Chapter1

Exit Zero


Revised

We were somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains, driving far too fast for these parts with an eight of pot in the glove compartment. We had rented a piece of shit 1985 ford that was due at the rental office in Columbia South Carolina in less than 10 hours. The radio was blasting notes throughout the forest, 'Five to one baby, one and five, no one here gets out of here alive now.'� In the South, the senses run over time, you can feel something sinister in the air but you can't put your finger on it. There is something foul in the heart of America. There is nothing permanent here, transient cities, living museums and voodoo angels, ghosts of slaves and surfs with their spells that alter the cleft of the mind. Plantations, ghosts of the South, horrid imprints in time. The laughter of Lucifer reverberates in the minds of the French quarters. My brother and I were returning from New York to South Carolina. A transient move as it turns out. The old gold miner saying: 'Go west young man and seek your fame fortune.'� And we did.
Nothing could have prepared us for was what was around the corner. There was no indication of negative vibrations in the air, the monkey hides under the eyelid when danger is on the horizon. So it took us by surprise when the lights behind us started flashing red and blue. 'Oh shit,'� muttered my brother. 'I can't believe this.'� Cops here are home grown like insane plants of the confederacy, Dixie boys with shit kicker grins. They hang you in these parts. He (my brother) pulled over to the side of the road with twisted anger that was well known to those around him. It was at this time we realized that it was a parks ranger of law enforcement. (Quick note: in some parts of the county, park rangers have the authority of a police officer until a real cop appears on the sign. This is a dangerous practice of coarse when one considers the difference in training in keeping control of a situation.)
Out of the petrol car we watched him stroll to the driver's side of the car. He walked with a farm boys stride, real apron monkey. He was young, 22, perhaps, maybe even younger. He had all the makings of a local; firry red hair, small town stare of someone who was sure they will be home for dinner, no knife fights on his route, farm boy simplicity, never learned how to mistrust or loss well, and was pale as moonlight. At first things seemed to go smoothly, no signs of bad energy or potentially volatile situations. 'Can I see your Id and registration please,'� he asked with an all too friendly persona. 'You know why I pulled you over?'�'�. 'You boys were speeded, going seventy-five. We have to be careful with the critters around here.'� My brother stared straight ahead while trying to explain his way out of this situation. 'I'm sorry but, I lost track of how fast I was going. We just need to get home before tomorrow, you understand.'� The park ranger stared at him for a second. My brother's hair was a little past his shoulders and uncombed. His face revealed a hippie that was born far too late, unshaven and thin. His clothes were starting to show the signs of being worn for four days straight. The park flunky moved to the passenger side and demanded to see my Id. Luckily I had my old card. I say luckily because normally I don't carry any forms of identification on me; a habit that I fell into for no apparent reason. He took our information back to his car. It should be noted at this time that the license plate on the rental car was to a well known neighborhood in Florida that was notorious for their gangs and crack epidemic.
The scene changed, someone got the films mixed up and spliced the wrong movies together, May Berry with the horrors of Deliverance. I could see that our friend's face dramatically changed, as if he just caught John Dillinger or one of the Manson family. His already pale complication now seemed to be void of all pigment and his eyes grew the size of half dollars. He got out of his car, hand on his gun and shacking. Now at the drivers side door. 'You boys got guns? You boys have drugs? You boys have alcohol? You boys got guns? You boys have drugs? You boys have alcohol? You boys got guns? You boys have drugs? You boys have alcohol?'� 'No'� we both stated now shitting ourselves. What had gone wrong? Were we wanted fugitives in some FBI sting. The tide had taken a horrid turn and this adult version of Howdy Duty with an attitude was now clearly looking for any reason to slap the cuffs on us. The questioning continued, 'You boys got guns? You boys have drugs? You boys have alcohol? You boys got guns? You boys have drugs? You boys have alcohol?
You boys got guns? You boys have drugs? You boys have alcohol?'� And we continued our denial of being in possession of any paraphernalia. It was apparent that he was still green, couldn't get us too confess to his questioning though he was sure that we were guilty of something but, found no reason to pursue what was turning into a chess game. Quick note Chess like any other competition is contingent on keeping ones opponent guessing. He walked back to his car. 'Fucking pig!'� I shouted finally, now sensing that the worst was over. 'Calm down,'� my brother shouted back, 'I know how you get. Don't do anything stupid; I'm just glad he didn't search the car.'� 'Why,'� I asked knowing that he had nothing on us. But, before my question could be answered the ranger had returned. 'You can pay this by mail or appear in court and pay it there. Keep your speed down.'� He strolled back to his car then was gone. My brother looked at the ticket, 'Fucking pig!!! Seventy 'five dollars, oh you mother fucker! Oh, what a shit head'� And we drove away. Ten minutes later I broke the silence of the wall of twisted anger. 'So why were you scared he was going to search the car? What was it, the pot?'� 'That to'� he said, 'But I have a sheet of acid in the binder on the back seat.
Night fell when we finally descended from the mountains, reaching the lonely and sorrowful Southern highway, past ghost towns, burned out farms, fierce churches that permeate the mindless rants of insane preachers of hair shirt rage; corn fed children of rickets with crustaceans eyes, their mothers with sinister poisonous stares standing among chicken shit, coal chalk smeared across their foreheads and arms and invisible eyes that watch among the trees, guardians of the south who make sure you only pass by and keep on movin.
****

