A Stamp To Mail My Mind Away (Chapter 8) (C) 2022

 

8.

 

“This is where it happened,” I kept saying that over and over again. Carlton turned up The Verve album “Storm in Heaven.” The Arias sounded like I was in some sort of tunnel, where I could feel the reverb. I started to cough hard. Carlton hit the button to bring my window down-I came to…

 

“What’s going on?”

“Dude, you’ve been talking to yourself for hours.”

“Were we in a graveyard?”

 

There was no traffic on the road. They followed Samuel across the street. They all heard a strange buzzing. “Highway eight,” Peter said.

“You hear that buzzing in your ears? That means the devil is near,” Mammie said playfully. She looked at his fearful facial expression; then continued, “You know an 8 on its side is the symbol of infinity.”

 

“The dead have a different sense of time than we do.”

 

“You want a cigarette?” Carlton asked, as he handed me a cigarette.

“WHAT THE HELL!?” He exclaimed as he swerved to avoid hitting a group of people that were crossing the street.

 

“Where the hell are we going?”

“Hell, indeed.” Years ago, I was obsessed with mythology. Particularly, The River Styx and Hades. As a hormonal teenager I was looking for answers of what life meant. I deduced that all drugs/alcohol came from Hades. It made sense for such of horror coming from hell.

 I think that perhaps Reagan’s America emphasized a national war on drugs. To include dastardly acts fueled by the high. Carlton used to agree with me. Somewhere, there was some sort of situation where I, also, decided to just go with it. “Go with it,” because it wasn’t as bad as they all said it was. The nonusers were lame. They just want to control our lives.

 

“NOW YOU SEE.”

“Where did that voice come from?”

“Just listen.”

“Listen to the music.”

 

“Chill out, listen to the music. You’re killing my buzz!” Carlton said.

“But you’re the one who almost hit those people who were crossing the street.”

“A black hearse, dude. It’s a sign!” Peter exclaimed. He was about to sprint across the road, until Jude grabbed his shoulder, “It’s just a black Cadillac that had a couple of kids in it, playing that weird music blasting loud. The acid is starting to work.

 

The clouds cleared in the sky. “The shiny red moon rays shined on the vast flat cotton lands. This made it appear that there were people in the cotton field,” that’s what Jude assured.

 

“There’s people out there,” Fred said. If Fred said it. It had to be real.

 

When a group of people see, feel, and hear something, that something must be real.

 

“There are things left over. It could be called energy. Or ghost,” Mammie said loud enough for all of them to hear.

“Women in white everywhere!” Peter yelled then laughed, as he ran to the cotton gins of Dockery Farms.

“Great,” Fred and Jude said at the same time.

“Where do you think he’s going?” Catalina asked with a bit of concern in her voice.

“If you so damn concerned, why don’t you go see!?” Fred retorted.

She held his hand tighter, “Oh baby.”

“I can’t believe the readings I’m getting,” Samuel said at the gravel road entrance to Dockery Farms.

 

“I found you!” They heard Peter scream. Everyone then followed Samuel, with his ghost gadgets in his hands. Everyone followed him to where a flash was coming from. As they came close, the flash looked like lightning: like an arm extending from the heavens. An arm that extended its fingers around the cotton gin.

 

“Did I just see that?” Samuel asked, his voice trembled in fear.

“You mean lightning,” Barry replied.

“We have more important things going on,” Mammie declared, as if she was casting another spell.

 

“I have found the heart of this world.” Peter said over and over.

 

Jude was the first to find Peter in front of that part of a cotton gin that takes in cotton. They saw a pool of red around him. “Oh my God!” Fred exclaimed.

 

“I have found the heart of this world.”

 

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Wherever the night takes us,” Carlton replied. Then he took a long pull off the joint. He blew the smoke in my face. I hit the button for the window went down. Watched the smoke go out of the window. Then it went to a pool of water on the side of the road.

“How is that even possible?” I asked.

“It’s called catfish farming.” After he said that, I saw figures walking on the waters of the ponds.

 

“So, is anything real?” I thought. Carlton turned down the volume on The Verve’s ‘Storm in Heaven.’

 

“Well, some would say that nothing ever really goes away. We all become electricity.”

 

“What?” Carlton must have read my thoughts. Or something else?

 

I looked at the road sign, then read it, “Midnight, Mississippi.” I looked at the clock in his car.

“It’s only midnight?”

“Yes.”

 

Peter didn’t hear them calling his name. He was inside one of the huge cotton jins.

 

“PETER!” He was locked in his mind. He felt countless cuts on his hands, and arms of the slaves.

They worked hard picking cotton.

 

“Damn it! It’s not blood!” Jude screamed in Peter’s ear.

“What?”

 

Fred found the lever and turned off the cotton gin.

“It is not blood,” Jude said firmly.

“It looks like the potion,” Mammie said. Her tone was comically serious.

“Huh?” Peter asked

“Get your ass up here, before you hurt yourself!” Jude exclaimed as he put his arms around Peter’s torso and lifted him up and then dragged him up the stairs.

 

“Stand up, damn it!” Jude screamed.

“I did get hurt,” Peter replied. All of them were around Peter. Peter showed everyone his middle finger on his right hand. “It’s gotta’ be a sign!” Peter exclaimed.

