Christians in White Trucks

Christians in white trucks, everywhere, all over L.A., after me. On my way to the store, there to the right, a white truck pulls out. In a parking lot, one of them gets out of a dirty white 150, just stares at me. Shit, on a freeway, driving fast as my Mazda goes, man, no matter what exit I take, one of the fucking white trucks shows up in my rear-view. They must have radio control by now. They know where I am.

Was visiting that Stonewall March in New York City, very few white trucks there, Thank God the Christians were hiding, but now I’m back, only one day at home now, no time at all before I fly away to Oz, always wanted to go, man, I love to travel. Clothes lay all over the laundry room floor. Watch out for Sam, landlord Sam, man, last thing I need when I’m really high is to talk to Sam in the fucking laundry room. He pulls at me and whispers in his fairy voice, “A life filled with incident, young man, you lead a life filled with incident” -- wiggles his eyebrows like Groucho Marx -- too much when you’re trying to do the fucking wash.

I manage to get to Joey’s in Hollywood for an eight-ball, thank God --- traded two picture frames for a shiny pair of chorus-boy pants I found in a thrift shop, they stopped fitting me, I am so fucking skinny now, it’s great! Joey’s shit was never the best, but his price is right, and sometimes he blows me when we do a few lines together, but mostly we just hang and kill time. On the way back to Silver Lake three fucking Christians surround me with their trucks, one of ‘em shoots me the finger when I have to brake. I throw my cigarette at him.

I promise Rich I’ll be packed. Big guy is fucking prompt, arrives right at 6. I open the door and, wow, his mohawk is pristine, orange, a big toxic brush across the top of his head, a push broom turned sideways. It’s real orange, I have to touch it. I squeal, I offer him a line. “Get packed, Chrissake,” he says, so I start stuffing everything in, what the hell.

No white trucks when Richard is driving to LAX, I make a note. Only when I drive, I make a note. We stroll right up to the Qantas check-in. “Visa, please,” says a guy, kinda cute, pale for my tastes. Nobody told me about a visa, nobody from fucking Australia told me. “Who’s responsible for this fuck-up?” My sweat is sour, poisons bubble up from inside, lines and shots and no food, Christians, white trucks, and too, too much adrenaline. I wipe my head with my sleeve, “What do I do?”

He says: “Well, if you go to the consulate and get the visa, we can fly you to Sydney tomorrow night.” OK, I can do that, thanks I tell him, and even though there is a big old white truck parked right next to Rich’s red Honda, we get in, we get home. Rich rolls his eyes up towards the Mohawk and says, “Get some sleep,” door-slamming as he vanishes into goodbye.

Fat chance, hey, I just got a free party night! I do a couple of lines, it doesn’t seem enough, so I find the pipe and smoke a pile of Joey’s shit. I wedge into my cock rings and boots, I get fierce and pump up some tunes, parade around the house from mirror to mirror, look at those shiny eyes, damn I’m hot! singing along with Eddie Vedder. Then: shit! Is it something out back? Tiptoe to the window, lift the dusty slat of the Levelor blind with a pencil, can’t be too careful: it’s nobody, maybe.

It goes like that until, damn, it’s like 3 a.m. I make it to the Night Hawk where I kill a few hours, most of it upstairs in the dark area. I grab a toot here and there to keep the buzz trending upwards. By sunrise, I knocked back the butt end of a pint of Jack. Out on the cracked sidewalk I stumble, I think, fuck all, only guy I talked to in there was Joe the desk man, never got around to sex, fuck! These here are my people, so it’s cool. Then I see a white truck go by and I know I’m doomed. I get into the car and light a cigarette.

It’s a gonna be a real long morning, it’s Thursday, I can tell you that. The trucks are white and multiplying, so I take the long way to the Consulate. When I park, maybe two blocks from the Australians, fuck, one of the Christians gets out of his little Toyota flatbed and follows me into the building. He’s wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, I can’t really see his face, I get in line, and man, it’s driving me crazy. I lean over to the woman in the little cage. She seems confused when I ask her about the Christian. She wants my paperwork. She wants my photo. I don’t have a fucking photo. Who’s responsible for this?

