Route 66, a span of American nada, the big zilch; a lengthy ribbon of asphalt punctuated by struggling towns banking on the whim of tourists and the necessities of truckers, built and rigorously maintained-- no doubt -- to serve military purposes but ostensibly labeled historical, like it was Padre Serra's precious **** el Camino Real or the goddamned Trail of Tears and not some piece of **** 20th century concrete fetish of all that was **** up in the western world. A road to keep the middle of nowhere company and state highway workers employed. I turned south off of the historical asphalt just east of Amarillo. Set my bearings for elsewhere. South and east, not caring what sort of alternate route I happened upon, as long as it wasn't another homogenous 1100 miles of Route 66.

Texas was a wasteland. I didn't see any damned cows. Plenty of fields and pick-up trucks. Endless small towns punctuated by gas stations and greasy spoons, the occasional horse and the most amazing rest stops in the whole American landscape. Tornado shelters, they called 'em. Nice. I talked to myself along the way, to Hell with the other humans, or Texans to be more accurate, staring back at me like they don't do it. Maybe they don't talk to themselves, after all. I certainly find conversing with those staring sorts to be laborious, at best. I giggled like a lunatic, "Corporal Punished back from my mission to middle America, sir, and I'm happy to report Jesus and genocide and jingoism are alive and thriving in the Heartland." I delivered it with a snappy salute towards the rearview. Sarcasm free of charge. I tipped myself a wink. Irony slightly higher. On and on and on, Texas goes forever. Sixteen hours of **** Texas and counting. **** Texas already. I was ready to kill something. Obviously, Texas was beginning to wear off on me.

**** me, it was humid! Garcias, pour another favour, senor. I finally made the Louisiana state line sometime after midnight. No New Orleans for me just now, Many Natchitoches to you and thanks for asking, I was racing ghosts to the Mississippi state line. In spite of wearing layers of grime and Texas road dust as red as menses, Louisiana still managed to stand my greasy hair on end. I kept my eye out for cops and fireflies. Interesting li'l critters, in theory. Cuter from afar than up close. I wondered how many of them comprised the layer of bug crap accumulating on my windshield, fireflies that is, no cops on my windshield just yet.

I rocketed through the swamps, the never changing **** ubiquitous, endless swamps, as mile after endlessly numbing mile set my teeth and my gut in a clenching contest. Normally, I'd wager on my teeth to win. Tonight, my gut was giving the choppers a fair run. Plus, my **** hurt.

Watching the swamp fog rise above the black waterways gave me the almost-screaming meemies. **** it, why lie? I did scream. Every few miles a light briefly pulsed and waned, pulsed and waned. The dying gasp of a misplaced heart. A silent scream of sorts: 10010010001, SOS. I screamed. He screamed. We all screamed for Ice Cream.

Ancient, this land. It gulped down my fear like raw oysters. Perversely, I wanted to ****. The scent of fetid earth left me crazed and aching to rut, My nipples drawn hard as an aria rose in reptilian shrieks and insectile rattles, shadows hiding who knows what, or whom, among the sucking maze of flora and mud.

There was fauna, too. Boy, let me tell you, was there fauna! Fauna **** everywhere! It literally littered the shoulder: Coons, 'possums, egrets, unidentified wild things with the spirit crushed from them. More roadkill than I'd ever seen, even cumulatively. Most of it quite fresh, from the look. Mack grille marks or no, I doubted anyone ever wanted for meat in King Louis' land. **** it, I'd eat it if I had to. Maybe Peterbuilt was the perfect coon tenderizer. What do I know?

Thank all the gods for the Piggly Wiggly, et. al. Those great American grocers with their pre-packaged cold cuts and dyed red slabs of domesticated corpse flesh. Mmm, mmm, God is good, pass the A-1, amen. No fauna for me tonight, maw done bringed us some fancy butcher-type meat. The kind without no broked bones.

Morbid bitch. I'd been this way since Albuquerque. I guess 20 hours straight on the road will do that to a girl. Thank God for speed. I had picked up an eight ball in Bakersfield. I was down to about half a ball now. I pulled off at some hellhole in Shreveport to make myself a line to keep me going.

Shreveport. Shreveport. Shreveport. I ran the word over my cranium for the nthteenth time since I passed the city in question some 30 dark miles back; a scratched record stuck on the port shrieve groove. A regular 8-track mind, mine. Click. Shreveport. Why was it named Shreveport? What, and who, would shrieve in this port, and why? Click.

Many Natchitoches. A question for the long night ahead. We'll shrieve together, the city and I, add our tears to the saturated bayou air. Rain would be a blessing. An impossible gift like a kiss from a crush. Surely, I mused bitterly as I assessed the choking kudzu and shooed b-52 mosquitoes, Louisiana's God is not that kind.

Quixotic, I gave my Japanese Rocinante a little more reign, hoping against reality that there'd be an extra 10 MPH in 'er, to spirit me outta the shrieve. Somewhere along this line, my heater core quit. Not that I had necessity to use the heater, nor the inclination to monitor my beater's plunging fluid levels. What the Hell, if it died, so be it. It is what it is. Many Natchitoches.

I squirmed in my seat, my **** engorged with blood and aching against the seam of my Levi's. Well, why not take care of business? I tugged at my button fly, the easy access hallmark of my all-American jeans, . . .

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