Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America (16 page)

The pain is forcing me in and out of consciousness, and suddenly I realize they are taking me somewhere. I half walk, half stumble up the stairs with my two captors hurrying me along, paying no attention to my cries of alarm at the increased pain and the liquid oozing out of my freak tattoo. I smell of burned skin. At least I make it out of the basement alive, something Sylvia Likens never did. It’s light out. Christ, I’ve been imprisoned overnight! They throw me in the back of the car and, without a word of where we are headed, peel out. “Torture” by the Everly Brothers comes on some oldies station they are listening to, and they shriek in harmony to the lyrics of emotional despair but screech in laughter every time they get to the “Baby, you’re torturing me” chorus. Gertie
really
looks bad now, her five o’clock shadow bursting through the Pan-Cake makeup like poison oak. I can see that somehow she looks a little like Paula. Could it be her brother?! Oh God, spare me that!

I have no idea where we are but I see signs that we are entering Indianapolis. Finally we pull up to a scruffy lot in a random suburban neighborhood. I see a street sign reading “E. New York Street” and my blood runs cold. That was the street Gertie’s house was on! I see a number: 3852. Oh my God, I remember now that the murder house has been torn down, but this abandoned, trash-filled piece of earth must have been 3850, the crime scene itself. Gertie II gets out, opens the back door, and pulls me out without the slightest concern over my injuries and throws me down in the dirt. Paula snarls a parting message in my ear: “Maybe you’ll realize now that we’re a real family,” and gives me a swift kick in the leg before they both get back in their car and drive off, mission accomplished.

I lie there, happy to be alive at least. Suddenly I see other people milling about, a few taking photographs of this empty lot. At first I don’t believe it, but, yes, these shutterbugs are true-crime buffs. I see somebody else dressed as Gertie, but this time it’s the “young Gertie” and I can tell she’s really a girl. Another is dressed like poor Sylvia, with those hideous words scratched above her midsection in obviously fake blood. The ingenue Gertie and the imitation Sylvia pose together for the other true-crime groupies. I vow to burn my Gertie portrait if I ever get out of this trip alive. I struggle to my feet. Gertie #3 sees me and yells out in hyperexcitement and disbelief, “John Waters!” I limp away as fast as I can.

BAD RIDE NUMBER FIVE

EUGENE

Great. I’m stuck inside city limits, the worst place to hitchhike. My cuts are sore and the new tattoo is going to get infected, I can tell. I should go to the police, but then what? There’d be big-time publicity and I could never continue the trip and there goes the whole deal. And besides, maybe I did deserve a
little
bit of punishment for that cake, but certainly not this! I look down at my chest and see that the yellow fluid oozing out has turned brown and the letters, especially the
A
and
H
of
ASSHOLE,
are starting to swell. I should go to the hospital, but then again, how do I explain this hideous epitaph scrawled on my chest? “Oh, this? I was just drunk!” I’m sure there are great plastic surgeons once I arrive safely in San Francisco who can help with laser-surgery tattoo removal,
if
I can just get there in one piece.

But nobody picks me up. I keep walking anyway because a few “Basement” buffs are still following me. I pose for cell phone pictures with a couple of them and that seems to do the trick. All except for one persistent African-American Gertie impostor (a man? a woman?) who won’t leave me alone and wants to “come along.” I try to explain that no one will stop to pick me up hitchhiking with a Gertie look-alike, but she’s persistent. Finally, I show her my chest, and while she thinks it’s fake, she’s still impressed. An exclusive shot of “Gertie” and me and my horrible new tattoo seems to satisfy her. She retreats happily, adding the photo from her cell phone to her
Basement Are Us
blog.

