Why I Committed Suicide (14 page)

I think it’s a part of the country that’s pretty ugly.
Pretty & ugly?
Maybe ugly is too harsh because the land does have a certain raw beauty crafted from untouched desolation and emptiness. The endless miles of straight highway that put your body in a restful state with the perfectly timed rhythm of the road and the cruise control working together. I always enjoy letting my mind wander and envelop my
self
in the monotony of driving. It’s an addictive love affair I admit, and it’s so crazy to be with someone who understands that. My conversations with Jenifer have been bonding and intimately personal. I find myself telling her things that I don’t necessarily want to share without fear of reproach or misunderstanding. It’s as if the words just spill from me out onto the dashboard like I’m lying back on a psychiatrists couch. Road therapy.

The music we’ve brought is great, just smoking a joint and listening to the Rolling Stones can put me in a state of ecstasy. I’m a little miffed because Jenifer won’t let me drive her car, which is like saying she doesn’t trust me enough yet with something she’s deeply attached to. It’ll make me frustrated and she’s going to be really irritable if she drives the entire two days to San Diego by herself. I really don’t want tension to spoil any part of this due to my bitching but I might say something soon. I’m trying to just sit here writing, letting myself be content to enjoy the journey and Jenifer’s company, confident she’ll let me take the wheel sooner or later. It’s a manly power thing to be the driver for God’s sake!

Miss Suzy had a Steamboat, the Steamboat had a bell, Miss Suzy went to heaven but the Steamboat went to Hell. Miss Suzy had a Steamboat, the Steamboat had a bell, Miss Suzy went to heaven but the Steamboat went to Hell. Miss Suzy had a Steamboat, the Steamboat had a bell, Miss Suzy went to heaven but the.

Viva LA Mexico! Viva Juarez!

We arrived in El Paso early this morning, parked the car on the U.S. side and walked across the bridge into Juarez. Jenifer’s first taste of Mexico. I’ve romanticized her with my outlandish tales of border town life, assuring her it’s a slice of corrupted heaven on Earth.

I haven’t been to Juarez since Ernie and I drove his VW bus out here for our old dorm buddy Darrell’s wedding. We
drove
across the border that time and ended up getting lost on the way back from the dog track. You would think it would be easy to head North and just sort of run into the United States right? So we drove around until we found a Mexican Kentucky Fried Chicken where nobody spoke a lick of English. I was really lit by this time so I don’t remember how we made it back to the border but we ended up getting harassed by the border patrol because they found a pipe with some resin residue in it that Evan (another dorm friend) hid in the van under a pile of his stinky underwear. Ernie was freaking out because he was on probation at the time and wasn’t supposed to leave Denton County, much less the country, and I was feeling pretty nauseous. After making us sweat for 2-3 hours, they finally just made Evan break his stupid pipe and let us go with a slap on the wrist. Despite all that shit, and despite all the people who ate guacamole at the track getting a severe case of Montezuma’s revenge, I still left Mexico with an idyllic impression of the mighty town of Juarez in my mind.

When Jenifer and I got there this morning, it must have been about 8AM and the markets and vendors don’t start hawking their wares until about 10 or so when the throngs of tourists start filtering over. So Jenifer and I walked hand in hand taking in some free culture and polluted atmosphere for a while, ignoring the stares of the bleary eyed shopkeepers. I think she was a little unimpressed, maybe expecting sombrero clad people living in huts outside of El Segundo or some such, but I bought some beer to commemorate the good times I’ve had before. Corona with lime and salt in the hustling bustling morning marketplace sunshine is one of God’s little gifts to man. Beer is not just for breakfast anymore. Honestly though, even though I couldn’t put a whole lot of enthusiasm into a good drinking binge that early in the morning but I made a nice effort. We split before the markets really started swinging, before the begging children with Chiclets surfaced and before the fruit vendors were even cutting pieces of fruit off unusually shaped melons and shoving them into the mouths of passerby. Ah Mexico! We’ll be going through Tijuana on our way to Baja and I expect it to be about the same. Maybe better.

Everything is everything.

