Rat Town Boogie

"Rat Town, boy."

"What?" I was confused.

"Rat Town. Rat. Town. You want me to spell it? They'll have your muffler there. Forty miles west on the interstate." The parts man leaned over the flyspecked truckstop counter, his hands adding another layer of grease to join the smears that already reduced the stale candy and K-Whopper belt buckles below the glass to distant blurs. Then I looked up and realized that everything in the room, whether behind glass or not, was also a distant blur . . . except for the parts man. He was outlined in an intense purple glow, his teeth gleaming, his skin green.

A clear-cut case of too many drugs. Too many for me, that is, not for him. I doubt that he'd been into any drugs at all, but I could feel the LSD beginning to boil up my spine. Five of the little orange tablets had definitely been too many.

"Something wrong, boy?" He leaned even farther over the counter. I was staring, openmouthed. I'd lost all track of the conversation. "You got a problem?" I was badly confused and this was no place for blatant confusion. They eat (continued on page 204) Rat town boogie (continued from page 143) hippies for breakfast out there in the New Mexico flatlands and my eyeballs were beginning to melt. "I'm talking to you, boy!"

He narrowed his eyes and his face began to deform right in front of me, like a Popsicle in a microwave. His eyes shrank, his nose got longer, his teeth pushed forward, and suddenly he became a Rat Town rat himself. A 250-pound mean-eyed rat, chewing on the stub of a burned-out cigar and just about ready to come over the counter and start chewing on me.

I should never get involved in running drugs across the country. Oh, I can set things up with the best of them. I've got all the connections at both ends of the deal. But I can't ever resist sampling the merchandise. It's a question of integrity. Shouldn't deal anything you wouldn't take yourself, right? Just a simple matter of honest business practices. And as long as you're testing something, you might as well take enough to make sure. I had. If there was one thing I was sure of, it was that I was carrying high-quality merchandise. If the five tabs in my blood stream were a fair sample of the 10,000 orange pills back in the truck, I was carrying LSD-25 potent enough to make any chemist proud, especially if he liked his customers to find themselves face to face with enormous rats wearing greasy GMC baseball caps.

I headed for the door. My pickup truck, a '47 Chevy with a cracked block and a dragon painted on the side, took its usual 30 seconds to start and I could feel Technicolor sweat running down my back as I listened to it wheeze and cough. I let out the clutch and headed for the highway, peering through a shifting haze of color that oozed across the windshield like an amoeba with gland problems.

I drove west in the dark, the roar of the engine right in my ear, coming out of the rusted stub of tail pipe where the muffler had once been connected. Now the connection was broken, and if this acid didn't get to Frisco on time, it wouldn't be the only connection that was broken. And connections wouldn't be all that got broken, either. I had an uncomfortable feeling that my legs would be high on the list of things to be broken if this deal got fucked up. As fucked up as I was, for example. Indeed. Cheerful thoughts to keep me company as I turned off the interstate into Rat Town.

And if ever they named a town right, this was it. One dead-end street, maybe four blocks long. Railroad tracks at one end and the interstate at the other. The first building in town was an abandoned gas station--broken windows, rusty pumps. I could imagine it in better days: neon lights cutting the night while half a dozen hipster rats lounged against the sides of their hot rods, flipping quarters on their evil little claws and sniffing the darkness for action.

Jesus, I thought, how did it get this bad? I have got to get into another line of work.

There was an auto-parts store down the block. Closed for the night. In fact, everything in town was shut down tight. Except for the Ace-Hi Bar. I should have turned around and gotten right back on the interstate, but the thought never crossed my mind. The acid was calling for action. Onward with the mission! So onward I went, though I was more than a little confused as to exactly what the mission was.

I headed straight for the Ace-Hi. Who knows what I was thinking? Actually, I wasn't doing very much thinking at all. I walked right through the door, into a circle of immediately hostile faces, opened my mouth and started to babble. I couldn't keep quiet, because they'd think I was strange if I just stood there. So I started talking, only I didn't have anything to say. And it all got much worse real quick when I gestured with my right hand and discovered that I was clutching the beat-up leather satchel filled with 10,000 hits of acid. I got really incoherent then.

