by T L Barrett
Five minutes later he found himself puzzling over the first few paragraphs of a Cormac McCarthy novel that he tried to read twelve times. He knew he should enjoy this stuff, it was good literature, but Jesus, his head hurt trying to get through more than a sentence or two.
“To hell with it,” he said and tossed the book over his shoulder. “I’m going on the road.” Inspiration hit him. He grabbed On the Road and Howl and Other Poems by Alan Ginsberg. He threw these into the suitcase, zipped it up, stuffed in his emergency cash envelope on his way through the kitchen and bolted out into the driveway.
Glen was nowhere to be seen. The bushes exploded. Barry dove behind his car.
“Barry?” Glen called.
“Jesus, I hope you know CPR, cause—”
“Actually, I do. I never knew I did, but I just saved a guy just the other day,” Glen jogged over to the car.
“You did not,” Barry nearly shouted in hysterics.
“I did dude, I swear, but can I tell you about it later? There’s a load of bigfoot fanatics combing the woods for me right now.
“Yeah, let’s go!” Barry dove into the car, jumped out, grabbed his suitcase and got back in.
“Wait a minute!” Glen said and went into the shed. He came out and started spray painting the side of the car.
“What the hell are you doing! We’ve got an army of cryptologists, an angry mob of rednecks, the entire monster world, and a psychotic Nazi midget all gunning for us! We don’t have time for you to decal the friggin’ car!”
“Almost done, Barry,” Glen said and shook his can and finished with a flourish. Barry got out and coughed and waved his hands at the paint fumes.
Comic-Con or Bust! decorated the door panels of the car.
“So much for not attracting undue attention,” Barry muttered.
“It’s going to be awesome!” Glen shouted and patted Barry on the back.
“Just get in the car, already,” Barry commanded. Glen did so. The car sank down on its shocks.
Barry got in and drove with all haste out onto Route Seven and picked up speed toward the interstate.
“Where’s Ollie? He’s not coming with?” Glen asked.
“No. He said he had someone special he had to meet.”
“A special lady friend?” Glen asked.
“I think so.”
“Lucky punk bastard,” the Sasquatch growled.
“Tell me about it,” Barry commiserated.
“Speak of the devil,” Glen said and pointed up into the night sky. Far above them, over the dark hills, Ollie flew hand in hand with a beautiful young vampire woman. They danced and swirled and came together in a kiss. Ollie pointed to the car and both of the vampires waved.
“Oh, my God, I think that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen,” Barry said and wiped a sentimental tear from his cheek.
“I don’t know,” Glen said from the back of the car, “I don’t really go in for all that Twilight crap.”
Chapter Five
The Secret Origin of Wolf-man Barry
“I can’t believe I had to leave all my comics behind,” Glen moaned for the fifth time.
“So, you want to play name that tune or something?” Barry asked Glen.
“Uh, I grew up in a cave. I don’t know how I’m going to guess the theme song to Law and Order or anything.”
“Does Law and Order have a theme song?” Barry asked.
“How the hell would I know? I live in a cave, a cave in which I left a lifetime collection of comics.”
“Wait, did you say you left your comics behind?”
“Can we make a rule, right now?” Glen asked. “No goddamned verbal irony, okay?”
“Absolutely, God, heaven forbid,” Barry said.
“Shit, this is going to be a long road trip,” Glen moaned, “and no comic books.”
“Hold that thought, big guy,” Barry said. “Wait, of course you will.” Barry pulled to the side of the road. In the morning dark, the car lights illuminated the edge of an organic farm stand. A scarecrow stood sentinel over the edge of the field.
“Haven’t we seen enough scarecrows for one lifetime, Barry?” Barry ignored his backseat driver, jumped out and jogged to the scarecrow. He snatched the large woman’s gardening hat off the scarecrow and got back into the car.
“Here, put this on,” Barry ordered and tossed the hat at Glen.
“Why the hell would I do that?” Glen grumbled.
“We need to put you in something to make you less conspicuous. I don’t think we’ll find a place to pull over before it gets light. I want to put some miles between us and whoever wants us dead.”
