Fear And Loathing

It was morning and I am going to say June because I know where I was on the Fourth of July and Where I was on the 29th but I can't remember when This Whole Villainous Affair began. But all that is rather beside the point, because beginnings are always easier than endings, all you need to do is start somewhere and then you've begun and later, no one will even remember what happened at the beginning because the middle and the end are always the best of it. So It was morning and Thursday, yeah why not, and the Runner, a 96 number with leather seats and shitty brakes that whined their protest for the entire episode, was loaded up for hell and high water. Two suitcases, tents and coolers, two cases of water, some acoustic guitars and god knows what else we buried beneath and behind those strong hinges that closed the rear hatch. I knew that the packing phase would be stressful, but John had copped two ounces of shake and senseamilla that we had enlisted a Korean New Yorker Joint Roller Extraordinaire to help process into 87 or 94 joints depending on who was counting.

At this point, I should say who "We" are, having used the pronoun repeatedly without a proper and dynamic introduction. I was one half of this sunshine-bound duo, your humble narrator, an Allan-O-Dale, known by my initials DRH, to some southern gentlemen as Burgess Cellars, retired Kentucky textile magistrate, to some Japanese beauty salon workers as Bryce Elliot, doomed lover and quiet American and to some rinsed out Mexican stunners, with their cruelly pink lipstick eyes and waiting arms as "El Hermoso" (The Beautiful). Born in the year of our lord 1983 and with eyes that change color depending upon my mood, my birth certificate says my name is Derek. The other 50 percent of the expedition, and that is what I came to believe this trip was, an expedition, a quest to unearth something beautiful from this tragic kingdom America has come to be, was the man of action,