The Damned Highway (4 page)

I take another sip and let the Old Crow burn my wisdom teeth. The woman blinks. The machete lowers and vanishes behind her back.

“Reporter, eh?”

“Yes'm.” That knife can come out again in a flash. My cranium has never felt so much like a melon in my life. “I don't enjoy it. I'm not one of
those
types. I write when I must. It's a wretched profession, but someone has to do it, and I haven't had another job in quite a long time. But believe me when I tell you that you pay weird dues for earning a living this way.”

“So, if you're a reporter, then you must be here for the meeting in the back.”

“The meeting,” I say with a nod. Now I slam down my glass. “In the back. Yes. That's right. I just needed some medicine. It primes my muse, you see.”

The lights flicker.

“You'd better head on back,” she says, her eyes glancing toward the ceiling. “It's starting.”

She pours me two doubles, and I accept them both. The glasses are damp and cold in my palms. Double fisting the drinks, I get up and head toward the back room. It's a dark bar, all right. Even if there were any light coming from outside, it wouldn't reach here. The lights above are dim and yellow, as if the darkness were an active thing, blanketing and smothering the glow of the filaments. In this place, light is the enemy. It is as unwanted and undesired as a Black Panther member at the local VFW meeting. There are no dartboards, no promotional mirrors for Budweiser, no pinups. There is nothing. Nothing but the dark and an eye floater or two worth of lights, and the smell of rancid beer and dead cigarettes. The back door is thick, made of the same obsidian-type substance as the bar itself, and there's no handle, but it looks like it has a decent swing to it even though I can't make out any hinges. I back into the door and push it open with my posterior, and turn to face the meeting, Old Crow to my lips so I can have a few seconds to spare before having to talk myself the rest of the way in.

And then—ho ho—I swear to sweet baby Jesus almighty that it's Senator Eagleton, spread-eagle on across the slab, wrists and ankles cuffed tight to the corners. Electrodes cover his face and chest, the wires reaching up into a jury-rigged light fixture. He can't see me, obviously, but I can see him, and what I see fills me with loathing. Understand, I've seen a lot of bad craziness in my time. When I was riding with the Hells Angels, I witnessed a gangbang take place at a Merry Pranksters party. I caught the whole thing on my tape recorder and wrote about it later on in my book. Then I lent the tapes to Tom Wolfe and he wrote about it, as well. That particular depraved scene stuck with me for a long time, and I thought it had numbed me to the perversions of weirdoes and sexual reprobates—until now.

Unlike the bar, the room is illuminated, bright even, from glowing lichen on the cavelike walls. The barmaid was right. The meeting has started and I am just in time. There are three men, all in fezzes and with the pasty faces of overstuffed Rotarians, sitting on a low bench on the far side of the room. One of them has his hand on a hefty switch with brass fittings—think James Whale and the smell of ozone—and a smile.

“Give him another one, Sherman,” the fellow next to him says.

Sherman throws the switch, and Eagleton twitches like a spastic frog. Blood spills from his mouth. The bastards didn't even give him a rubber-ball gag on which to choke. The light in here doesn't flicker when the switch is thrown; the lichen on the walls seems to pulse and its luminescence grows brighter with every flail and sputter-cough of blood from the senator's mouth. Sherman reverses the switch and then stands. The room smells like bacon. My stomach grumbles, and I wonder how long it's been since I've eaten.

“Hello,” Sherman says, turning toward me. “I'm afraid this is a private function. What can we do for you, son?”

My mouth is dry. I am a doctor of many things. Among them, I am a doctor of whiskey. Believe me when I tell you that Old Crow is utterly useless in situations like this. But I don't let them see my fear. “Is this the meeting of . . .”

“The Committee to Re-elect the President, St. Louis branch?” Sherman says. “Yes, sir. Every Tuesday night, after pinochle. And you are?”

“Drinking.” As if to prove my point, I raise one of my glasses and take another sip of Old Crow.  
And searching for the American Nightmare
—a task which at this moment seems rather too easily accomplished. Pretty much, I just have to step into any business establishment and make myself available.