“I’m sure people will have no problem with you chauffeuring a huge hairy transvestite around the country,” Glen quipped.
“Just put it on, Glen,” Barry insisted. Glen sighed and slipped the hat over the pointed crown of his head.
“You look beautiful,” Barry said.
“Fuck you. Fuck you very much, Barry.”
Glen was silent for some minutes as Barry pulled back onto the road and picked up speed.
“You know that scarecrow is probably going to get off that pole and come back after his goddamned hat. He’ll probably get us while were sleeping and rape us up the ass or something,” Glen said.
“Ah, you wouldn’t even feel it. I’ve seen the craps you take. Speaking of which, here’s a rule of the road: you’ve got to give me plenty of warning before you squeeze out a Yule log, all right. I’m not going to be able to pull over just anywhere, and I sure as hell am not going to clean up after you.”
“I’m just about sick of your voice already, to be frank,” Glen muttered.
“Well, Frank, I can just about turn this car around and let you fend off the crypto zoologists, the friendly folk tribunal, the hoard of rednecks and the world’s tiniest monster hunter if you want. On the bright side, you can have your funny books back. Bad news, you won’t ever get another chance to see the Comic-Con.”
“They’re not funny books. God, you know I hate when you call them that! Why don’t you turn on the radio or something?”
“Why don’t I?”
“Just no independent radio with some lesbian singing about Alaska or something, all right. That shit drives me up the wall,” Glen said.
“Any other things we’re not allowed to listen to, oh great and powerful back seat driver?”
“Yeah, no N, friggin’ P.R! Bunch of beggars. Do they ever not have a fundraising week? Why not, you know, have a non-fundraising week special or something? Plus, they talk so goddamned much, and they play some pretty queer music, to be frank.”
“All right, I think we’ve all heard enough of Frank,” Barry growled. He punched the radio on with his thumb.
“Step out of your world, and give mine a whirl!
You’re my…Doodle-boppin’ girl!”
“Hey, have I heard this guy before? He sounds awful familiar, or is it a girl?”
“It’s Ollie.”
“Oh, hey, he’s not half bad. This is kind of catchy,” Glen said, tapping his huge hands against Barry’s seat back.
“Cut that out. You mean you like this? It’s boy band rock, total bubble gum,” Barry said.
“Hey, I didn’t say I liked it, per se,” Glen said. Barry sighed in relief and went to change the station. “Hey, but, you could leave it, you know. He did save our lives.”
“Well, that’s true,” Barry said.
“Okay, so turn it up, will ya?”
* * * *
“Turn yourself inside out, like a peppermint swirl! You’re my…” Glen sang, “DOODLEBOPPIN’, DOODLEBOPPIN’, DOODLEBOPPIN’ Girl.” Barry looked down at the back of his hands on the wheel. They were covered in hair. It must have been the eighteenth rendition of the party-time favorite that had inspired it.
“Oh, look, a place to pull over. Thank you, God!” Barry said. Barry had taken to a lonely highway after the sun had fully come up, and they had passed over Rouse’s Point
into the desolate reaches of upstate New York. Barry eased the car over a humping dirt road that quickly turned into a logging trail.
The car descended a slope and opened into a lonely field.
“This will do,” Barry said and practically leapt out of the car. The few hours in the car with Glen had really upped his appreciation for fresh air. He stretched his arms and part of him reveled in the fact that he just left his staid and predictable life behind once and for all. Maybe he should just ditch the car and the annoying ape-man and take to the wild like a refugee from a Jack London book. Barry looked back at Glen sitting still in the back of Barry’s car. The Sasquatch’s eyes darted around suspiciously from under the woman’s gardening hat.
“The poor guy’s scared shitless,” Barry realized. “He acts all tough, but he’s just a big pussy cat now that he’s totally out of his element. This may be the first time Glen had even left the state. Glenwood Trucksmasher is scared out of his mind. That’s why he’s been such a turd-burger. “
“No, there would be no howling, tongue-lolling romps through the woods.” Barry didn’t even think he would be able to go back into the last town to get supplies without Glen.
