 
THE ALL-INCLUSIVE CHURCH OF CANCUN

Published by Will Berkeley

Copyright 2015 Will Berkeley

Chapter

I had pulled over to buy a case of beer off a guy selling oranges on an overpass outside Cancun International Airport. His oranges looked delicious so I bought a bag of those too. I had a powerful craving for oranges after I bought them. I didn't know that I wanted oranges with my beer and marijuana until after I bought them. But that's the magic of marijuana. You start making terrible decisions. You pull over for beer somewhere outside Cancun International Airport. And you end up buying oranges too. And the diehard marijuana smokers make a life of them. Which way to the enchanted snake? I flew down here from Los Angeles to chase it. You understand?

Shortly thereafter I gave the wave to The Mexican Federal Police when I passed them out at the checkpoint on the Federal highway. You know the wave? The one that says everything is under control in here, officers. I'm in complete control of the situation. Have no fear. You're dealing with a professional here. Then you lower the outsize sunglasses so they can get a good look at your pins. Because you've got to put the Mexican Federal Police at ease because somebody should be at ease. And it wasn't me.

I don't know where I am going. I don't know precisely whom I am with. Our tour operator, Jose Boston, is a bit of a mystery to me but I've got him contained in the back of the van with half a million kilometers on the clock with my stupendously wealthy boss. He's closing in on a billion bucks as long as we're doing numbers. You believe that? And this is how we travel? Wasted out of gourds? And get this. We drive ourselves! We're incredibly stupid, right?

Then there is that little accounting issue of how many drinks I might have had today. You'd think that I'd be able to tell with you pinpoint accuracy how many drinks I've had today because I run so much money. Close to a billion bucks, chief. But I can't keep track when I'm this deep. And frankly I don't want to know. I think amnesia is what protects me. And the actual number has got to be horrific. I started on the runway in Los Angeles. I got on the tequila somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico. Then I got tanked in the airport while it was determined that our luggage was definitely lost. Why not turn Duty Free into your own personal bar?

That Mexican road soda that's nestled between my legs while I steer with my knee and spark a joint is the least of it. That's keeping my knee on the wheel. You take that beer from me and I'm a dead man. That beer has to stay where it is. Of that much I am certain. That road soda is absolutely critical. And what's counting at time like this? When you're not in possession of any facts how can you be expected to do math? I'd be better at astrophysics. Driving the rover on Mars is a more suitable endeavor for me right now. I could just pull the hatch and end it all. That's it Ground Control. I've had enough. What kind of savage brings marijuana into Mexico? Isn't that what Mexico is for?

I had no clue what I was doing in Cancun. Are we clear there? But I did know what was I was doing. That's the scary piece. I had a plan.

I was going to drive this cucaracha right into the heart of dirty old Mexico. I was going to chase down The Mexican Dream. Knock it right out of the sky. Smash it like a piñata. Then all the toys were going to rain down. That's about the best explanation that I can give you. You can take it or leave it because that's all I've got. But that piñata was mine

Chapter

We were at a gas station in The Wasteland between Cancun and Playa del Carmen when Professor Calico informed me that he wanted to start an all-inclusive church in Cancun. Our tour operator had passed out. Now would be a good time to talk about his latest venture.

"I thought we were chasing The Mexican Dream," I said.

"The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun is The Mexican Dream," Professor Calico said. "I'm going to put it in a hotel called The Tequila. What do you think?"

"It sounds horrific," I said. "Although being drunk and high is probably the only way to do it. It will give us the much needed deniability. We were wasted when we came up with the idea. Then we stumbled into The Tequila."

"I want you to run it," Professor Calico said.

"I am totally unqualified," I said.

"You have an MBA from the University of Buenos Aires," Professor Calico said. "And you were the lead singer of a Spanish language rock band that toured Latin America for over a decade. Those are your qualifications. And you like tequila."

"I'm not religious at all," I said.

"You're a Catholic," he said.

"Lapsed and not confirmed," I said. "And I'm actively trying to get excommunicated. At some point the Pope will notice. Screw him in the meanwhile."

"What do you think of the idea though?" Professor Calico asked. "Give me your honest opinion. The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun conveniently located at The Tequila."

"It's incredibly outrageous," I said. "But it might work as a marketing sensation. God, hedonism and big business all wrapped into one."

"I'm packaging Jesus in a Speedo," Professor Calico said.

"Put Mary in a bikini," I suggested.

