CHAPTER 6: THE ROAD TRIP
The first thing people from abroad realize when they come here is that this country is huge. It is several nations in one, and not just by geography. I was starting to get a travel itch, I had no relationship with any one girl, and wanted to see the country. No car, no real idea where I wanted to go. Just to leave Atlanta and see the place. I knew I wanted to see Big Sur, and travel on the coast of California. That was about it. I sat in the Krispy Kreme letting the black beauties I had taken earlier wear off watching a sheet of sugar fall like a waterfall as the donuts rolled through. I had a fake ID, a draft card that had been passed to the stage at an anti- Vietnam War protest that I pocketed when it got to me. Since it was going to be burned, I figured it wouldn't be missed.
Speed, amphetamines were everywhere in the 1950's and 1960's in America. They cut across all lines, all politics. Black Beauties, Dexedrine, and on and on. College kids used them to cram for tests with, truck drivers used them to drive long distances without sleep, doctors prescribed them like candy. Speed. Mercury, with wings that pushed you forever forward and made you talk to people ordinarily that you would ignore.
Like the guy next to me who took a couple of dexies in front of me and the donuts. He worked at a hardware store and had been up all night doing inventory. Bosses got a lot of work out of you when you were on speed.
Hugh Hefner, the man who discovered that by having the girl next door naked in a magazine he would have a big hit wrote his philosophy on speed- and large amounts of Coca Cola.
Need to diet? Take speed. Need to work? Take speed. Doing nothing? Take speed. Before I left home, all my parent's friends had it in their medicine cabinet. It wasn't even considered a drug. Some doctors, speeding their own asses off, would mix it with vitamins and give you a health shot.
Pretty soon some hippies were doing their own shooting.
Politicians used it. And this guy next to me. He started talking and I started listening and he handed me a dexie the way a person gets you a drink at a bar. He was talking about New Orleans and Mardis Gras.
That was it. The first stop on my odyssey. I didn't have to wonder about how to get there, everyone was hitchhiking then. Lines of kids on blocks waiting for cars to pick them up. Waiting in order. Like a taxi stand but with people. Mardis Gras.
Speed loosened the tongue, and this guy tells me about Sandy. The number one hooker in Atlanta. She dated politicians, city officials, even Mayors from cities around Atlanta. All this turned out to be true. He put on his cowboy hat and told me to come with him to meet her.
So with nothing else to do as usual, I did. Along the way he told me that they were going to drive to New Orleans and rent a place. She was going to hook, he was going to avoid the police. He was AWOL from the Army. We drove to her place, a nice house in a nicer hood than hippies lived in and we went to the door. It was late, but the lights were on inside. He knocked and Sandy came to the door.
Sandy was not a hippie. She looked like she could work in a bank. She was dressed more like my mom than the women I had been balling, and invited us in. When we got inside she kissed the guy whose name I still didn't know passionately- then turned and did the same to me.
I was hard instantly and she grinded her hips into mine. Jesus fucking Christ. The cowboy hat said, "This is.....", and paused because we had yet to exchange names. "Flash", I said, "Randy is my real name". It wasn't, but Randall was the name on the draft card. There was a smell in the room, but I couldn't identify it.
"Wanna smoke some pot?", Sandy asked and I said, ok.
"It's from Vietnam", she said.
I should mention here that pot in Atlanta had started out really good. Panama Red was around for example- but as the pot market grew that pot stopped leaving California. Mexican pot, often sold as Columbian, was weak. We didn't know it then, but compared with the seedless and hybrids to come God knows how we got high on it. Vietnamese pot I had never run into before. I was about to be kicked on my ass.
" I have some Thai weed too, dipped in opium", Sandy said, "Let me slip into something more comfortable" and she left us sitting on the couch.
"I'm Danny", the hardware cowboy said, and we gave each other skin ( one person held their hand palm up and the other slapped it with his hand, coming from above). Had she ever dated Lester Maddox I asked. "Naw, he likes guys", Hardware Cowboy said. I found this hard to believe.
"It's true", Danny said, "He has had people approach some of the hippies on the strip". I figured it was the speed talking.
Years later, Maddox would die of AIDS. He would deny he got it sexually, but his doctor would have no comment.
Sandy came in wearing a robe she was falling out of. She was hot, but I wondered where this was all going.
She sat down between us and took out a five inch stick with pot on it, tied together with a string and covered in something gooey. She unraveled a little, put some of the weed in the pipe she brought with her, lit a match and inhaled it. She turned to me and pointed to the smoke still in her mouth and pointed to my mouth, and kissed me open mouth as she blew the smoke into my mouth. The effect was sensual, but it was also an immediate buzz. This was not Mexican weed. I was already stoned.
She did the same routine for Danny, then me again. About the third time she was rubbing my cock as she blew the smoke into Danny.
Then she brought out the Vietnamese. As she rolled it into a joint, Danny told her I wanted to go to Mardis Gras. She said there was room in the van. "Cool", I said.
Vietnamese pot was really strong. I was wasted before the joint was done, and Sandy blew me while stroking off Danny. I was toking the remainder of the joint and passing it to Danny.
I thought to myself, this was going to be one cool road trip.
