The Written Word

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The acid was just starting to kick in and the tequila was wearing off.

We were tearing down the highway. The band was gonna play, time to go.
“God, this stuff is working” my friend said. “I'm so glad I'm not driving,
I'm so fucking high”.

“Me too,” I said, my hands gripping the wheel of the big boat of an impala
as it slowly turned into a python. “I'm glad I'm not driving, too.” I
stepped harder on the gas.

She started to scream. I giggled.

It was dark and bad in the club. It used to be a place where the waiters
wear robes like monks and you drink cheap dark beer and eat beef. And
I always imagined the monk-waiters buggering the bus-boys in the barred
wine cellar in between rounds.

Now it's not that. It's a bar where bands from downtown play and hardly
anyone goes and all the neighbors hate it when the bands are loud.

There were things living in the dark corners of the beamed ceiling. They
hid when I looked but I knew they were there and they were looking at
me.

I drank bud. I hate bud. I wanted to drink sierra nevada or a long
island ice tea or a vodka collins or maybe just tequila. Even water.
But all I could say was 'bud' so I said it and kept saying it and
it was better than having my hands empty.

The band were ready to start, and the dance-floor was empty and then
they were in the middle of it, building a bonfire of napkins and
lighting it and sitting in a tribal circle. And they were chanting and
it sounded like “Rat, rat, giant rat, give me some rat blood to mix
with my blood” and they bonfire on the wood dance floor was getting
bigger, and they were chanting louder, “RAT! RAT!” and then the
napkins were lifting off like smoldering souls flying up to hell.

And then they were picking up instruments and the music was starting.
Which chased the things away from the shadows and I had another bud.

“I'm glad I'm not driving, too,” I thought.