CALGARY, Alberta - Seven a.m Chase calls, drunk, stoned, or
both, and asks what I'm doing for fun tonight. This catches
me off-guard, since it is my understanding that he's
broke. Chase is the kind of guy who will spend all his money
in the smaller part of an hour - and then start to spend
yours, if you're not careful. Warily, I tell him as much and
he advises me not to worry - his unemployment cheque just
came in.
"I haven't been out for a drink in..(there's a pause during
which, if I'm not mistaken, Chase consults his watch)...in
six hours."
"You're a model of self-discipline and denial. You deserve a
drink or two," I tell him, thinking that not eve he could be
so thick as to miss the sarcasm. Silly me, I'm about to rag
on him when I hear a faint click. My call waiting. I get
Chase to understand that he has to hold on, then I press the
button on the phone. Its Gomez, my sometimes dealer and
semi-permanent flunky. He owes me big, since I wheeled and
dealed him into a new house. These are hard and desperate
times for people who like to prepare batches of hash oil
right in the comfort of their own homes. The last place
Gomez lived in was blown to tiny fragments when he left a
pan of ethylene glycol on the stove one morning. It was an
accident, he told the cops. I wonder if the poor bastard's
eyebrows have grown in again. Gomez is a semi-literate brute
who always makes me think of what you'd get if you crossed
Andy Garcia with, say, a low-lands gorilla.
What is it, I wonder, about having money and time on one's
hands that leads people like me and my friends into the bars
and not - say, for instance - into a museum or a theater? I
ponder for a moment, and am surprised to discover that I've
never actually gotten Gomez and Chase together. This is a
situation that I mean to rectify. Yessiree. Hot dman! The
fun we three can have! This will be a night to remember, I
promise Gomez.
"I have something to show you," he tells me. I'm not so sure
I like the sound of that, but what can I do?
Morning rush-hour in this city means driving like a mad
bastard, with the frenzied realization that you will
probably arrive late, anyway. This does nothing to help the
already manic pace life seems hurtling along at, and by the
time I get to Chase's apartment, I am in a full rage -
aided, no doubt, by the meth I gobbled before setting out.
One simply MUST have all the right equipment for high-speed
driving.
This includes, and is not by any means limited to, highly
illegal substances.
Chase is sitting naked in the tiny living room of his place,
and it is apparent that the lazy bastard hasn't showered
yet. "No matter," I tell him, "where we're going, you'll fit
right in."
He looks at me blankly, through a marijuana haze, and
inquires as to whether I've read today's paper. When I tell
him, "No," he looks sadly at me and says neither has he.
Then why the fuck did you ask me, I wonder. There is just
no figuring an inveterate doper.
I order him to get dressed (somehow,ing and giggling his way
through Jiminey Cricket's "When you Wish Upon a Star". I
never liked that damned bug...
We get to Gomez's place on the outskirts of the city with
only one Really Serious Incident. I take my hands off the
wheel - but only for a second, I swear it, in order to take
a hit off the crack pipe. The vicious psychotic Chase tries
to steer us into a bridge abutment! But I drive a short hard
jab into his left kidney, and his priorities change,
somewhat.
"What the fuck did you do that for?" he screeches in total
agonized wonderment.
"I did what any professional would have done," I tell him,
with what I hope is enough gravity for the moment.
Smash cut to Gomez's porch in the backyard. We're drinking
bottles of Bushmill's Irish Whiskey and firing his guns at
the local magpie population. Something seems to be affecting
our aim, though...the trajectory of the bullets is off...its
almost as if...no...a horrible thought comes to me.
"We need to get out of here!" I tell my friends. "This is
all a set-up!" Chase and Gomez don't see it that way,
though.
"Shut up, moron, you're drunk. in fact, we're all pretty
wracked." Gomez reassures me - or tries to.
"Fools! Don't you get it? It was THEM! THEY WERE HERE! THEY
SABOTAGED OUR WEAPONRY! AND THEY'VE CONVINCED US WE'RE
DRUNK! I'VE ONLY HAD ABOUT A BOTTLE AND A HALF OF THIS FINE
WHISKEY HERE. I CATEGORICALLY DENY THE ALLEGATION OF
DRUNKENNESS!"
My protestations of innocence are growing louder and more
shrill. Gomez is looking at me as if I've suddenly dropped
my pants and shit in his award-winning flower garden - as
though the bastard hasn't done it himself on occasion. but
you didn't hear that from me.
Even among neighbours as standoffish as Gomez's I'm betting
that this is beginning to attract unwanted attention. It is
best if we return to the matters at hand, I tell
myself. What the fuck? Did I say that out loud?
"I sense weirdness is starting," Chase says to no one in
particular. It is a phrase that will echo in the twisted
recesses of my mind for some time to come.
