BOYS WILL BE BOYS WILL BE BOYS AND MODERN TIMES THE MODERN WAY I had just gotten out of the isolation room after three days of fun and music; was admiring one of Ann's paintings--at least she wasn't a cowboy artist in a market obsessed with "realistic" paintings of deer and antelope playing. Andy Morlock would've croaked if he'd had to put up with the galleries in Charlie Russel country. Charlie Russel had already croaked. As I sat at her side, admiring the way she blended oil pastels with her fingers, the phone rang. I was sitting closest to the little payphone which was our link with the outside world; I snatched it off the hook to find that it was Mario, explaining the deterioration of Andy's meat-vehicle and the Team's desperate need to have a Bozo King there, after you as fast as he can run. GRACE GETS LOADED AT A LOADER PARTY Somehow, I needed to escape from this Inferno of Dreams to fulfill my promise to Andy; a dark promise like the jacket he had given me. It had been at one of Jayne Loader's parties; the story was that Grace was a little tipsy when she got off the limo at LaGuardia. I was looking for a mainline of love; I couldn't hit it sideways: Just when Grace agreed to a date she passed out from an OD of Coors. You can't get Mountain Fresh beer in New York. Then Andy saved the day by giving me this black animal skin jacket while everybody else was in locked embrace stumbling around and my lady of the evening was settled into the comfy chair to sleep it off while the stereo played M-Pop Music. Here is a rainbow for your hair; you read the signs of the sky, here is a sign of the times: Red, the blood of mysterious Union. BUTTERFLY BOYS? GIVE ME A BREAK! Fortunately, the Butterfly Boys owed me one. A simple phone call to their SF headquarters brought Bongo Fury on the back of the Invisible Hog. It took all my change; change is very hard to come by in the Bobo Boat and I had to bum a dollar off Rootboy Krueger, MS victim in his little electric wheelchair cruising to his desk to round up nickels, dimes, quarters. The high noon sun shone down on me as I placed the call, like some vortex that absorbed Salamanders: In alchemy, the Salamander was the raw ore to be transmuted--I was being transmuted by some strange acid, valproic acid, even while the submarines kept driving me backwards, to die like a baby on the far away beaches of my mind. Day and Night, drifting into love.... Carol had a band playing on the radio, rhyming guitars. The Grim Reaper was radiant as he sat on the windowsill staring at me, inviting me to try his little game: blood rack, barbed wire. Demagogue's funeral pyre. I WANT TO TAKE YOU HIGHER In twenty-four hours the bikers were at the remote mountain area, a day which I had spent contemplating my approaching freedom: Sophie couldn't be convinced that she needed to stay, while I knew now that I was not ready to leave. I still heard voices. The Words of God smelled of sweet sedition. "--but I had ignored the perpetual teasing of the little flirt to try to help her: I tried desperately to get her to take the medication which she'd been refusing; finally, when I told her that tegretol made me feel very good she consented to take a dose. But she still refused to take her haldol; she said it made her feel too drowsy. Then there was the sound of thunder. "What's that?" Sophie asked, looking up from her board game of Sorry, so startled that she scattered the little men. I looked out of a barred window, saw an army of Death Angels on bikes rumbling into the compound. Armed with bazookas, the Butterfly Boys charged through Warm Springs State Hospital, blew the doors off the ward. Prisoners of the Dream Police danced on moonbeams as they fled incarceration. The ward was filled with dust, smoke, ash swirling around as Bongo yelled, "Come on!" I strapped my hands across the engines, born to run, leaving the rest of my bagel uneaten. Butter your bread with Philly instead. We raced down Dawn's Highway through mountain passes cleaving between erect pillars where glaciers dwelt. The hospital was dwindling behind us when I saw reptiles abounding, fossils, caves, cool air heights. I said to Bongo Fury, "I'm still hallucinating--the world is changing into the primordial Chaos from which the Cosmos sprang. Sometimes I feel like I'm almost gone. I'm going to try for the Kingdom if I can. For any woman who makes herself male for my sake will enter the Kingdom. You understand; you're a gay biker....Bongo--I can't leave here without my medication; I'll end up in another Bobo Boat before I reach Phoenix." "What's the matter, Lead? We can get you a whole year's supply of whatever kinda tranks you're on at the Hospital pharmacy!" Bongo yelled, as free as the wind, while the Sea of Time was burning in the dance of Maya, particle traces caught on film. Never smoke U-boat without a prescription. At a signal from Fury the Butterfly Boys reversed their mad dash through the mountain heights. We drove, itching for adventure, to a building in the complex of concrete tipis for modern shamans facing the curse of religion alone--Blessed are the solitary and the elect. Bongo soon had the whole gang face to face with a pharmacist who looked scared witless; his beard was grizzled and his bandana was Bozo polka dots. Shotgun over the counter; Bongo held out a bag while the drugstore man filled it with everything he could get his hands on. There were pills in that bag that I'd never heard of, and I'd been on a galaxy of multi-colored elevators, mood-stabilizers, and tranquilizers. But the thing that really scared me was the tank of ether.... Even as we loaded up with enough medication to keep van Gogh happy for a year the Thorazine Police were hot on our trail. Now I wasn't sure if I was going to make my connection with the greatest artist since van Gogh. Involuntary meat-vehicle coma is just as bad as slicing your ears off--and it's just as insane. If suicide were painless and my cryonic insurance paid up I'd do it--but that was insanity speaking, not marijuana. Slave to drugs. Yeah, and that includes tranquilizers. How would you feel if you had to spend the rest of your life dropping valproic acid to keep out of the Hotel Gonzo? YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT FOR THE SCOOBIES Already men in black were pouring from the Central Compound, armed with pulse-pounders and jackboot sprayers. Seeing them approaching I jumped on the Invisible Hog, clinging tight to untamed Fury--the wind rushed past my hair as the dreaded Dream Police pursued us past the hot springs. Geysers erupted. Mud pots bubbled. We're all looking for someone. Superkool (sic) lady, Plastic-fantastic lover, Sophie waved goodbye as I blew her a kiss. Cold as night, warm as snow, red-tape, mechanical rape. MOTORCYCLE MADONNAS RIDING PSIONIC SATELLITES ...clung to their machines as we took a sharp turn and I was thrown from the bike. I landed in a cushion of bushes. Nothing was broken; I stayed hidden in the bushes until... A couple of Police cars stopped just a few feet down the road. Cops got out of the cars and began sniffing my trail out with bloodhounds. I wondered if I would ever make it to Phoenix, the topless bars, the belly of an exquisite whore. Scrambling as quietly as I could, I crept away into the hills toward the dark mouth of a cave. It probably wasn't as extensive as the Lewis and Clark caverns, but there should be enough of a labyrinth to hide me.... A burning bush stood in front of its mouth. There were dark clouds in the sky. # End of file Press RIGHT ARROW (#6 key) of the numeric keypad to load the next file.