Just when I think I’m going to pass out, a car stops for me. I’m in luck, I think to myself once I get in the car and painfully put on my seat belt. “Eugene,” as he introduces himself, looks like a hippie; he’ll be gentle. No funny stuff with this guy. He explains he’s going to St. Louis but will let me off at a rest area outside the city on I-70 so I’ll have a better chance to get a ride farther west. He explains that he’s a vegan and offers me something to eat. I am starved out of my mind. I don’t have any food issues—I can eat anything. At least I thought I could. Eugene offers me a raw turnip, which, I guess, is better than nothing. He rants against the evils of any animal products and then continues on against “the criminality of force-feeding hospital patients and prisoners nonvegetarian meals.” I agree—what else can I do?—and ask him for another turnip. “Hungry little muvva?” he asks good-naturedly, tossing me one. I notice he is eating what look to be hedge clippings, and when I ask him what he’s having, he tells me they are exactly that. “There’s free food everywhere!” he brags. “Just eat leaves … grass … the spirits give you nourishment—it’s right before your eyes!” Before I follow up he takes out a baggie and sprinkles some kind of brown seasoning over his hedge salad. “What’s that?” I ask, ever the foodie. “Dirt,” he replies as if I’d just asked the dumbest question in the world. “You mean, like earth?” I ask, confused. “Well, yes … I call it land … sod … it’s all delicious.” I hold out my half-eaten raw turnip and he sprinkles a little of the “vegan spice” on it. No matter what he calls this seasoning, it still tastes like dirt to me, and this crust of the earth gets caught in my throat and I gag. “Here,” he says, holding out a bottle of what I
thought
was lemonade. I take a big swig and spit it out immediately. The liquid tastes salty, spoiled, disgusting. “What the hell is that?” I demand in between dry-heaving. “Urine,” he says matter-of-factly, “nothing better for you than drinking your own wee-wee.” “But that’s not
my
wee-wee,” I sputter. “You’re correct,” he answers with pride, “it’s mine.” I retch. “I’m healthier than you,” he says, shrugging without concern, “you should be thanking my bladder, not complaining.”

I can’t believe I just drank this hippie freak’s piss. I continue to gag as he drives along, looking at me in food pity. “You poor thing,” he tsks-tsks, “it’s all those animal parts stuck in your veins that are making you sick. Bristle. You know what that is?” “No,” I admit weakly. “That’s stiff animal hair left over on pork product.” Gag. “Don’t be puking in my car,” he warns, “and if you do, I would expect you to eat it back up. Consuming one’s own vomit is a way to train your digestive system to reject animal-derived substances.” “Please,” I beg, “do you have anything a little less radical to eat?” He thinks a minute. “Sure, you like tofu?” “Yes!” I yell, practically salivating for something I’ve at least enjoyed in my culinary past. “Here you go,” he offers, taking out a bowl made out of a recycled tin can, “it’s raw. The way
tofu
should be eaten.” I scarf it down.

He is listening to the ridiculously childish novelty tune “Tofurky Song” by Joanie Leeds, but I can tell he sees no humor in the chorus: “Wobble wobble wobble, not gobble gobble gobble.” What do I care? At least the recording covers up the sudden rumbling in my stomach. We continue to drive, and much to my humiliation I fart. Eugene looks over at me and says with a straight face, “Reject that suet!” “What is suet?” I ask, anything to divert my embarrassment. “The solid fat prepared from the kidneys of cattle,” he deadpans. Suddenly a blast of shit fires in my pants without warning. The stench is overpowering. Oh God, I think, he’s going to expect me to eat
this
!?

“That’s what you get from eating meat!” he scolds with a savage new fanaticism. “I have food poisoning,” I wail. “Why didn’t you cook that tofu?” “Cooking is a violation of the natural order of food, you fool!” he lectures with an obnoxiously patronizing tone. “Please pull over,” I plead. “Absolutely not,” he answers. “You have to learn a lesson about excrement. Your bowels are sending you a vegan message.” “No, they’re not,” I scream in mortification, “I have diarrhea! Please let me stop at a restroom.” “I bet you have wiping issues,” Eugene suddenly accuses me. “What are you talking about?” I argue in building delirium as another mudslide of shit blasts out and trickles down my pant leg. “You’re nuts!” I yell. “I’m sick, pull over.” “
I’m
nuts?” he barks. “Me? The healthiest man you’ve ever met? Do you know what I’m going to die from?” he rants like the fascist he is. “Nothing. That’s what I’m going to die from.
Nothing!
”

With that, he veers off Route 70 and pulls into a family rest stop. McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, the whole nightmare of fast food right before my eyes. He slams on the brakes and the scabs on my knees break apart, the seat belt cuts into my infected tattoo, and a final logjam of liquid turds detonates out back. “You were born under the astrological sign of Feces, meat pig, and you will die under that sign,” Eugene spits out in final judgment. “Now excrete from my car!”

I do. I walk through the parking lot, and the whole world can see I have shit my pants. “Hey, shithead,” some brat of a kid yells as both his parents hold their nose and laugh. I don’t make eye contact, but just make a beeline for the men’s room.

