Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America (5 page)

“It’s fucking Maniac Night,” Lucas explains, “and tonight I’m gonna win! We’re gonna tear ’em up!” he hollers humorously, meaning him and his car. I want to go, too. Almost magically, as if he could read my mind like Kreskin, he smiles that sexy gold-toothed smile and leers in a friendly growl with a faint Southern accent, “Wanna ride in the car with me?!” “Sure,” I stammer, wishing I were wearing those slip-on “fronts” I had made for my teeth in Baltimore with
JW
in fake jewels. “But are you allowed to have passengers?” I ask. “Hell, no,” he replies, “but since when have I done what is allowed?” “But it will be late night if I stay for the race and then I’ll have to hitchhike in the dark and I’ll be nervous,” I admit with shame. “Stay with me, Snake,” he hisses with a male friendliness that is confusing in its undefined sexual connotations. “I’m custom-fit, hammered, and bent just like your boy Homer!” I gulp. “You’re gonna be my good-luck charm,” he announces with a flirtatious grin.

I am swooning with excitement when we finally get to Marengo, Indiana, having so much fun riding with Lucas that I barely notice it’s already night. We’ve come a long way as we pull up at the Crawford County 4-H Fairgrounds. “Maniac Night” sounds even better when you read it off a weatherworn wooden marquee. Especially with
$1,200 PRIZE
added below. Lucas knows everybody! There’s Anteater and Doo-Doo, two scary grease monkeys who obviously idolize my new best friend, and they help him get Whiplash off the flatbed truck and up near to the pit gate. I see a lot of other junker cars with souped-up names such as Ratrod, Gunthunt, Hatchet-Head, and Head-On Hard-On (which, it was explained, will be disqualified because of its un-family-friendly name). There’s even one named Whitney Houston. I don’t know about Lucas, but I’ve got a winning feeling building inside me.

As our heat approaches, Lucas sneaks me in under a fence and I climb in through our car’s front passenger-side window because the doors are now welded shut. He hands me goggles, a helmet with
WHIPLASH
hand-stenciled on the front just like his, and a crumpled jumpsuit to put on over my usual low-key Comme des Garçons outfit that I have chosen to wear for the trip. “Material’s fireproof,” he explains, and since the family business my dad started is fire protection, I feel relieved as I struggle to suit up. As he slips into his own matching outfit, he catches me peeking at his naturally toned chest and winks. “Watch,” he says as he pours lighter fluid all over his jumpsuit. “Go ahead,” he orders me as he hands me a box of kitchen matches from under his seat, “set me on fire.” I hesitate, then strike one and toss it on him. His outfit immediately goes up in flames, but he just laughs, feeling no pain. He waits a full fifteen seconds before he smothers out the blaze. Lucas is my action hero.

There is no glass in Whiplash. The windshield and the rear and side windows have been removed. Most of the interior has been dismantled, and the gas tank is now in the back where the seats once were. As I reach for the safety belt, Lucas snarls from behind the wheel, “Seat belts optional,” and looks down to his crotch and points to the seat-belt buckle that once was on his driver’s side but has now been redesigned into his belt for fashion. Being the wimp I evidently am, I slip on both the helmet
and
the seat belt that is, thank God, still attached on the passenger side.

I look over the dirt oval track with all the junkers’ taillights facing each other and see Ratrod, a seventies Dodge Charger with its disgusting slob of a driver inside taking a big gulp of whiskey from a bottle, which I’m sure is against the rules. He glances at me and then catches Lucas’s eyes, too, and begins making mock kissing noises with his brittle, chapped lips. I avert my eyes as Lucas snorts in derision, grabs his own dick, and squeezes it in the excitement of possible revenge. “That sandbaggy asshole,” he growls, “always holding back, lurking around the side of the ring, too cowardly to strike first.” I smell gasoline fumes and am in seventh heaven.