It was midnight when we walked through the door of our parent's house in Columbia South Carolina. My mind was still reverberating from the repetition of cassette tapes playing over and over again (soon turning to white noise), the last vapors of acid, mindless rants of radio preachers hissing and snarling in their brimstone con-jobs; 'And with just a little help from you good folks, dig deeeep into your pockets and let the lord know you care. We can cast the great Satan off into the fiery depths of hell where he belongs. Don't be afraid to give. The plates are coming around. Give in his name,'� and 'You boys have guns? You boys have drugs? You boys have alcohol...'� I walked to the back room turned on the television then laid down. On the screen was a 1950s B movie with hydraulic creatures from a latter age that had apparently consumed all members of the other races and was now ready to devour white flesh.
The Southern air has led to many twisted dreams where strangers float by with frightening sneers. This is the back wash of the art of loosing well. In the end, the only religion that has true function is the religion of instinct, the strange animal that sniffs at our door. I was in empty space of sound, cassette tapes playing over and over again in tides of white noise. Furious preachers, we were going to hell on the wings of the rubber of tire treads, open road cells. The sun turned red as blood and the sky turned black as sack cloth. Rivers of burning words melted below as coins fell from my pockets into the burning inferno bellow. Solar flares exploding in the skulls of young addicted clinics. Children with crestation's eyes feeding in the mud flaps, on the remains of a dream that came out of the industrial age. 'Hear this, come all you surfs, rats and swine who we dumped on Mulberry Street, you shit slime of Five Points; if you work in the endless machinery of the mechanical mind you can become what ever you desire as long as you don't collapse or die of exhaustion. If the shit yards of the tenements don't consume you in the digestion of darkness then the thick air filled with unknown chemical embrace may expand in your lungs. But it is your body we desire.'�
Outlaws in the peyote fields of New Mexico with Shaman flesh. The lines of time and life and thought make their connections. The images flashed quickly: book burnings, mindless rants of born again Christians, saints being worshiped and crucified by those that follow, explosions in the Gobi desert. Burning effigies of the Buddha with eastern flesh. A shot gun blast from across the border.


Escaping The Twisted Circus

Chapter 2


The energy of Columbia South Carolina is clumsy not unlike an old drunken Turk with a knife in his teeth deceptively dangerous. The density of boredom is far too heavy, swelling in the minds of the local children who break down into the dance of juvenile deliquesce, from graffiti to small time theft and whoring. If Norman Rockwell succumbed to such vile energy, he would spiral into experimentation of dark water colors and a drinking binge where he would find himself in an other-wise empty room. His mind would become twisted with visions of a canvass in one hand and a gun with a single bullet of specialty in the other. The mechanics of boredom were so loud that any memory of a life of pure and raw madness would shatter like shards of light shining through the drapes. For the young to reach such states of madness, usually meant the succumbing to a chemical process along with sex.. But, the difference here was that, unlike in times past or in other places that I had been visiting during those years, there was something dead about the dance of drugs and sex in Columbia. Its not unlike sleeping with a total stranger who you are sure to hate by morning so escape is of the utmost importance. Emotion in this neighborhood is irrelevant.
I never had the metabolism to break down the noise of the great machine. It is for this reason that I lasted less than year wondering those streets.

But, I must be fair. There is an oasis in this desert of dead things. Five Points is the location of the University of South Carolina. Youth still contains a great depth that has other wise been outlawed in a time of hair-shirt punishment. The restaurants lack food that tastes of death. Its museums are living testimony to a culture that still exists in rare and unlikely places like five points. It's a culture of art and a lust for life. The young still hunger for madness and the old teach at the University. Even so, it was not enough for me to stick around.

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