"I'm thinking topless," Professor Calico said. "Or we do a Garden of Eden theme."

"People will want to behead you," I said.

"Some people are bound to react poorly," Professor Calico shrugged. "Your job as the CEO of The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun is to manage the horrific press that we're bound to get. I welcome it."

"You're naming me the CEO of The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun?" I demanded.

"I'm going to name myself The President," Professor Calico nodded. "Guru is just a little too obnoxious even for me. And I'm trying to cut back on India."

"You can't name me the CEO of a Church," I said.

"That's the job," Professor Calico said. "Why should I lie?"

"You're naming me a fraud," I said. "Churches aren't supposed to be for-profit organizations even if they are."

"Churches require a certain suspension of belief," Professor Calico agreed.

"Why are you disturbing that?" I asked.

"That's the whole point," Professor Calico said. "We're naming ourselves frauds to make it real."

"You want people to believe that we're frauds?" I asked.

"In real life everyone names themselves real," Professor Calico said. "But they're all frauds."

"Why should we be any different?" I asked.

"We're naming ourselves frauds because we're real," Professor Calico said.

"You want people to put their faith in the fact that we're frauds?" I demanded.

"We work out of that place to earn your trust," Professor Calico said.

"Have a drink at the swim-up bar if you're nervous about us," I said.

"That's the all-inclusive feature," Professor Calico said. "I knew you could seize on to this immediately."

"It's a bolt of lightning," I said.

"There is no question about that," Professor Calico said. "I've been hatching this monster for quite some time."

"I don't want it turning on me," I said.

"That's the whole point," Professor Calico said.

"You want to build your own Frankenstein?" I asked.

"I want to wake up God," Professor Calico said.

"Maybe you can wake up some Mayan gods too," I said. "Cancun of all places?"

"I picked it on purpose," Professor Calico said. "Go admire the Mayan if you have a problem with me."

"They built their society," I said.

"I'm buying mine," Professor Calico said. "Musty towels and everything."

"You really expect me to get behind this?" I asked. "I'm a relatively well-respected business manager for mentally deformed billionaires. You're not the only Howard Hughes around, you know?"

"There aren't a lot of billionaire authors," Professor Calico said. "Last time I checked. It's kind of tough to turn yourself into one of those these days."

"Looks good on paper," I said. "But I've been giving you a lot of thought lately."

"You're back thinking that I'm not socially constructive with my invented nonsense?" Professor Calico asked.

"You write religious themed novels while you're high on drugs," I said. "How can anything good come out of that?"

"My writing is almost pure marijuana," Professor Calico said. "I'm very upfront about that even with my critics. Take it up with the marijuana. Although lately I've developed quite the drinking habit too."

"That's about the only reason why I stick around," I said. "It's mystifying how someone can be so wasted all the time. Yet so successful. It makes me question everything that I think I know. Or will ever know."

"God has a twisted sense of humor," Professor Calico said.

"Or he's twisted like you," I said. "Doing bong hits in Heaven and cranking brews."

"Stand around and smoke cigars on the new venture, The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun," Professor Calico said. "Work your typical magic. Running a hotel isn't going to be that hard for you. Hire some bikini models for assistants. I don't care how you do it. Just do it."

"I'm going to need gorilla fingers of cocaine for breakfast," I said.

"Jose Boston could use a straightener right about now," Professor Calico said. "Maybe he could procure us some. Wake him up. I could stand a toot."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"I want to start a religious cult," Professor Calico said

Chapter

My eyes were watching traffic. Or traffic was watching me. It was hard to tell behind that veil of marijuana, tequila and beer. I could even go burka of marijuana, tequila and beer for the Muslim market. But something was watching something. Or it was just slinking down into the primordial swamp with the old crocodile eye out. Is that Professor Calico trying to ruin my swamp with The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun? I might have to do something about that. Snap.

There were seemingly thousands of vehicles out on that Federal highway in dirty old Mexico. There were trucks, cars and scenic cruiser buses flying by as I waited for my stupendously wealthy boss to return from the can at Mexico's finest gas station. That's why I needed to do something with the old crocodile eye. I was having a bit of a staring contest with the highway. I hate to brag. But let's be frank. I was winning. I was crushing the highway with my stare.

Tens of thousands of people were out there on that cop infested Mexican highway chasing down something. They were chasing down something. There was no question that they were chasing down something. It couldn't be denied. Why else were they driving so fast? Perhaps something was chasing them. But that didn't make for as good of a story, now did it?

