Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America (20 page)

Gulp. I notice Hogwash isn’t wearing a helmet and I certainly don’t see an extra one for me. “Okay,” I say meekly, “but please go slowly,” I beg as I straddle the seat and wrap both arms around him tightly. “Ooh, that feels good,” he taunts me in a mock little-girl’s voice before gunning the engine and peeling out, leaving rubber for quite a distance down the highway.

I am immediately terrified. I see the speedometer climb to fifty, sixty, seventy, almost eighty miles an hour. I yell for him to slow down but he answers by doing a full wheelie. I scream like a pussy. The wind is ripping through my thin hair and flattens my goiter painfully against my Adam’s apple. My tattoo pops open and I can feel leakage spreading across my T-shirt. Sonny Barger I am definitely not.

“Please! Please! Please! Let me off!” I beg into the void. But instead this imbecile goes into a “circle wheelie” right in the middle of the fast lane as the cars’ and trucks’ drivers lean on their horns and swerve away in the nick of time. I know I am going to die.

Suddenly he is putting his legs over the handlebars! “No, don’t,” I scream. “A high chair,” he shouts like a banshee on crack. With that, the front of the motorcycle lifts off the ground from speed yet he still keeps his legs dangling over the front. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” he howls just as we go beyond a “twelve o’clock wheelie,” where the bike has gone past balancing straight up and tips over backward in the air. I am thrown off midspin and land hard on the hood of a car before bouncing off and being thrown into the hedgelike highway landscaping. Hogwash is killed instantly as his bike revolves 360 degrees twice before smashing to the asphalt and bursting into flames. A giant tractor-trailer skids out of control to miss the whole mess and crushes Hogwash’s burning corpse. I crawl back to the highway feeling no pain yet, in complete shock. All I can think is, I guess this makes me an official member of the Sundowner biker gang.

BAD RIDE NUMBER TWELVE

WARREN AND TARANTULA

Somehow, I’m alive. I’m sure at least one bone is broken somewhere in my body, but before I can even fully begin to feel any pain, a car pulls over. I’m not even hitchhiking yet! The guy looks okay, normal enough. A baby in the front seat is crying. I notice that it isn’t strapped in a car seat in the back the way it should be for both safety and legal reasons.

“You okay?” he asks with what I think is genuine concern. “I don’t know,” I truthfully answer. “Get in, I’ll take you to the hospital,” he offers. “Maybe I shouldn’t move,” I argue, “maybe I should just wait for the ambulance to arrive?” The infant starts screaming hysterically with a lung power I thought not possible. “Hold the baby,” the driver suddenly commands me. “Huh?” I mumble in confusion, in no shape to hold anything, much less a shrieking tyke. “Help me,” he begs in a sudden emotional plea. I’m so confused and injured I don’t know what I’m doing and get in the vehicle.

As soon as I close the door, he peels out and the baby falls on the floor. I can’t believe my eyes. It goes ballistic. “Pick him up!” he yells, and I’m so stunned I freeze. “Shut up, Tarantula!” he screams like a maniac. “Tarantula?!” I say out loud in disbelief. “That’s the baby’s name?” “That’s what I call him now!” he shouts. “I have to! His fucking mother is a custody cunt! I gotta be careful!”

Oh God, what have I got myself into now?
Nobody
could have luck this bad! I reach down and pick up the baby and realize that my left shoulder must be broken. Tarantula bites me. I drop him in shock and naively recoil before realizing I’d bite me, too, if I were in the same situation. “Hey, look, mister,” I begin to lecture before he cuts me off with “Warren! No use lying about my name when she’s got an all-points bulletin out on me. But the kid? I gotta protect this little fucker.”

“Little fucker?” Jesus, I reach down again and pick up the little boy, who hardly reacts as if he’s being comforted. He howls like a banshee. Warren suddenly pulls a broken-off car aerial out from under the seat and waves it menacingly. “You want another whipping?” he shouts like a madman, just like Dawn Davenport in
Female Trouble
. “Don’t you hit this child!” I scream in horror, holding the crazed infant close to my damaged chest. “Stay out of it,” Warren threatens me. “You don’t know what I’ve been through. Look!” he yells in a frenzy, pointing up to an AMBER
Alert electronic billboard overlooking Route I-70 West. I see the description of his car and the words
CHILD ABDUCTION
in flashing letters. Jesus Christ, what the fuck do I do?

