Halloween Columbia, Missouri

On our way back to the east coast. Tina was 18 and pregnant; we left her and Austin at the mercy of Tina’s folks in S.D…that left Lucas, Limp Disc, and Cub. And me.

Limp Disc was Lucas’ 17 year old girlfriend (Lucas was 22 or something.) She used to be called Cut Throat until…

“I like the name Cut Throat because it’s androgynous,” she said. She was into the whole Peter Pan look.

“No, I think Cut Throat is a male name”, said Cub from the back of the van.

“What’s the female version of Cut Throat, then?” she asked.

“Limp Disc”, said Cub.

Cub used to have weird little sayings. He’d exclaim: “Kratom jockey kratom jockey!”

He also quoted Darcy-isms a lot, especially “smooth taste”.

So we all started calling her Limp Disc.

Later I learned that Cub derived this from slang he’d heard in Costa Rica: “I’ll slit your disc”, “I’ll disc ya”.

The night of the 30th we stopped in Columbia, Missouri. No particular reason - we just wanted to be in a city for Halloween, not some Wal-Mart or gas station in the ass crack of America.

That first night, we had money for a half gallon of New Amsterdam gin. Cub always had money but wouldn’t always spend it…

We were all in our cups on some boulevard that looked like a Main Street. Lucas was sitting on a concrete shelf where a building met the street, playing Limp Disc’s accordion.

Now all of us were alcoholics but I could out-drink Lucas and Cub drank but he’d stop himself at a certain point. Limp Disc, being a 17 year old girl, couldn’t match us but put a valiant effort. So Lucas was HAMMERED. White girl wasted. He’s playing with that accordion (well, actually it was a concertina, and he didn’t know how to use it) so he doesn’t notice when Cub takes out his dick.

This is a very public street. I see this happen but I just hit the bottle.

By the way, Cub has a pretty big dick - it’s bigger than mine. Somehow this isn’t the first time I’ve seen Cub’s dick - he likes to whip it out a lot. If I had a dick like his, maybe I would too.

Now Lucas isn’t wearing shoes and his feet are dangling off the shelf within range of Cub’s dick.

Here on the street of Columbia, Missouri Cub begins to pee on Lucas’ foot. Lucas is so drunk he doesn’t even notice at first.

Then he looks down with his glazed-over eyes. Cub is still peeing on Lucas’ foot.

Cub puts his penis away.

“Why’d you do that?” Lucas asks. A reasonable question.

“It’s okay”, says Cub, taking off his shoe. “You can piss on my foot too.”

“No! Why would I want to do that?!”

Clearly this is taken by Cub as a sign of submission, because his response is to take out his dick and piss on Lucas’ foot again.

“Such a perfect specimen of manhood - so…DOMINANT”, I quote in my best Dr. Frankenfurter voice.

This time Lucas takes his foot away (but not before it gets pissed on) and pours water from the gallon he always (I mean always) carries, on his foot. For us, this is the standard of hygiene - his foot is now effectively clean.

We finished the gin between the four of us, all 1.75L of it. Lucas and Cut Throat/Limp Disc go to sleep in Lucas’ van while me and Cub find a hidden spot near the van to crash. I put my little dog in the bottom of my sleeping bag and then get in myself.

The next day, Halloween, I’m up first. Because I’m an alcoholic: when the sedative wears off, that’s me out of my sleeping bag after the next hit. But first, breakfast…I let Doobie pee then put his with Limp Disc in the van. I walk into the Carl’s Jr across the street.

Places like this, people hardly ever finish their food. The plan is to wait for them to not finish their food, then intercept them before they can even get to the trash can.

This plan is successful today and yields a lot of tater tot thingies. Then I go to the gas station. In my pocket I have $2 in change. I always have to have $2 in change in my pocket, never more than $5. This is known as wake-up money. Before the day is over, in addition to getting hammered, I have to also secure $2 in change. If you look at a can of Camo Black, Missouri is where it comes from. I think this is also true of Rolling Rock and Olde English.

[A lot of the commissary items I get in jail here also come from Missouri. Coincidence?]

So I get a Camo and head back to the Winn Dixie parking lot, get in the passenger seat of the van and nurse the can while I wait for the other kids to wake up.

I forget how we spent the day but by the time night fell we were on that Main Street, spanging. There was another little gang of dirty kids in town who let me take a hit from their bottle.

People with costumes started to show up, up and down the streets. Adults.

There were a lot of really gorgeous women. It was crazy. I remember the powerpuff girls. Blossom wanted to pet my little dog, Doobie. All these women wanted to pet Doobie.

“Oh, he’s so cute!”

“His name’s Doobie.”

They’d bend over, these girls in Halloween costumes, and I could see their boobs when they bent. There were so many pretty women and they all wanted to touch my dog.

But we weren’t making any money! Fuck! And it was so distracting!