And, you know, I almost pulled it off. I mean, I may have been crazy, but I was damn sure friendly. The strangest, friendliest thing they'd ever seen. "Well, good evening, folks. How y'all doing tonight? Just passing through, you understand, and my horse broke a leg. Whoops! Who said that? Not at all, of course, not at all. Blew a muffler off my truck, actually. Up on the interstate, you see. Shifting into third. Double-clutched and blew that baby right out the back of the truck. A Chevy. Right. With a 327--fuel injected, of course--out of a '63 Corvette me and my brother used to race on Sundays back in St., Louis. Yessir. Anyhow, that muffler's forty miles back and I was hoping maybe one of you's got a muffler to spare. Used to take that truck to the drive-in back in high school. Mattress in the back. Ahem. Yes. Mighty fine little truck. One time I was coming out of Muncie . . . and that reminds me, it's got a Muncie four-speed with the eight-bolt top cover and, anyhow. . . ."

All lies, of course, but I had to say something. And I think I was getting away with it. I mean, those Rat Towners had never seen anything like me and they didn't have any idea how to deal with me. Things were looking good. And then I slammed that leather satchel down on the bar to emphasize some point and the damn thing broke wide open, spilling out a cascade of little orange pills. Clearly illegal drugs, and that was something they did know how to deal with. It wasn't going to be pretty.

"Jesus motherfucking son of a bitch shit!" There wasn't time for any more of an explanation, because I was in motion before the last pill had stopped rolling across the bar. The I Ching says, "Perseverance furthers," and I persevered out the door and down the street at a dead run, picturing a mob of blood-crazed rats pouring out of the bar behind me. I was moving fast, but it wasn't doing any good, because I couldn't remember where I'd parked the truck. Everything was starting to come apart in a very nasty fashion. And right through it all, one part of my mind was calmly thinking, You know, I really do have to get into another line of work.

I turned a corner without thinking, heading into the alley that ran behind Main Street, and almost ran right into the grille of my truck. As I dove for the cab, I had a moment to wish my stories about a Corvette engine had been true. As things were, 40 miles an hour was going to be top speed for my escape. I could hear shouts behind me as the engine started, and I realized that it was going to be one mighty flashy dash. The only way out of that dead-end town was down the alley, right behind the Ace-Hi Bar, and the missing muffler was going to make it very clear exactly where I was.

I tried to focus on the alley, but the acid that was making the escape necessary was also threatening to make it impossible. The alley was an endless warped passage, thrashing around like the inside of a snake. I took a deep breath, put my foot to the floor and aimed for the middle of things, trying hard to figure out which parts of the shifting pattern were safe to drive through and which parts played a solid role in everyday Rat Town life.

One small mistake cost me a headlight and nearly my mind along with it when I caromed off a garbage can and sideswiped a telephone pole. As I passed behind the bar, some of the crowd rushed out into the alley to block my (continued on page 253) Rat Town Boogie (continued from page 204) way and then turned and fled in panic when they saw what was heading toward them. Suddenly, I yanked the wheel to the right, throwing the truck into a sideways skid. A surprise maneuver--it surprised me for sure--but one that turned out to be a perfectly executed fourwheel drifting turn between two telephone poles at the end of the alley and out onto the interstate access road. I gave myself a cheer as I hit the highway.

I was in terrible shape and things got worse very quickly. I crested the low rise that sheltered Rat Town from the flatlands wind and saw the highway stretching out in the moonlight for a good 100 miles, a perfectly straight line across the desert. It was going to be two hours before I was even out of sight of Rat Town. I hadn't begun to escape.

It seemed hopeless. But, on the other hand, the acid was beginning to switch sides. I still blamed it for touching this drama off, but now it was getting behind the whole escape scene, conjuring up infallible escape plans. There was no time to think. I went straight into action.

I unhooked the elastic cord that held the passenger door shut and used it to lash the steering wheel straight ahead. Then I wedged the gas pedal down with a waterlogged copy of the Whole Earth Catalog from under the seat. And then, without a thought, I opened the door and dove out.

Shit!

Somewhere in that moment of inspiration that had launched me, I had completely forgotten what I was doing. Luckily, the truck wasn't going much over 30, but it was quite a shock to find myself the sudden center of an explosion of arms and legs, thrashing down the center of the highway, decelerating rapidly. A small flaw in the plan. Still, by the time I stopped bouncing, realized I wasn't dead and remembered what was going on, the truck was two miles down the road, humming right along. With any luck at all, the police would follow it forever. A culvert offered shelter just a few feet away. The plan was working. A few flaws, admittedly, but working.

I crawled into the dark of the culvert and drifted toward unconsciousness. My mind was filled with the grim image of a huge prairie dog gnawing on my bleached bones.