What they were chasing was Mexican because it was Mexico. The thing that they were chasing had to be Mexican because they were in Mexico. It could only be one thing that they were chasing, The Mexican Dream. You see how that works? You delve forward to see where you're going. You're chasing The Mexican Dream. Or it's chasing you. At this point who cares? It's The Mexican Dream, that's the crucial piece. You don't even have to chase it. It'll chase you. Turn you into a raving lunatic too.

I might have inverted things a little bit by driving myself towards The Mexican Dream instead of having a Mexican do it. But it didn't seem to matter much. You want to chase down that piñata in the sky? We aren't going to stop you, gringo. Take that cucaracha right to the end of the line. That station out in the jungle that's covered with vines. That's the end of the line. You'll find the painted burro and ride off into the sky. Go with God, amigo.

However Professor Calico wanted to chase The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun now! I didn't like the sound of that one bit. The old crocodile manning the swamp was going to have to clamp down on that. Why couldn't Professor Calico content himself with chasing the good old fashioned Mexican Dream like me? It's not like anybody could get hurt.

We were supposed to chase The Mexican Dream for The Day of the Dead which was this very weekend. The Day of Dead actually covers two days so we would have plenty of time to do it. Then we could fly home to Los Angeles on Monday morning. Did you catch The Mexican Dream during The Day of the Dead? Are you insane, man? That wily beast slipped right out of our grasp. Next year we're going to really load up on the tequila, marijuana and beer and lasso that bad boy. Have no fear. We just didn't have enough oranges this year.

Although let's be real here. That magical burro out in the jungle is merely a phantom along with the poltergeist piñata that he's going to crash through. The rest of it is pure ghoul. Those toys are trickery too. That's what makes chasing The Mexican Dream so much fun. That can't wily coyote can't be caught. There is no green light at the end of that dock because there is no dock. It's pure Wasteland. Have an orange and relax. Can I offer you beer or marijuana? How about some tequila?

However The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun was a worldly concept that if executed could cause irretrievable harm to the delicate balance of the entire universe. Principally my pocketbook would be disturbed. Shortly thereafter my girlish figure would go to the dogs. Then there would be no more Mexican dinners out with my favorite mister, me. And we couldn't have that! Even I could see my way through that equation in The Wasteland of Mexico. The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun had to be stopped. The crocodile manning the swamp couldn't allow it. My principle function as business manager was to protect the swamp from other predators. The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun was looking like quite the insatiable beast.

Also we couldn't dump our funds into dirty old Mexico for even the finest idea. That was strictly the province of drug lords and off-shore tax cheats in need of laundry service. The world was replete with investment ideas that weren't literarily cemented into the ground in Cancun. How liquid are your pile of concrete blocks that are fastened into the ground in dirty old Mexico? Are you kidding me? I had to get us back on track before my boss bought The Tequila. The name of the hotel told you all that you needed to know. It was a great place to throw up but you didn't make it your home.

This whole South of the Border misadventure had been positioned as an impromptu Day of the Dead celebration because we had had a good year in the global market. The operational word being global. We couldn't be concerned with some overgrown fleabag hotel in Cancun. And we're going to put a religious spin on it? Well, you can just forget it.

We were supposed to chase The Mexican Dream as a little company outing while high on drugs. I hate when company outings go sideways particularly when that is their terrible premise. I should have never agreed to this! Las Vegas would have been far more manageable compared to this. And far less financially lethal. We could have chased The American Dream. And Professor Calico would have had to content himself with The Little Chapel of Love. Even I would sign off on that. Because you've got to be a werewolf to find fault with drive up weddings. But this is what happens when your boss demands that you drink and do drugs with him. You can't reasonably predict the results.

"Why aren't you in the van?" Professor Calico asked when he returned from the can. "The Mexican Dream awaits."

"We have to abandon the search for it," I said. "It's too dangerous."

"Too late," Professor Calico said. "We're already on the fabled quest."

"You think that I would be standing here free, white and whatever if I didn't have some sort of self-preservation that kicks in when I behave like this?" I asked.

"That's why I brought you," Professor Calico said. "You know how to operate."

"I was just driving down the highway drinking tequila out of a skull and smoking a bone," I said. "I was seriously looking for The Mexican Dream! I keep getting stuck on it. My mind insists that it's real."

"Oh," Professor Calico said. "It's real."

