Dawn’s Hwy
A phone booth stands alone, empty in the Los Angeles night, its dull plastic light an island, in the sea of neon fused darkness. A car pulls up to the curb and a lone figure gets out. The car pulls away, the figure walks to the phone booth closing the door behind him. The inside light pops on illuminating him, a silhouette in relief against the night. He takes a dime out of his black jeans, and picks up the receiver, he puts the dime in the coin slot, and listens as it clinks through the phone’s mechanism waiting for the dial tone and dials a number on the rotor and waits as the phone rang on the other end, a woman picks up.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, his voice a soft conspiratorial whisper, “we just got back into town tonight.” He listens as the woman asks something, then says, “yeah, we wasted him.”
Jim was walking down Sunset Boulevard. He’d been wearing the same clothes for the last couple of days, black jeans, t-shirt, boots, a dark welder’s jacket, because in January even Los Angeles is cold. His pants still had some remnants of desert sand in the creases and folds. He had other reminders of the desert as well, the cuts and bruises on his face.
It had only been six months since he’d come down off of Dennis Jacob’s roof, where he’d subsisted on acid, Nietzsche and the occasional can of beans. Under the summer sun he came face to face with himself and burned away a lot of old ideas about himself; and while the rest of the city slept, he took notes at a fantastic rock concert in his mind. He wrote down the songs he heard as fast as he could. He had met the spirit of music and it had changed him forever. No one, not even his friends, had understood that. They saw the physical changes. He was lithe, a mere waif, and they thought they saw the change in him, but they only saw the Jim they wanted to see, the Jim they expected.
A police cruiser drove past. One of the cops was looking at him. Suddenly it screeched to a halt and the cops jumped out.
“Are you Jim Morrison?”
“Yeah,” Jim said defiantly, “who wants to know?”
“We do wise guy. You’re under arrest.”
“What for, man?”
“Suspicion of murder.” The cops pushed him against the wall of the nearest building and patted him down before handcuffing and putting him in the back of the cruiser.
The cops hustled him through the police station and booking, then threw him into an interrogation room, his hands still cuffed in front of him. It was a typical interrogation room — bare white walls, sparse cheap furniture, a wooden table with an ashtray on it, a wooden chair on either side of the table. The room was lit by a single bare lightbulb shining right over the table, probably to have it shining in the eyes of the accused, ‘make ’em sweat, the third degree, the cops have seen too many cop shows,’ Jim thought. He pulled out a chair and sat against a wall, his eyes fixed on the closed door, waiting.
Finally, two plainclothes detectives came in. They looked like cop stereotypes to Jim, two variations on the same theme, crew-cut hair, baggy gray suit pants. One had a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow that looked slept in or a little grimy at the edges, a dark tie loosened at the neck. On the other the jacket and tie remained intact. Jim understood the game they were going to run on him and wondered which would play the good cop and which would play the bad cop.
“I’m officer Ellison and this is officer Hanson. We’re the investigating officers.” The suit-jacketed cop said. “Right now, we have you for assault of Rosalie Munoz, a minor.” Jim tilted his head at the cop, a quizzical look on his face. “The girl you kissed. But we don’t care about that, we have bigger fish to fry.”
“’Bigger fish to fry’. Did you really just say that?”
“Ok, punk, let’s cut out the shit! Do you know the whereabouts of one Phillip O’Leno?” Hanson asked, taking the lead. Now, Jim knew which cop was which.
“Um, not really.”
“He’s missing, we think he may have been killed.”
“What makes you think I had anything to do with it?”
“All your friends have said you’ve been going around telling a story about how you and one Felix Venable killed him.” The cop stared at Jim hoping the silence would intimidate him, make him uncomfortable. Jim returned the stare.
“Look son,” the other cop, Ellison said, “if you know anything tell us, at least so his father knows what happened.”
“Fuck his father.”
“How old are you?” Ellison asked.
“Twenty-two.”
“That’s a bad attitude son, one that’s not going to get you very far in life. Do you know his father is a prominent attorney?”
“And mine is a captain in the Navy, so what?”