“You said you were taking me to the hospital!” I stupidly argue, but he just tosses me a couple of jars of baby food and says, “Feed the kid!” I am so overwhelmed with dread that I just do as I’m told. The baby gobbles it down and I suddenly realize all I’ve had to eat in the last four days is dog scraps. “Can I have some, too?” I feebly ask. Warren nods and I scarf down some stewed prunes. I try to burp the baby, but each time, he spits up his food.

“Look, give yourself up,” I try to convince Warren. “Divorce is an emotional issue. The judges are used to this kind of drama in custody cases and they’ll understand your actions.” “Who said I was married?!” he asks as if I were the stupidest person in the world. “Well … you said she was a ‘custody cunt’…,” I stammer. “She is!” he rages. “But I don’t know her! I saw her on the bus with the kid and she was letting him eat sweets. That’s just wrong! I couldn’t allow little Tarantula to grow up and be a fat slob, so I snatched him and ran. She starts screaming, ‘Give him back!’ That’s a custody cunt in my book.”

I look out the window at normal people driving by. Families who have no idea of the hell happening right now in the lane next to them.
“Help,”
I mouth to the driver of a home-pest-control exterminating company. He looks at me blankly, I guess internalizing his own troubles at home. “Call the police,” I overenunciate silently to a woman with her own child snugly seat-belted in the back as she talks on the phone, probably illegally. Thinking I’m giving her shit for being on the horn by misinterpreting my lip-rendering of “police,” she hangs up guiltily and drops the handheld in her lap and never looks back. I hunt for eye contact from car to car and despair at not seeing a friendly or helpful face.

Suddenly I hear a police siren in the distance. I look over at Warren and I see this sound makes him totally insane. “You drive!” he orders, turning on the radio full volume. I can’t believe it. What’s playing but the song “Baby Sittin’ Boogie” by Buzz Clifford. That crazy tune with the dubbed-in baby’s voice gurgling “goo goo dah dah”–type lyrics. But no baby is singing along in this car. Ours is screaming bloody murder. “Give me the child,” he barks, taking his hands off the wheel and actually starting to try to change places with me. The car starts swerving wildly from lane to lane, and I painfully grab the wheel from my side with one hand and jerk up Tarantula by the arm with my other. With Warren’s foot on the brake we slow down quickly, and cars have to slam on their brakes behind us. I don’t look back as I’m switching seats with this madman while the car almost coasts to a stop, but I hear an accident or two happening as a result.

“Floor it!” Warren orders, grabbing the baby as the sirens get louder and I can see a fleet of speeding cop cars approaching us in the rearview mirror. I do as I am told. Tarantula is turning up his own volume now, screaming so loudly that I get a minor nosebleed. Holding the infant, Warren rolls down the window. “I tried to be a good father,” he sobs to no one in particular, suddenly flicking off the radio; “I adopted this little boy to protect him!” “Put the baby down!” I tell Warren in a new, calm voice. “America is already fat,” he argues back, hoisting the infant up to his opened window. “What are you doing?” I panic, horrified to see that Warren appears to be taking aim with little Tarantula. “Don’t throw that baby!” I scream, trying to grab back the child, who is howling again, correctly sensing upcoming insane danger. “Children cannot grow up obesely,” Warren rants, his eyes rolling back in his head. “No, Warren,
no
!” I scream—just as he throws the baby out the side window and hits the perfect bull’s-eye of an open window of another car, driven by a healthy-looking woman in the next lane. I see the lady scream, but I’m pretty sure little Tarantula landed safely in her lap.

I crane my neck to find a place in the traffic to pull over. Finally, the police will help me. I can tell them everything and end this horrible nightmare of a road trip. To hell with the book. Go back to the movies. I don’t have to be behind the camera. I’ll work in a movie theater. Anything but this. I’ll be an usher!

But before I can stop the car, Warren opens his door while I’m still speeding along and leaps out into full traffic in what has to be the most selfish suicide ever. Not only does Warren die, so do six others (including two policemen). Fourteen others are injured, some seriously. The pileup of smashed vehicles that crashed trying to avoid his bouncing body on the highway is a sickening sight to behold.

BAD RIDE NUMBER THIRTEEN

RANDY PACKARD

“Hi, I’m Randy Packard and I’m from REACT,” says the trucker looking out from his driver’s-side window, stalled in this multivehicle-from-hell accident. I’m half pulled over to the side of the road and my whole body is shaking. I see mangled bodies in the road. Traffic is at a complete standstill. One car is overturned. “What’s REACT?” I say cautiously, not trusting a soul anymore. “It’s a CB emergency-channel organization made up of volunteers, many of us truckers, to assist other motorists in time of disaster.” “Call the police, then,” I beg, “there’s a little baby that’s been stolen who’s now safe in a brown Toyota. There’s an AMBER Alert out for this kid right now!”