"That's the scary piece," I said. "I'm losing sight of the farce behind all the tequila and marijuana. Then I get cooking on the beer."

"That's precisely how you do it," Professor Calico said.

"This must be like what it's like being you," I said. "High and drunk and out of your mind all the time."

"What's the problem here?" Professor Calico demanded. "I've got us these frosty, ice-cold, delicious beers. Onward, man. We can catch it. Get back behind the wheel before it gets away."

Professor Calico had two turtles of beer. That's the literal translation of a quart of beer in Mexico if you were to order them in Mexico's finest gas station. Two turtles of beer, bartender of the pumps. Then you say gracias which means thank you.

Our turtles of beer were named after a Spanish Conquistador. It seemed like an inadvisable way to present your products to the conquered.

The Spanish conquered you. And as a reminder we present for your purchase a beer named after one of them. We'll even put it in a region specific quart bottle affectionately named the turtle by its skid row customers. Periodically a slumming gringo sneaks through while searching for The Mexican Dream. What are you going to do? Cheers.

Maybe The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun isn't such a bad idea after all. It's a lot simpler than the astonishing marketing plan of my turtle of beer. Maybe we could scout The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun along with The Mexican Dream. Run a little turtle race over the weekend. Why not let a turtle make all your life decisions? How bad could it do? Maybe a scorpion will come along and solve everything. Hop on my back, you poisonous beast. Have no fear. I can cross the swamp.

Professor Calico had a way of embracing life's deformity like it was normal. I think it was one of the reasons that he was so successful in this life. He freewheeled through all of life's deformity like it was nothing and everybody loved him for it. You say you conquered us? Well, I say we quit. You say I can't make a billion bucks writing while being high out of my mind on the world's most powerful marijuana? Well, I already did it. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Wait a second. I already did that too. Now for the cold beer portion of the program. The whole world was sitting around waiting for him to fail but God wouldn't let him do it. Professor Calico was proof positive that there is a divinity. There was no other explanation for him. He was pure faith.

It was just a little difficult at a time like this, when I was helming the ship somewhere in The Wasteland of Mexico, to embrace his way of life. I needed somewhere to pass out, pronto. I was thinking the back of a cab. Wake me up when I'm in a better zip code. Ritz Carlton, do you have one of those? I can't deal with a hotel named The Tequila right now. I'll buy it tomorrow if my hand is really forced. And it's not too much money. However hotels in Cancun can be monstrous. Clock in at a thousand rooms with a stadium attached. I shuddered when I thought about what the market capitalization would actually be if it was some mega hotel. And God forbid if it was on the water! I can't imagine the cannibal that owned that cash cow would be interested in selling either. He'd probably be sitting there eating a tibia when I sat down to negotiations. Or he'd just be doing gorilla fingers of cocaine with his business manager from Columbia, his assault rifle. Can I offer you a cup of cocaine, amigo?

Maybe it was time to start looking for a new mentally deformed billionaire that isn't an author. And into God and drugs, simultaneously. Maybe an Afghan warlord deep into mysticism and AK-47s would be an improvement. I don't mind Allah, the AK-47 and heroin as long as I don't personally have to personally do it with you. I'm fine with you being completely warped by money because without it I wouldn't have a job. You could make your own decisions.

"Driving me around Mexico is not my problem," I said.

I just wanted to keep things simple. It was time to abandon the van. I wasn't getting back in it. I'd disavowed its entire existence. It had been erased as far as I was concerned. It was just another man's nightmare now. Take the van and Professor Calico to The Tequila. I'll wait here for my Afghan warlord.

"You know that I'm a proponent of only doing one thing well in this life," Professor Calico said. "I can't write my way to The Tequila."

"I'd say you already have," I said.

"I can't drive," he said.

"We're not driving," I said. "We're taking a cab."

"What are we going to do about our tour operator, Jose Boston?" Professor Calico asked. "He's our man in Mexico."

"We'll put him in the trunk," I said. "He's luggage."

"You can't be serious," Professor Calico said.

"I'm not," I said.

"What are we going to do with him?" Professor Calico asked. "He seems deeply critical to our plan."

"He's staying," I said. "He's the worst tour operator since Ponce de Leon after he got hit with the poison arrow. Sayonara Jose Boston."

"We can't leave him like this," Professor Calico said.

"That's exactly what we're going to do," I said. "Jose Boston will be fine."

