Pan was Greek before he was Roman. The God of harvest, sex and wine, as well as an insufferable prankster. Half man, half goat, he played pipes to lure women to him for a romp. The narrator knows where he is because that’s simply where he was. One doesn’t make a multi-mile hike to a temple in the middle of nowhere without intent on staying for a bit. At any rate, this was a very rough draft, copied mostly from a letter I wrote to a friend, and also my first post on this site. I’m not asking for clemency, just a modicum of patience. Cheers
Short Story / The Ride to the Angelheaded Hipster Express (Analysis)
I woke up on a straw mat in a hidden temple dedicated to Pan in the pre-dawn hours of the morning. I was in North County(San Diego), several miles into the Palomar Mountain wilderness, feeling the urge to hitchhike again, the calling, pulling me to god knows where as surely as flesh hooks pull me off the ground and into a state of religio-trancendence. As enjoyable and educational as my time was in the temple, the last of the ayahuasca was fading, I had had my vision, and knew where my next destination would be(but never, ever where it would take me-that’d be cheating). I slung my backpack over my shoulder and began the two mile hike to state road 7, where I would hopefully catch a ride. Still groggy from intensely hallucinogenic pass-out sleep, I forgot to be careful what I wished for.
Fog hugged the earth like tar on a smoker’s lungs. Hovering just off the ground, it was placed there by a penny-pinching creator opting for thick, garish formicha instead of marble. And dense. Holy fuck was it dense-it made our president look like a Jeopardy Tournament champ. I took out my knife a cut a wedge of it in the shape of a fine piece of brie, and placed it in a glass jar that had previously held honey spiked with amenita muscaria mushrooms. This was gonna be a painfully long hitch, the sun wouldn’t burn this off for several more hours, and the likelihood of me even being fucking seen by the chance passing motorist was as good as a paraplegic in an ass kicking contest. Turns out, I was quite wrong(feelings that foreign are hard to comprehend), and barely an hour into my plodding through the express car wash of the universe, your diligent reporter was picked up by the ghost of Bradley Nowell.
I heard the van before it clamored into sight, the Bad Brains blasting at maximum volume bouncing off the hills in otherwise unoccupied space. Skidding to a halt on the slick pavement, nearly(intentionally?)clipping my arm, he shouted through a cloud of pot smoke dancing a minuet with the fog,
“Hop in kid, we don’t have much time to get to the station, and this train’s hard as fuck to catch.” Not one to offend any ghost, let alone Bradley’s, I climbed in, strapped in, and we sped off, leaving at least a quarter inch or more of tire on the fog-damp pavement. The van was filthy, crammed with more shit than a double wide gypsy vardo(such as a tattered love seat, turntables, a dorm fridge-which held the all important vial of adrenaline in case of ghostly overdose-giant dog bed, oh you better fuckin’ count on Louie Dog rollin’ with us, and several guitars, just to scratch the surface), and on the console lay a cigar box full of joints. And for the next four hours, we smoked and smoked and rarely said anything to each other aside from the occasional ’Ere! as we passed his spliffs back and forth. Somewhere between Santa Barbara and Goleta, we stopped on the 101 to take in the ocean, piss, and for him to shoot up. As soon as he was truly high, he looked skyward, not in heroin-induced retrospection, but to gauge the time.
“O.K. kid, in about five minutes I want you to go over to that rock formation over there, and when you hear Lou-Dog bark, I want you to jump in, clothes and all. Don’t worry bro, you won’t get wet, it’s just the only way you can get on board.” Alright, I admit that I was more than perplexed, but it did seem to coincide with much of my ayahuasca vision, and I didn’t think Brad would steer me in the complete wrong direction, and let’s face it, the guy got me really fucking stoned, so I started to wander over to the rocks.
“Easy there cowboy, I ain’t done with you yet. I want you to fill me in on your journey when you figure out how to get off that train. I wanna know who you met, and I don’t want it to be static, it should be a cocktail of Leonard Cohen, James Joyce, and William S. Burroughs, and most importantly, it should bring a grin to my grill.” Fuck man, I can’t do that, and Brad’s ghost smiled at me and said, “Try…” Louie Dog started barking, I hurried over to the rocks, scrambled to their summit, looked down into a whirlpool, expanding wide enough to fit a white boy with a backpack, the eye of madness’ hurricane, shot one sideways glance at Brad(he was already burning tread the fuck outta there), and with a silent ’Fuck it!’, leapt in.
A month later, I was sitting in a hut in the jungle writing this letter on a stretched piece of jaguar skin to Bradley’s ghost.
She has eyes made from the deviant ripped panties of the paparazzi, searching for scandal, making one up if none presents itself to her, heiress arrogant, seeing everything. Her smile is that of the mongoose that ate the cat that ate the canary; the mongoose may be an apt analogy in itself, predator and prey, hunter of other predators, yet commonly found nesting, alone, and quite comfortable that way-wild and serene, the cobra’s dance partner, Jezebel’s un-escorted bride’s maid. Her mind races at a randy, racy rate, finding sex she won’t share in most situations, a reason to mock in the rest. Callous, haughty, vain, intentionally cruel, she speaks razor blades and barbed wire salted with childish taunts and playground epithets. What a wonderful defense mechanism. What a fucking Libra.
