A Tough Nut to Crack
I Was Abducted by Aliens in a Former Life Meets a Season of Strange
You can tell me all you want about phenomenology and ball lightning, mass hysteria, extreme exhaustion, and how drugs affect the flow of information to the brain. I wouldn’t argue with you for one minute except ten years ago on a hundred-degree night in August, Charlie Warner and I drove from Austin to Memphis, Tennessee in Charlie’s 67 Ford pickup with no air conditioning, bad brakes, busted clutch, one red fender, bald tires fishtailing all over the lane, one headlight missing and tail pipe dragging the highway so bad you could see sparks in the rearview. I sat on the wooden board over the spring that pushed through the passenger seat, praying the Man wouldn’t pull us over cause, if I knew Charlie, he was sitting on a stash bag filled with weed, speed, Special K, skunk, snappers, soap, shrooms and — no big surprise — ten or twenty grams of Charlie* pre-cut into lines and wrapped in individual baggies ready to snort.
Riding with Charlie is nothing I’d wish on my worst enemy, his worst enemy, his worst enemy’s girlfriend or her faithless ex-boyfriend. He took his last bath the year he bought his truck, believed nature was the best deodorant, ate the leftovers he found in his beard, popped lice with his teeth, picked his nose and passed the trophies to anyone who would…