I see Randy talking on his CB walkie, and once he gives me the thumbs-up, I feel confident that little Tarantula, or whatever the hell his name is, will be rescued. But what about me? Do I wimp out now and give up? I’m in Utah, for chrissakes. Isn’t that just two states away from California? After all I’ve gone through, don’t I want the book to have an ending? One that isn’t cowardly? Anticlimactic? I can’t give up now.

“I’m just a hitchhiker,” I blurt out to Randy honestly, hoping to get all my cards right on the table. “I know you are, John,” he answers with kindness and charity, “and I’ve come to give you your last ride. All the way to San Francisco.” “But how did you know I was here?” I shout out in gratitude, suddenly feeling as if a savior has been sent from above. “You’ve got a lot of fans, including some of the more ‘creative types’ in REACT,” he says with a friendly chuckle. “The CB channels have been abuzz with your sightings since Indiana. Come on, get in. Can you walk or shall I come assist you?”

“I can walk all right,” I reply in an adrenaline rush, just thinking of my beautiful apartment waiting for me in San Francisco. I leap out of the car, but my legs give out and I stumble to the ground. “Whoa, cowboy,” Randy yells. “I’m okay,” I shout, struggling to my knees and hobbling over to the other side of the truck in hope and gratitude. Before I can even climb up, Randy has flung open the passenger door in welcome. I climb in.

He’s wearing no pants. Before I can react, the locks go down automatically with a scary metallic finality. I struggle to open my door but I’m locked in. “Gacy lives,” mutters Randy with the evil look of Leatherface and Richard Ramirez put together. I look over in fear and can’t help but see his disgustingly crooked cock, with some kind of herpes infection, twitching in arousal. “Please,” I beg, “just let me out, I won’t say anything.” When he doesn’t answer, I try a different tactic in desperation: “Come on, I’m not your type!”

“Oh, but you
are
my type,” he says with a supremely creepy grin as the traffic begins to move. I yell “Help!” to the driver of the car next to us, but nobody’s helping anybody—they all want to escape this accident mayhem. “I hate all cult-film directors,” Randy announces with bone-chilling seriousness. “But why? We just want to surprise audiences,” I cry. “I’d like to kill David Lynch,” he seethes like a snake about ready to strike. “But I know David … he’s a really nice guy
and
an amazing director,” I plead. Before I can go further, Randy blurts out a confession that freezes all words in my throat. “I just killed the entire midnight cast of
Rocky Horror
in Salt Lake City last night. You’re next.”

Oh God, this can’t be true. I can’t write my own death. Michel Houellebecq, one of my favorite writers, already did that! Readers will think I’m copying! Randy Packard drives like a professional, unfortunately, so there’s little chance we’ll be pulled over by the cops for speeding. I grow even more alarmed when I see we’re headed toward Las Vegas. I don’t want to die in Las Vegas. “You know fucking Quentin Tarantino?” he mutters angrily. “Yes,” I admit, then clam up, not wanting to give out any more information. “Gonna castrate him,” Randy mumbles with delight as I see his repulsive dick grow an inch and vibrate. But he’s just getting started. “Cronenberg?” he asks, but I don’t want to encourage him, so I don’t answer. He grabs a cattle prod and jams it into my arm, giving me a hideous electrical shock. “I met him,” I sob, “I don’t really know him.” “Slit his throat!” Randy announces with premeditation before continuing his little laundry list of future cult murders. “Todd Solondz?” “Great filmmaker,” I answer reluctantly. “Behead the freak!” he bellows before slyly asking, “How about your buddy Pedro Almodóvar?” “Yeah, he’s the best director there is!” I argue, hoping for Randy’s mercy. “I’m gonna blow his brains out,” he growls, taking out a revolver from under his seat and aiming it right at me.

“Hold it! Hold it!” I yell, hoping to buy time. “We are just writer-directors trying to do our job. Look, I’m sorry if my films offended you…” “You think eating shit is funny?” Randy demands with terrifying hostility. “No! No! I just was commenting on censorship laws at the time of
Deep Throat
,” I beg. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Randy sneers before whipping out a pocketknife and stabbing me in the leg.
“That,”
he roars, looking at the blade still stuck in my flesh, “is funny!! Ha ha ha!”