Barry wondered if he was going to even get Glen out of the car. He turned and started to bend over the back door window.
The door flew open and caught Barry in the head. Barry stumbled back onto the ground.
“Dude, I got to drop a Yule log,” Glen announced as he trotted to some bushes.
“You hit me in the head with the door,” Barry whined.
“Merry Christmas, Barry,” Glen said and started grunting.
* * * *
The little campfire crackled away at the small twigs Glen kept feeding it. It had been a completely unnecessary luxury, but Barry had eventually conceded to Glen’s desire for fire.
“What if someone sees the smoke and comes and investigates?” Barry asked.
“Then we’ll have a fire to cook them over. Jeez, are you going to be like this the whole trip? Can’t we just relax? It’s not like we haven’t just survived a pretty stressful experience, or something.”
At the mention of long-pig, Barry started counting silently. He got to eleven before Glen asked him what there was to eat.
“Well,” Barry said, rummaging around on the eco-friendly shopping bag he had dragged from the car, “I don’t have much. I was going to go back into the last town a little later to get more supplies.”
“Please, tell me you have meat,” Glen groaned.
“Glen, I do my shopping on Thursdays. I had to take what was in the pantry.”
“Well, what have we got?”
“Beans,” Barry said and tossed a can across the fire to Glen. Glen caught it and looked at it with obvious disapproval.
“Hey, man, I’m not exactly psyched about it, either,” Barry stated. “I’m the one who has to ride in the car with you afterwards.”
“Vegetarian beans?” Glen said petulantly.
“I shop on Thursdays. I’ve always shopped on Thursdays,” Barry said.
“Hey, I know when you got these! That was, what? Last fall. You thought you’d try to go Vegan, tame the tewwible beast inside Barry. Oh, yeah, I remember that!”
“I really don’t know why you have to find it all so funny,” Barry sighed.
“Because it was! You were so hot for that yoga instructor who was house-sitting for those snow birds down the road. She was Chinese.”
“She was from Thailand.”
“Potato, patata. You just about starved yourself on tofu and bean curd for a couple of weeks. Then the first cat that crosses your lawn, you just went to town. I’m surprised you didn’t choke on the bones. Then the lady comes over and asks you if you’ve seen her cat, and,” Glen is already gasping in laughter, “and what do you say?”
Barry opened up the road map to hide the grin on his face.
“I think I told her that some coy-dogs attacked the cat in my back yard.”
“That’s right, buddy, and you got out a baseball bat and fought them off. Unfortunately, for all your heroics, it was too late. When that lady started screaming in sorrow, you knew just what to do. Didn’t you, Romeo?”
“Hey, she was hysterical. I’d never seen anything like it, before,” Barry said.
“So…so you thought she’d like the tail of the cat, as what, a memento?”
“I don’t know. Can we change the subject?”
“I just think you might have made sure the ass end wasn’t attached to the tail when you handed it to her,” Glen roared. He laughed for too long. Barry put the cans of beans near the fire to warm and went back to inspecting the road map.
Glen wiped tears of mirth from his face and sighed.
“Not the paragon of romance, are you, buddy?” Glen jibed.
“Look who is talking,” Barry muttered.
“Well, I have a feeling that all that is about to change. Yep, I can feel it. Two studs like us on the road. We are going to get lucky,” Glen pronounced.
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s going to happen,” Barry said from behind his map.
“I thought we agreed on no verbal irony,” Glen said. “Anyway, you can put money on it. I can smell the poon-tang in the air, just waiting.”
“I don’t want you ever to say that again, not ever,” Barry said.
“Yes, sir,” Glen saluted condescendingly and bent over the warming bean cans. He grimaced.
“I like beans with ketchup,” Glen said.
“You didn’t just say that,” Barry said.
“Well, I do, I like beans with ketchup,” Glen said defensively.
“Well, we don’t have any ketchup, Lennie.” Barry giggled.
“Now, what is that supposed to mean?” Glen asked.
“Nothing.”