"He's probably been through much worse," Professor Calico agreed. "He's some sort of Cancun party skeleton in the flesh."

"I'm most impressed with his passing out on us," I said. "Although showing up with a beer in his hand was pretty cool too."

"It's amazing that he can hold any booze at all," Professor Calico said.

"He's a bag of bones," I agreed.

"I suspect that he might be a Day of the Dead ghost," Professor Calico said.

"I agree," I said.

"He has all our hotel documents," Professor Calico said.

"We're going to relieve him of those," I said.

"What if he wakes up and drives out of here?" Professor Calico asked.

"What's the problem with that?" I asked.

"He could kill himself," Professor Calico said. "Or somebody else. He's high and drunk."

"You didn't mind me driving," I said. "And you're trying to get me back behind the wheel."

"You can handle yourself," Professor Calico said.

"Bailing out right now is how I handle myself," I said.

"Jose Boston has a serious substance abuse problem," Professor Calico said. "He told me as much before he passed out."

"We look like sponsors to you?" I asked.

"God has put him in our path," Professor Calico said. "We have to help him."

"I won't give him the keys to the van," I said. "How's that for helpful?"

"What if he gets fired?" Professor Calico asked.

"He needs to get fired," I said.

"Why would you wish that on him?" Professor Calico asked.

"He shouldn't be driving people around," I said. "He showed up wasted to pick us up. Then he passed out."

"You'd have him lose his job?" Professor Calico asked.

"He can sell counterfeit cigars on the beach," I said. "That's a more suitable profession for him."

"What if he gets angry and comes after us?" Professor Calico asked.

"Isn't that what you want?" I asked. "You want to help the guy or not?"

"We keep the keys," Professor Calico said. "But we leave him some money and a note."

"Bus fare and a note," I said.

I started scribbling a note in Spanish on my Duty Free receipt for our Day of the Dead ghost, Jose Boston. The amount of money that I had wasted on skulls of tequila, cigars and black tobacco cigarettes from Argentina would probably impress him the most. I'd bought junta level Cuban rum too. It was priced at overthrowing the imperialist puppet level. You kick back in your fatigues with your compatriots and enjoy. We're the imperialist puppets now.

"What are you writing?" Professor Calico asked.

"I'm telling him he can join your cult," I said. "He's follower number one."

"And he's a ghost," Professor Calico marveled.

Chapter

Fortunately a down on their luck Mexican rock n roll band pulled into Mexico's finest gas station. Professor Calico and I were arguing about the direction of our quest. I was refusing to drive. He was refusing to take a cab. Professor Calico had actually reneged after we had negotiated the deal. He was refusing to leave Jose Boston behind. He was insisting that The Day of the Dead ghost was critical to our quest. He was also insisting that I drive. Professor Calico was convinced that I was the only person capable of catching The Mexican Dream. I was getting really steamed about the whole situation. Nobody could catch it. That was the whole point.

The rock n rollers were pushing their van. That was their fate. Their engine had seized somewhere out in The Wasteland. Kind of like ours. But their van was painted with Day of the Dead imagery. Perhaps in honor of this weekend. But it had died nonetheless. Apparently putting oil in your van, even during The Day of the Dead weekend, was on you. Your dead relatives couldn't be tasked with that. You got to mind that dipstick, tribe. That's the chilly vibe from the other side.

The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun was practically building itself. I was standing off to the side because I was back getting high. That's how you found a church in Cancun. You smoke bones and watch The Day of The Dead arrive. Then you tell your boss to go to Hell because he's being unreasonable about our passed out tour operator! He was also insisting that I drive which was getting me super steamed too. That's one of the bad side-effects of being high with the boss. Never mind operating the heavy equipment. Because you're not going to do it. It's the boss that runs into peril because he gets an honest read off of you. You tell him to go to Hell. I think Professor Calico actually liked my honesty most of the time which explained why he insisted that I drink and do drugs with him. However this was definitely not one of those jolly times.

I'd decided that if The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun was how my boss wanted to go down then why should I stop him? I'd row him across the river Styx if that's what he wanted. Then I'd throw him and Jose Boston over the side for the kraken. Or he could hitch a ride with The Day of the Dead rock n rollers. That's the chilly vibe from this side.

Because once you start getting drunk and high with the boss the hierarchy sort of breaks down. The help starts to think of themselves as not just equal but superior to the lord of the manor. It had gotten pretty heated too. You shouldn't drink and do drugs with the help if you had half a brain in your head. You know why?

