novelty of being the music god wore off the night some drunken chick pounded on my door over and over and over until I finally answered her insistent pounding and the crazy bitch tried to come in and smash my Dire Straights’ “Brothers in Arms” disc because she thought it was country music. What a damn shame.
It’s moving day! It’s moving day! The protagonist says gleefully with the enthusiasm of Steve Martin yelling “The new phone books are here!” I am so totally stoked about moving into our new house. There are four bedrooms and two bathrooms. Dan and his younger brother Jerry (Jay) are staying there also, rounding out our numbers to four. Four people, four rooms, what a deal. D & J put down all the deposit and they were able to get their parents to help set us up with utilities and all the other stuff that’s so hard to get turned on the first time. I know Dan from the dorm but mostly from him hanging around with Jim at the Flying Tomato on one of my Thursday or Saturday shifts. It seems like a larger percentage of my friends are alcoholics and I love them for it. They love me for it too, because I have the hook-up for free beer on Fry St., so it’s a fucked up symbiotic relationship I suppose.
There is only one usable air conditioner in the house. A giant motherfucker of a window unit that is in the living room, so I imagine we’ll be spending a lot of our time there. The house does have a lot of windows and we all have fans so we should be able to circulate a lot of air through the house and keep moderately cool. If all else fails, I’ll have no problem camping out in the living room and sleeping during the worst of the heat. Dan and Jay have some old furniture from when their parents redecorated, so our new digs already sport a couple of lazy boys, some carpet, a TV & stereo (w/cabinet) and a microwave. All the necessities. Our home will be a hodge-podge of varying styles and comforts united by a mutual appreciation for B-boy flavor.
Jay got what was/is the master bedroom since he was the one who plunked down the $450 deposit. I took the leftover room that wasn’t originally a room but more like a porch area where the original owner probably kept the lawn-mower. My doorframes have no doors in them. They open directly to the kitchen and Jim’s room so I hung up thick blankets for partitions, we’ll see if this lets any of the cooler air into my room at all. Jim’s room is a lowered out area in-between me and Dan. He has to cut through one of our rooms to get in or out of his room, which is kind of cool for his privacy, but it’s kind of restricting for the rest of us. I’m sure it will work out fine. I know Jim is going to hear Jenifer and me when we are rooting around in the bedroom, but we won’t mind. Jim’s got a longtime girlfriend named Simone and I’m sure we’ll hear our fair share of them going at it also. We are both dirty dogs and we’re both down with it all. Isn’t that one of the long-debated gender separations? Guys will encourage other guys to get their groove on as much as possible while girls don’t tend to support their friends who hop in the sack with everybody very much, but they do like to have one friend who sleeps with more people than they do so they don’t feel like sluts.
My room has a backdoor that opens to the humongous backyard which is one of the best reasons for living in this house. Years and years of previous tenants and typical college student neglect has left a veritable garden of wild jungle attitude right in our corner of the city. It’s muy plush and green and I’ll have to add some of my own special plants and see how they do.
Behind the house, near my backdoor, is a garage apartment. The guy who lives there is named Andy and he’s a pot smoker who is one of those people who are so white that they look borderline albino. Andy is pretty chilled out, he seems like he keeps to himself most of the time. Andy’s an all right guy to get high with, except he critiques the weed and his pot is usually superior to whatever I can contribute.
I’m looking forward to mowing the lawn since I had that chore for the majority of my childhood. The two-year hiatus I took from mowing while I lived in the dorms has stirred strange longings for the grit and grime of manual labor. I think it’s just one of those things that appears a lot more fun after the unpleasant details fade away from memory. I guess I’ll figure that out either way soon. Besides, our little lawn shouldn’t be much of a problem compared to the giant acreage I slaved over in my youth. Maybe I was merely smaller then.
My next ambition is to build a half pipe in the backyard since we have more space than we know what to do with. Dan and Jim are both skaters even though they are a little older and not quite as die-hard about it as I seem to be. Although I must note, enthusiasm and skill are two different things, because I know Dan can shred his ass off when he wants to.
I’m excited to be moving in with Jim, he has a lot of savvy about him that I admire. Our ritual ramblings in his blue Mustang is one of the reasons I learned to appreciate smoking pot. We used to cut out of the dorms most nights and drive all around the back roads of Denton by the airport because it was such a pain in the ass to smoke out anywhere on or near campus. A lot of the roads we explored back then are the same roads Jenifer takes me out on when she gets that restless urge to drive. I have a lot of fond memories of Jim and me driving out by dinky-doo airport, smoking big bombers, hitting the proto pipe, listening to Paul’s Boutique on the tape deck and debating whether it is the greatest album ever. We’ve tripped our balls off on acid a few times and watched the lightning storms approach and rumble across the sky while listening to The Orb. Many philosophies and theorems about the secrets to life were debated and solved during our excursions and now we’re going to be living together so let the good times roll.