Everything is everything. It’s all good and everything is cool. I gave my friend Darrell a courtesy call outside a supermarket next to the plastic kiddie rides before we left El Paso. Oddly enough it was raining and I think my call caught him by surprise. “Hi, just called to see what’s up. No, we can’t stay but thanks. Yeah, we’re on our way to California. Stay cool, see you in Denton sometime. Bye.” It was pouring down rain like a bitch by the time I hung up, droplets of water were pooling in the seats of the plastic choo-choo train next to the phone, sure to cause some mother aggravation tomorrow. I had a hard time getting Jenifer to slow down enough to make the call, she’s mentally already moving on to bigger and newer things.

Jen drove all the way through New Mexico and Arizona, like a bat out of heck, right past Mexicali along the border and straight along the S1 into San Diego with minimal pauses for rest stops, food and petrol. We did see an incredible sunset in Arizona that brought back fond memories and a discussion of that night in Oregon where we fell in love, or at least the night she fell in love with me. I still feel as if I’ve been smitten across the ages. We scooped out some cool cacti to take home with us. Too bad it isn’t peyote. There are lots of Dairy Queens and gas stations with dusty pumps and musty people. Long stretches of highway with nothing to see for miles except for the road that snakes off into the distance and ends in a blurry mirage of moisture.

We passed lots of people going to work or coming home like a continual trail of ants sipping coffee from funny shaped cups and aluminum thermos. What the hell can they all be thinking? What is their purpose other than existing, is that what being alive is for? Work, relax, work, relax, repeat as needed until dead or move to Florida and drive badly then die. I don’t think so, I think life is for going to motherfucking Mexico with a living sex goddess driving you in her car, the wind in your hair and sand in your teeth washed down with cold beer and a fat joint filled with imported Mexican marijuana!

Tired, tired, tired. After our grueling day of top fuel racing we arrived in San Diego, the home of Sea World. I hope I get shot if I ever exploit the majesty of the sea by confining and whoring out its greatest animals. I’m chilling out at a Denny’s with Jenifer, just maxing and relaxing over the universal hot, greasy food they serve and coffee with lots of cream and sugar. Yummy. I’m literally writing this journal entry at Denny’s while Jenifer sits across from me pigging out on strawberry pancakes. I’m savoring this time and dreading having to sleep in the car again tonight. It’s fun, but I always feel as if my spine has been tied in a knot afterwards. You can forget about fucking too, I don’t know how a whole generation of fifties kids were supposedly conceived in the back seats of automobiles. I suppose back in the era of big cars when gas was cheaper than water and married people still slept in separate beds on television, the back seat of a car was roomy, private and conducive to making whoopee. I yearn for bygone days that I never even experienced.

California is so cool that even ordinary highways look different and full of possibilities. I like how the overpasses have Spanish moss and vines growing up, and sometimes over, them. We’re heading into Mexico tomorrow so I’m smoking a lot of dope tonight and I’ll cross the border with a major buzz. I’m going to have to ditch the leftover pot by the side of the highway before we traverse the international boundary. You don’t want any reason for trouble in Mexico.

I finally confessed to Jenifer one of my biggest secrets that I don’t even feel comfortable writing down. I felt like a bastard because I lied and told her my parents and the police knew, but the real truth is I ran away. One more unsolved crime with no statute of limitations and an overwhelming shadow of guilt and dread that will follow me to my deathbed.

Enough of this now.

As I predicted, like a real life bonafide monkey-finking psychic, I woke up with a backache. We ate our last American meal for a while at the Denny’s, which we parked and slept only a few blocks away from. Coffee is good for the soul but bad for the bladder, especially if nightly urinary relief only comes by way of wiggling out of a sleeping bag, opening the car door
(light comes on, loud BING! BING! BING!)
hopping over to the bushes and taking care of business. Then back to the car,
(Light! BING! BING! BING!)
into the sleeping bag and uncomfortable repose. We only got hassled once during the night by a bored police officer who talked to us for a minute then made us move the car to an office parking lot a few blocks away from the Denny’s and let us go back to sleep.

We converted our money to pesos, hopefully the value won’t deflate too much before we get back. We left about half our cash in U.S. Dollars because I have a feeling they will work better than pesos in most places anyway. Also bribes seem to work better with American money if it ever comes to that, better to be prepared than clueless. I got as stoned as I could but still had to ditch about half a sack of weed a mile before the border, some hitchhiker, illegal alien or street sweeper will be happy I suppose. The land of milk, honey and weed. I was fairly certain we wouldn’t be searched going IN to Mexico, I mean what is there to smuggle that they don’t already have? I just wanted to make sure there was no trouble, so except for the couple of joints I hid in my hat (don’t carry more than you can eat), I’m dope free. It’s not a bad thing, just ironic to me. Mexico is cool.

