The Purple Truck & The Men In Black

OK.

I was 18? Yeah, 18. What a great and awful age.
I was absolutely, totally, madly like the maddest Madhatter, like the maddest of mad Krazy Kats in love with this girl Katie. She was like the girl version of Keith RichardsKeith Richards circa 1972, so cool, and sexy-beautiful, intimidateling so, but i wasn't intimidated. As Thurston Moore described Patti SmithPatti Smith (although Katie was a knock-out that oozed sexuality and hard-core sex-appeal that crushed every guys heart and mind on campus- inspiring a jealous contempt with her cold rejections- she dressed down, no make up, almost like she was trying to deny her sex appeal) but like Thurston descbribed Patti, "she was dressed like the sexiest boy on the block". That was Katie. Bursting with originality and idiosynchratic tastes and opinions and made up allegies, and for reasons I could never fathom, she dug me. She could’ve had any guy and she chose me- I never understood this, i still don't. This was before we were technically "together", this was during that period where we would be constantly one upping each other in different ways we could think up to turn each other on. I would slip some words under her door- I was always better with written words than spoke ones and she would come up to my room just to tell me she needed to take a shower, and I would say, “but you just took a shower, didn’t you?” and she would give me a certain look, a little sexy twink in her eyes, like sparklers at the bottom of the deepest ocean, and I would say something like, i'd love to watch, and she'd say well, you can't watch but you can stand behind the curtain and listen...listening implied that she wasn’t going to be washing, but rather, getting herself off. So I'd follow her into the communal girls bathroom where the tub/shower stalls were and she'd make me turn around while she took off her t-shirt and jeans, that she didn't wear a bra or panties, that she shaved her pussy, she made known to me early on, around the same time she told me about her nipple ring on the way to the cafeteria, then asked if I wanted to see it and proceeded to pull out her tit to give me just a little more than a little peek. I brought her balloons full of nitrous when she worked at the cafeteria later on. So there in the shared bathroom/shower I'd turn around catching in the mirror the curve of her breast, a little shade of dark brown where her nipple was just barely out of sight and the curve of her plumalicious, golden fresh as peach-skin ass. I'd turn back around flush and barely able to control my animal insticts. When I heard the water turn on, but not the shower, she was running the tub, and what was this I was hearing? Yes, she was masterbating to the hot flow of water rushing over her perfect little mango-piece for me. For not just for my own satisfaction, or hers- but because she got off to just doing, to how crazy it made me. We kept each other on edge like this, teasing and turning up the heat for awhile before it finally all spilled over in a Richmond, Virginia motel room a month later, but that's another story....

The night of the horizon.

I had scored some super-clean and rocket-fuel LSD, I remember it was called jesus christ on account of the crucifiction stamp on the sheet. We drove up to the beach, it was around 11pm, when we finally found a nice secluded spot, the L dissolving on our tongues we laid down a blanket, it was late Febuary, early March and cold out. Sitting there we looked at each other and she kept the stare going for a long time- we used to have staring contests all the time, it wasn't just a game it was much more in the disguise of a game, trying not to blink first, we would eventually fall into that timeless silent wonder of two lovers looking, searching out each other’s histories in the others eyes. It was one of those staring contests. One of us blinked and I noticed something was different after I blinked, it was like the world looked like the world and then I blinked and there was an ethereal veil of hinted color and patterns of sliced watermelons thrown over my eyes. It was time to break out the ganja. I turned around to grab a couple joints out of my back pack. When I turned back around and went to light one of the joints I noticed a faint, distant light on the horizon. What's that? she said. I didn't know, but it was getting bigger, and stronger in color. The acid was starting to melt down over us, the peak quickly approaching...we'd taken a large dose. As the trip came on stronger so did the notion that this light- whatever it was, was not growing bigger but was in fact getting closer. We started to try and reason with the light. Was it a lighthouse? No that could'nt be it, the lighthouse was way behind us and down the beach a ways. Besides who'd ever seen a lighthouse with a light like that. Then the freak out happened. The nuclear power plant I said, there's a nuclear power plant in Salisbury right? Or like right around here, right? - Yeah, there is isn't there, there's a fucking nuclear power plant here and it's having a melt down - You think so? It's melting down isn't it and that's the radioactive juice spilling into the ocean on fire and it's gonna eat us up isn't it! -- F***, yeah it is, will we feel it-- I don't know I’ve never been vaporized by radioactivity before,…do you feel a radioactive melt down?-- I think so, wouldn't it melt us?-- Yeah you’re right it would, it would melt us and we'd be burnt shadows on the sand--