I walk through the packed food court, gagging and farting every time I see or smell food. Wouldn’t you know it, the bathroom is crowded. All the stalls are filled. “Oh my God,” some man mutters in disgust when he sees my sorry state of affairs. Out of the corners of my eyes, I notice men stopping in their tracks and then scattering in horror. Finally, a stall opens and a college-student type exiting makes direct eye contact with me. “John Waters?!” he cries in surprised happiness. “Yes…,” I stupidly answer, pushing past him and slamming the door shut behind me. “Oh my God!” I hear him yell to just about everybody. “Did you see that?! That was John Waters. I’m almost certain he has shit his pants!!” I hear grown men laugh in constipated smugness and digestive superiority.

I hang my jacket on the inside hook and plop my chafed ass down on the toilet, but there is nothing left to come out. I attempt to clean myself up. It was hard outside to take off both my underpants and pants, but here in a rest-area men’s room it’s downright scary. I’m sure bathroom users can
see
me bottomless through the cracks in the stall door. I roll up my disgusting boxer shorts to ditch upon leaving. I flush a couple of times and use the clean toilet water to wash out my pants. I’m on my hands and knees scrubbing the cloth with all my might. It’s a good thing I wasn’t wearing white jeans as I usually do in the summer. I flush over and over until someone yells, “You okay in there, buddy?” I freeze. “Yes, I’m fine,” I lie, rinsing out my Levi’s one last time and hoping they will dry quickly once I’m out in the sun.

Just as I turn around to face the daunting task of slipping into wet pants, I see a hand come over the top of the stall, quick as lightning, and grab my jacket. “Hey, fucker,” I yell as I trip over my boots struggling to get one leg into my sopping jeans. “Stop! Thief!” I shout, but all I hear back is the footsteps of the running jacket-snatcher. “Someone just stole my coat!” I scream, but for once, the bathroom seems empty. I run out of the booth in my stocking feet, still zipping up my fly, but all I see is a father and son walking in, eyeing me with alarm. “Did you see somebody run out with my jacket?” I ask, completely beside myself. “How would I know what your jacket looks like?” the father asks with rude sarcasm. “Yeah, moron,” spits out the kid to me as I stuff my feet into my unlaced hiking boots and race past them, depositing my diarrhea underpants in the trash can right in front of their suddenly scared-shitless eyes.

I run through the rest area with my laces flapping, tripping over them every few steps. “Thief!” I yell, but people look away and I don’t see a security guard in sight. Once outside in the parking lot, I realize whoever swiped my jacket is long gone. No jacket. No bag. No phone. I’m really alone. In St. Louis, for shit’s sake.

BAD RIDE NUMBER SIX

WOODY

At least there’s an entrance ramp back onto I-70 West, my supposed lifeline for this misadventure. Maybe a freshly fed fat family from the food court will have mercy and pick me up. I stand with my thumb out for over two hours but I don’t mind because I’m praying the wind is acting as a deodorizer of my fecal accident. Suddenly I spot a discarded can of Off! insect repellent in the weeds near where I’m standing. I leap over and grab it and spray it all over me. Off! is not a real deodorant but I’ve always loved the exclamation point included in the brand name, and besides, I don’t have any toiletries left, this will have to do. Even the Maybelline eye pencil I keep in my sports-jacket pocket is now gone. I pick up a cigarette butt from the roadside gravel and without a mirror, from memory, try to shade in my graying signature facial hair. Who knows if I colored within the lines? For once, I
do
want to be recognized. I can use all the help my “look” can muster.

Naturally, the next ride’s driver has no idea who I am but I learn way too much about him immediately, straining to hear his braggart opinions over the most obnoxious, screaming talk-radio shows that he violently changes back and forth by pushing the channel buttons so hard I’m amazed they don’t break.

His name is Woody, and oh yeah, he smokes. Parliament filters. Four packs a day. “Filter, flavor, pack or box,” he sings loudly, reminding me of the vintage ad campaign. The car stinks so bad of cigarette smoke that I’m at least sure he can’t get a whiff of my rectal troubles. I used to be a heavy smoker, too—five packs of King Kools a day before I quit, so I can’t be
too
judgmental. But still. He hot-boxes each cigarette right down to the recessed filter and then lights the next one straight from the butt before he flicks it out the window, possibly starting a forest fire. Thank God I gave up this filthy habit or I’d be dead by now.