PART I: WINTER
the days following xmas, we return from our families. another world sits heavy inside my belly. after a long greasy mindfuck of a day at work, i walk thru the door of the bolozone, and there's hsan, with a grin good as god saying "lips, let's go to the desert". hugs and kisses follow and two days later we hit the road. my life hasn't been the same since.
we told our bosses we didn't know when we'd be back, loaded up on blackbear stuffs and starting driving the lil honda. west west west, we had an atlas and i remember being cold wrapped up in a blanket when 2008 dropped hsan was driving and cranky, i said happy new year we're supposed to kiss now and he shrugged. we slept in kansas at a strange icy place.
we took the backroads, some would just suddenly turn to gravel. i dared hsan to ejaculate onto a piece of blackbear bread, he accepted, then threw it to the birds, wasted seed. we reached the desert suddenly and i stopped the car to climb a tree and thank the gods while hsan took a humble piss. i just kept sliding the debit card at the gas pump and it worked like magic. ominous.
we arrived in albuquerque that night with nothing but the phone number of some guy ralph knows named david. we called him, it was awkward, but he took pity on us and let us stay in his lil green houseshack while he went out for the night. we were grateful to have a floor and a little heat sectioned off with plastic sheeting. the stranger neatly placed wine and weed on the kitchen counter with a cordial invitation scribbled on the back of a receipt. this was new year's day. the tension from the carride peaked like meringue so what could we do but eat it up and try to forget?
the next day david drove us to the top of a mountain there was snow and gigantic antennae radiating dangerously and we found some bizarro army surplus stores and good taco trucks. david is our new buddy: wines and smokes, records and books, crafts and conspiracy theories homemade quiji boards dressed up diaper squash folk songs about sex chocolate secret drums pvc flutes plastic walls always cutting potatoes. david saying the word potato, we like the way he talks like sounding out every syllable. we fall in luv with leo kottke's fingers and tom t. hall's barnyard animals.
a few days later we head to flagstaff. we stay in a quaint lil hostel, play a drinking game in our comfyest bed with hsan's survival handbook and a growler i ended up screaming outside in my underwear somehow. the next day my car is covered in snow. a very nice asian fellow helped us shovel so we could leave. i'm so appreciative i give the guy a hug which makes him endearingly uncomfortable. flagstaff is a crispy cold apple. we breathe easy and open teary eyes to the lightest brightest blues whites yellows. hsan wants to drive a snowplow. i think i would move there just for the spelt biscuits n vegan gravy at that coffeeshop where people speak tru and go rock climbing after work. anyhow a welcome change from microwaving frozen cardboard snausage with hydrogenated pillsbury powder slurry. in a hurry.
next. we head to vegas to see some of hsan's friends from highschool. in an argumentative mood, i decide that i can beat him at an eating contest. we arrive at a holeinthewall burrito spot and order swine. top it off with reese's cups like that first cig beginning a string of sweetsick addiction. my tummy assaulted by sin
like poison moaning and groaning all the way until,
we drive up over the glitter horizon after hours of moonrock. then holdin thru checkpoints to the hoover dam like arriving at oz. in the middle of the night jamming out to old school disco delirious. 24 hour haze. went to red rock (twice once) right before the sun came up smoke-meditating on this giant striped-y pointing up boulder. imagining life as a rock warrior, slingshotting tourists and stealing their bottled water, merging with the plant life, pissing in lonesome crevices, hearing that coyote cry in a rare moment alone i wrote a forgotten song and imagined animals that evolve to look like trash. tried an interesting new drug that made me nauseous & hsan feel great. reds so red everything else looks green.
then the shit hit the fan financially... to make a long frustrating story short, i got fucked by u-s bank and was left with no fucking money. marta wired me enuf cash to drive us back to albuquerque so we could stay with david again and sell my car in a city that's not vegas. but not before we spent an awkward week at hsan's friends' house with no money feeling like total losers in a city full of concrete. staying home while they worked playing video games eating cheez-its and watching talk shows got old fast. i remember throwing the remote against the wall after hsan called me crazy. but i did read the tao of willie and researched the moon landing and played vintage pinballs with hsan's ex-girlfriend's findquarters. i stopped taking pictures, it just wasn't fun anymore.
our nerves shot driving back to albuquerque hoping we make it. we make it. david seems happy to see us. we got library cards and sold my car for cash in one day to a young college student's mother. the next day we got a sexxxy truck that i couldn't drive. we spent the profits pretty recklessly on fancy beer and restaurant food and the like. we see our friends occasional detroit at the tiki lounge. before we knew it the money is almost gone and we were back where we started. around this time i began compulsively stealing gas station candybars, it gave me an indescribable childlike joy, like a junky who sleeps in a bed of debris. my brain is a fixer upper. not surprisingly we both contracted some kinda flu. our lives begin to revolve around the library the grocery the pool hall and the plasma center. walking like zombies in the cold hanging out with all the other sick crazy homeless at the library as they hack and search for internet love, we bring headphones and watch quasimoto on youtube. blowing my nose on one ply rubbing my skin raw, leaking from every orifice, my brain sizzling dully inside my skull. the fever would subside briefly, only to resurface... i spent days next to the radiator piled under the parka. oh the parka. i stay home while hsan wanders the streets watching the cops herd the drunks downtown at midnight. i relearned the art of the 100% discount, brazen, almost caught, i really needed that lemon echinacea tea tho. we found a place with free pool and shitty cues that played xm radio grunge with a robot dj who told unfunny jokes about yr highschool boyfriend. we got drunk there a few times til we got sick ran outta money and just ordered sodas or water from the girls in shortshorts. we recovered. i quit drinking in a dream that now escapes me.
this became our new job: get up at crack of dawn, eat shit ton of shitty diner food in grumpy silence (as i was underweight and they recommend a full stomach), stuff socks with change, and play this shuffling game of papers and rooms and waits. i tried four agonizingly boring times to give plasma, but every day there was a new excuse. hsan gave twice while i watched movies in the waiting room. they never would stick me. looking back this was prolly for the best as i was lung-sick puny with low blood pressure. to boot, indeed.
(see glimpses in spaceblog :/: more gimp-sees in madness)
hsan got money wired and we finally hit the road eeeeeeast!, him driving exclusively as i hadn't yet mastered the dreaded stickshift, his nerves and arms again shot. coast to coast am playing a loop in my cave shadow dreams.
coming soon part II spring in the yin yo yo barn