•

I awoke hours later in pain and confusion, and quickly added despair to my condition when I remembered the situation I was in: stuck in a highway culvert, bloodied and crazed, and barely past the city limits of Rat Town. Not promising. Not promising at all.

I knew that part of the game is to take more drugs than anyone can possibly handle and then try to get away with something very tricky in a very pubic place . . . for high stakes. But this time I thought maybe I'd gone a little too far. And then I heard the voices. Real voices, not hallucinations.

"I think it's the carburetor again, Fishy. Same as in Pocatello."

"It's karma, man. Bad karma. We must've done something terrible in our last intarnation to deserve this."

A third voice. A woman. "Maybe it was the carb that did something terrible to deserve us. Like, maybe it was an automatic transmission in its last life and died on the George Washington Bridge in the middle of rush hour. Reincarnated as a school-bus carburetor as a lesson in humility."

"I think we should get rid of it."

"The bus?"

"The carburetor."

"Then what?"

"Maybe we could get the engine to run on brown rice."

They didn't sound like Rat Towners. I crawled to the open end of the culvere. Day had dawned. The voices belonged to two men and a woman standing just a few feet away from me. All had hair hanging below their shoulders. One of the men was bare-chested, while the other wore a shirt patched together from a dozen small American flags. The woman wore a T-shirt with a picture of Minnie Mouse getting it on with Goofy. Behind the three mechanics, a woman in a flowing white dress blew soap bubbles into the air. A man in a rainbow-striped shirt and orange pants walked through the grass on his hands. Two children giggled and chased each other in circles around a man who sat and chanted to himself, oblivious.

They didn't look like Rat Towners.

Above them all loomed a bright-red school bus, an old one. Along the side was painted an enormous fire-breathing black stallion jumping over a rainbow. The black of the stallion's body was the black of a night sky with stars, moons and comets shining across it. A tin stovepipe stuck out one window of the bus. The hood was propped open. It looked like home.

I eased out of the culvert and headed for the door of the bus. The mechanics broke off their discussion to watch as I limped by. Inside, I found an overstuffed armchair and collapsed into it. Strange gentle hands cared for my wounds. Unknown eyes stared at me in loving concern. No questions were asked. A soft voice said, "I'm Flo."

The drugs, at last, began to wear off.

Eventually, the engine started and a small cheer went up. I opened my eyes to find the man in the flag shirt sitting next to me as the bus chugged back onto the highway. Flo, she of the gentle hands, sat on my other side. The flag man ran his fingers through his beared. "Well, my friend," he said, "what's your story? And, first of all, what's your name?"

"Pogo," I told him, because of all the names I use, that's the only one I really like. Then, slowly, I ran through the action from the moment I'd eaten the acid to the moment I'd passed out in the culvert.

When I finished, he ran his fingers through his beard again and said, "Sounds like you've got about enough trouble. Trouble where you're coming from, trouble where you're going to and trouble where you're at right now." He laughed. "My name's Train and I think we might be able to help. Hate to see good drugs fall into the wrong hands. 'Sides, we could use some acid around here to liven things up."

He walked forward to talk to the driver and a few minutes later, the bus turned off the highway onto a dirt road. Eventually, it stopped. Someone began making peanut-butter sandwiches and herbal tea for lunch. Train headed for the back bunk, where he sat silently, rolling a lumpy joint and smoking thoughtfully. I dozed in the armchair.

It was nearly dark and a pot of brown rice was boiling on the stove when Train jumped off the bunk. "All right, boys and girls," he shouted, "gather round! Here's the plot."

•

Jim Bob Booney, Rat County deputy sheriff and the only lawman in town, sat dejectedly in his office, wondering how in hell that damn hippie had gotten away. Jim Bob had been in the men's room at the Ace-Hi, taking a leak, when all those drugs had spilled out onto the bar, so he hadn't been very far behind the drug runner when he started in pursuit. And he'd found the long-hair's truck upside down by the side of the road less than five miles from the edge of town. There'd been no sign of the hippie, but Jim Bob had been sure his quarry couldn't have gotten far on foot. He'd covered miles of desert in four-wheel drive before he'd finally realized that the fugitive was gone.

The best damn arrest he'd ever had a chance at and the son of a bitch had gotten away. He stared miserably at the box full of orange pills on his disk. What good was evidence without someone to arrest?

Jim Bob was about to open his first beer of the morning, when there was a sharp knock at the door and a man walked in, dressed more formally than anyone Jim Bob had seen in Rat Town in a long time. Dark suit, white shirt, narrow tie, dark glasses. He looked official and Jim Bob tried to straighten up a little, glad he hadn't opened that beer.