“Where’d you get all those bruises from?”
“Some greasers didn’t like our long hair.”
“Serves you right,” Hanson said. “What about this Felix Venable?”
“What about him?”
“He’s quite a bit older than you.” The question hung in the air a moment.
“Yeah.” Jim said.
“Where’d you meet him?”
“Film school.”
“Film school?”
“He was a graduate student. What’re you trying to say?”
“Nothing, nothing at all,” Hanson said, with a greasy lasciviousness in his voice.
“Man, with a mind like yours I’d watch what I say. Your mask is slipping, and you’re showing your true self, and it ain’t too pretty from here.”
“If we ran your rap sheet, what do you think we’d find?”
“Just what you want to see, man.”
“Do you have a job?” Ellison asked in a softer tone, trying to break through the barriers Jim had up.
“No.”
“What do you do for a living son?” Jim thought a moment, considering the audience.
“Nothing you’d understand.”
“To tell you the truth, son, none of your friends that we’ve talked to believe you did it. Neither do I, you’re not the type.”
“What type is that?”
“College boy,” Hanson spat out, “but you’re not a hard case like your friend Venable. You’re acting tough but I bet you’re shaking in your boots, so just tell us where Phillip is, and you walk out of here.”
“What about the charges?”
“We really don’t care about you kissing some Mexican girl,” Hanson said with a look of mild distaste on his face. “All Phillip’s father wants to know is if his son is, ok?”
“Don’t know, man,” Jim said, then paused a moment, for effect. “What if we did kill him?”
“Did you?”
“Why don’t you just tell us what happened out in the desert son?”
Jim smiled, “what if life is nothing more than an act of remembering?” The cops looked at each other, perplexed by the question.
“What?” Hanson asked.
“What if we’re dead already and we’re just remembering this?” The two cops just looked at each other. “What if we’re just sitting around a campfire in eternity remembering life and telling each other our stories?”
“What’re you talking about son?”
“You know, like Sunset Boulevard, Citizen Kane, Carousel.” Again, the cops looked at each other.
“This isn’t a movie son, this is real.”
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
Jim woke up in the backseat of Carol’s convertible which, he had charmed her into letting him borrow. He looked around; the rising sun was in his eyes.
“Where are we?” He asked.
“The desert,” Phil said, “look around, where do you think we are?”
Jim looked around at the highway surrounded by the scrub, cactus and Joshua trees of the desert. His mind flashed on images of dead Indians laying on the highway, blood on the asphalt.
“Oh shit, I’m back.” He said.
“Back? Where?”
“Here.”
“Here?” Felix asked.
“It looks like it, man.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Jim?” Phil asked, always trying to cut to the heart of a problem.
“When I was a kid, my family was moving to one of my father’s new assignments, and one morning, it was like, you know, the time between night and day.”
“We know when dawn is, asshole.” Felix said, sarcastically.
“Anyway, we drove up to an accident, a truckload of Indians had overturned. There was blood everywhere on the road, and I was really freaking out. I wanted to do something, but I couldn’t, I was just a kid, right? My father got out of the car but didn’t do anything. My mother told me it was a dream. I don’t know if she thought that would make it better or not, but it wavered in strange time between reality and dream since then. I may write a story about it.”
“Sounds like you already are.”
“Maybe one of the Indians was a shaman, and his soul jumped into mine.” Jim posited, an idea he liked, a part of the new mythology of himself. He grabbed the notebook next to him on the seat and started writing in it. Felix saw what he was doing and reached into the backseat and grabbed it.
“Morrison, you may have read a lot of philosophy, but you need a philosophy. All great writers have a philosophy.”
“What’re you going to write about anyway?” Phil asked.
Jim smiled mischievously, “how I lured two dumb motherfuckers into the desert and killed them.”
“Fuck you, Morrison! You may get Phil baby here, but I’ll take you out first.” Felix said, as he looked through the notebook, “Morrison, you’re such a pussy! A writer! You stack the deck, choose the circumstances and conditions of a story, so of course the outcome can be anything you want. If you want to be a real artist, you need to do something that is real. A film is real, it records reality, it shows you consciousness, what’s really going on.” Felix threw the notebook out of the car.