“Will death strike tonight?” the track announcer yells over the loudspeaker system that booms out to the entire fairgrounds. As the crowd cheers and the drivers rev their engines, the countdown begins. “Ten, nine, eight, seven…” he screams. There’s nowhere to hold on to inside this car, so I just look over to Lucas with trust. He grabs his dick again and whispers over the din of fifty idling hot rods, “Wrecking cars gives me a hard-on.” I smile back, not letting him know how excited I am. “Three, two, one,” and we’re off … backward, of course! Total chaos! Some car named Grenade Banger rams into my side door, but the seat belt keeps me safe. Every time I peek up and look out, another car is about to smash into us. Lucas is biding his time, though, and every time we are hit, he growls sexually in demolition lust. “We’re tearing it up, John,” he yells over the sound of crashing metal. As he floors it in reverse, I look back and see asshole Ratrod right in our line of attack. BANG! I am amazed to see Lucas’s cock growing bigger underneath the flame-retardant material of his jumpsuit. WHAM goes another hit as we smash into another car (Gunthunt) in reverse, then back into another (Hatchet-Head) with such force that the fillings in my teeth tingle. “Dirtbags!” yells Lucas in full attack mode as he backtracks into two other cars (we’re going too fast for me to see their names) with such ferocity that both are instantly put out of business. He is in an erotic frenzy. Lucas leers at me as he revs his engine, surveying the four or five rust buckets still left running. “My dick is so hard. Wanna see it?” “Sure,” I yell in surprise over the sound of his peeling out backward and the impact of collision. The thrill of victory is pulsating in my pants, too. Encouraged, Lucas unbuttons his jumpsuit and, while zigzagging again backward, whips out (with some difficulty) an amazing cock that no gay man would ever refuse. “Beautiful,” I say as he reverse-accelerates again with a vengeance. The car he hits this time (Nitro Ned) explodes with a hiss and then bursts into flames.

“Jerk me off,” Lucas orders with beautiful, polite authority, and what else can I do but follow his orders? “Two vehicles left,” Lucas pants as he scans the pit, “so make it quick.” I take direction and don’t stop even when I feel the hostile crash of Ratrod’s vehicle into the back of our car. Lucas is so cool he doesn’t even lose his hard-on. The crowd cheers. I sneak a look over and consider a blow job, but even I know giving head in the middle of a demolition derby is risky, and besides, I don’t know Lucas that well yet. I see our enemy getting ready to strike. “Okay,” Lucas moans sexually like the gearhead gladiator he is, “let’s blast off!” He grabs my hand, spits into it, and thrusts it back on his cock with a wet splat. Could this be love? “Okay, John, we’re gonna bust a nut,” he announces, flooring the accelerator and speeding backward so suddenly that I get a whiplash, but I don’t care. By now, I’m so worked up that I feel that I actually
am
his car. Just as he crashes into Ratrod for the final “kill,” Lucas shoots a giant load through our nonexistent windshield into the sky with amazing projection, where it showers down beautifully like elegant fireworks. The crowd goes nuts. Lucas looks over to me in demolition tenderness and gives me the biggest, lewdest grin I’ve ever seen in my life.

That night we celebrate victory together. He lives alone. Imagine my thrill and amazement when we pull up to his trailer and I see it is the exact same model as the one Divine’s character, Babs, lived in, in
Pink Flamingos
, only painted silver and black. I know he never saw the movie, so I don’t bring it up. Lucas counts his winnings with me beside him on his bed in what would have been Divine’s bedroom. I refuse the cash he offers to share with me and tell him how much I appreciated such a romantic night. He blushes and then sheepishly asks, “Wanna watch some porn?” “Sure,” I say, curious to see his cinematic fantasy tastes. Fumbling under the bed, Lucas takes out a DVD with a homemade label, inserts the disc, and pushes play. But instead of regular porn, I see a compilation reel of demolition derby accidents much like the cumshot reel would be if it were normal gay smut.

“I usually only get horny when I’m racing,” Lucas whispers with lust, “but tonight I’d like to return the favor, especially for someone who has brought me such good luck.” “Okay,” I say in excitement as he eases over and unbuckles my belt. “Check out this next heat,” he says with touching sexual vulnerability as he lowers my pants. “BAM!” I cry as I watch in amazement vintage amateur 8mm film transferred to digital of three derby cars backing into each other at the exact same time and flipping over in unison. “Show me more,” I whisper as he begins stroking. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” he purrs back with a newfound sexual gusto. Lucas, more and more aroused, fast-forwards to another notorious demolition disaster. “Okay, John, here you go,” he moans as I see a 1975 Cadillac Coupe de Ville get broadsided in reverse by a ratty but rare 1970 Monte Carlo Chevrolet. The driver of the Caddy goes berserk, forgets all the rules of the race, and accelerates
forward
toward the attacker and smashes head-on into the Chevy. Both vehicles explode in flames on-screen, and in one escalating movement of Lucas’s wrist we become one; sexually united in affection, deviant excitement, and demolition lust. We fall asleep instantly.

GOOD RIDE NUMBER FOUR

OFFICER LADDIE

The next morning Lucas makes me a delicious homemade breakfast of corned beef hash with a poached egg on top before giving me a ride to the entrance ramp of Route 70 headed west. Always a sweetheart, he bashfully presents me with a belt buckle with the word
W-H-I-P—L-A-S-H
split into two levels of letters. Lucas can see how much I love his gift just by the way I hold it in my hands. I give him my best mustachioed sneer, jump out, and simply say, “Thank you.” Maybe being a human four-leaf clover for a crazily rugged but tenderhearted and slightly deviant demolition derby driver only comes once in a lifetime. “Give my love to the Simpsons,” he shouts good-naturedly, then peels out in his truck perfectly so the gravel shoots up all around me but not
on
me.

