The Eden Express_ A Memoir of Insanity - Mark Vonnegut [105]
While we were in the drugstore parking lot the wind and rain picked up some. Everything looked dead. Kathy got the pills.
We were just a few blocks from where I was supposed to take my physical. There was maybe about forty-five minutes before my appointment. All the lonely, sick, unhappy people. The sky was crying. Everyone was dragging, stumbling through life. A fat girl went into the drugstore, a limping woman came out. Cars were choking along. The wind and rain slashed through everything, biting and cold, and here I was, safe inside the bus.
I started crying. It was just too awful what life had done to these people. Limping along in their death-spewing automobiles, trying to do chores of one sort or another, and they were all going to die. “It’s all right, Mark. You’re on the outside.” Mary’s words. On the outside? The suffering I was seeing wasn’t really going on? It was just being projected on the windshield?
“You’ve got to worry about yourself. Just worry about what you have to do. Your tears won’t do them any good now.”
So just worry about myself, be tough, keep truckin’. It seems so cruel to not cry, seeing all that terrible stuff. But it wasn’t real or didn’t matter. Was Virginia inside or out? Ma and Pa and Zeke and all the others? But get tough; worrying about myself is the best way to help! Remember Lot’s wife.
The physical? Had Dr. Miller diagnosed something? Was it imperative that I not see some doctor who hadn’t been clued in? I left the decision up to the others. They decided the physical wasn’t such a hot idea.
Errands done. Pills in hand in case things got rough. Still blacking out from time to time, body not in much control, voices talking up a storm. Back to Joe and Mary’s cabin. Back to Fan David and Becky and Sarah and David’s dog. Everybody seemed to be all right.
See, what did I tell you? Nothing bad happened. How lucky I am to have friends who are fearless and loving enough to let me stay on the loose, instead of being petty about the whole thing and having someone locked away the minute they get a little out of line.
Somewhere in there I started calling Fan David Tom. He looked a little like Tom, an old friend from prep school, and Tom was one of the people I wanted around. I needed someone who could understand a lot of these images. Tom could play the piano, which came in handy, and he was one of the first people I ever talked seriously with. He and I had shared a lot.
I remember getting a certain amount of resistance. “No, Mark. That’s David, not Tom.”
I stuck to my gust. “You’re Tom and you play the piano.”
Fan David’s was the most persistent “Far out, that’s cool,” etc., I have ever run into. I remember how I finally shook him up. I went into the room where he was sleeping. He started up, per usual, being enthusiastic about how far out I was. His dog was lying next to his bed. I reached over and jacked his dog off. Fan got very upset. I guess everyone has a limit.
Little by little, person by person, the mood switched over from the thrill of having a real live prophet guru to worry about my pain and what to do with me. Even in the beginning there was some worry about me and even in the end there was some feeling that I was on to something very important and real. It was never all or nothing.
A WALK WITH FAN. I must have been gritting my teeth or shaking or something. It was a pretty rough time just about sunset of the second day. David came up to me. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Come on, brother, don’t hold it all in. Let some of that energy go. There are lots of people who could use some of it.”
“No one wants this shit.”
“No, you’re wrong. It’s just that you’ve got too much. Give some to me.”
“You really want it?” I was incredulous. “I really don’t want to put anyone through this shit.”
“No, really. I could use it. Give it to me.”
I wasn’t real sure how to go about it, but my religion-major days weren’t for nothing.