“Hey asshole!” Jim yelled, “that’s my notebook!”
“Morrison, you gotta learn to let go of the bullshit. Hell, even that rock band of yours has a better chance of doing something more real than with ‘stories.’”
Jim sat back in the seat. That’s not what most of his friends thought. Just the opposite, most of his friends thought The Doors were a lark. He thought back to a couple months before. It had been a cool night and he was meeting a couple friends at the UCLA botanical gardens. He walked through the labyrinth of sculpted bushes down the stone path to the grotto in the center, where he was supposed to meet Liz, Katie and Max. They were surrounded by cool green hedges, slick with evening dew, and they were trying to talk him out of being in the band.
“There’s too much competition, you’ll never make it,” Katie said.
“Your film career is going great.”
“You don’t want to be in a band with those guys Jim, they’re not going anywhere.” Max said, “Manczarek isn’t like you. He isn’t a poet, he’s a capitalist. He wants fame, money, power.”
“That’s funny,” Jim said. “That’s the irony of it, people have told Ray I’m flakey and unreliable.” Jim considered it a minor betrayal, it played like a Garden of Gethsemane scene in his mind.
“Hey man, let me drive. I’m bored back here.”
“No way, Morrison,” Felix said, “you drive like shit. Is there any beer left?”
“Yeah, it’s warm,” Jim grabbed a can, shook it, and tossed it to Felix. He opened it to a spray of foam, chugged it down and threw the can out of the car after Jim’s notebook, the desert claiming both. “Felix, you’re one strange cat,” Jim said. “Since you’re not going to let me drive, wake me when we get somewhere.” As he lay down in the backseat, he smiled to himself and wondered if either of them got his joke.
The car pulled up in front of a roadside bar. It was a sun bleached, weather-beaten wooden building with a porch running across the front. There were some motorcycles parked off to the side of the building.
“Wake up, Jim. We’re here!”
“Where?”
“Somewhere.” Felix said. They went inside.
Inside the bar, it wasn’t very big. It was cool, quiet and dark, despite the soft moaning of the jukebox. The bar ran the length of one wall. A little farther in and across from it was a pool table. Sitting at a table were five or six bikers with their girlfriends. All the guys were dressed in leather jackets, white t-shirts, jeans, biker boots, their hair slicked back into DA’s. The girls were all dressed in low cut flowery blouses, tight pants, their jackets hanging off their chairs. They all watched as the outsiders came in. Jim was the first to get to the bar.
“What can I get for you?” The bartender asked.
“Beer.”
“Beer?”
“Tres cerveza’s por favor,” Jim said, smiling broadly.
“Tequila with mine,” Felix said. ‘Always on the road to finding bliss or the end of the night,’ Jim thought.
“Excuse me,” Phil said timidly as the bartender put a beer in front of him, “can you help us?” The bartender stared at him blankly. “We, we’re looking for Senor Reyes.” At the mention of the name, the bikers stopped what they were doing, and exchanged looks. One, who Jim took to be the leader, swaggered over to them.
“You sick or something?” He asked menacingly.
“No, why?” Phil asked.
“I thought maybe you’re looking for a medicine man.”
“No, the shaman, a brujo.” The biker looked shocked.
“Where’d gringos like you learn words like that?”
Phil was getting more nervous now, but he was undeterred. “We heard he might have some peyote.”
“Peyote? Why don’t you just go to church?”
“Because we’re looking for a new way to find…”
“It’s old, very old.”
“We’re on a mission of discovery,” Jim chimed in smoothly, “looking for a new world.”
“A new world?” the biker said, “you mean a new world like when Europeans came here and killed our ancestors, stole our culture and then tried to kill it? Is that what you mean?”
“No, it’s like space, but instead of going outwards we want to go inward.”
“I thought it was just up and out for you Anglos?”
“The farther I go in, the further I reach out, man.” Jim said.
“That’s a luxury for us, we only have what was left to us. Now you’re coming back for that? They’re our beliefs man. You college boys are tourists, slumming, wanting to see what you’ve read about, but you can leave any time you want. We can’t. You’re just gringos looking to get high.”