“Let’s go,” Jude said.

 

 

 

 

 Mammie walked next to Peter, “Actually Peter, there were some things left behind on that machine. The machine that you bled on,” Mammie exclaimed.

“I saw all of those poor blacks. Oh. Sorry,” Peter apologized.

“Now whatever is left on that machined is not a part of you,” Mammie replied.

 

“You know she needs to stop,” Fred said.                                                                                            

 

 

“Dude, relax,” he says as he puts another cassette into the tape deck. Creepy keyboards, screeching guitar riffs, and high-pitched yelling shocks me back into reality.

Carlton glances over at me and chuckles,                                                                                                                                                                                          “Merciful Fate.”

 

I investigate the ashtray. Looks like at least fifty cigarette butts, all white. My mind starts working against me again. I see a bunch of bones in a pile.              The Red Moon light reaches through the windshield glasses. It lights the cigarette hanging from my lips. I watch the flame.

“Dude, you know if you keep that flame on too long, the lighter will blow up in your hand. Then a loud, louder than I’ve ever heard. Thunder shakes everything. Even rattles my teeth. A line of five police cars; red, white, and blue lights mesh with The Red Moon’s glare. The sirens seem to echo in the background of King Diamond’s screams coming through the car stereo.

 

“Two eyes!” Peter screamed fearfully as Mammie held his hand tight and pulled him walking to the entrance of Dockery Farms. An omniscient fog seems to crawl across the highway.

“It’s just the van’s headlights!” Jude screams.

 

As Fred turned the van on, and pulled onto Highway 61, a line of police cars zoomed passed them.

 

“Oh no, no, no, no, oh no,” Peter said.

“Just relax, the cops passed us and they ain’t gonna turn around,” Jude told Peter. As he broke up the condensed thick weed buds on top of the road map.

 

“How far are we from Clarksdale?” Fred asked.

Barry waited till they finished rolling the joints, then he shined his flashlight on the map.

 

“Where are we going Carlton?” I asked.

“This is it,” he said as he pulled the car into Abe’s Barbecue parking lot. There’s a sign painted on the outside wall of cotton fields, with a guitar in the sky. A guitar that looked like I could just pull it off the wall. A few seconds later, “Damn it! Stop it!” Carlton had to slap me on the back of my head to stop me from trying to pull the guitar out of the picture. Then I read a sign in the road, “Crossroads.”

 

 

“This is the spot where Robert Johnson sold his soul?”

“At a barbecue restaurant? Yea, why not. That’s American.”

“Well, you know The Nation of Islam refers to pigs being the devil. They also consider the white man to be Honky Cracker devil.”

“What’s The Nation of Islam?”            

 

 

 

“Where should we go now?” Fred asked.

“We are in Clarksdale Mississippi,” Barry announced. “Okay, where to now?” They all took notice that there were so many things with the name ‘crossroads.’ ‘Crossroads Liquor,’ ‘Crossroads Corner store,’ ‘Crossroads Movie Theater.’

 

“This seems like some cheap commercial town.”

Of course, the influence of Lysergic acid diethylamide, marijuana, and whatever was in Mammie’s secret formula, possibly made them see things that weren’t real.

 

“Crossroads Funeral Home,” then Peter felt his body get hot. His sweat made his shirt stick to his skin. Then came the coldness; he shivered, and his teeth chattered.

 

 “God don’t let me die here. Please don’t let me die here. I’m not ready to die.” Peter pleaded. The smoke hovered over his body like an omniscient fog over a lake.

 

Then they saw an old train depot, “This has to be the spot,” Peter said excitedly.

“The spot, uh,” Fred said in a way that was one of hoping to influence Peter back to whatever reality was existing.

 

Peter was lying still; as if paralyzed. The smoke had a strange odor, “Open Your Eyes!”

 

“Is he drunk again?” I heard them say. I looked at my clothes. I was dressed in Army fatigues (Battle Dress Uniform).

 

“Where? What?” I asked.

“Come with me,” a doctor holding a pair of bloody hedge clippers said.

“Well, we tried to warn him.”

 

My severe hangover made the damning voice echo. The echoing made me nauseous. My friends tried to warn me by having me assist in autopsies on people who had died from alcohol, and drug abuse. They showed me the damaged organs like the liver, stomach, lungs, and heart. But I was too drunk for it to have a lasting impression.

 

“Come with me,” he ordered as he grabbed my arm. Guided me into a side room. There were large windows covered by blue curtains. There was a morgue table that had clothes on it. There was an industrial sized sink. The kind of sink that they use at restaurants. That they used at The Pizza Hut I worked at. “Specialist, remove the stuff from these clothes,” he ordered. Then he left the room. I was removing human remains parts from the clothes, like pieces of bones, hair, skin, and organs. “DUDE WAKE UP! You’re being weird again. Let’s go check out some Mississippi Delta Blues music,” Carlton said. “Poor dog,” I was staring at a dead black dog in the middle of the road. Looked like a car hit the dog. Why was I having memories of wearing army fatigues in a morgue.

 

“Damn it. Come on man,” Carlton said, then gently slapped me on the back of my head. I looked up and saw the words ‘Ground Zero,’ below the words was the symbol (a zero with a line in the middle.