I first met her in the bar car of Kerouac’s library train(which is hard to board, because it makes no stops). We drank three entire bottles of Anias Nin from the hollowed out skull of a poisonous frog, nibbled on bits of Rimbaud, de Sade, and Miller from a snack tray stolen from Jerry’s vault, and fell soundlessly into a ninth dimension where mushrooms do most of the talking. Though a new acquaintance, I understood her immediately-there’s a certain amount of transparency with people cut from the same cloth as me, and that commonality would make any character assessment a self-indictment on my part(not that I’m against that, mind you, that’s just the way the dead cat bounces).
You can’t classify, pin down, label, someone with as many contradictive(Libric?)qualities as her. Well, maybe you could pin her down, but that’s an entirely different story altogether(and while it’s one I could write, it’s not one I could report). I suppose it’s not unique or uncommon to be alternately megalomanical and deprecating, hammer and nail, oozing confidence as if someone put five pounds of C4 under the La Brea tar pits while second guessing every thought, movement, choice, action, or lack of action-hindsight hijacking ego at every turn, yet too stubborn to succumb to the mental riptide; however, she does it with style. And with eloquence rarely seen in 2008, the haunted psyche of the writer, the absinthe that flows through the poet’s veins imploring, coaxing, demanding destruction. As kickass as a kung-fu marathon at the Del-Mar, as empty as a Black Panther rally in Casper, Wyoming, filled with equal parts lust and apathy, grace and greed, poison and antidote, she grabs duality by the hair and wrestles it into a whole new realm where illusion sucks reality’s earlobe and murmurs tantric lies.
What drew me to her on that eventful train ride was watching her operate with the other passengers, none of which had any fucking idea that they were engaging a body possessed by Grace O’ Malley(or was it the Morrigan?), casting aside the mental midgets like a sack of unwanted puppies. She was, and is, a bitch’s bitch; requisite body armor for survival when you have an artist’s soul. After chastising a female passenger to tears and slitting the throat of a drunken sack of shit that fancied himself her paramour with a fountain pen that once belonged to Gertrude Stein, the rest of the crowd scattered like gnats in a tornado, leaving your reporter alone with this psychotic cunt. She shot me a wild, hundred yard stare, fountain pen dripping blood, and said, “What the fuck are you looking at?”
“The recepiant of a mescal shot”, says I, producing an ancient blue bottle from my backpack with only the slightest hint of a tremulous hand.
“Why the fuck would I want to do a shot with you? Why the fuck would I want to do a shot of mescal in the first fucking place?”
“Because inside this bottle are six worms that fed on peyote before honorably sacrificing themselves to the god of agave, and I’m a fucking joy to be around.” Upon noticing the reflexive and menacing way the pen flickered in her diminutive hand, I added “And I’m not trying to get in your pants” as a qualifier. She gave an illegal smile, asked me if I was going to open the bottle or give myself a prostate exam with it, licked the last few drops of moonlit glinted blood from the pen, and tucked it away.
After finishing my bottle, we dined on the worms; proof that there is sustenance in booze(a meal of meal worms?). I’ll admit I don’t usually enjoy eating in close proximity to a cooling corpse, but until the peyote laden worms kicked in I honestly didn’t notice. I suggested relocating the lifeless hump of flesh to a more suitable location, like maybe outside in the barren landscape so that the buzzards could still get a warm meal.
“Fine. We’ll wrap the fucker up in a table cloth and chuck his ass out the window. Help me drag him over there.” Not being one to argue with the deranged, I quickly and gladly agreed to aid and abet.
Two days later she used telepathic Kabbalah magic to send the conductor our request to disembark. I was let off in the Indonesian rain forest, she in the Andes to do some climbing. We didn’t see each other for a few years, but we corresponded through scrying bowls and tarot readings. Through these I learned more about her fatalistic nature, her balanced passion and disquiet, her loathe for the majority of humanity, and her fondness for silly looking dogs. It is my genuine opinion that if infectious disease or idle doesn’t kill her, she’ll undoubtedly be awarded the fame she deserves for her writing-thereby granting active reason to die a poet’s death, sunken, bleary-eyed self-destruction craving the rain and shit-soaked gutter, slow and deliberate suicide deeming a shogun’s honor.
Thanks for the ride, and for the tunes…
Your faithful reporter,
Steve
Bradley’s ghost hasn’t written me back yet, maybe he forgot the adrenaline, maybe he thought the letter sucked, maybe it got lost(never trust a sea eagle to deliver your post), or maybe it was only meant to be read by the living…
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BamaBelle reviewed Version 1 -
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jtthehunter reviewed Version 1 -
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Incredible use of descriptors. Well written with an even flow. The character development is excellent as we see a sardonic, cyncial, sarcastic individual who is experiencing a wild ride much like Hunter Thompson. Exellent story with parts that remind the reader of Jeff Bridges in the Big Lebowski. Great job.