“Indeed.” He raises one hand to scratch his forehead, and I catch a glimpse of his cuff links. Solid gold, by the look of them, and emblazoned with a peculiar eldritch symbol—a rough star with an even cruder eye in its center. Just looking at them makes me nauseous, and I valiantly fight the urge to vomit because I don't want to waste my bourbon. Instead, I smile through gritted teeth and nod at him.

“Those are some nice cuff links,” I say. “I don't have any myself, but I'd love to know where I could get some?”

“I'm afraid you have to be a member to obtain these.”

“I see.”

The other two men walk over to join us now, leaving Senator Eagleton to twitch and spasm all by himself. I glance in his direction and am disturbed to see that Eagleton is sporting a massive erection. For a moment, I am reminded of the vagrant and the tentacle back at the bus station in Colorado. Was that really two days ago? Eagleton's prick bobs and weaves, as if beckoning. There is an oddly shaped mole on the tip. How many whores have had to slide their mouths over that mole? Did they do it for horse? Probably not. The type of prostitutes a man like Eagleton could afford probably prefer cocaine.

When I turn back to Sherman and his friends, all three of them are gazing at me with suspicion. Things could turn weird and ugly real quick, and I'm not sure how to proceed. My first instinct is to react with great and terrible violence, but I've got the impression that I've stumbled into something big here, and wreaking havoc among them won't get me any answers, no matter how much fun it might be. Stalling for time, I drain one of my glasses, not gulping it, but not sipping either. When I'm finished, I smack my lips together and go, “Ahhhhh.” Then I stick out my hand. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Sherman.”

He looks at my hand as if I'm offering him an infected weasel, but then he takes it. His grip is firm, but his palm is clammy and wet. I'm not sure if it's the condensation from my glass or if Sherman just has sweaty hands. I turn to his companions and offer my hand to them, as well.

“And what are your names, gentlemen?”

One of the men, a squat, fat guy with a face like a toad, shakes my hand. His grip is not as firm as Sherman's, but it is just as wet. It feels like I'm holding an eel. He pumps my hand once, twice, three times, and then stops, holding it in midair. I brace my feet, in case he tries to pull me toward him.

“That's very rude,” he says, licking his upper lip. “You should never ask a person what their name is. Names have power. If you know someone's name, then you have control over them.”

I nod. “This is very true. But how else can introductions be made?”

“Instead of asking a person for their name, ask them what they prefer to be called.”

“I see. And what do you prefer to be called?”

“I'm Livingston.” He releases my hand, and I resist the urge to wipe my palm on my pants. Instead, I turn to the third man. “And you, sir? What do you prefer to be called?”

“You may call me Koehler.”

“Well, it's very nice to meet you, gentlemen. And I believe I already know the fellow strapped to the slab.”

“You've made his acquaintance?” Sherman asks.

“Not formally. But I watch the news. I'm something of a political junkie.”

“So you know us.” Koehler leans forward and stares at me intently. His eyes don't blink. “But you haven't given us your name yet, son.”

I raise my glass and take another sip of Old Crow. The ice cubes clink against the rim.

“I prefer to be called Uncle Lono. I also answer to Dr. Lono.”

Koehler asks, “What are you a doctor of?”

I respond simply, “Why is it that nobody asks me to name my nephews, or show off a snapshot of my pretty young niece?”

On the slab, Senator Eagleton moans and whimpers. Sherman and Livingston glance in his direction. Koehler's attention remains focused on me, perhaps now in a pedophiliac fugue state from my mention of a notional niece, maybe a blond with long, mosquito-scabbed legs flowing from the cuffs of her short-shorts. I decide then that he's the one I'll have to watch. Sherman walks over to the slab and tests Eagleton's bonds.

“Well,” Koehler says, “as you can see, this is a private meeting. I'm afraid I'll have to insist that you tell us the purpose of your visit.”

“It's like I told Sherman. I'm here for the meeting. I'm sorry if I interrupted all the fun. The bartender told me just to come right back.”

“Did she? Something tells me you're not an initiate.”

“Should I have knocked first?”

