Chapter 28: Days on The Ride
Jared’s been laying there, maybe half-an-hour, trying to not fully awake into another prison day when he hears what sounds like metallic insect chatter. It’s a key poking the lock. Then with a small explosion the cell door opens.
“Peacenik! Time to roust and get about!” Witson announces cheerily. Jared throws a shitload of darkness at him but Witson shines through. He can wait for Jared to get it together. He’s in no big hurry.
Jared rises slowly, robotically dresses.
Witson leads Jared to the departure area. “Where’s the area hack?” Jared asks. No one’s at booking and neither Jared nor Witson is signing out. Odd. What can this mean? Witson doesn’t go directly to the outside gate; instead he leads Jared through several sectors of the prison. Up some stairs, across a cell block, back down a flight. Witson’s being waved through by each gatekeeper until they enter a room with a single shower. It’s not another Segregation unit. In fact it looks like a private room. Odd.
Witson pulls back the shower curtain as if raising a drape for a theatrical act. He says, “Shower and dress.” Odd as all this is, Jared doesn’t hesitate. It’s been two days.
A private shower!
Jared lathers up, taking his time, feeling like he never wants to leave the stall. Privacy, so precious. After dragging it out as long as he can, he towels off and begins to dress. But looking around he can’t find his khakis.
He spins and jerkily turns when out of nowhere comes, “Christmas!” He’s half-naked and facing a smiling Witson who’s holding out a hanger with civilian garb. A pair of brand-new dark cotton pants with a dangling, brightly flowered tie-dyed T-shirt. Is this why he’s smiling?
Jared hesitates. He hasn’t forgotten that Witson is The Man. A trap?
Witson just continues to smile and stand there, high on a salesman’s anticipation. But it quickly becomes clear that Jared isn’t rushing to buy, not today.
“We’ve got a long drive ahead and I’m sure you don’t want every rube along the way to gawk at you?”
Jared still doesn’t move.
“Look, Jared”—FBI Manual: Use his first name, always his first name.—“take advantage of this. We’ll be driving for at least two more days before I have time to shop. It’ll be easier on you.”
“Don’t fuck with me, man! It’s too fucking early….”
“Tsk, tsk! Yessir, you got to drop that attitude. I’m not fucking with you. The clothes are for practical purposes. “
“Fuck the clothes, man! They don’t stop the jangle of the chains.”
“Yessir,” with award-winning innocence, “did I forget to mention that? No chains. Just you and me humping the road. Just a-truckin’ down the line!”
“What?... Okay. Shit.” What else can he say? Witson’s in control. Man, they fuck with you here, they fuck with you there! Just go with it!
Jared dresses. Together, looking like buddies Witson and Jared leave the unnamed County lockup.
At curbside Jared hears the earth giggle and senses another turn of the cosmic screw. Things are getting imperceptibly but progressively out of whack. Their transport is now a van, one of those VW types so loved by the Counterculture. Jared half-expects Witson to whip out a brush and paint “Flower Children!” “Free Love!” “Peace Not War!” on it, turning it into a hippie bus!
In its rear it holds camping equipment. On the middle seat there’s a stash of soda pop, magazines and paperbacks. The whole shebang is wrapped up in a surround of music. As he settles in, Jared hears a song from a tape that Matt played as they drove up to raid Sauk Centre. What the fuck? Comically appropriate, Jared says, “Crazy, man. Like Agent Witson, man, you’re one groovy cat!”
Witson’s not unlike Matt or at least he’s making like Matt, Jared notes. He’s also quiet and into his sound. He’s queued up Iron Butterfly, Jefferson Airplane, Janis and Big Brother, even The Dead, and as Jared strains to read those near the bottom, even some Leo Kottke, a local Minnesota guitar god!
“Not bad for our mad tear!” Witson whoops.
Man, this is loony tunes! But Jared’s up for it.
As Witson punches up Iron Butterfly, Jared pops a can and starts to catch up on the world’s trivia through a host of magazines and newspapers. Surprisingly, Witson has brought an ample selection of both straight and underground stuff, clumping the Wall Street Journal with Rolling Stone and both with some street rags and the latest Hundred Flowers.
Witson volunteers, “Playboy’s under the seat.”
“. . . like I’m supposed to know what she meant by Why?”
They’ve been chasing down their thoughts about women for the past hour. Jared followed up on Witson’s bitch about “liberated women” with a racy rendition of his early years with Char. “But she proved to be a real bitching broad!” This is sheer crap and he knows it. But he’s snagged, at once riding with Witson’s vibes and littering the roadside with bullshit.
“More of a hippie chick than she let on?” Witson’s genuinely curious.
“Believe it, man, fuck, she was some hot juice when ragged out. I mean, man, weed just boiled her pot. At times I’d think she’d just about suck my leg through my dick she’d get so grooved on sucking and sucking!” Lies! Just fucking-A lies, man!
Jared is incapable of talking straight with Witson. All his thoughts about women come out twisted by Witson’s prior revelation and recounting of Wargasm. At the same time, he’s equally incapable of drawing him out on the subject of Aaren.
Witson waits for Jared to cue him but only Judy Collins’ sound—almost as if scored for this specific conversation—a refrain from “La Colombe” drifts through the van.
The dove has torn her wings
so no more songs of love
We are not here to sing
we’re here to kill the dove.
“What’s your game?” Jared asks in a controlled monotone. “Why are we together? Where are we going?” With a humorous twist that he relishes—and anticipated—Witson pushes in a tape of Kate Smith belting out “God Bless America.” It’ll be followed by a medley of patriotic ballads that are sure to curtail their conversation. Witson’s coup will be a big resounding climax—booming an instrumental version of “The Ballad of the Green Berets.”
“My game is your game. Answer number one.” He doesn’t pause for Jared’s comments. “We’re together because I was assigned to this task. Answer number two. We’re going to Milan, Michigan. Answer number three.” Jared, half-embarrassed, catches himself listening and humming some bars from the just-ended Barry Sadler’s tribute. All of a sudden the silliness of it all draws him over the edge into laughter. He falls into a self-absorbed well of giddiness, after which he clears off the middle seat, balances and pivots his seat prone backwards until he is, without sound, dropping down, going under, into a swarm of sleepy images.