so that's when we crossed nuclear melt down off the list. The next suggestion was mine- it looks like some door that's opened in the universe and whatever's behind that door is casting a brilliant light-- it does look like that, I can see the door and look it's getting closer--holy shit it is getting closer, it's opening wider like a huge mouth, look at the reflection of the light on the ocean, it's coming right towards us--what's gonna happen, E- i'm scared, how's this happening, what does it want?-- it wants us, don't be scared, what's there to fear? There's a door opening in the universe just for us and I don't know....when the light reaches us it will take us in and then something totally cosmic and beautiful will happen, like our molecules will get all mixed up together and we'll be just this static energy of pulsing light making love forever in beam of light--- ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok, what do we do?-- The light, see how it's coming toward us, reflected on the waves? We got to go down to the shore, closer and wait for the tide to come in, and when the light on the water wraps around our feet we'll be sucked in through the door, we have to hold onto each other though, are you ready?--- Should I put my shoes on?--- Shoes? No, we have to be barefoot for the light to seep into our skin, and why would we need shoes where we're going, shoes in the universe?—you’re right I don't know, ok, are you ready?-- I'm ready, lets go-

So holding onto each other tight we rolled up our pantlegs and walked down to where the sand was a wet mush, the waves crashing down came lapping up near our feet but was still about 15 feet away-- this is a good spot, now all we have to do is wait for the waves to lap around our feet carrying the light--- hold me tighter--- “No problem”

We stood there for what seemd like forever waiting for the water to wrap around our ankles and pull us out through the golden door opening wider before us. The whole time our feet sinking deeper into the freezing cold sand, but we felt no cold at all, standing there in a hypnotic trance watching this fireball doorway light open wider getting closer each of us holding onto the other to make sure the suction from the universe swallowing us whole couldn't possibly separate us, alone with our own thoughts but together in the most beautiful way, experiencing something in hushed silence that we were sure would be the end of the world for us, the rest of the world would go on living, breathing, swearing, driving, taking tests, but our reality, our worlds would be born new in some crazy cosmic-light molecular love affair, forever an electron and nuetron spinning round and round each other in a frenetic dance. And we waited, and waited, now ankle deep in the sand. We could've waited forever because the tide was going out which we didn't think of at the time because we were in so deep to this now firey orange light that was gigantic, it didn't seem like we needed to wait for the light to wrap around us anymore, it seemed like this hole or doorway in the universe would be close enough at any moment that it would take us into it's light. And that's when she said-

-Is that...is...that the moon?
-The moon?
-Yeah the moon, is that the moon?
-I don't know...yeah, I can see it know, it does look like the moon, but does the moon rise?
-I don't know, I've never seen a moon rise
-Neither have I...and I've never heard of a moon rise, I've seen and heard of a sunrise, happens everyday right? But a moon rise?
-I've never heard of a moon rise either
-This must be like some crazy cosmic event like the moon's been pushed out of it's orbit and's racing toward earth, this is it Katie this is the end of the world
-Yeah you're right, how could you see a sunrise everyday, how could the sun rise everyday but never see a moon rise, if the moon rose you would think we would have seen it happen at least once, or seen a picture of it, or atleast have heard about it- it is the end of the world!
-I always said if I was gonna die I wanted it to be in some crazy cosmic way where we all go out at once, a soul explosion
-We're gonna die aren't we?
-Fucking right we are, but it can’t be any worse than Fitchburg…it'll be ok because we'll die together right here, we'll be the first ones the moon lands on and so we'll be the gatekeepers to the souls that come next
-That's so cool! (she said jumping up and down, her knees bouncing)

We stood there and watched the moonrise dripping and melting and we could see all the different shades of orange fires revolving in little patterns all over it's surface, tornado's of fire moving clockwise here, counter clockwise there, we stood there until the moon had risen, bringing up with it the stars and we stood there until...