In moderation of course.
Looks like I’m going to the sows! I mean shows! Good news. Really good news, since there’s little more than a week left to get there. John Browning, one of Jenifer’s old boyfriends, is taking his giant white Ford Econoline van along with two other people up to the shows in Oregon and California. I don’t know how or why I got this lucky, but somebody must have cancelled on him for me to squeeze in a primo seat at the last minute. The deal with Jenifer and John B. is that they went out for a little while before she got bored. Then I suppose he was tossed aside like a bag of potatoes just like the rest of us. It’s a cruel, cruel world to live in when the girls get used to people constantly obsessing over them. Oh, the blessings and curses of having a sweet ass. Jenifer is one of those rare beautiful women that aren’t preoccupied with how much money somebody has or what they might one day be able to
earn, (unlike some people who shall remain nameless) if so I would have been eliminated long ago.
John B. and I get along great. He’s got long brown hair and a fully-grown goatee. It’s not a look he’s carefully crafted as an alternative fashion statement either, his goatee comes from being genuinely unkempt. Loose overalls and t-shirts, a carefree attitude and genuinely nice. John’s the same age as I am but he owns half of the Karma Kafe’, a pretty successful business that guarantees he has major bank. I think maybe he likes me because I’m a fresh face that doesn’t hang out in his place all the time. I think he finds it refreshing that I’m not trying to gloss him over with hippy peace and love while trying to scam vegan sandwiches on the side. Plus we have the bond of being obsessed over the same girl and having to watch her go on a road trip all the fucking way across the country, to the same place, without either one of us. We share the spurned lover bond. Ha!
The other two guys going with us are also pretty cool. We kind of all met briefly, checked out the van and had a little smoke out together. It was kind of an introduction, to make sure I’m not a cop or a dickhead before we travel across the United States together kind of thing. There’s another John with really short hair that plays conga (pronounced cooonga) drums, who is all hyped about finding a drum circle at the shows and another guy named Mike who resembles a red Viking giant. One thing is for sure, if the pre-trip smoke session is any indicator, the marijuana will flow like water.
All three of them know a hell of a lot about the Grateful Dead, which is good because I don’t have much time to cram familiarity into my thick head. My plan is to absorb as much of their music as I can on the trip and attend the shows with an open mind prepared for nothing but a good time. I found out that the Dead let people tape all their live shows anyway so no-one can predict or know exactly what they will do each time they get together and play. Spontaneity, I dig it, I’m all over it. It’s even cool that I don’t own any of their music. Apparently anybody who is a true fan doesn’t pay much attention to the studio albums that the Grateful Dead put out anyway, John #2 said, “the early ones are ok and the rest are shit.” I don’t know, I always thought “Trucking” was kind of a cool song.
I talked to Jenifer and she’s still going with Kristoff and some other girl whose name is Deanna. They are driving in a dookie-brown-colored mini pickup truck so I don’t envy their travel arrangements. Sitting on somebody’s lap is fun for about an hour at the most and can make for an awfully long journey. We’ve talked a lot about how she feels for me lately so I’m lot more at ease about her going with him. Lord help me, I love this girl so much that I don’t want to be apart from her even for a day, but I think a little mini-vacation will do us both some good. Merely a short breath between passionate kisses I’m hoping. Enough about Jen though.
I’ve saved about 300 bones, 100 of which I’ve budgeted for a sheet of acid. Another hundred is to buy tickets (I don’t have ANY) to the shows, so I don’t waste my whole vacation sitting out in the parking lot toking up and listening to wisps of far off music that float outside. John Browning has an extra ticket to every show, so I feel confident we’ll be able to work something out. My last hundred bucks is allotted for gas money, food and any miscellaneous items I just have to have. There is a mini-loft in the back of John’s van with a futon mattress on top of it so that two people can sleep or lie down while two people sit up front and drive. Underneath the loft is where we’ll stash our gear and John scored a lot of wholesale muffins, pastries and granola-type things to snack on from the Kafe. He knows there are going to be some severe munchie sessions.
Minimalism is definitely going to be the way to go. I’m bringing my French Army pack from school. It should be big enough for a few weeks. Anything that won’t fit in there, I probably won’t need anyway, so fuck it. I’m also bringing my skateboard for good luck, plus if we run out of gas it might just come in handy. I can just skate down the shoulder of the freeway and get gas or something. Plus, you never know where you will find a perfectly awesome raging place to skate in the wilds of America. You never really know with the way things are raging in Cali right now.