“What’s so amazing about that damned map, Barry? Are you looking for buried treasure?” Glen asked.
“No,” Barry sighed. “I’m just trying to figure out how we are going to manage this next leg of the trip, is all.”
“That’s easy, right? Stick to the plan. We stick to the side roads. We’ve got till, what, the end of July to be in San Diego?”
“Yeah, it’s just that I don’t think we should take these side roads. I’ve been through here, years ago. The locals aren’t…friendly.”
“Well, who gives a fuck if they’re friendly or not?” Glen asked.
“It’s not a good place, trust me,” Barry said and gave Glen a dark look from over the map.
“Oh, I get it! Holy shit, this is the place where it all went down, isn’t it? You went to school in upstate New York, didn’t you? This is where you contracted the hairy rabies, isn’t it?”
“Lycanthropy. It’s called lycanthropy, and I don’t think what we need is a bunch of maniac monsters to deal with again,” Barry said.
“Wait, a bunch? There’s a whole slew of them up here? Dude, you have never told me about how it all went down. A whole bunch of werewolves? You have got to tell me!”
“I would rather not talk about it. It’s ancient history,” Barry said.
“You can’t run from the past. You can only run from yourself,” Glen said.
“Who said that, Superman or Batman?” Barry scoffed.
“I believe that was Barry Trudeau quoting Doctor Phil at me last month, or don’t you remember?” Glen asked.
“It’s a stupid story,” Barry said, but he folded the map away and folded his hands the way he always did when about to sermonize, recite, or pontificate.
“Well, we have all stupid day, don’t we Barry? Besides, I let you bring me to see my old man. The way I figure, you owe me for that.”
“What?”
“Dude, you do,” Glen said.
“Fine, but, you better not interrupt, and you can’t make fun of me or anything. I’m still…sensitive about it,” Barry said.
“Cross my heart,” Glen promised.
“Fine,” Barry sighed, “It all started when I was in college. I became
friends with this guy, he was a published poet, actually, quite respected. He’d been in the New Yorker, twice.”
“Hey, this is like in the T.V. shows when someone starts remembering and the screen gets all wavy and shit, right?”
“I thought you weren’t going to interrupt me?”
“I’m just saying is all,” Glen said. The Sasquatch squinted his eyes and framed his vision with his enormous hands. “Go on.”
Barry sighed.
“All right, like I said, I became friends with this poet, his name was Damien Goldrick, and I wanted everything in the world to be as cool as he was…”
* * * *
The little yellow convertible purred as it carried Barry and his amazing friend, Damien, over the deserted road in the lemon sunshine of a perfect day. Barry put his hand in his pocket and felt the silver pen that his Great Aunt had given him as a graduation present three years before. She had told him that he was destined for greatness and told him to hone his natural poetic genius.
“Well, we’re going places, now, Auntie,” Barry thought.
Behind the wheel, Damien ran a hand through his long blonde hair and let it fly loose in the wind. He looked to the side, as if reading Barry’s thoughts, and gave him a conspiratorial grin. Barry couldn’t believe that this was happening. Damien Goldrick had real talent, he was a student assistant to the Head of the English Department and he said Barry’s poems showed potential. Barry could see it now: Hawthorne and Melville, Kerouac and Ginsberg, Goldrick and Trudeau. Yeah, Barry was treading on the threshold of greatness.
“Hey, I’ve made a tape for today,” Damien shouted and pointed at the glove compartment. Barry, always feeling a little awkward, nodded enthusiastically and gave a thumbs-up. He opened up the glove compartment and saw the edge of the cassette behind some kind of rubber ball with a strap on it. He moved that aside, and a few condoms spilled out on his lap. He picked them up, put them back, and took out the tape. “Man, that Damien sure was a lady killer!”
Damien snatched the tape from Barry’s hand with a flourish and deposited the tape in the deck. Synthpop beat immediately pounded out of the speakers. Barry bobbed his head with the beat and raised up his eyebrows with positive appraisal. He had thought for sure a guy like Damien would listen to something classical or maybe some classic jazz.