-Can you feel your feet?
-My feet? (I looked down at my feet which I couldn't see as the sand was now up around my ankles, but I had trouble gauging the sand, as the sand was swirling and spiraling up around me)
-Yeah, your feet- I can't feel my feet!
-I don't know, I don't think so...are you suppose to be able to feel your feet?
-I don't know I've never felt my what it feels like to feel your feet...feet but I can't feel my feet I think you're right I think you’re suppose to be able to feel your feet
-I can't feel my feet either, you’re right, i think you should be able to feel your feet, feel like what it feels like to feel your feet at any given moment at the very least...
-Why cant I feel my feet E, I must have frostbite and I'm gonna lose all my toes I like my toes, most people don’t, but I do, and my feet are gonna turn black and I'm gonna have to get them amputated before the gangrene and I like my feet, most people-
-Wait, Katie, chill out, I can't feel my feet either- Shit! F***! It's fucking freezing out here! I'm freezing and we've been standing here for...I don't know, but a long time waiting on the moon landing- shit! I can't feel my feet, and I don’t really like my feet like you do but still…i'm gonna have frostbite and my toes are gonna turn black and fall off and then there gonna have to-
-amputate!
-Amputate! Shit! I don't want my feet amputated, I don't want the laughing gas, I mean I do- who wouldn’t, it’s great- but if it means they're gonna take my feet-what should we do? What will they do with our feet? Do we get 'em back, do they go to science like in a time capsule, these were the feet of...and the date on a piece of tape for future generations of frostbitten scientific development. I don't my feet on display even if I think I do have nice toes.
-I don't either- want my feet on display, god that would be awful- I don't like my little toe, I don't anybody laughing at my little toe, they'll laugh won't they- I don't know what to do but i'm cold, and I don’t my little toe on display…

That's when we decided to go back to our blanket and rub each others feet so they wouldn't fall off and be smuggled to some underground lab that specializes in frostbitten feet display, and we snuggled them up all warm and cozy in the blanket, which we did and they stayed numb for a long time but gradually the feeling came back and we felt our feet again. You can feel your feet, it's like breathing or your heart beating, you just forget about it is all, imagine if you had to think about breathing or every heartbeat or always having to feel your feet I told her. And (you can begin a sentence with “And,” I don’t care what they say) we sat there for the rest of the night watching the moon arc out into the sky, gradually pulling up the sun. We sat and watched the sun rise basked in this electric glow, the horizon was all finely drawn lines of electricity all different colors wavering and shimmering and melting into each other dripping down off the sky onto the far-out ocean waters, I'll never forget how the horizon was like deep painted lines of different shades of color filled with an electric pulsating beat of it's own and moving like waves crashing into one and other saturated in colors blending bending melting dripping the sun the softest most beautiful spot, a golden stamp on a sky full of the tracings of a child's drawing like scribbles of deep pastel colors.

Finally, once the sun came up- it had been 9 hours and we were still tripping pretty hard, we decided we needed to get back to campus and tell our friend andy that we'd seen a cosmic happening, a miracle- we'd seen the moonrise! and so we went back to the car. We get to the car and are packing our gear into the backseat when I look up and see the men in black. Two guys walking towards us in black suits of identical make, they're the same height, same weight, same everything same black shiny shoes, same pale plastic leaden faces hidden behind black sunglasses, like two identical FBI twins. Scary. Agents of a certan authority, no doubt. The nuetron gun police? They walk up and one says

-Our car broke down

I looked behind us and saw a car parked a little ways back, a black car, it hadn't been there when we parked. But then again it was 11pm so it would've blended right in to the night. There was no moon yet at 11pm.