“No, no, no,” Phil said.
“You may not think you’re stealing something…”
“We want to learn those beliefs, to see if it’s a way for us.”
“Javier, why don’t you just tell them where the old man lives?” one of the other bikers said. “He won’t see them anyway.”
“Sure,” the biker said, relenting. “He lives on the outside of town, by a crossroads, the house with all the snakes.”
“What does that mean?” Phil asked.
“You’ll see,” the biker said, as he walked back to the table.
“Cool,” Jim said.
Jim, Phil and Felix turned to their beers, Jim looked around taking in the surroundings, trying to memorize everything about the place. He caught the eye of one of the girls. Her blouse was low-cut and there was the undulation of skin across the top of her breasts as she insinuated her way up to the bar. She sidled up next to Jim under the pretense of getting a drink.
“You buy me a drink?” She asked.
“Sure! What do you want?”
“For right now,” she said, hesitating, “a beer.”
The bikers started to notice Jim flirting with the girl and were getting agitated. The talking amongst themselves grew louder. Phil was the first to notice and leaned over to Jim, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Jim.”
“Why not? We’re here to have some fun and maybe a few other things that start with f-u.”
“Well, for one,” Phil said, “you almost got us busted in L.A. when you jumped out of the car and kissed that chick.”
“Aww, leave him alone,” Felix said, “he’s just havin’ a good time.”
“Your egging him on isn’t helping any!” Phil snapped.
“Awww, Phil,” Jim said with mock innocence, “she was a beautiful angel of womanhood, and I just thought I’d break the ice.”
“That’s beside the point, Jim. All those guys over there are getting upset.
Jim looked over at them, and roared, “well, fuck them!” The bikers all stopped talking and were glaring at them. Javier, the leader of the gang, walked over to Jim.
“You like my girlfriend, gringo?”
“Who says she’s yours?”
“I do.”
“We’ll see who she leaves with.”
“You like girls?”
“Hey man, why don’t you fuck off!” Felix yelled. The biker ignored him.
“I thought with your long hair maybe you’re a maricón.” He looked at Jim to see if he was scared. “You know what a maricón is gringo?”
“Why? You want to fuck me?” Jim said.
“More like fuck you up.” The biker punched Jim. Felix jumped up and blindsided the biker, and then there was an explosion of sound as chairs crashed to the floor and the bikers jumped on Jim, Felix, and Phil. The bartender started yelling, “get them out of here! You’re not going to break up my bar!” The group scuffled punches were thrown on both sides. They spilled out onto the wooden porch, and the bikers threw Jim, Felix, and Phil into the desert dust and dirt in front of the bar. The three jumped into the car, tires spinning out a cloud of dust and rock in their wake as the bikers headed back into the bar.
The car pulled up in front of a small shack that seemed to rise out of the desert. It seemed a part of the desert. There was no delineating line between desert and property, no trimmed lawns or neat gardens — just scrub brush, crucifixion bushes and cactus. The shack was made out of sun-bleached wooden planks and a tin roof salvaged from the surrounding desert. A rough fence lined the front. Three pikes stood on either side of the shack’s doorway, each with a rattlesnake’s head mounted on it, mouths open, fangs bared.
“This must be the place,” Phil said.
“How do you know?”
“How many houses are guarded by rattlesnake heads?”
“I hope we can score enough to take back to L.A.” Jim said.
“Jim, are you going to take this seriously?” Phil asked. “We’re here to find the shaman, to experience the mystical, not to get fucked up.” Jim and Felix exchanged knowing looks.
The door to the shack opened and an old man came out. He was darkly complected, his features seemed more Indian than Spaniard. His clothes looked homemade and well worn, and he had an air of serene wisdom about him. His age was hard to tell. His skin looked like soft leather, as though he’d been weathered and preserved by the desert. He could have been anywhere between fifty and a hundred years old.
Phil and Felix walked up to the Indian while Jim, acting chastened ambled behind. “Are you Senor Reyes?” Phil asked.