The newcomer was the first to speak. "Morning, deputy. I'm Ross Fink, Federal drug investigator, and I understand you're having some trouble running down a certain drug smuggler." As he spoke, he pulled out a thin wallet and flipped it open, flashing a gold badge. If Jim Bob had been a little sharper, he might have seen that the badge was inscribed safety Patrol, Chester A. Arthur Junior High School, Poinsbitt, Illinois; but Jim Bob saw only the badge. He was impressed. He was even more impressed that the Federal agent already knew about the escape.

"That's right," the deputy admitted reluctantly. "We got the evidence right here, but the damn hippie got clean away." He wiped his forehead.

"Those hippies never do anything clean," answered the agent, flashing a tight smile, "and this one didn't get away, in any case." He stuck his head back out the door. "Bring him in, Fred."

Another man in a suit entered the room, escorting a battered and unwilling Pogo. Jim Bob leaped to his feet. "Hot damn!" he shouted. "You got the son of a bitch!" He scanned the drug runner's bruises, scrapes and cuts. "Had to rough him up a little, I see."

Agent Fink flashed another meanspirited smile. "He fell down getting into the car." Jim Bob laughed. "This is my partner, Fred Fish," the agent continued. "Now, why don't you throw this dirt-bag in jail, deputy, so the three of us can sit down and figure out how to keep him there?"

Jim Bob grabbed Pogo and dragged him toward the cell in the back of the building. "Hey!" yelled the long-hair, desperation in his voice. "Don't I get a phone call?"

"He's right," said Fink. "We've got to do everything by the book. And then lock him up." He laughed. His laugh was even less pleasant than his smile.

A short while later, the three law officers were sitting together in Jim Bob's office. "Well, deputy," said Fink, "just exactly what drugs did he have?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, was he carrying LSD, STP, DMT, PCP, MDA, or what?"

"Gosh, I didn't know there were so many drugs," admitted Jim Bob. "You fellas sure know your stuff."

"We have to keep up to date on these things in our line of work," said Fink. "We have to know exactly what drugs that hippie was carrying or the judge'll throw our case right out of court."

"Well, I sure don't know," said Jim Bob, pushing the box of pills across the desk. "Here. Take a look for yourselves."

Both agents grabbed for the box. Fink took one pill in his hand. For a moment, he seemed about to pop it into his mouth. Then he sniffed it instead.

"What is it?" Jim Bob asked.

"Hard to tell. Could be almost anything." Fish and Fink both frowned.

"Got to be certain," said Fink. "If we're wrong, we'll be in for a nasty suit for false arrest. These drug dealers get the best lawyers their dirty money can buy. One small mistake and--wham!--they turn the whole thing right around and we're the ones in trouble."

"Listen, deputy," said Fish, "we'd better taste ... I mean, test this stuff right away. Have you got a back room we can set up our test lab in?" He held up a small leather case.

Jim Bob showed them to a room near the cell and, with the 10,000 orange pills firmly in their control, the two agents swept into the room and slammed the door in Jim Bob's face. "Sorry, deputy," Fish called through the door, "this is all top secret." Jim Bob shrugged and walked away, smiling.

He was daydreaming of a citation and still smiling when the agents rejoined him an hour later, but he dropped the grin as soon as he saw their frowns. "What's the matter, boys?" he asked plaintively.

"Shit!" Fink tossed the box of pills carelessly onto the desk. A few tablets bounced out and rolled onto the floor. "That's aspirin, deputy. Ten thousand orange aspirin. If I were you, I'd take a handful. You'll need them for the headache this is all going to give you."

Fink sagged into a chair, his eyes invisible behind the dark glasses. Fish leaned against the wall. "Sorry, deputy," he said, "but that's about the size of it. That's aspirin and you're screwed."

Jim Bob was still trying to digest the bad news when the door of the office flew open and a woman in a tailored dress marched in. She wore a small pillbox hat and looked like an apparition straight out of a Fifties television show. She started shouting the moment she was inside. "All right, you pigs!" blowing her Fifties image completely. "Where's my client?"

"Who're you?" asked Fish, looking uneasy.

"Florence Microgram. Of Microgram, Milligram, and Dose, attorneys at law. San Francisco and New York. And Cleveland." She scowled. "Now, where's my client?"

"Who's your client?" asked Jim Bob, though he had a sinking feeling he knew exactly who her client was. He had only one prisoner.