Because what are you going to do? You're drunk and high in The Wasteland of Mexico. You can't even speak Spanish. I not only speak it. I speak it at the business level. And guess what? I got all the money. I guess business school in Buenos Aires paid off. Twenty thousand dollars in cash. And I'm not giving a single cent of it to you. You aren't calling anymore shots until you earn it. And you earn it by getting in a cab.

Professor Calico begrudgingly accepted his fate. Or in Professor Calico fashion he accepted that we were at an impasse until those Mexican rock n rollers showed up. He had a van. They needed a ride. Maybe he could broker a deal through pantomime. Although I might say something horrific in Spanish to kill it. I hadn't decided. But my upscale Argentinean accent alone could probably terminate relations.

The leader of the band had that post-apocalyptic look. That after the mushroom cloud and everyone is reassigned a jumble of sexual organs as part of the reorganization program. And the cockroach that we're grafted with to survive the nuclear fall is peeking out from behind it all. The cockroach antennae is handy for navigating the red waste. Although looking like a cockroach was just his opener.

The leader of the band was wearing prosthetic breasts. They were very large prosthetic breasts in an open cup bra. He was wearing a black waist length wig which seemingly doubled as a shirt. Or his scary heavy metal tattoos kept him warm. He finished out his post-apocalyptic look with classic men's briefs over gladiator sandals.

Apparently there won't be a lot of shelter after the Apocalypse. But there will be plenty of meat because he was incredibly ripped. He was one fierce looking dude in a waist length wig with prosthetic breasts and classic briefs. So we have that to look forward to after the fall. Don't forget the gladiator sandals. There will be plenty of hideous creatures to slay. And one of them might be you. A jumble of sexual organs and cockroach parts.

The leader of the band didn't look like the kind of man that suffered gaffes over his prosthetic breasts or his waist length wig. And why should he? They were actually quite lovely in spite of the discount nature. Or perhaps their flagrant cheapness was their charm. Maybe it was the open cup of the prosthetic breasts that made them work. Who wouldn't enjoy an evening of fondling them while the cockroach poking out from behind it all chaperoned the ball? Is this the end, my friend, or just the beginning?

I was curious to find out myself. The lead singer gave me the shivers which I was viewing favorable. I like a front man with a little edge. There was nothing smooth about this fellow. He was a succession of angles stacked up into a human.

I was the lead singer in a Spanish language band that toured Latin America for over a decade. We were deep into that whole gender bender thing. And I was standing there like whoa! I guess the whole gender bender thing has taken a nasty little turn for the worse. No more pretty boys in eyeliner. We're doing gladiator girl now. How you doing, honey?

The mechanic from the gas station was summoned by the leader of the band. The mechanic didn't look like a very good mechanic though. He was soaked in oil. Good mechanics, generally speaking, don't change the oil on top of their heads. They tend to put it in a pail. Or dump it on the floor if they're the careless type. Down the sewer if they're the sadistic type. Dumping it on your head is highly unusual. Perhaps he was down at the butcher end of the mechanical spectrum. Or he was just the creative type. He worked in oil.

The mechanic looked like a boogieman from the machine age. I wondered greatly if he could ever clean up. The saturation was just too deep. The oil soaked skin would have to be removed. New skin would have to be grafted. But getting clean didn't look like it was ever his thing. Getting dirty seemed to be more of his thing. It's some sort of medical condition. It's the opposite of washing your hands fifty times a day. You've got to be always dumping oil on them. And then hose them down with your own piping hot urine that you've got on a steady boil on the stove. Then you grab an oil soaked rag to dry off. Then you just store your hands in your colon until you need them again. That was about his routine. The mechanic was that type of rustic fellow.

It caused me to ponder where he went home to. Where could you possibly live if you were covered in that much oil? Perhaps you just climbed into an oil soaked trailer behind Mexico's finest gas station at the end of the day, drank tequila as a preamble to defecating the bed. Wetting it was probably too collegiate. Sorority girls do that he would probably scoff. Real men down The Wasteland of Mexico soil the bed.

There were several dilapidated motor homes behind the gas station to choose from. Apparently motor homes came here to die too. It looked like a charming place to reflect on all that happy Mexican motoring with the trash and dead dogs and whatever else was back there. It's not like anyone had ever done an inventory.

