Freaks Of Freedom

Morning… God why does it have to be morning. I woke up in a haze of pain and anger, my head feels like a bowling ball stuffed with steel wool. What madness is this? Where am i? Who am i? Who is she? Who are you?

I woke up somewhere between yesterday and tomorrow. I slide my way out of bed. A comatose bimbo slumped over the foot of it wearing what appears to be a smiley face on her left buttix and a pink boa. My god what did i do last night? This is like something out of a thomson novel. Bottles strewn about, women and garments adorning nearly every nook and cranny of this hellscape. And my partner is nowhere to be found. Surprised? Not really this is what happens when you seek “the beast!”

The beast as he is known is a prolific character in the lives of everyone he meets. His charismatic presence is known by many, many who have never met the beast. I have heard stories of him and need to meet him to seek his advice. For he has lived many a lifetime in his years on earth. Great knowledge he possesses about things great and miniscule. He is a hard creature to find. Even his best friends go weeks or more without even hearing from him. There is one man out there who knows the man, the myth, the beast. But he is almost as hard to find as the beast himself. So you might say we are seeking the man out to find the beast. But we will touch on that more in a bit, first I must find my partner.

My partner, Madz is a seemingly sweet girl with a knack for partying and thirst for adventure. She came from a nice family with wholesome values, hard to believe she would have such a taste for debauchery and other shenanigans we partake in on the daily let alone a quest for truth.

As i found what was left of my clothing i stumbled outside of this little reched motel we wound up in just outside of boulder Colorado. The van was there so that's a good sign. She didn't leave me for dead and it wasn't stolen (you know how people are these days. Steal you blind and piss in your corn flakes just for kicks. I peer into the van… no madz. I go up to the front desk and ask the clerk. He is a haggard old man probably in his early 60s but seems way older. I can tell by his eyes he has led a hard long life, he's cripple up and walks with a limp. My good what has time done to this poor soul? He has not seen madz either… how odd i thought. Well i guess i'll slink back into that piss soaked room and try to get a shower. Hopefully I don't rouse any of the whores from last night. I find it easier to live with myself when I have no memory or idea of what has transpired the night prior.

The water in the motel was cool at best. No inkling of heat to be had. A quick one then I thought. Bits and pieces of the night bled through into my memory like the black mold on this ceiling. Slowly with no rush but devastating all in the same. Soon the door to the room opens. I hear this and just assume it's on the women from last night (god what a scene to wake too) it's madz. She's ready to go with no explanation to where she was earlier. I didn't pry and she had the courtesy to not bring up the festering swamp that my room had become.

“We gotta get moving!” she exclaimed. So with soap in my hair and red in my eyes from the many empty bottles we set forth on our journey to Find him. The orical that would lead us to find the beast. The sage who knew the ways of the world both on this side and the other side of the realm.

The van is an older style green ford van that I have converted into a mobile office, apartment, bar, and pharmacy. The ac doesn't work, the tires are bald, the windshield squirters are mounted on the radiator because she has a tendency to over heat but god i love this thing, it has gotten me from one corner of this america to the next only giving me fits when she feels its convenient. Ha this van is like a good woman. Dependable but with an attitude and thirst for the drink… ie gas for those of you who didn't get that. I've put my blood sweat and tears into this fine piece of american steel.

The interior is beige with stains of every kind from many orifices of the human body, liquor bottles, and life. In the back I have a hammock, a recliner, a desk and a coffee maker. I spent a summer in this thing in the mountains and the coast. Seeking the truth of who i am and what i am about. I'm still not sure who i am, but i know who i am not… i am not you no matter how much you want to be me, ha.

The road is daunting. The only thing to keep my mind sharp is madz and the eagerness to continue our adventure. We are running the van at full speed. A whole 55 miles per hour. What a site it must be for anyone in our path or our wake. To see a dark green huge van rolling at you with fortunate son by creedence clearwater revival blaring at absurd levels from a makeshift PA speaker is something out of a movie. With a drink in my hand and cigar in my mouth I breathe deep the colorado air. Madz is on map duty. This journey is taking us through the country. One mile at a time. One clue at a time. But where do we start?

