Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America

by John Waters

  “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 speedin
g. 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!”

  “Just repeat after me,” I plead. “It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie,” but this old catch line from an exploitation ad campaign doesn’t do the trick. “And that birth scene in Female Trouble,” he charges like an obscenity prosecutor, “was absolutely disgusting!” Before I can even plead my defense, he shoots me in the other leg. I howl in agony. Randy’s dick seems to be leaking some kind of fluid as it grows, and it’s definitely not sperm. I scream for my life.

  We pull into the Las Vegas city limits. Time flies when you’re being tortured. I see the ridiculous skyline of the town—a place filled with tourists I have spent my lifetime trying to avoid. “Look, Randy,” I groan through spasms of pain, “just let me out here. I promise I won’t make any trash films again—I’ll go make mainstream movies, I swear!” “It’s too late for a career change,” Randy snarls with murderous rage as he pulls his truck off the road into an abandoned drive-in movie theater. It’s been a long time since any movies were shown here. There’s not even a screen anymore and the concession stand has been burned to the ground. The few remaining poles for the speakers have been stripped clean of working parts. Randy slams on his brakes with a sickening finality.

  “Get in the back!” Randy orders. “No, Randy, please,” I argue. “Let’s go see The Avengers. Let’s go see Hollywood tent-pole blockbusters!” His answer? A bullet into my right foot. I almost pass out when he grabs me and throws me into the opening he has carved between the truck and the trailer he’s pulling. Inside is a cult-movie-director torture chamber. Josie Cotton’s cover version of the theme song from Who Killed Teddy Bear is playing on some sort of sound system. Beneath movie posters for El Topo is the decaying body of Alejandro Jodorowsky, who I thought was still alive until Randy tells me differently and takes credit. I see George Romero’s amputated head hanging in a basket surrounded by posters for Night of the Living Dead and all its sequels. “Enough” is all Randy offers in explanation. Before I can scream, I trip over what appears to be a corpse clawed apart by wild animals. Randy kicks it and I realize that this poor human is still alive. I try to look away, but Randy grabs my head in a choke hold and forces me to gaze upon this nauseating face. Oh my God, it’s Herschell Gordon Lewis and he chuckles when he sees me! He’s still got a sense of humor even as he approaches death.

  As Randy pushes me forward into the bloody pit of horror, I realize this is not the barrel of his gun poking me in the back but his erect penis, crusted and disfigured from a new venereal disease that I doubt has been diagnosed by even the most advanced contagious-disease specialists. I can usually talk my way out of anything, but now I’m not so sure. I keep flashing back to the Grim Reaper character in that Ingmar Bergman film, but realize sharing this film-buff memory with Randy Packard would be extremely ill-advised.

  Suddenly I am hoisted in the air by a strategically placed bear trap. The clawlike grip of the catch slices into my one ankle and I sway in agonizing helplessness, my head crotch-level to Randy Packard’s disgusting unit. He takes an Odorama card out of a drawer and rudely rubs it with his penis, the sores scratching the smell labels, and then pulls out a giant saber from a velvet bag and strokes his blistered hard-on with his callused fingers one last time. “No, Randy,” I plead, just as the pimples on his penis pop at the exact moment he shoots a full load of infected, unsafe semen into my eyes. Thank God I barely see the blade slashing forward. It doesn’t even hurt when he cuts off my head.

  Oh no, I see the long white tunnel. You’ve got to be kidding me! This cliché couldn’t be true, but it is! I feel myself elevating up, through the clouds, up, up, up to what? Oh my God—heaven?! It’s fucking true? I see God but he gives me the thumbs-down. Over his shoulder I see awful people from my past—mean nuns from Sunday school, ignorant Christian Brothers who discouraged my interests in high school. I see Cardinal Shehan! Mary Avara, the Maryland film censor! Is that Art Linkletter? Good God—Anita Bryant. All in heaven. God looks at me blankly and then whispers, “Catholics were right.”

  I scream in horror and feel myself plunging downward, past limbo, where despite updated dogma to the contrary, unbaptized babies do cry in frustration over never getting to see God. I plunge into hell and see all my deceased friends, but they can’t see me or each other. It’s hotter than Baltimore in August. It’s a Wonderful Life plays on an extended loop on movie screens in every direction. I watch it for eternity.

