Saguaros Don't Grow in Brazil

“I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain – I’ve seen sunny days I thought would never end.”

- James Taylor  

Another handful of speed to keep me from crashing.

“listen, I saw this movie once, an old movie and it was in black and white and Portuguese. Brazilian but, you know, obviously Portuguese language. It was called Black God, White Devil and the landscapes in it remind me a lot of the one we’re passing through now. The desert, the Saguaro’s-

What’s that? Saguaro’s don’t grow in Brazil? Well, whatever type a cactus they got down there –

We’re not he- Mandacaru? – we’e not here to discuss types of cactus –

the arid hills and brush and cobbled stone paths to cut up your feet and fuck up your knees, you know, that whole deal. And those towns they got there, built on patches of sand between the hills. I’ve never been, but this is the country I imagine; from what they show in that movie, anyway. To me, this has been one whole day. And it’s barely past lunch. That’s what happens when you don’t nod off now and then, you realize the continuum of it all, without the interruptions of consciousness. It’s only the starts and stops of consciousness that gives the impression of jump-cutting and divisions of time.”

Another handful to keep me tweeking. With every fistful the pills got less effect.

“Yup. That’s a good one, huh? I didn’ read that or nothin’. I’s these pills. I feel like I can jus’ keep on goin’ and the day will keep on goin’ with me. A long-ass day, an’ I got a long-ass haul. What am I hauling? Dismembered cattle, of course. Nex’ time you pick up a slab of beef from your local supermarket, chances are, I’m the lil’ house elf that got it there.”

The pharmaceutical binary of Concerta and Focalin has got me feelin’ like someone shoved a hummingbird in my ribcage and superglued it right between the lungs. If it weren’t for the unchanging blacktop treading under my tires, I’d say this is how I had imagined the head-trip Huxley describes in The Doors of Perception, in terms of that moment when your brain becomes so super-charged it stops giving a flying fuck about time. Meanwhile, my heart feels like it’s being ripped out by that Kali Ma motherfucker from Temple of Doom; or to be more exact, stretched like taffy away from the wall of muscle it’s been ultra-gel’d to against its will and stretched out and thinning, as if the cardiac muscles were being fuck-u-lated into a rubber sheet and it’s not just beating, mind you, but oscillating. Story goes that Nikola Tesla built an oscillator that could shake up mild earthquakes. So he claimed. Right now, my chest cavity feels like a testing ground for one a them machines. This is the closest I can get to dippin’ my dongle in the ocean of electric-kool-aid without the ghost of Owsley Stanley booting my ass into the surf wholesale. Even my speech centers are so shellacked with prescription speed that when I speak it almost sounds like Gibby Haynes singin’ “Jesus Built My Hotrod.”  

Still, the day drags on and with every hit, the pills have less effect, like how Truman Capote got hooked on tranquilizer and built such a tolerance that an amount that woulda knocked a race horse on its ass only made him slightly loopy.

“What’s that? I agree. Why should Big RX have a monopoly on speed? Why not the little guy? I buy these in capsules from a stiff behind a counter, and it’s all good, but when Pablo Escobar pushes it, and I tap into the pipeline - straight from the mule’s ass – the DEA caps Pablo – like how they smoked David Koresh’s ass the very same year - and I gotta lawyer up.

…Jesus, I think the sun’s gettin’ to me. My pits are a tar pit and my chest is a slip ‘n slide. I just picked you up five minutes ago but it feels like I’ve written a whole novel in the meantime.”

I wipe my brow and take a swig of water. The chemicals are still pushing strong.

“Whew. Man, you ever read that Kurt Vonnegut novel, The Sirens of Titan? There’s that one bloke, who runs smack-dab into some freaky space shit while orbiting Mars and becomes a wave? Like, his whole body becomes an electro-magnetic wave spiraling through the stars? Tha’s what these gel capsules are doin’ to me. I’m spiraling. I’m just comin’ and goin’. Hell, even my eyeballs are vibrating.”

Christ. When will this be over? I think I’m pushin’ the gas so hard my truck is somehow keepin’ up with the earth’s rotation, so we’re always facin’ the sun. Yeah. That makes sense. That’s gotta be it. How else would you explain it?

I try a different way: I measure the passage of time by looking at the fuel gauge. Thing is, every time I look at it, the needle is in the same fuckin’ spot: jus’ to the right of the E. I’m on speed an’ everythin’ is slowin’. Guess Einstein was right: the faster you go, the less time passes. Or maybe I got beamed up an’ over to one a them planets that twirls its axis slower than it zips around its sun, so the days there are longer than its years. Or maybe I passed Rod Serling somewhere back there and I didn’t even notice; standin’ with a lit cig by the side of the road and calling me an asshole in so many words.

I’m so out of it, I’m grindin’ capsules between my teeth.  

“It’s easy for you, a tourist passin’ by on this road, hitchhikin’ to the next destination, to peer in on someone else’s story, but me, I’m still right here. This is somethin’ I gotta do. I’m tryna make it work, ‘cause as far as I see, I ain’t got no other options.”                

Another handful, and I can almost see the Matrix.