I'm aware that Sherman has circled around behind me, but I don't want to take my attention off the other two long enough to see what he is doing. His footsteps shuffle across the floor, and I'm fairly certain he's moving toward the door. My eyes flick down to my watch. The bus will be leaving any minute now, and I'm faced with a terrible decision. I can flee this scene and let the Greyhound carry me away, but doing so will mean abandoning this story, and believe me, there's a story here. I feel it deep down in my journalistic nuts. I can abandon the bus and stick around, scratching these guys and seeing what develops—but doing so might prove hazardous to my health.

“Uncle Lono.” Koehler says it slowly, drawing out each syllable. “That's an interesting name. Lono was a Polynesian fertility god, of course. Descended from the skies on a rainbow and married Laka, I believe. Or maybe he was the god of music. It's hard to keep track of these minor deities. They pale in comparison to the one, true god.”

“Amen.” I try to hold my drink still so the clinking ice won't draw attention to the fact that my hands are shaking.

“Are you aware of the connection between Lono and Captain Cook?”

“Can't say that I am.”

“Pity. You should look into it sometime. You might find it . . . illuminating. Still, it's an interesting name. I would imagine that it's not your real one, but then again, I would guess you have many names. Duke, perhaps?”

And just like that, my uneasiness and revulsion are eradicated by a white-hot flash of anger. I had taken great care in crafting this new pseudonym. I needed it for this journey. It should have worked. I was willing to bet that none of these three men had read either of my books, nor did they look the type to read the magazines my articles appeared in. There was no way they should have known me, and yet, they did. The malicious grin that spread across Koehler's face as he noticed my reaction certainly proved that he at least suspected who I was, and all because of that goddamned cartoon. That comic strip follows me wherever I go, regardless of what country or city I'm in. It doesn't matter if the people in that town think books are just something to be burned—if their local newspaper carries that cartoon, then sooner or later, they recognize me. It's very weird. When you're in high school and thinking about what you want to be when you grow up, you might decide on a fireman or an investment banker or a farmer or an attorney, but no one, to the best of my knowledge, decides that they want to be a fucking cartoon character. If they do, they should be shot in the head immediately, because such a desire would make all their other motivations suspect. There's no frame of reference for what to do or how to react when you've been turned into a comic-strip character. They don't teach it at college. No one has written any self-help books about it, although it occurs to me that I might have to one day.

I step to the side and Koehler moves with me, while Livingston shuffles forward, trying to flank me. The whiskey swirls in my gut.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I say. “Duke? I've been confused with many people over the years, but John Wayne isn't one of them.”

Koehler's smile evaporates. He presses his lips together so hard that they turn white. His nostrils flare and I can see thick, black hairs lining their interior.

“Enough of this charade. We know who you are and what you do for a living. I'm not sure what brought you here. Perhaps it was fate or circumstance, or perhaps you received a tip. Regardless, you won't be writing about it.”

“Oh, yeah? And why not?”

“Because you won't be leaving.”

“You're wrong there, friend. I have a bus to catch.”

Chuckling, Koehler steps forward, his fat hands raised as if to wring my neck. “I'm afraid not, Mr.—”

And that's when I toss my drink in his face, buying myself an extra second to act, and mourning the waste of perfectly good Kentucky bourbon. Tough times call for tough measures, but I have never been one to abuse alcohol in that manner. Koehler reels backward, gasping and clawing at his eyes, and I take the opportunity to charge him. Head lowered, I slam into his gut. The air rushes from his lungs, smelling sour and curdled, and Koehler falls to the floor. Shouting, Livingston charges me, but I am already ahead of him. As he lunges, I sidestep, putting a table between us.

“You bastard,” Koehler cries, writhing on the floor. “You fucking bastard! My eyes.”

“Damn your eyes,” I shout. “What about my whiskey?”

Livingston weaves around the table and I move with him, coming back around again to Koehler, who is struggling to stand. His eyes are red, and whiskey drips from his nose. I swing my leather kit bag, smashing him in the face. Something breaks. I hope it's his nose rather than my tape recorder. Then I run for the door. Sherman blocks my way.