We had to head east. I know most epic tails talk of the journey west but this one is east bound. The mountains dwindle into flat farm fields. The trees and wilderness are replaced with raped soil where man has planted his seed in an effort to feed the world. While I know nothing is wrong with it in my whisky and acid fueled thought process it seemed like some kind of perverse insestual canablism. As if man was from corn and bean. Beef and fowl. This was Nebraska. The quote unquote good life. Home of arbor day, koolaid, and a loathing stinking fear that drenched the air but i could not put my finger on it.

The van was running dry as was i. Madz said “there's a town up here, pull over” this quaint little town to which i don't recall the name was our first stop in a series of events i can't quite describe. There were building fronts fallen into the street and devilish characters standing about with no warm welcome but rather aggressive curiosity. Like a bear smelling a corps deciding if it's food or not. This did not bode well for our trip. The last thing we need is to be ambushed in this hole in the wall town with trucker biker looking folk out of deliverance. I made sure our stop in this cesspool was a short one. The gas station was nothing spectacular but the facilities were clean and therefore was pretty damn good by road side standards. Madz said she'd drive the next leg… thank god. My head still hasn't recovered from the night before.

A nap. A nap is what I need. Recharge the batteries, reset to factory mode. This acid and whisky make for a trip but do nothing to quell the seething pain my head and body were in. I feel like I was in a train wreck. My eyes laced with dreams. I settled in for a nap in the front seat. The sound of the wind and road to lull me off.

Oh how nice it would be to sleep in a bed I could call my own. To be snug and secure in a cocoon of blankets and pillows. Hidden from the madness that is this world. A safe haven for me. A place I can unwind and recline into a blab of pure sedation and be safe. Living in the van and hotels and friends couches for so long is taxing on the body, mind, and soul. The adventure of the road dand the romance of the dream are what keep me going. Going in a thousand directions with no one goal.

Finding the beast is my current quest. I need him to help me figure out who I am, and what I need to do to find peace in this chaotic hurricane of a life. I need to find myself, my voice, my goals. I am really a man of the wind with no serious ties to anything and no one. I drift around and have fun and tell tales but I seem to always be nowhere and alone in any setting. What makes me happy? I DON'T KNOW!!!

A girl with red dragon eyes is staring at me with her pack of hyena dogs covered in a translucent goo I can quite describe. Fuck, the timbers whale in a series of musical sceams that poetry the tone of death and a sand volly ball pit is empty with the only sign of life being a half eated sub sandwich. Have I done too much acid> have I broken my mind? What in good christ is going on? My hands are melting and the droplets seem to pulsate with the music in the trees. I just want to wake from this nightmare. I want to be sane, I want to be sober!!!!

Fuck!!!! I wake up in the van in a sweat and scared. Was that real? Was that a hallucination? Christ i think so but am too scared to ask madz… how long was i out? Am i me? Am I sane? Did my mind just fucking break? “MADZ!” I exclaimed. “What?” she said with a hostile tone as she was trying to drive along this seemingly endless stretch of Nebraska highway. Where are we? How long was I asleep? Was I asleep? “About 50 miles FRed, she said with a grin.. And you were kind of asleep i don't know…. You were talking in your sleep but your eyes were closed… It sounded like a nightmare of some sort. What was it she asked? I don't know what I said. It was too crazy and weird to be real but too obscene to be a dream. Maybe it was the future I saw, she laughed and asked if its the future tell me where the beast is and save us a lot of time. No, I replied. I wish I knew his location, but if we can find the orical we will be closer.

The drive is endless. Nebraska is so flat. So empty. The mind wanders to some weird places while the road seems to go on forever. It is a desert of corn and wheat. We are coming up on the last known location of the orical. He is said to be a tall slender man with a wild way about him. Living on the edge of existence in a town that's too far away from reality to be made up. It is said you can only find him at a local bar that he frequents. The only way to gain an audience with him is to impress him somehow. The town is coming and my stomach is in knots. Who is this man and what is he going to be like? Is he going to be civil, kind, or a real bastard? We shall see.