Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
day, even if it was in a jungle war. By then the dexies had done their deed. Oh, you can spot a
speed freak.
Goodwill was good for a lime green shirt with a texture, faint puke stains and long sleeves,
along with some baggy, straight-leg pants with cuffs—nobody had straight-leg pants but de-
viates and derelicts not welcome near a playground. Goodwill was also good for some ragged
wingtips. I ground holes into the soles and took the heels down to half on an odd, pigeon-toed
angle. I stopped clipping fingernails and toenails a month out and chipped half the buttons on
the shirt with pliers, because
1001 Ways
said chipped buttons were a sure symptom of fucked
up crazy insane. I put these clothes on ten days out. So that was the end of bathing too.
Strung out, wired up, ribs sticking out like a xylophone, I stopped brushing my teeth eight
days out. Six days out I dulled some scissors so they could chew the edges of the nails.
1001
Ways
said chipped nails were as fucked up crazy as chipped buttons.
I got a crew cut and stopped shaving four days out. I hadn't eaten much, but a bowl of
beets three days out made a terrific juicy dump just in time to cease anal hygiene on a high
note. It felt good, with a sense of completion, like a forty-yard pass to the end zone, kind of,
but without the marching band or the pompom girls. Two days out I scraped a few chewed
fingernails up in there for some beet shit residue—gently, to avoid injuring the tender sphinc-
ter membrane—and I sat in the glow of yet another great play in a great drive down the field.
Yet that golden interlude darkened as I wondered how (the fuck) I could get through the next
two days. I'd jumped the gun.
Then again, that level of commitment would have made Betty Boop proud—dropping to
122 from a skinny 140 in so few days, jacked up on amphetamines, dirty, hungry, raw and
eye-popping bona fide creepy, I realized all over that I hadn't jumped a goddamn thing but
finally grasped the reality upon us. Kenny Visser confided that he was scheduled to split a few
months earlier and then rescheduled to split in July. He rescheduled again when my strategy
developed, just to drive me to Denver. I couldn't very well drive myself. As it was, I lay in back
on the floor next to the spare tire. Kenny called it an honor and an ultimate goof. He stayed
in a groove, listening to tunes, turning the radio down near sundown to confide his daily de-
pression.
I passed the physical. Bummer. Unbelievable. Kenny Visser had the good manners to
squelch the told-you-so, but he couldn't resist a wry eye on passing the joint on the way home.
My draft counselor wanted a complete debriefing. I told him the war machine needed too
much fresh meat, that my delivery, appearance and demeanor at the induction physical had
been impeccable—that the guy administering the written test begged me not to wig out. The
guy had come in close to the little desk where I slumped and stared to whisper that he was
A-OK with acid and anybody who wanted to take acid. His whisper went loud enough for
everyone to hear, because he was getting emotional in his effort to avoid a scene, because a
scene would look very bad on his report. He swore to God that he was pulling for me to fail,