“I am.” The shaman said, speaking softly.
“The shaman?”
“There are some who call me that, but they’re all Indian.”
“We were told that you’re the man to see who we could get peyote from.”
“Look,” Felix said, “we just came here to score some peyote. We’ll pay you for it and split.”
“If that’s all you’re looking for, it’s best for you to leave. If you take peyote without knowing how to prepare it or yourselves, all you’re going to do is make yourselves sick and wake up with a headache.” Jim finally made it to the group. The shaman saw him and there was a slight jolt to his consciousness.
“Are you an Indian?” He asked Jim.
“No.”
“Hmm, strange.”
“What is?”
“My soul recognized yours.” The shaman considered for a moment, then asked, “why do you want peyote?”
“To connect with the spiritual,” Phil said.
Jim was thoughtful. There was a calculus to consider, he didn’t want to expose himself. Phil would understand, but Felix would think him naïve and mock him. “I want to live a life without regret.” Jim said.
“You think that is possible?” The shaman asked. “For every choice you make you may later mourn what you’ve lost or suffer what you’ve gained. You may regret this moment. Your life could change by tomorrow. Is that what you’re really looking for? Is that what you’ve come all this way for?”
Jim didn’t know what to say. Ever since he could remember he knew what answers a teacher was looking for, which buttons to push to impress them. “What is the real reason you’re here?” Jim was still numb, “then go,” the shaman said.
“No!” Jim burst out. “There’s more. I met a spirit.”
“Maybe more than one?” The shaman said.
“It’s something inside that changed me that I haven’t been able to find again. I met the spirit of music.”
“That is rare, it’s like being visited by a god. Not many can handle it.”
“What about you?” The shaman asked, turning to Felix.
“What bullshit! Can’t you see this guy is running a game on you?” Felix said to Phil and Jim.
The shaman said, “you’ve been separated from the meaning and purpose of what you’re undertaking. Your religions understood this a long time ago. You can’t expect knowledge to be given to you.”
“Why not? That’s what school is, what books are for, imparting knowledge.”
“Knowledge is power. You’re too used to it being given to you. Knowledge isn’t free, there’s always a cost. You have to earn it or risk it turning against you. It can destroy you.”
Felix was mad, his face flushed, “fine!” He spat out. “I’ll be in the car until you boys are done playing and we can get some peyote from a real shaman!” Felix stalked back to the car.
“Peyote isn’t something to be taken lightly. It’s only for the most serious minded. So far, you’ve only read about peyote in books, but the forces you’re seeking out is a dragon’s tail, and if you grab it, it’s dangerous and can cost you in spirit and self. The ritual keeps you connected to its purpose and protects you.”
“I can assure you,” Phil said in sincerest voice, “we’re only serious minded about this, we’re searches in the truest sense.”
“What will happen when we take the peyote?” Jim asked.
“It will change the way you see the world. It will change you.”
“How?” Phil asked.
“Each of you differently. What you fear is out there, but you will also find the greatest joy.”
“And afterwards?” Jim asked.
“You will awake on dawn’s highway,” the shaman said, pointing to the road, “and you will have true knowledge and power.”
“What’s at the end of this dawn’s highway?”
“No one knows what’s at the end of the highway — death, madness or bliss. If you don’t take this seriously, it will consume you.” Jim looked enthralled, eager for the adventure, while Phil looked hesitant, not sure if this was a trip he really wanted to go on.
“What do we need to do?”
“Wait.” The shaman said.
“Wait?”
“Must activity have meaning? Others are coming, they will be here for the ceremony. Now I have to go prepare myself.” The shaman went into the house; there was no invitation to follow. Jim and Phil, not knowing what else to do with themselves wandered around before finding refuge sitting in the shadow of the shaman’s house close to the porch.
A couple of hours later a truck pulled up in front of the house. Jim knew things would start happening now, and what happened would be important. He watched, making mental note of everything. The truck looked ancient, from the forties or fifties, but he couldn’t be sure. Every part of it was caked in dust and rust, and it was stripped down of every spare part except for those needed to keep the engine running and the truck usable. The cab was stuffed with three old people. Unlike the shaman, they looked prematurely aged, like they’d had hard lives eking out a living from the desert. A couple of them had hand drums. The shaman came out of the house to greet them.