"My client is Mr. Percival Archibald Fotherington Galesworthy the Third. I believe you have him incarcerated here on some sort of trumped-up drug charge. I would advise you to release him immediately and then to begin preparing yourselves for a multimillion-dollar damage suit for false arrest. Mr. Galesworthy is extremely well known in the highest circles of society on both the East and West coasts. I can assure you he has friends in the highest of places and I can also assure you that the idea of his being involved with drugs of any kind is laughable. Al-though I doubt that the three of you will find very much to laugh about when I get through with you. Now take me to see my client. Immediately!"

Jim Bob led her to the cell and then returned to the office. "Things don't look good, boys," he whined. "Are you sure it's just aspirin?"

"Just aspirin, deputy," said Fink, "and you're right. Things don't look good. But we'll try to get you out of this one. The first thing you'd better do is let that damn hippie out."

•

The five of them--Fish, Fink, Pogo, Microgram and Jim Bob--just about filled the office. Flo was still shouting about false arrest when Fink cut her off. "I'm Agent Ross Fink, ma'am," he said, "of the Federal Bureau of Dangerous Drugs. It is possible that these pills are harmless"--he waved his hand toward the box on the desk--"but we've been following your client for some time on other matters. Acting directly on information from FBI files. We know a lot of things that your client probably wouldn't want dragged out in court--"

"Wait a minute! Are you trying to blackmail my client?"

"No, ma'am. Just saying that evey-one'd be a lot happier if we let things drop. Right here. Right now." Fink gave Pogo a hard look. "Tell your lawyer lady, boy. Are you ready to go to court?"

Pogo blanched. "Hey, Flo," he said, "maybe he's right. Maybe we should drop the whole thing. Let's just get out of here."

"I hate to let these pigs off easy," she snapped, "but you're the boss. Come on. Let's go." Pogo smiled and together they marched out the door.

Jim Bob gave a heartfelt sigh. "Dog-gone. Glad we've seen the last of those two. Wasn't easy getting them out of here."

"No, it sure wasn't," Fish agreed.

"Listen, boys," Jim Bob went on, "I reckon I owe you two a whole lot. You saved my ass for sure. What can I do to even things up?"

The two agents stared at each other and then looked back at Jim Bob. Fink smiled. "You know what, deputy? There is something we could use. Those orange pills."

"Of course!" chimed in Fish. "They'd be perfect."

"I don't understand," said Jim Bob.

"Well, deputy, we can't really tell you too much. Just a little operation we've been setting up. And we could use some bait. If you know what I mean."

Jim Bob let out a great guffaw and winked. "Sure, boys. I understand. Hell, yes! Take those damn pills. They've been nothing but trouble to me. Take 'em with my thanks. And happy hunting!"

•

"'Rat Town. Flatlands Museum. World's Largest Petrified Prairie Dog. Turn back five miles."' Flo was reading the highway signs. "Hey, Train. We missed the world's largest petrified prairie dog. Come on, let's go back."

"No way, Flo." Train rubbed his newly shaved chin. "Not even with my new clean-cut look." He wasn't wearing the dark glasses anymore and his dilated pupils were proof of the rigorous testing program he and Fish had run on the orange pills back in Rat Town. "Hey, Pogo," he called toward the back of the bus. "I want you to know that our testing program gives your acid the highest possible grade. Five stars."

"Make that ten stars," yelled Fish.

"Twenty!" put in Flo, who had started her own testing program as soon as they were back at the bus.

They all giggled and continued westward. And upward.

Back in Rat Town, Jim Bob sat at his desk. Glum. He'd blown the big arrest after all. He'd nearly gotten his ass sued. And somewhere in the back of his mind there was a little nagging doubt, though he couldn't put his finger on exactly what was bothering him. "How'd that lady lawyer get here so fast?" he finally said aloud to no one in particular. "She fly in on a helicopter, or what? Wonder where that hippie got hold of her. Wonder who he called on my phone."

Just then, the door to the office opened and a small man with dark curly hair stuck his head inside. "Hi there, Jim Bob," he said. "It's me, Jerry, from the pizzeria. Someone here called in an order for a large anchovy pizza to go. It's six eighty-five. Who's paying?"

Jim Bob stared at him. Nothing made any sense. He couldn't figure out what was going on. All this thinking was giving him a headache. He glanced down and saw three of the orange pills that had spilled onto the floor earlier. What the hell? he thought. Might as well take some aspirin and get rid of the headache. And he popped the three pills into his mouth.

"I walked through the door, into a circle of hostile faces, opened my mouth and started to babble."