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Matthewtuckey reviewed Version 1 -
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Wow. Heavy stuff. Be careful starting a story with waking up. There’s only so many ways you can describe a return to consciousness, and to have that right at the beginning doesn’t have the bite your story needs. But it gets better.
You mentioned Pan- is this the reveler of ancient Rome, who would hide in the bushes and startle people at night, hence the word “Panic”? Not everyone has this knowledge that we have, and it makes for interesting reading. You could elaborate on this.
Other instances that required explanation: “Ayahuasca vision”- this isn’t in the MS dictionary.
You kind of bombarded me with a lot if information at once. I had to read a few paragraphs over to check I understood.
How did you know you were in the temple from the moment you woke up? Had you been there before?
A grammar check will pick up some errors.
I like the paraplegic comment. Haha.
The “cobra’s Dance Partner” paragraph is very wordy. As they say in Grosse Point Blank, “that’s a barrage of imagery”. Keep it funny! Some of the metaphors are so heavy that they cancel out the wit. Some are so heavy they don’t make sense to simpletons like me…
You used “races” and “racey” in the same sentence. I’d change one of them.
“What a wonderful defence mechanism”- Are you quoting the film Alien? Or is this a coincidence?
The most shocking scene in the story- the murder- was rushed over. Sometimes describing something terrible in a passive way can make it more shocking. But spending so little time on it makes us feel like we missed something.
You described learning more about the woman’s “fatalistic nature”- you should include a little hint of what else happened. don’t just leave us to guess. You’re the storyteller and have that control.
An interesting read, but I think you jumped to the conclusion that people would understand your imagery.
DCAllen reviewed Version 1 -
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I’m a few sentences into the story, and I’m enjoying the similes. I hope this style in consistent throughout. I do see a consistent style here, and that is PLEASING. I would enjoy a cocktail of the three authors you mention, but I’m not sure I order a second round.
So many allusions! I’m drowning in allusion . . . and enjoying it.
The leap then the transition with the jaguar skin . . . excellent.
Lots of readers will find this story completely inaccessible. Oh well. I loved it. Perhaps it will strike a chord with readers interested in “the” drug culture. I found your prose inspiring.
You have TOO MANY RATING CRITERIA. You should delete the ones that are repetitive.
Proofreading notes:
two mile hike = two-mile (prenominal compound modifier also: hundred yard stare)
The jab at presidunce Bush got a laugh out of me. Thank you.
knife a cut a (typo?)
feelings that foreign (italicizing that would help the reader read this correctly)
Not one to offend . . . (This should be on the next line.)
double wide = double-wide
shot”, says I, (shot,” says . . .)
worms; proof that (The colon is “more” correct than the semicolon here. A comma or the em dash would be fine.)
Not being one to argue . . . (This should be on the next line.)
loathe (As far as I know, loathe is not a noun. loathing?
idle = idleness
TDavino reviewed Version 1 -
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Hm… trips over itself a lot. Very Tom Robbins, to a distracting degree. I like the fantastic elements, but it’s too dense. Less might be more. If it’s one long trip, that removal from reality might be more acceptable, but apprarently there really IS a passage of years in this piece, and that’s a lot of aimlessness for a few pages.
I like most of the phrasing, although there seems to be a real emphasis on measurement, whether inches or hours or miles, and that feels like a sort of stacking of the minor details.
It’s fun, and silly, but (and I could be wrong) I think it wants to be more.
mel_d reviewed Version 1 -
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I love the voice and the description, and it has a style attractive, I think, to publishers.
I love this line in particular:
“Fog hugged the earth like tar on a smoker’s lungs”...just…so cool.
Mikkosgirl reviewed Version 1 -
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This is amazing.
I felt like you were telling a true life story through this, and if thats true, props. It might be a little out there for some people, but I sure was entertained. I might cut back on the amount of criteria you have to rate, but thats no biggie.
Ramblin_Jack reviewed Version 1 -
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very good reminds me of a mix of Dr Hunter S. Thompson and Kerouac or Burroughs. keep up the good work!
SinnerASaint reviewed Version 1 -
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Good use of imagery;definitely painted a clear picture. As for the storyline, it was not my favorite. I would consider using a little more creativity. Only due to some parts being a slightly dull. The structure was solid, the devices utilized, overall you have a good idea here. I would evolve it and shape it. Good luck.
TirzahLaughs reviewed Version 1 -
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You excel at description. Although, occasionally, you get carried away with it. The opening two paragraphs for example gives us an incredible amount of information that could have been peppered into the story in other ways. You don’t need to tell me that you are stoned, you can show me through action.
You have some truly wonderful turns of phrase (like a sack full of unwanted puppies). A few of them are wonderful, too many and it becomes overbearing. Watch how many you add to this.
You know…what it reminds me of is more of a philosophical journey hidden in a physical journey. More of a journeyman’s diary than a more conventional story. Good luck and good writing.
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