-We need a jump (the other one says)
-Yeah our car battery died
-We need a jump
-Yeah, we need a jump
-You have jumper cables
-Can you give us a jump
-We really need a jump
-Our car battery died
-And we need a jump

I looked at katie and she looked at me, we were sure these guys were aliens, CIA or the FBI for real, I looked around for a presidential motor parade but there was only a boarded up stand advertising Italian Ice and a broke down ice-cream truck. I hate clowns. There was something weird about them and the way they talked, stilted, finishing each others sentences and in this flat monotone voice. I wanted to tell them I fucking hate clowns, but instead I looked down to the floor behind the front seats and saw the jumper cables and grabbed the blanket I'd just put away and covered the cables up with it.

-Sorry man, I don't have any jumper cables.
-Yes, you do
-No really, I don't, I wish I could help you out
-We need a jump
-The car battery died and we need a jump
-I'm sorry man, but really I don't have any jumper cables, if i did, I'd definitely give you a jump
-So how much acid did you guys eat tonight? Enough so i bet we look like clowns
-Or the men in black
-How much acid did you guys eat tonight?

And that's where Katie and I looked at each other with our jaws probably hanging down to the ground, what? Had they been spying on us from the very Begining, did they have night-vision goggles? Were they parked back there when we first pulled in and did they have x-ray eye ball nerves to see us put the acid in our mouths? Or were they hidden in the ice cream truck with a telescope? Fucking clowns! I hate fucking clowns! Were they watching us all night, were they behind this "moon rise" phenomenon? Were they clowns, agents, moon-men, aliens, or just a pair of lost character actors.

-Yeah (I said nervously, 3 quarters of a sheet of acid still in the car- if they were FBI, I'd be f*****) I wish...hahaha
-Yeah, that'd be something hahaha (katie said)
-No, really, how much acid did you guys eat tonight, really you can tell us, we're cool, we're not clowns if that's what you’re thinking...
-Yeah we're not FBI
-Yeah we're not CIA
- Really man, we don't do that, I’ve never taken acid
-You two are tripping right now, what kind is it? You got anymore, I'd love some acid, c'mon how much did you take, you can tell us
-We're not FBI
-We're not CIA
-Katie get in the car, sorry guys but i can't help you out
-We're not clowns, how much acid do you have left?
-Katie get in.the.f***.ing.car.

As soon as I said this they began walking fast but in uniform
stride perfectly in step back to their black car as I got in and started our car and drove the hell out of there. Salisbury Beach in late feb/early march is a ghost town- no one around at all, all the stores, everything closed, all the houses empty- it's a summer place, in the off season, nothing's open and no one lives there, I'm trying to make my way back to the main road but this little ghost town is like a maze and I look in my rearview mirror and see the FBI men in black CIA clowns following us in their black car. I just stepped on the gas and started making random rights and lefts blowing stop signs until I landed out on the main street, slammed on the gas again until I got to the exit for the highway, took a hard right, like I wasn't going to get on the highway at all to fake them out, and at the last minute yanked the wheel- the car felt like it was gonna go up on two wheels- screeching onto the entrance ramp. We got on the highway and I gunned it until there were no signs of them at all behind us.

Now we're driving back on 95, and at this time in my life I had been obsessed (I'm sure the fact that I was taking and had been taking LSD and mushrooms daily for the previous three months had something to do with it) with making this epic sculpture made out of all found or discarded metals. I hadn't even begun to put it together yet, I hadn't even begun to put my mind back together and was happy with it as it was, like my dorm room- just one psychedelic heap of a metal scrap yard. That's when i saw this big piece of metal, some kind of rounded half a semi circle glistening with morning dew in the grassy median between the north and south bound lanes on the highway.

-I got to have that
-What?
-That piece of metal, you didn't see it? I need it for my sculpture
-Ok, turn around

Yet another reason I loved Katie so much, she was always down with my crazy gonzo ideas, no matter how far out, like walking through the campus cafeteria with a head full of fluff passing out balloons full of nitrous oxide wearing a Nazi German helmet from WW2 my uncle had brought back, while she wore the American one. The Nazi's were beyond sadistic, awful, despicable drones, but shit man if they didn't make a damn good and comfortable helmet. Fit your head like a mold.