This is starting to get dangerous, I thought, and I knew Lucas was thinking the same thing. Cub and Limp Disc were probably not thinking like us. If we didn’t get enough money for a half gallon or at least a gang of 40 oz’s before they stopped selling alcohol, we were FUCKED.

The time was growing nigh. Like Cinderella from the ball, it was time to take our glass slippers and get the fuck to the nearest purveyor of spirits.

We’d stayed out spanging because we’d only made a paltry sum - not enough for Halloween, not enough for us any night. But it was getting too close to 2am so we took our $6 and went. People were still on the streets, hot girls kept asking to pet my dog. Damnit, I had priorities! I stopped too many times and we spanged everyone on the way.

We were five minutes late. Oh the inhumanity!

“Come on, we’re just five minutes late”, we said. But the clock had no heart at all. This just wouldn’t do on Halloween.

With a devilish glint in his eye, Lucas said “Give me 3 bucks” and I gave him everything, which was 3 bucks or so.

Lucas walked into the other aisle and came back with ether. Not even Prestone, some ungodly off-brand.

“God dammit Lucas”, I said.

He walked to the cash register and put the can of starter fluid on the table.

“Man, these state laws are really fucking with my health”, he says to the clerk.

“It’s okay man, I get it”, says the clerk.

“Hey, do you have a water fountain or something?” Lucas asks.

They did.

In the parking lot of the gas station Lucas digs in the trash bins for a plastic water bottle. “I thought he might sell us alcohol if I tried that”, says Lucas, “I wasn’t planning on actually buying it.”

Yeah, right. I knew, and Lucas knew, that Lucas wanted to huff ether, and so did I. Only I knew that the way Lucas was about to do it, we’d be mostly huffing heptane.

“Goddammnit Lucas, I don’t want to huff ether, but I really like to and I’m going to end up doing it now”, I said.

Lucas went in and filled the bottle halfway with water.

With Limp disc, I sat on the side of the gas station store and watched Lucas spray the whole can of starter fluid into the water bottle. Then he turned the bottle upside down and let the water separate from the gas.

“Oh god, this is so horrid,” said Lucas.

‘Horrid’ was one of the terms Lucas used to describe the state of his being, a strung out suicidal penniless alcoholic, living on fast food and malt liquor bought with other people’s money. The other term was ‘haggard’.

Now, Cub was asleep in the van. Lucas got rid of the lower layer, basically using the b ottle as a separatory funnel.

Behind the gas station was a rocky area with a river at the bottom.

We all crouched down in the dark of this rocky area.

I’m about to huff starting fluid with a 17 year old, I thought. Yea, horrid was the term.

We passed the huffin’ rag around. Lucas took the first hit. Then me. When Limp Disc’s turn came around, she took a deep inhalation (you can’t call it a breath) and said “OH SHIT I’M ADDICTED!”

This was even funnier on ether.

We kept passing it around, I was trying to tell a story to Limp Disc but she said “Can you do that again? I was fucked up the whole time.”

No shit. I tried a couple more times and then gave up.

“We’re so punk”, said Lucas.

“I know. I’ll bet that guy across the river wishes he could be as punk as us with our huffin’ rag”, I said.

I was beginning to get the wa-was. WA-WA-WA-WA-WA. It’s a noise you’ll recognize if you’ve done inhalants.

“School is the real gateway drug”, said Lucas. That could be a song by that shithead Johnny Hobo:

‘As he huffs cheap ether from the skank I found he says school is the real gateway drug”, I sang in my best imitation of Johnny Hobo’s whiny voice.

Yea, I know. This is only funny if you’re huffing gas. That’s what’s great about huffing gas.

Huff.

“HaHa, we’re so punk.”

Huff.

“HaHa, yea”

Huff.

“OH SHIT I’M ADDICTED”

We huffed almost all the starter fluid. When we got back to the van, we woke Cub up.

“Hey Cub want some starter fluid?”

“Did you guys get the kind for a car or the kind for a chainsaw?”

“Uh…a car I guess.”

“Oh my god you guys are gonna feel like shit tomorrow.”

And how. But of course, me and Lucas knew that - I doubt if Limp Disc did but she was a hardcore little tyke, she could handle more than most people.

So, the next day.

Instead of foraging I went and spent my EBT on some food in Winn Dixie and got another Camo Black. How I managed to accomplish these things with a gas hangover I don’t know.

I remember laying with my face planted in the headrest of the passenger seat of Lucas’ van. Limp Disc was on the mattress in a similar state of being.

I was hallucinating all kinds of shit. I drank half the beer because I had to stay alive but beyond that I felt too sick to move. Worse than the time I inhaled a whole can of butane.

I was delirious.

I lifted my head and said to Lucas, “Hey so, Cub and me got in a fight right? And the cops came and talked to us? That was real, right?”

“No, none of that stuff happened.”

“Really?”

“Really.”