The elders retired into the shaman’s house. In the bed of the truck were a bunch of younger people who jumped out as soon as it stopped. There were a couple of teenagers, between thirteen and fifteen. Jim wondered if it was their fate he was seeing in the faces of their elders. There were a few people in their twenties also. Jim recognized one of them, it was Javier, the biker leader they’d run into at the roadside bar earlier. He’d lost his leather jacket and was now wearing a blue worker’s shirt, but still wearing jeans and biker boots. He saw Jim and made his way over to the shaman who was still on the porch. Jim was apprehensive, he walked over to them.
“Senor Reyes,” the biker said. Gone was the roar and arrogance of earlier.
“Yes?”
“Are they staying?” He asked, motioning to Jim and Phil.
“Yes.”
“They’re tourists, here to steal our traditions or mock them.”
“Is that so?” The shaman looked over the bruises on the side of the biker’s face and the injuries on Jim’s face. “I have asked them, and they have answered well. They’re of the earth, differently than you or me, but connected still.” The shaman looked at them both. “do not think I don’t know what goes on in the world.” Jim noticed that the shaman’s voice, though still soft and even was chastising them. His voice didn’t raise even an octave. He didn’t sound angry but there was power in his words. The shaman went back into the house.
One of the younger boys had put on a ceremonial necklace and leggings. He’d found a long stick somewhere and he drew a circle in the hard sand about three or four feet in diameter, and then drew a cross in the middle dividing it into quarters. The Indians then scattered into the surrounding desert. Before Jim or Phil could figure out what they were doing, they started returning with pieces of wood, branches and scrub and stacked it for a fire. Jim noticed that they had stacked the wood at the eastern point of the circle, being careful not to break the circle’s boundary. Jim and Phil joined the search. About half an hour later the pile was deemed big enough. Then everyone found places in the shade of what seemed a cool spot and waited — waiting for what, Jim still didn’t know.
As the sun lowered itself in the western horizon, a vaporous moon appeared over the desert not yet fully revealing itself in the coming night sky. A signal must have happened that Jim hadn’t noticed because, without any words spoken, the fire was lit. Everyone gathered in a semi-circle between the fire and the drawn circle. The three elders came out of the house along with the shaman, who was dressed the same except that now he wore a necklace of feathers and shell. At the bottom hung a rattlesnake’s head. He walked towards the fire. One of the elders came up to Jim and Phil and motioned for them to come with him. He guided them to the front of the fire and motioned for them to sit.
There were already three others sitting at the fire, including the biker. The elders started drumming, slowly, the sound of a heartbeat. Soft rhythmic chanting began, creating a sound all its own, an insect sound like it was something that should have always been there. It built up until Jim could feel the resonance of the sound in his chest. One of the teenagers came around the front of the circle holding a clay jar out towards Phil, who was first in the line. He looked at the shaman questioningly, the shaman shook his head affirmatively, making a motion with his hand encouraging Phil to reach in. He pulled out a peyote button. Jim followed suit, and the shaman said, “chew slowly.” They each raised the buttons to their mouths and started chewing the bitter plant. The boy walked down the row offering the peyote to the other supplicants. The boy then appeared with another jar, which he again held out to Phil. There seemed to be a liquid in it, he could feel it sloshing around as he took the jar, “what is this?”
The shaman shot him a sharp look. “Drink but do not swallow. Rinse your mouth and spit it out and ask no more questions.” Phil did as he was told. Jim drank without question. It was Mezcal. The ritual was repeated six times. Then the shaman started dancing around the circle, one foot tentatively put forward, and pulled back, never breaking the barrier of the drawn circle. As he danced the beat increased. Jim thought the shaman looked younger, as if he was revitalized by the dance.