Uh-oh. Here come the cops. When the officer steps out from his vehicle, he looks mean. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snarls in an unwelcoming way. “I’m hitchhiking to San Francisco,” I explain politely, “and I know it’s illegal to do that
on
the interstate so I’m hoping to get a ride here on the ramp.” “ID!” he snaps without comment on my legal position. He looks at my license. “You homeless?” he demands without the slightest bit of sympathy. “No … I’m a film director,” I announce haughtily as I start to take out my Directors Guild of America card. “Freeze!” he yells as he pulls out his gun and aims it right at my head. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I say with alarm but still try to keep my cool. “I wasn’t reaching for a weapon,” I cry, “I just wanted you to look at my directorial credits.”

Suddenly another cop car comes speeding up with the light flashing. Officer Fuckhead seems relieved. This cop, also overweight but kind of goofy-looking, jumps out with a cheerier expression on his face. “Okay, Officer Bradford, what’s the problem here?” he demands. “We got a vagrant with an attitude problem,” the first cop snorts. I don’t say a word. The second cop lowers the first cop’s hand with the gun away from my head and I let out a sigh of relief. “I’ll take over here. This man is famous!” “Thank you,” I mumble, not believing my ears. “Fine with me,” grunts the first cop as he heads back to his police car, “but I never heard of him.”

“Thank you, Officer…?” I murmur in relief as the asshole cop pulls away, turns on his siren, and begins chasing a car that might have been doing five miles over the speed limit on this road where not one car has passed us by. “It’s Laddie,” he answers. “Where you headed?” “San Francisco,” I say optimistically. “Great town. My kind of place!” he announces with a whistle before jovially telling me, “I’ll give you a ride to Terre Haute, right before you cross into Illinois, and that way no Indiana cops will give you any shit.” I eagerly agree. As we pull off, he suddenly says with a knowing wink, “I loved you in
Fargo
!” Oh, no, not again! I think. Another fan who thinks I’m Steve Buscemi. “No, I always get that,” I protest. “I’m not Steve Buscemi.” “Oh, yes you are!” he yells with a startling conviction. “I’m really not,” I argue. “I love him and we’ve met many times but—” “Come on,” Officer Laddie interrupts, “let’s do lines from
Con Air
.” Okay, I remind myself, I said before I left I hoped people didn’t recognize me, so why not play along? “But I forget them,” I beg off. “Loved your work,” spouts Officer Laddie, suddenly doing a perfect imitation of John Malkovich in the film. “Really, I can’t remember the dialogue,” I stall, then suddenly have an idea: “I’m not really Steve Buscemi! I’m Don Knotts!”

Thinking my obvious pulling of his leg will end this charade, I’m astonished when it doesn’t. He believes me! “You know Andy Griffith!?” he asks in wide-eyed wonder as we speed along I-70 West, obviously not knowing that both of these actors are dead. What the hell? He’s giving me a long ride; why not go along with it? “I sure do!” I say with Knottist nervous pride.

“You like poppers?” Officer Laddie suddenly asks with a mischievous grin. “Well … sometimes,” I stammer, shocked again by the unpredictable behavior of the overweight Indiana police officer. “Me, too! Not for sex, though,” he explains as he reaches under his seat and pulls out a bottle of Liquid Gold. “Wow, I haven’t seen that brand for a while,” I admit. “I got ’em all—collector’s items,” he brags like a true connoisseur. “Jolt! Ram! Blue Boy! Even foreign ones like France 5 or English Jungle!” he shouts, fumbling in the glove compartment to pull out different brands. I stare back in awed appreciation. He snickers. “What I
really
like poppers for,” he whispers conspiratorially, “is
driving
!”

“Here, Don Knotts,” he offers, handing me a bottle of Rush. “Call me Barney, please,” I answer, keeping up the charade. “Hold the top while I get a good snort?” Officer Laddie asks in proper popper etiquette. I unscrew the cap and hand him back the opened bottle and pinch his one nostril and then the other as he takes a big whiff in each and drives with one hand. He hands the bottle back to me and I pretend to take a bigger sniff than I really do as Officer Laddie turns bright red in popper dizziness and turns on the radio. “The Giggler” by Pat and the Wildcats comes on—that great obscure, astonishing garage-rock instrumental with the maniacally cheerful chuckling vocal added for novelty appeal. Amazing. I thought I was the only one who knew that 45 rpm, but I guess I was wrong. Officer Laddie lets out a howl of laughter and shouts to the world, “Aunt Bee, look at us now! POPPERMANIA!” He turns on the siren full blast and accelerates. I’m popper high, too, so I don’t care. Under the influence, he still seems to be driving safely to me.