Jenifer left two days ago. We finally left yesterday and had to smoke many bowls almost immediately to christen the van with positive energy. I’m very high. We all seem to have massive amounts of marijuana with us, each person packing for four or more. I’m ashamed to say that my pot, which is pretty good stuff, seems to be the lowest quality weed in the car. John Spiece (found out his last name finally, rhymes with crease) brought nothing but hydroponic kind bud with him. It’s taken my body about a day to happily adjust to the quality.
Fortunately with the enthusiasm of travel still being fresh I haven’t had to drive much yet.
We had an uneventful first day due to merely heading North through dreary old Texas. I imagine that seeing a van full of long haired hippy freaks sent a few rednecks running for their gun racks, but despite a few second glances we haven’t had any trouble. I’ve recognized some of the same washed up dust-covered cities from travels to Colorado with the Patterson family in my youth.
We finally camped about 2AM in Colorado last night. At a turn off down some deserted road out in the middle of nowhere. I could feel the presence of the mountains, with their comforting earthen rocky feel all around me despite the darkness. The moon was so bright and my eyes were so bloodshot that I was thankful to stop rolling down the road for a bit. It was so fucking cold. If I hadn’t brought my mummy bag I would have frozen to death by the side of the van. Despite the sub-zero temp, nobody really wanted to sleep inside the van, although this morning when I woke up John Browning and Viking Mike were in there snoring.
The stars are just so incredibly bright up here. I lay on my bed of gravel and pine needles last night, staring up into the sea of stars. They really do twinkle and shine. Bright pinpricks and bullet holes of pure light that hover merely a few inches from my face. This may sound pathetic, but as I gazed I couldn’t help but wonder where Jenifer was on her journey. I fell asleep thinking maybe she was looking up at the same stars thinking of me. I am a moony bastard sometimes.
I’m glad I remembered to bring my camera along. I got a picture of me skating on this weird shaped thing outside a rest area today. More of the same driving today but the scenery is incredible, maybe just because it’s different. We are taking pot smoking to a whole new level and I am definitely enjoying this meandering trek we are taking towards Yellowstone National Park. All my wanderings have yet to take me this far into the Northwest. Having a great [sic] time. I brought along my copy of Kerouac to read, but smoking a fat bowl once, sometimes twice, an hour all day has kept me too stoned to read. I’m definitely not complaining. Instead of tuning out the monotonous journey by dulling my brain with the mind numbing solace of a good book, I am riding along quite contently thanks to herbal medicine.
I’m also getting exposed to lots of excellent music. As I predicted, my travel mates overstocked on the mellow guitar music so they were surprised when I showed them all I brought was hip-hop and Police albums, (well CD’s and tapes anyway, bring back the vinyl love man!) but it’s proving to have been a good choice. I get giggly when I think about the image of us as four hippies driving across the country jamming Dr. Dre’s new CD. So far, we seem to alternate between “The Chronic” and The Grateful Dead most of the time.
I’ve got a good feeling; God has definitely blessed this journey.
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
—Plato
Wow. I don’t know if my infantile writing skills can properly describe how incredible Yellowstone National Park (YNP) is. I’m not talking about the tourist attractions that everyone has heard of, although I saw those too. We arrived up in Wyoming about two days ago and drove straight into Yellowstone. The park takes up damn near a quarter of the state and I am VERY thankful to whichever fo
refather had the foresight to preserve this wonderland.
At first I have to admit I was disappointed because we drove and parked in the area around Old Faithful. There were so many fucking tourists around everywhere it might as well been a fire hydrant in the middle of a city with a big sign saying “Geyser Here”. By fucking tourists, I mean all the old RV people and yuppies in their neon jackets and luxury cars out seeing the sights. The people that they built the souvenir shops and the bathrooms and the motels and the power lines and all the fucking parking lots for! The same people and reasons that Mr. All-knowing Forefather Man set aside the land in the first fucking place to protect it from.
We took our own obligatory pictures of course. Sure enough, the damn thing erupted right on time. Go figure. Some skinny park ranger in a snappy green uniform gave a little speech before Old F. went off, shooting it’s spit and steam into the air quite impressively I might add. Thankfully, John S. had a tentative notion of what we should do and before I knew it we were visiting the ranger station and had a remote campsite appointed to us somewhere out in the wilderness. We got out camping gear together and started following a sidewalk that led to a creaky wooden system of docks spanning an incredible field of colorful hot springs. From the slippery planks we could see deep down into perfectly clear pools of water lined with colors in burnt red and sulphuric yellows. There were areas that bubbled clean white mud and areas that looked like they might be fun to sit around in and drink frozen-drinks with scantily clad women. The air was crisp and cool but the ground felt warm, moist, reassuring and alive as if an area of the Earth was talking to us spiritually. Or maybe passing gas.