Suddenly there was a swirl of color, electric, it felt as if a door had been opened. Stars were falling from his long hair, silvery beams shot from his fingertips. Jim looked to the sky. It was dark, the moon full and bright, holding dominion over the desert. The music throbbed in his head. Motion started breaking up into the flickers of the fire’s light. Images flashed across his consciousness, animal sounds. A crow’s wing, Indians lying dead on a highway, his mother’s voice softly saying, “it was just a dream, Jimmy, it was just a dream,” as it turned to song. The music pushed against his chest, from the inside. It wasn’t the drumming anymore. It seemed familiar, like he’d heard it before. He looked around and saw, clearer than he had ever before. The scene was bent, curved, as if he was looking through some other lens. The music pulsed through him like a storm, and there was a sea of people, swaying like grass in the wind at his command. He’d discovered power, or maybe a new science, or perhaps a very old one. It was the spirit of music. Then it moved, slightly, then moved away from him more quickly, getting smaller with distance until he could see it as a whole. It was a smoky, gray, it had some weird stippling, almost a tactile appearance, then it undulated, it was alive! It moved away from him, he could see the scene was a facet on the scale of a rattlesnake, as the snake moved away from him, he could see every scale had a scene from his life, past, present and future. The farther it moved away from him the harder it was to discern those scenes until the snake had disappeared. The music pulsated through his body, it was scintillating, a scream came ripping through the atmosphere and he realized it was from him, but he wasn’t afraid, it was a part of him, it was him. Out of the darkness he saw a silvery spiderweb then nothing, he felt the prickling of fear at the edge of his consciousness, then some silvery nails pushed down out of the darkness and he knew he was in a coffin, he told himself not to be afraid if he let the fear in it would become a bad trip.
He awoke to the rising sun prying open his eyes. He was cold, confused, unsure of where he was. He looked around and saw he was in front of the shaman’s house. He tried to stand up, but he was weak. Everything came back to him — the night before, the trip, it had been more than a trip, more than random images thrown together by a subconscious struggling to find context out of the chaos of a drugged mind. It seemed more of a journey — it had coherence, meaning. In that moment he realized he was alive he was on the edge of life and death. Either was within his grasp. It was real, maybe all too real. He was living in the moment. The shaman was sitting on a rock poking the smoldering embers of the fire with a stick. Felix was sitting nearby; Phil was sitting next to the shaman and they were talking quietly.
“And you were there, and you,” Jim said.
“Welcome back to Kansas, Dorothy,” Felix said.
“Where is everyone?”
“They’re all gone,” the shaman said.
“Already?”
“They’re Indians, they’re used to it.” Jim made a move to get up.
“Don’t try to get up,” Phil advised, “you’re probably a little weak.” Jim let out a little laugh, scoffing at the idea, he tried to stand, but his legs were awkward and unsteady, like a newborn deer trying to walk for the first time. He sat back down on the ground.
Felix laughed at the effort. “You should have seen Phil baby trying to stand.”
“You need to eat,” the shaman said. “I’ve prepared breakfast for you.” He pointed to a large platter covered with a cloth and a jug that was between them. Jim pulled the cloth off. On the plate were dried meat and tortillas. The jug was filled with water. “You need something elemental to rebuild your strength, meat, bread, water. Eat and drink slowly and soon enough you’ll be strong enough to fight again.”
“What happened?”
“You tripped your asses off.” Felix said, laughing.
“Oh, shit.” Jim said,
“You traveled dawn’s highway, you had your journey through joy and the dark night of the soul. Now the world is new, it was born anew with the dawn. You discovered power, you must be careful, and you must be prepared.”
“For what?”
“For the moment when life breaks your heart.”
“No chick can ever do that to me.”
“No, it’s not something so trivial, it’s deeper and you must recognize it for what it is in the moment. And you must be ready, or you will succumb. Within a destiny lies fate.”
“I heard a song.”
“You must remember the song, if only for yourself. You forget at your own peril.”
“What does it mean?” Jim asked.
“We find the lessons in life we want to.”
“And there it is,” Felix said, “the vague mystical statement of the fraud.” The shaman smiled benignly.
“Was that what it was like for you Phil?” Jim asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” the shaman said. “If you tell each other what you saw, it wouldn’t have the same meaning to the others as it did to you.”