I turned around, got off the next exit and got back on going southbound, to backtrack and pick up that piece of metal. I saw it up ahead and pulled over in the southbound break down lane. I got out of the car and felt the cars whizzing by me on the highway, it was almost rush hour so there were no openings to run across four lanes of highway to jump the median and get this thing. Still tripping pretty well, I focussed all my psychic energy on the cars whizzing by to zero in on the pattern, there was no way I wasn't getting this piece of scrap-crap. Katie yelled out, “you can't cross the highway! look at all the cars you'll get hit- eli- don't- get back in the car! we'll find another scrap of metal, I promise, just get back in the car.” But I shut the door to block her out, she was seriously messing with my psychedelic sight. I focussed again, now she's out of the car, but I couldn't hear her as a big rig went flying by, it's heat reminding me of the sun and for a moment I closed my eyes and was back on the beach a warm wind blowing and the sun softly glowing before my eyes, reaching a trail out to touch me. The Yellowbrick road. There was no way I wasn't crossing that highway, I felt drawn to that piece of metal like it was the sword in the stone and i didn't know why- it meant something. I felt a pull toward it like i had no choice.

I opened my eyes, took a deep breath and made a run for it, just like in Frogger, i somehow darted between the cars laying on their horns and flying by at 50 miles an hours through four lanes of highway- one of those things you can only do on a massive dose of LSD. I made it through and jumped the median onto the grass. I could see each droplet of dew on each blade of grass like they were wet translucent marbles on lilly pads. When I looked up as I started walking toward the shiny silver glinting in the distance, that's when i saw the purple truck. It was an older model purple Ford pickup truck, a flatbed- it was driving northbound. My eyes went to it immediately, out of all the cars, my eyes zoomed in on this one- maybe it was because purple was Katie's favorite color, but I'm color blind, not totally, like a dog, but I'm no good when it comes to shades or telling the difference between shades of greens and reds, pinks and purples, purples and blues- I saw it as purple, but it probably was a blue truck, who has a purple pickup truck? or maybe I saw it because I had to see it, maybe that was why I was so drawn to this piece of scrap metal, it was just a piece of scrap that brought me here, to witness another big piece of metal become scrap.

The purple truck was about to switch lanes, moving into the fast lane when he got cut-off and the driver of the purple truck yanked the wheel, I could tell by the way it jerked in the road, and it went up on two wheels, then hit ting the gaudrail, flipping end over end over end over side over side over end in this like slow motion cartoonish horrorshow ballet, it landed with an awful crunch only about 20 feet away from me, I should've moved to get out of the way as I watched it roll nearer to me, but I didn't. I was frozen to the spot, I didn't move and it landed like a stone at my feet. Clouds of smoke started rising from the hood. It was upside down. Like in a dream I walked toward the wreck and could hear music, the driver had been listening to the Beatles "Long And Winding Road" – how apropos. Everything was completely still, like the world had suddenly stopped revolving and I could hear the Beatles still playing on his tape deck, but all slow and distorted sounding, like when the tape deck eats your cassette, the music filled me with a horrible dread, the nightmarishly distorted sound of the Beatles song melting into a muddy, scrabbled mess and then to nothing at all. Everything was totally silent and still, the end of somebody’s world. I walked up to the driver’s side door and looked in. The driver had been thrown into the passenger side all contorted, somewhere between rightside up and upside down, a crooked broken mess of bones and flesh. His skull had popped open, his head looked like a grape squeezed between someone's fingers, the skin of the grape torn open, the skin of his forehead torn open, the flesh of the grape pushed out, this man's skull pushed out, the gray flesh of his brain visible where his skull had cracked, popped through his forehead, like a head in a vice would... he was a big man and there was blood everywhere, I slowly stood back up and drunkenly stumble-walked backwards watching the smoke rise up into the sky, I must have been looking into the truck for awhile because I backed into a police officer, who questioned me about what I saw, he told me I had to give a statement because I was the first one on the scene, and so, still tripping i gave him a dazed statement I have no memory of, he didn't understand why I had pulled over..."to pick up a scrap of metal?"

"Yeah"
"Why"
"I don't know anymore....