“Could you hold that again for me please?”
The “that” I was referring to was the cd jewel case for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. It was covered with lines of meth. I was driving about 95 mph on my way to Denton, Texas which was the nearest Motel 6 that we could find with a vacancy. He was my co-pilot. I assumed he must have drawn a short straw or lost a bet to have been placed in my vehicle. We didn’t really know each other. But he liked to drink enough that he didn’t mind when I announced a game I had made-up in which we would all race to Denton from New Orleans. Four cars, eight people, seven dogs, three cats. A misfit band of hurricane evacuees.
I didn’t care if I lived or died, which made risk-taking an extreme sport. I had been quietly voted “most likely to kill oneself” a little over a month before our cross-country expedition when I had discovered the bodies of my mother and two women she had killed in her home. This designation would stick with me for some time and later I would begin a short-lived romance with a guy who had been selected to see if I were dead after several missed calls. I was always being paired up with unsuspecting men. Truffle pigs of death.
We were the first to arrive in Denton and we paid for our respective motel rooms, because at that point they were still charging. Soon a Louisiana ID would get you a free room in most states, after the destruction of Hurricane Katrina gripped the nation, but not yet. He and I didn’t talk much after our arrival, the bonds of drug abuse quickly fading in the barren parking lot. I unloaded my three dogs into my room and began to review my belongings. I had a small bag of clothes, a large container of dog food, an electric kettle, several packages of instant noodles, a box of saltines, a loaded .38 revolver, two packs of cigarettes, four bags of meth, a handle of Ketel One vodka, two 90 count prescriptions for xanax and vicodin respectively and the ashes of both my brother and mother. Days later when pulled over by highway patrol in New Mexico the officer would look at my disheveled interior and ask “Are you the only person in the vehicle?” and I would jokingly point to the boxes and say “The only one alive.” The joke fell flat.
In Denton I turned on the tv and didn’t turn it off until we checked out of the motel three nights later. I only left my room to walk my dogs occasionally. Otherwise I kept the shades drawn and lost time completely. Drink, snort, pop, snooze, repeat. There were a few people in the group who were good friends and they would occasionally come by to check on me. When I would feel forced to let them in I would try to eat, generally resulting in using waterlogged instant noodles as a makeshift ashtray. My toes would barely graze sobriety in those weeks, chemical dependency became my mainstay.
Although New Orleans had made it through the storm, another one was right on its tail, squashing any hopes of a quick return. None of us wanted to stay at the Motel 6 in Denton for any extended amount of time, so we decided to meet at the Waffle House in the parking lot to discuss our options. One of the group had family in Oklahoma who owned an old, vacant farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. This sounded like the perfect place for a bunch of French Quarter exiles to pass the time. It was also free, so it was really the only option we considered.
On the drive to Hugo, Oklahoma (Circus City USA) we stopped at a few ABC stores because they had limits on how many bottles of booze and cartons of cigarettes a person could buy. I spent the remainder of my emergency funds on vodka and American Spirits. It would take me over a year from that moment to even consider paying the majority of my bills. The hiatus unknowingly started then, would later allow me to negotiate paying off the majority of my credit card debt at a fraction of its total. That debt largely consisted of alcohol and cigarette purchases.
We stopped at the friend's aunt's home to pick up the keys for the property and I was struck at how normal their lives were. The kids were playing in the yard, not comprehending that my whole life felt like it was fucking over. I watched as the aunt nervously looked at us, stressing that no one had been up to the property in quite some time and we had to be VERY careful. She gave us a stack of old towels and a few rolls of toilet paper. She wished us luck as she gathered the children for their evening meal. She called out to our friend, “remember you can only get reception from telephone hill.”
These were the days before smartphones and google maps. I had to hit each key on my pink flip phone up to three times to compose a text, which rarely went through because data plans were mostly for doctors and drug dealers. The aunt had drawn a crude diagram on the back of a paper towel which designated where we were to turn. We had to take our time, as much as it frustrated me, because most of the route was unmarked dirt roads. After a few mistakes and a lot of yelling between vehicles, including a few burn-outs, we arrived at the property after sunset.