  THE REAL THING

  NONFICTION

  REAL RIDE NUMBER ONE

  DAY CARE

  Okay, here’s what really happened. Real life. May 14, 2012. No more fiction, just the truth.

  I notice Susan and Trish have stopped discussing my hitching plans at the office. I can see their shared fear for my safety on their faces. Even my young art assistant, Jill, has caught the “worry” bug, sheepishly suggesting someone follow me on the road “to be sure you’re safe,” which I, of course, reject immediately. I could tell friends my own age were also concerned. Even my criminal buddies were appalled! “Carry a gun,” one warned. “Take Mace,” another ordered, and even the closest of my Baltimore convict friends sent me a handwritten graffiti drawing from jail that read B-More Careful.

  As the day of my departure approaches, everybody’s anxiety starts getting on my nerves. I have just written my fictitious death a few days ago, but nobody knows that yet. “Come on, be positive,” I argue in exasperation. But truth be known, I am starting to get nervous myself.

  On Mother’s Day, twenty-four hours before I leave, I try not to show my fear, kissing my mom goodbye after dinner. She has no idea why I’m vanishing, just something vague about “research for a book.” I figure she’d be horrified and worried if she knew I was hitchhiking, so I tell only my sisters the truth in case they need to reach me in an emergency. Will I ever see my mother again? I wonder as I walk out her door.

  Sunday night at my house it’s all quiet. My medium-size fake-crocodile-skin plastic tote bag is packed—five old pairs of boxer shorts, one of which I plan to discard each day after wearing; a pair of black 501 Levi’s jeans; five Gap T-shirts; a Scum of the Earth movie-logo baseball cap; a label-free dark blue wool scarf some guest left behind at my Christmas party and never reclaimed; a Brooks Brothers dark blue wool turtleneck in case it gets chilly; a Patagonia orange nylon hooded rain jacket; and a pair of blue Japanese-brand Sunny Sports slip-on tennis shoes illustrated with pirate ships. Supplies include a Redline tactical flashlight, a fold-up umbrella, BlackBerry wall and car chargers, an Olympus digital tape rec
order and batteries, a large felt-tip marker for making hitchhiking signs, a backup pair of reading and distance glasses, sunblock, and travel-size toiletries (including sample-size jars of La Mer Moisture Cream and Eye Concentrate). Susan has made me purchase a SPOT satellite GPS device, which supposedly tracks me anywhere, even in remote areas where cell phone coverage is nonexistent. How I am supposed to get this out of my pocket and push the emergency button if someone pulls a gun on me or the car is upside down in a ditch remains unanswered. I also take a bag of raw almonds, some trail mix, and two little bottles of Evian water for nourishment, a “fame kit” to prove to cops that I’m not just homeless, a stack of autographed, embossed PS: THANKS FOR THE LIFT business cards that a fan had sent me years ago that I recently discovered in my studio, and, of course, my TripTik booklet, prepared by AAA, whose employees thought I was driving across the country, not begging rides.

  I wake up without the alarm five minutes before it’s supposed to go off at 6:00 a.m. Oh God, it looks as if it’s going to rain, but mercifully it hasn’t started yet. I take a hot bath, drink some Tazo Awake tea (the most delicious brand, which I fear will be unavailable on the road), and get dressed, putting on my new REI hiking boots (that I’ll never wear after this trip), waterproof gray socks (so unlike the Paul Smith ones I usually wear), maroon jeans from MAC (the best clothing store in San Francisco), a striped Agnes B. long-sleeved T-shirt, and a faux-bleached-out-black cotton Issey Miyake sports jacket. I’m not totally Comme des Garçons–deprived; my black belt was definitely designed by Rei Kawakubo. I slip my heavily edited wallet (in case I’m robbed), containing just a couple hundred dollars of cash, two credit cards, only one bank card, and my photo ID, into my inside coat pocket. I grab my key ring with the Saint Christopher medal an old friend has given me for this trip and the compass attached, which Susan forced on me, and realize in my new life on the road I only need one of my keys—the one to my San Francisco apartment, my final destination. I turn on my SPOT tracking device, throw caution to the wind, and walk out the front door carrying my bag and one other, smaller canvas tote (from Maggs Bros Ltd, a U.K. bookshop I love), containing my different hitchhiking signs.