Part Two: Road Trip
Note #7
In Chicago, a Cadillac pulls a U-turn right across a raised median a couple car lengths in front of us. We’re looking for a place to stay and are pretty much just driving around lost. All road-fried with a headache buzz from the Mexi-buds wearing off.
We stop for a pisscall at an Elias Brothers Big Boy. Jenkins is walking out of the can and I am walking in when a sixty-something cop follows me in.
“That guy looks like some kind of a weirdo,” the cop says.
“Ah..., hmm,” I’m tripped out by having to take a leak next to a Chicago cop having heard quite a lot about the force over the years.
We get back in the Cutlass and set out in search for a motel without the slightest idea where to go.
“Hey..., fuckin’ Soldier Field,” I point to our left as we pass the Bears’ stadium.
We roll on and on without a clue in our hunt for lodging. Soon it’s been over an hour since we’d entered the city limits
“There’s gotta be a fuckin’ motel somewhere around here!” Jenkins yells appearing that his sanity is slipping a bit as we cruise along in the night.
We finally happen upon a dingy street spotting a couple of sleazy looking places with dimly lit hotel signs. I find a place to park and then we’re heading out in search of some real sleep in a bed.
On a corner a prostitute is just standing looking out at the traffic going by. We walk into the first hotel we come upon. Its lime green walls glow somewhat from a lit sign overhead that reads, “Slowikowski Inn.” The paint partially worn off by the mid-west weather has left streaks along the front with white undercoat floating through the green.
We see ‘Manager’ painted above a Dutch door the upper half opening into an office/apartment. We lean into the opening a little. An older guy with a potbelly and messy thinning salt and pepper hair sits on a worn brown fake leather loveseat. He’s got one eye on a baseball game coming from his T.V. At the same time he keeps a lookout on a couple of burgers sizzling away in an electric frying pan directly next to him atop an end table. He’s in the middle of flipping the patties with a spatula when he growls, “Fuckin’ bullshit call!” ignoring the ground beef and giving the game his full attention.
“Hey..., ah..., ya got any rooms?” I interrupt.
“Ah lemme see,” the manager changes his demeanor without taking his gaze off the T.V. He starts to get up then spots me and Jenkins. “No...!” he yells. “No fuckin’ vacancies!”
“What the fuck?!” Jenkins retorts.
“You fuckin’ freaks get the fuck outta here now!”
We walk further along. A black guy leaning against a ‘71 Buick Electra holds a joint out for sale. “Buck,” he murmurs. Jenkins digs a dollar out of his blue jeans and covertly hands it to the guy. Then Jenkins puts the joint, a pinner, into the pocket of his black t-shirt. We walk on noticing that there are numerous run down hotels lining the street.
We get the same treatment at the next place we venture into. We keep moving on, but we are turned down at place after place. It’s a bit unnerving and a little hard to believe that none of these places have a room. I begin to wonder if these folks have the idea that I’ve just picked Jenkins up off the street and we’re looking for a place to fuck.
We continue making our way down the street. It dead-ends at an intersection and we still have been unable to find vacancies among the rundown places. We work our way back towards where the Cutlass is parked.
After an hour or so of searching we walk into yet another dump.
“Yeah..., we gotta a room!” a black guy almost yells while looking us over with a sneer on his face. Members of what appear to be his family look on with disdain.
“You got any I.D.?” he asks.
“Ahh...I...think... I...ahh..., left it in the car.”
Jenkins and I head back to the car.
“Fuck dude...! They’re gonna kill us if we stay there,” I walk briskly towards the Cutlass. “They think I’m payin’ you ta smoke my dick or somethin’!”
We get in the car, pull onto the closest freeway and head out of Chicago. It’s not long before we spot a Red Roof Inn. We pull off and check in without any problems and crash almost immediately in our separate beds.
In the morning, we get directions to a ‘Park and Ride’ from the motel staff. We take the elevated train out near Lake Michigan to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.
Before entering, we step under a tree in a park that surrounds the museum. Pulling a lighter from his pants Jenkins mumbles, “So cool we got a joint off a black dude in Chicago.” Then he flicks the Bic butane and fires up the pinner, takes a big drag and hands it to me.
We stand in a stupor inside the museum staring at a massive model train set which takes up an entire gallery.
“Fuck dude..., fuckin’ rad,” Jenkins mutters. Transfixed, he stares on as a Burlington Northern rumbles across a twelve-foot long trestle bridge.
“You were right. This place is fuckin’ cool!” Jenkins all stoned and tripping out almost yells as he circles the exhibit. “My dad would totally be inta this.”
“Ah...! Shit,” in the Whisper Gallery I stop as I hear my voice travel around the chamber.
“It’s nice that your mommy eats apples Bobby!” some kid’s voice echoes.
“Soup...soup...soup...soup...,” Jenkins, though whispering at the opposite end of the exhibit some thirty feet away from me is still audible at this distance. “La ott...la ott...la ott... La lee,” he continues.
“63, 84, 92...hut..., hut, hut,” I barely utter but the sound moves all over the room.
“LA-LEE!” Jenkins, unable to control himself, shrieks in his full WWII era Hollywood Nazi colonel scream. Scores of white-bread mothers and fathers are milling about. His voice bounces throughout the space. Both of us a little paranoid quickly exit.
“Dude, I swear that slimy fuckin’ thing is trippin’ me out,” Jenkins mumbles in the chick hatchery exhibit. A mom overhears Jenkins’ utterance and snidely looks over the two of us.
“That fuckin’ alien lookin’ thing is gonna make me puke. I gotta get outta here dude!” Jenkins almost in a frenzy rushes toward the next exhibit, America’s Home of the Future.
“Get..., get offa that!” a father grabs a boy about five years of age from a faux futuristic swimming pool, a fiberglass facade serving as the surface of the water.
“You coulda gotten killed!” the child’s father roars. “You know that! Yer not s’possed ta walk out on that. If that broke you’d fall down ‘n’ splatter on the toy train set or somethin’!”
My heart is racing. The August heat permeates the massive museum. I stifle a little inner burst of panic. I feel a pot induced fit coming on, one that might put the Bat Cave incident to shame.
Jenkins and me are in line for the Coal Mine elevator. Moving along, shuffling, barely advancing towards the entrance. Then we’re in the elevator and I can no longer breathe. The thing is jammed full of Midwestern families. And me and Jenkins all the way up against the back of the thing. I envision a bad scene, like going into convulsions. And collapsing to the floor the Midwesterners looking on as the white haired weirdo loses consciousness foam spewing from his mouth.
We glide down to the basement. The doors open and I’m spared passing out as we are released into a cool comfortable cave-like chamber. I walk past huge yellow pieces of machinery not really interested, just relieved to be functioning normally.