We quickly named the sprawling, dilapidated structure House of the Brown Recluse because they were everywhere. These spiders lacked the trait of reclusiveness though as they made no attempt to move away from us or our pets. “Stand your ground,” I shouted at the spiders on the bathroom sink, before running to warn the others. At first we thought it was funny but as more and more appeared I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach that I quickly tried to drink away.
We attempted to entertain each other, this being the first night we shared one large space together. I held a flashlight up to my breast implants to make my boobs into a nightlight. Someone dealt out a round of cards. Everyone of us was over-indulging, trying to pretend we weren’t all thinking of New Orleans and going home. I got wasted pretty quickly on pills and vodka and started talking about people I had fucked. When a friend mentioned her new love interest, I quickly added “He’s alright but he has a small dick.” I don’t know what made me say that. At that moment there was no way I could accurately remember anyone's dick size. I used to hate-fuck that guy when he and I went to a fancy college together. He had punk-rock radio show and I would call the studio and say “You’re fucking disgusting.” Then I would pick him up and he would choke me and call me a fat-assed slut while I rode him. He had the worst smelling feet, but I couldn’t truly remember his dick size. It must have given me a sense of power to make that sexual judgement, because I stated it as if it were a fact admissible in court.
My voiced observation apparently really pissed off my friend and a new tension sprang up in the group. I precisely remember that being the moment when things started to fall apart between all of us. For the inevitable emotional wars we were all headed toward, my dick comment was the first shot. Years later after drunkingly fucking this same guy on the pool table of a bar for Cinco De Mayo, I wanted to write them all a letter to let them know I was wrong. I called the bar owner on May 6th, who was a good friend that used to offer me lines of coke when I went to her for advice, and asked to have the security footage destroyed but not before I re-watched it and mentally noted that his dick was at least average if not on the bigger side. But in that moment at the farmhouse, there was nothing I could do to take it back. At that time I had no intention of admitting I could possibly be wrong. Quickly after my dishonest admission, everyone fell silent and began setting up their designated sleeping places. I tried to crash on a pallet next to my dogs but grew paranoid of spiders and angry women so I went outside and slept in my car.
I frustratingly woke at sunrise and unloaded myself and the dogs from the car. I felt very hungover and terrified. I hadn’t had contact with the outside world since we last watched television at the motel in Denton. I desperately searched for a radio channel that would give me news but all I found was a very fuzzy rendition of Stevie Nicks crooning Landslide. Outside my dogs froliced in the wildflowers that covered the property. I remember thinking that someone else might find this scene beautiful but it sure as fuck wasn’t me. I decided to head up to telephone hill.
When I reached telephone hill, I had to exit my car and sit on the hood to get reception. I didn’t even know who to call. In situations as tragic and scary as this one, I would have normally called my mother, but she was dead. I tried calling a few friends from New Orleans but got a busy signal which only made me fearful that they were still in the city. I called my best friend who was a nurse in Albuquerque and she thankfully answered. She couldn’t talk long since she was at work, but I could tell from her tone things were serious. “Just come here,” she offered. She made it painfully clear that I wouldn't be going home anytime soon.
I stood on the hill for a long time, crying and swearing. I contemplated suicide but resolved to not die in the state of Oklahoma. My battery was low and I knew I had just enough juice for one more call. I typed in the phone number I had memorized years ago. It belonged to the parents of my ex-boyfriend in Massachusetts. My ex’s mother answered the phone. “Lori! We are so glad to hear from you! Are you okay? How’s your family?” I took a deep breath, and slowly let out the words, savoring each one. “I’m doing okay. I’m in Oklahoma at the moment. Not sure where I’m going next. My mom is dead. She killed her girlfriend Julie, the one y’all had dinner with when we announced our engagement. Oh, and she killed another lady too, you probably would have met her at the wedding, I mean if we hadn’t called it off. They died last month, so I guess there’s a silver lining, less people to worry about.” Dead silence from the other end of the line. I genuinely smiled for the first time in days as I finished “this thing’s dying, sorry, got to go” and hung up.
I stayed with my dogs in a hotel that night and I fell asleep to the low drone of news coverage debating whether or not my city deserved to be rebuilt. Were we worthy? Only time would tell.