We eventually decide that it would be a good idea to leave
my car at Gomez's place. The BMW roadster is just a bit too
showy for the low-rent dives we'd be patronizing. Besides -
and more importantly - the roadster seats only two people,
and the last time I counted there were three of us. While
Gomez retires to his living room to answer a ringing phone,
Chase and I discuss the idea of locking him in the trunk of
the BMW. The idea has some merit, for at least then I'd know
at all times about my car's condition and whereabouts. There
is one drawback to this plan, though. Chase is insistent
that we should drill air-holes in the underside of the
trunk. I brandish the leg of a deck chair that has somehow
been destroyed in the past couple of hours.
"No one, under any circumstances, will puncture, mutilate,
damage or deface my car," I tell him. And I'm gratified to
see that he gets the message, for there is no more talk of
drills and air-holes and what-not.
Gomez returns, whistling. He is carrying something
semi-concealed near his left armpit. Is this the item he
wanted to show me? Chase is singularly
unimpressed. Actually, it appears that the guy has fallen
asleep. Gomez takes this all in and chortles gleefully.
He manages to shake Chase into wakefulness, and then
brandishes the item for our inspection. It seems to be an
electric shaver of some sort,but with several obvious
differences.
Chase ambles over, blearily remarking, "Wow,
Mr. Gomez! What's that?" But I've already figured it out,
and I've taken a reflexive pace or two backwards.
Gomez levels the Taser and touches Chase near the base of
the spine. There is a low instant BUZZ and a brief whiff of
singed hair. Chase screams and jibbers. He jerks like a
rubber chicken in a high wind. Then he is still again. I
contemplate jostling Chase into consciousness and decided
not to.
Gomez is doubled over laughing, and he says: "It's not
Mr. Gomez...that's my first name, numb-nuts." Then to me, he
says, "I had to do it, don't you see?"
And I don't see, but the guy has a fucking Taser and the
willingness to use it. So I'll be goddamned if I'm going to
raise the voice of protest. Gomez looks from Chase to me and
then to my car. "You know what we should do?" he asks, tears
of mirth still visible on his hairy face. "We should put him
in the trunk of your car and go for a drive!" This sends him
off onto another frenzy of laughter and I figure I should at
least try to join in.
"You know what? We are talking about doing the same thing to
you," I tell Gomez, and bray laughter on my own.
Wrong words. Gomez stops laughing and looks at me
strangely. "Oh really?" he comments, raising the Taser
again. I retreat a few more paces, holding my hands up,
palms upward. This is going to get really ugly, I tell
myself.
Gomez lashes out with the Taser in my general direction. Oh
shit! We're all fucked now. Some neighbour has already
phoned the SWAT team., he's a
heavy fucker, and the jeep is close by.
A large number of self-appointed "experts" will give plenty
of advice about high-speed driving. Keep your eyes on the
road or the mirrors or whatever, they will
say. Bullshit! For my money, the only way to succeed, and
not wind up as one large smear, si to watch everything. For
this you will need cocaine. Lots of it.
I remember reading somewhere that "there is nothing in the
world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a
man in the depths of an ether binge." Balls. The purveyor of
that particular sentiment ought to try coming off a massive
cocaine high in the middle of an evening rush-hour traffic
in a Jeep co-piloted by a hairy, deranged, semi-nude man
screaming gibberish at cars in other lanes. And the absolute
hell of it all is that I simply cannot ask him to settle
down. Because he's still waving the Taser around, like a man
who means to give someone, anyone, a bastard of a jolt. At
110 miles per hour (sic), it better not be me, or else we're
all fucked.
Not that I care so much for Chase and Gomez, I reflect
bitterly, while weaving in and out of traffic. Fuck them if
they can't take a joke. It's just that right now, at this
particular time and place, I do not want to die. The
ambience is all wrong.
The windows are rolled down, and the demented wind is giving
Gomez's gibberish a run for its money. In addition to that,
we've got an old AC/DC tape blasting from the
custom-designed sound system in the Jeep. Angus Young's
bluesy riffs emanate from the speakers strategically located
in the door panels of the Cherokee. And while "Gone
Shooting" and "Down Payment Blues" are two of my favourite
songs, they are just not good dying music.
Besides, the car smells. We dragged Chase to the Jeep and
that bastard Gomez inadvertently (he says) dropped Chase's
feet into a pile of Rottweillor excrement. This forms a
repugnant counterpoint to the gentle aroma of good whiskey
and the harsher odor of scorched meat. No, I want to
live. At least until I get to our destination. Which may be
a problem, since none of us has yet stated exactly where we
want to go.
Next time: ugly truths are faced.
