THE MAGIC SHOES: 15) AYAHUSCA

Monster Monday Madness

Upon arrival in NOLA (inside On the Road), I aim for the French Quarter, hopping from bar to bar in search of Dean and Sal, to no avail.

Either I beat them here—or I missed their night out on the town.

In On the Road, Kerouac based Old Bull Lee on William S. Burroughs. That is who I need to find. So inside the main branch of the New Orleans Public Library I spend hours scrutinizing telephone books and newspaper microfiche. Nothing.

But as I leave the library, there they are! Dean and Sal.

I resist an impulse to confront them. I do not want to alarm anyone with my own freaky situation. Instead, I keep a distance and discreetly trail behind until they reach a railway yard.

Dean catapults himself onto a slow-moving train car with Sal right behind him.

I catch up, trotting alongside. “Hey!” I shout. “Got room for one more?”

Dean offers his muscular arm and hauls me into the car. Neither he nor Sal recognize me from being present in their car a few nights earlier. Dean waves at the switchmen and flagmen, as if he is also a railroad worker. This truly seems his natural habitat—a railcar moving somewhere, anywhere. He takes Sal off on a tour and I follow them into a refrigerated car.

“Remember what I told you about Mexico to LA?” cries Dean. “This was the way I hung on.”

The train slows as the Gulf and shipping piers come into view. Dean jumps off. Sal, darker, quieter, studies his hero’s moves then follows with less finesse.

“You coming?” Dean calls up to me. “This train ain’t going nowhere till it loads up.”

I’m thankful he invites me. I steady myself and make the jump.

“Damn, we’re late,” says Sal. “They’re gonna be mad.”

Dean winks. “It is what it is, they’ll forgive us, and if they don’t, we’ll just keep going man—hell, we’re gonna keep going anyway!”

Old Bull Lee’s place is littered with food and other stuff strewn around the floor. It’s a mess of residue from a bunch of people camping out.

William S. Burroughs is something of a mystic. Knowing this, I ask him if he and I can have a little chat.

Looking into my eyes, he senses that I am from something unexplainable—another time or parallel universe. Burroughs invites me into the bathroom, his sanctuary from the madness—or maybe his hideaway for inducing madness. He undoes his black necktie, wraps it tightly around his arm and injects himself with a substance I assume is heroin. Immediately, he relaxes—and smiles. “How can I help?”

As I explain my predicament he does not laugh but listens carefully.

“You’re saying,” he finally says, “I’m just a character in a novel?”

“Yes,” I say. “But in fact you really exist. Just not as Old Bull Lee.”

He absorbs this. “I don’t know what kind of substances you’re taking, son. But I’d like to try some.”

I shake my head. “I haven’t taken anything. Oh wait… except LSD,” I add.

“What’s that?”

“You’ll find out in another ten years or so.”

Old Bull Lee sighs. “I’ll try anything twenty times.” Then he goes quiet. I’m hoping he’s focused on a solution. “From both our perspectives, you seem to be in an altered state of consciousness,” he finally says. Perhaps you need to alter yourself a little deeper as a way of figuring this thing out.”

“What are you suggesting? “ I nod to his punctured arm. “ Heroin?”

Old Bull Lee shakes his head. “If you start doing skag, you’ll never want to do anything else. That includes trying to get back to wherever you think you belong.”

“Then what?”

He opens a drawer and pulls out a large half-filled glass bottle of a thick, maroon-colored liquid. “Yage. Grown in South America as ayahuasca. The natives there call it spirit vine.” Old Bull Lee pauses. “It’ll get you where you think you need to be.” He pours a measure into a small cup and passes it to me.

“You sure?” I ask with trepidation.

He nods. “If this doesn’t do it, nothing will.”

I sip. It tastes mildly sweet. And then I throw it back, shot style.

“Take this.” Old Bull Lee offers me a brown paper bag.

“Why?”

“La purga.”

“What?”

“Intense vomiting.” Old Bull Lee discerns my alarm. “Don’t worry, it’s a good thing. Yage gets rid of parasites and toxins.” He pauses thoughtfully. “I’ve done you a favor so now it’s your turn to help me get rid of the parasites in my home —get them to leave. Seems to me you need to be on the road anyway because that’s how you got here, right?”

As it turns out, Sal collected his GI check and cashed it that day. But he is otherwise reluctant to leave Old Bull Lee’s home. However, Dean, the motivator, is always ready and roaring to go-go-go—somewhere, anywhere, so long as he is in motion.

Determined to depart by dusk, he gathers everyone up as if they are pieces of luggage and packs them into the car.

Old Bull Lee winks at me as he waves with a smile on his face. He’s probably relieved I’ll be on my way before La Purga cuts in.

Dean strides to Old Bull Lee for a final goodbye and Lee’s grin disappears as Dean remonstrates in place with his hand out, asking for money.

Lee stands his ground, resolutely shaking his head with both hands firmly dug into his pants pockets.

Dean gives up and climbs behind the wheel, giggling maniacally. Spittle drips over his lower lip as he strokes Marylou’s knee. She sits in the front seat again between Dean and Sal to keep one another warm. I’m alone in the backseat.

“Darling,” says Dean, “you know and I know that everything is straight between us at least beyond the furthest abstract definition in metaphysical terms….”

At that moment, I feel a volcano erupt from my midsection. Fortunately, the window is wound down and I reach it in time as lava spews projectile-style from my mouth.

The only one who notices my frantic heaving is Old Bull Lee. He quickly turns around and scurries back into his house.

Sickened, I wonder if giving me yage was less about getting me back where I belonged and more about punishing Dean for freeloading and messing up his house. (I might have heaved inside the Hudson.)

We lurch and launch as I hang my sorry head out the window, completely retching my insides out and leaving a trail of pea soup.

Trembling and sweaty, I sit upright as we cross the Mississippi River.

Into the night we ride, along dirt roads with nothing but swamps on either side. At some point Dean stops and switches off the headlights. We hear a million snakes slithering in the night’s stark blackness. Preferring mystery programs on the radio to real life frights, Marylou squeals.

I try to close the window but a half-dozen copperheads slide in and coil themselves around me. Gasping for breath, I cry out for help as the snakes tighten their grip around me.

Dean, Sal and Marylou turn from the front seat, amused or bemused, wondering what the hell I’m screaming about.

“Snakes!!!” I howl.

“Ain’t no snakes,” says Dean.

And I realize it must be Old Bull Lee’s yage. In a split-second the snakes are gone.

Having survived this attack, I feel euphoric—here I am in a car with my favorite literary characters on the road and heading for California!

At four in the morning we carouse the city streets of Houston. Dean finally relinquishes the wheel to Sal.

Dean and Marylou fall asleep in each other’s arms. Rain lashes the windshield while Sal becomes befuddled. He doubles-back into the main street of a small town.

An apparition of a man on horseback suddenly appears in front of us. I think I’m hallucinating again but it turns out to be the local sheriff. As he points directions for Sal to get back on track, I sprawl out and fall into deep slumber.

When I open my eyes I’m lying on the couchette inside Tindley & Everett on Cecil Court.

Old Bull’s Lee’s ayahuasca had done the trick—I’m back!

Startled, I fumble for the rare first edition of On the Road, which had been lying open across my chest.

“Sorry,” I say to Tindley or Everett as I sit up and rescue the book from hitting the ground.

Unfortunately, page 77 flashes in my face…