“I’m going to Sonora to meet a friend of Senor Reyes’” Phil said.
“Yeah!” Jim said, “let’s go to Sonora then all the way down to Mexico City, find some hookers, do the whole Kerouac ‘On the Road’ trip!”
“No, Jim, you still don’t get it. It’s just not kicks and adventure. Didn’t this mean anything more to you?”
“Man, I’m just looking to have a good time, for the experience, to inscribe them on our consciousness, so when I die, I’ll have something to remember.”
“Is every experience equal? One experience is as good as another?” Phil looked at Jim and Felix, “don’t you see? This is a revelation, the moment when physics becomes metaphysics.”
“But you’re still looking for something with a set of rules,” Jim said, “imposed by a tradition. You may want something new, but you want the safety of rules. I’ve spent too many years locked up. I’ve already served a life sentence, now all I’m interested in is freedom.”
“What about all those aphorisms you’re always spouting from Nietzsche and Rimbaud? Aren’t those your rules?”
“I’m beyond that, man. You have to be more Dionysian in your thinking, you have to immerse yourself in the madness, in the unconscious. Nietzsche and Rimbaud are just sign posts in the wilderness — they tell me I’m on the right trail.”
“Jim, you seek chaos wherever you go.”
“The universe is chaotic. It’s the mind that imposes order.”
“Philosophy without wisdom Jim, that’s more of Felix’s getting fucked up, and not Rimbaud’s rational disorganization of the senses. That’s the choice you’re going to have make sooner or later getting fucked up — or real searching.”
“Fuck you, Phil!” Felix said, he headed back to the car, “c’mon Morrison, let’s go. He’ll probably end up dead in the desert anyway.”
“I have a philosophy. That’s a lot more than a lot of people have, and I’m willing to live it until the end. Can you say the same?” In that moment Phil saw the difference between Jim and himself. He saw the fork in the road, the paths that he and Jim diverged from here, moving farther apart until they would only be able to see each from afar.
“’Excess leads to the palace of wisdom, huh Jim? What have you learned?” Phil turned and headed to the shaman’s house.
In Jim’s movie mind, he saw the final scene of this modern western, of the new sensuous wild west for a turned-on generation that wasn’t afraid to see everything differently, in disconnected images with the mind choosing the order, creating its own context. The car raced across the desert floor, the asphalt fleeing behind them, in front of them the mountains in the far-off distance, the car racing after the setting sun, chasing the ever-receding horizon.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
“Is that the god’s honest truth as to what happened?” Hanson asked.
“Hmmm,” Jim said, cocking his head to the right, a smile on his face. “There’s a truth in there.”
“Listen you little prick!” Hanson said, jumping out of his chair. At that moment Ellison walked back into the interrogation room, leaving the door open.
“Mr. Morrison,” he said, “you’re free to go.”
“Why?”
“The charges have been dropped. Phillip has returned home, mystery solved.” Jim got up and was as far as the door. “Mr. Morrison,” Ellison said behind him.
“Yeah?”
“Stay out of trouble son I don’t want to see you back here again.”
“Right, dad.”
Jim walked out of the police station. He was downtown and had to walk all the way back to Sunset. He walked at his laconic but purposeful gait, taking in everything, remembering it. It was late afternoon. The few people on the street were straight — short hair, suits and not turned on. The tan and white buildings all seemed to recede into the landscape. As he moved away from the moment, it was the past. It didn’t make any sense to look backward, to remember. It would be a sorry nostalgia. The future was forward, in front of him.
On Sunset, it was a neon infused night which was never quite dark and hummed with the electricity of creation. He could feel it; the energy rippled across his skin like a soft breeze. He was ready to change the world. He had changed his. The street was swarming with people and he was a part of the Sunset night. He would spread his wings against the night, the stars would fall from his hair. He was a force of nature. With a wave of his hand, the storm was at his command. As he neared The Whisky, he could feel the music thumping through the walls, and the doors. He walked in and was swallowed by the music.
Dawn’s Hwy is part of the short story collection “The Lion Communique” which is available on Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, or through your local bookstore.