We haven’t gone too far yet, but the American bastard that is Tijuana is now behind us. We’ll stop and do our shopping there on the way back, but for now it’s outlaw country and Tecate beer signs for us. We’ve eaten at a couple of Mexican food places that were very good but also very tailored to American tastes. I’m going to stop writing now and live in the experience for a bit. Adios!

Cheap Motel:

Cheap motel, cheap motel, makes my eyes burn like hell. Oh cheap motel, cheap motel, I hope your owners have to sell, And the whole damn place falls in a well.

—Native American irritation song sung by Sam in the car

Stayed in a cheap motel in San Quintin (not the prison) last night. Not Motel 6 cheap, Mexico cheap. Their main selling point was that they had a bed and a half shower area with running water! We ate some badass tacos from a street vendor last night and washed them down with Tecate beer, which is cheaper (and safer) than the water. Fucking great. The motel was on a dirt road, a turn off the “highway” and we almost got our feet stuck in the mud trying to get in and out of the dank room.

This morning I got pissed because the shower was so cold that I froze my nuts off, then it cut out right in the middle of my bathing so I had to get most of the soap off my body with a cold wet rag. I went out and looked at the shower pump for the entire Motel and it looked like only it had about a five-gallon tank on it. Ooh I’m just being a surly bastard now but I hope some emotional friction will create warmth. After getting nice and muddy pushing the car back to the road, totally negating any value I might have received from the hellishly cold shower experience, we ate at this café that serves only breakfast and lunch that our guidebook highly recommended and was probably the only reason we stayed in this little village of a town to begin with. The café is actually a room with a couple of picnic tables in this old lady’s house and she cooks the food for people in her kitchen. While we were there my clumsiness finally got a good laugh out of Jenifer. I accidentally knocked over a gigantic pot of salsa that was brought to our table and I tried to overcome my language barrier to explain what had happened to the lady in the kitchen so I could get a rag and clean it up for her. Jenifer’s masochistic streak kept her from helping me so I was getting more and more frustrated and embarrassed trying to tell Rosa about the “queso”. “Queso” means “cheese” but I got confused and thought it meant salsa for some reason. So I’m standing in the door to Rosa’s kitchen saying “cheese, cheese” over and over waving my arms in a circular fashion making what I think are the universal “please give me a rag so I can clean up the mess” motions. Jenifer’s rolling on the floor laughing at this point while I’m trying to play international charades and pantomime a pot of salsa falling off the table using simulated explosive sound effects and yelling “Queso!” Poor Rosa was just standing there cooking our eggs, smiling and nodding like she understood exactly what I was saying the whole time. I guess that’s what you do when a six-foot tall, unshaven white man with soap in his hair, covered in mud comes into your house and starts yelling “Cheese” at the top of his lungs.

I fucking suck at Spanish! The breakfast was incredible though.

Oh If I could just tame Jenifer’s free spirit and only dress her in the finest designer couture she should be wearing, force the underlying sense of style on her that we both shun, if only to help her conquer the world. It’s as if she was purposefully living in the raw awaiting my discovery. My treasure. My girlfriend. Damn I love her so much. She’s a ravished and beautiful outlaw woman, cruising the badlands of the notorious old West with her gringo companion.

This is amazing country, mostly untamed, seemingly an unlimited wasteland unaffected by the people who manage to eke out an existence here. It’s warm during the day and cool throughout the night but during the summer the heat must be unbearable, a mirage of warbling watery heat patterns reflecting off the mirrored sand. There are lots of cool cacti here too, standing straight and tall. Very phallic. Their deep green gives an illusion of abundant life that might lay just under the harsh surface of the desert. Jenifer and I saw about fifty buzzards sitting on the rocks just outside of town. It was an eerie scene, watching a gathering of all these scavengers in their off time. It appeared as if the vultures were waiting for a catastrophe to rain down meat from the sky or perhaps they would converge on the town later awaiting a yet unknown disaster to befall the villagers. The scavengers didn’t seem to have any particularly ruthless agenda at the moment though, so I took some pictures and we moved off down the ill-repaired Mexican highway.