On the steps outside, that baseball-hat Christian, he’s walking towards his truck. The Paramount lot is very close, ya know, so I drive over there. Shit, the white truck is right behind me, so I tell the Paramount guard I’m here to see Oscar, I can’t remember Oscar Who, but they figure it out and they let me in. Oscar laughs when he sees me, buys me a cup o’ Joe and we sit on a patio staring at the clear sky, no clouds, except for that big cloud wall they have there on the lot. Before long Oscar’s pissing me off. Anyway, I gotta get home, gotta get the photo, I take the snaky, big-house way up and over the hills.

I gotta pack all over again, fuck, it’s getting late, I better hit it, a shower and a quick pop for the road. I can see the white truck waiting in the BofA parking lot as I pull onto Silver Lake Blvd, I’m a fuckin’ GREAT driver when I’m this high, I am jacking it on Melrose, it’s gonna be close, it’s 4:30, I’m not gonna get there in time, fuck there’s a light, I pass a car on the left and run a red light, but, damn, I don’t make it, not even close, I’m not flying tonight, another fuck up.

A white truck rolls by as I drop a quarter into the pay phone, hand shaking like an old man’s. Rich is still at work, thank God, he will meet me. I watch him eat at an Indian restaurant. He’s a very dainty eater. As he savors each bite, I do the talking, I’m so fucked-up, I’m really scorched, I keep hitting the eight ball in the head. Finally, I tell him about Christians and the trucks, worse than the tree people or the Druid ceremony at dawn or that time I lost my key house crawling on my hands and knees in some dirty bushes.

He asks: “Do they follow you up the driveway at your apartment?” I say no. “So why don’t you go home?” he says. I like the sound of that, so I agree, well, I do make a few stops, a few last shots, a beer and some powder snorts in a parking lot. I inch eastward as the darkness from my heart spreads across an angry dying sunset, a skid up the driveway, I glide the Mazda into its home, shit! Safe, no trucks.

Restless speed-freak hands play over my body and face, pick-pick at dried-up nose hole, crunchy scratch on stinky butt and shriveled dickhead, poking pockets, toss a soggy Marlboro pack. Thunk thunk boots mock me, clunk clunk clatter on the hardwood floor, I pace sweating copper, scratchy and mean, bullets and crank in a hollow house. Oh, so safe.

Stop it, just gotta stop it. Time to come down, time to crash this train now, high since New York, time to come down. OK, daddy, take me now, take me away, take me down, take me out, take me out.

Very very hot hot, very hot bath, steaming ritual water crashes on me, sweet tumbler of Jack teeters on tile, hot steam, too hot for words scalding me, dogs yelping at the end of sex, saying grace before a bad meal, taking the long and merciful ride to the bottom, the release almost a pleasure, a scrub, a splash, a sigh, oh, I stink so bad, oh, my stinking goose bumps, oh my hopeless lavender flesh. Shiver and chatter and drift in the last hot and dreamy. Daddy, let me drift for just a minute, daddy, let my hot soul drift downstream, drift away, far away from all this stink.

--o--

The wake-up moment in a freezing tub comes all at once. You think it’s a dream, only you have no dreams, only darkness and hate and freezing water. You may crash, you may come down, you may end it. You say you’ll never do it. You say a lot of things.

A drop from the faucet lands on the water near my toe. I am really shivering. I try to hoist myself up, leg cramps. I scream, falling back, water sloshes onto the floor, spreads like a giant tear. I want to get up, I want to get off, I want to start over, I want to run away, I want to live, I want to die, I want to swim to the arctic like a giant white bear, I want some fucking answers.

There are no answers on the ceiling, but still, I look up. I examine the ceiling, though it seems to be blurred. My eyes are blurring, not from the water, but from the pressure inside, first just my head and then below, a tiny vibration that makes the water ripple and my heart crack. My arms reach up and I smear the darkness, clear a tiny spot of light, a pale yellow warm light. I am a vibration inside that light. I am inside the light. Inside the light I know nothing. Inside the light I ask. Inside the light there are words. Inside the light, I don’t know why. I only know as I murmur at the ceiling, as I watch the darkness melt into the cold, cold water, as I rise up from the stink and stand on my shaking legs: I only know that I have no choice, I must speak the words, once and forever, I say them out loud, “Oh god, please help me. I can’t do this any more. Somebody help me.”