The Mexican Environmental Police wouldn't get here for a few hundred years if global warming didn't get here first. Perhaps the Gulf of Mexico would tidy up the whole mess in the coming century. Clearly there was a cause for hope. Melting polar icecaps will fix this. Or just wipe it out. Could this be The Mexican Dream? Or was it merely The Day of the Dead? Shall we find out?

The leader of the band and the mechanic began haggling over the cost of putting the broken down rock n roll van in its final resting place behind the gas station with the dead dogs, motor homes and whatnot. You think two guys from opposite ends of the human spectrum can see eye to eye on junking a van? You're damn right they can't.

A dead rock n roll van was actually a tricky thing to park off in the sunset. The leader of the band wanted the van junked for free. He had the audacity to begin negotiations by demanding money for the van. Spare parts, tires and gas. It was worth a lot of pesos. But the mechanic told him to drive it into his anus. He used a much coarser word but that was the gist of it. Drive your rock n roll van into your anus. The leader of the band said that he would have shoved it up there by now if it were an option. His anus had seen far worse. The mechanic said that he was out of luck then. Find an anus that can accommodate a rock n roll van. Mine won't.

The mechanic was probably disinterested in the van because it lacked his product, oil. Could you blame the man? He needed something to dirty his hands with before he hosed them down at the end of his busy day with his own boiling urine from off the stove. Then off to bed for the defecation festivities.

A couple of oil soaked children came out of a trailer to deride the van. They had really horrible things to say. They spoke almost entirely in pure profanity. Somebody was breeding with the mechanic? I couldn't wait to see her. It was also heartening to see that this way of life was going to proceed forward. A future generation was dedicated to this life of oil. And we can't forget the tribal language of pure profanity because that was going to play forward too. The renewable energy companies were missing out on a marketing sensation by not promoting this family. This is how we'll all behave when the oil runs out. We'll all be in The Wasteland speaking pure profanity. How does a solar panel grab you now?

Meanwhile the trailer from the rock n roll van had been hitched to our van which was kind of an interesting development. I'd left our van running as an offering to the gods. And by god had they had delivered? Saint Death had driven up for all purposes and hitched her trailer to our wagon! She's the patron Saint of homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, traffickers, taxi drivers, bar owners, bike messengers and Latin American rock n rollers in The Wasteland.

I sort of glanced at Professor Calico. You see what you have wrought? Now our fates our inexplicable connected with this band. We've completely blown our chance to escape from that Day of the Dead ghoul, Jose Boston. They're going to reanimate him any second.

The drummer stormed the van when he saw it. He hit Jose Boston in the forehead with a drumstick for an eye opener. That's how I figured him as the drummer. He then started shouting about money at an appalling volume. Jose Boston had apparently cheated the entire band on a drug deal. I hate when that happens.

I was seriously looking forward to seeing this band play though. It was just a given that I was going to see them take the stage. They were quite the show with hardly any instruments. I couldn't wait to see what they could do with electricity.

The drummer was a bit of Cancun party skeleton like Jose Boston. However he seemed to be from the vicious zombie side of the party scene. You wouldn't think that he was that malevolent of a human by looking at him. He looked like he had been assembled out of a bucket of bones and some elephant skin that was lying around behind the gas station. He looked like some sort of male equivalent of Saint Death with a little grey skin stretched over him. He appeared to be the last human stop before becoming a skull. You're zero percentile then you dip into the negative numbers. You were just hanging on by the merest thread to life and then you're dead. People figure you're just napping but then you start to smell. That was his level. Just shy of a corpse.

It was hard to believe that a man could be that skinny and that malevolent. Where did he find the energy? He had to be feeding off his own bitter marrow. But I guess if you go around in an apron and absolutely nothing else you learn to defend yourself in this life. He wore an apron. I mean nothing else. No shoes. No underwear. The drummer wore an apron. And he'd found a man to front his band with prosthetic breasts on his chest? And I hadn't even got to the bass player yet! This band was a ten heading into eleven without even playing a note.

The drummer was some sort of end of the world housewife. He was that creature that's going to greet us in the kitchen after the Apocalypse. I told you not to nuke us. Now sit down and eat this hot vomit. I've been brewing it in the crock pot since before the fall. You'll eat it all. The drummer was that sort of fellow. He was a male housewife of the Apocalypse. That's all. Or perhaps he was a little worse. It's hard to evaluate people this far off the mental health spectrum. At some point the measurement system just collapses. We'd surpassed that point. Professor Calico was standing there wishing he'd taken my cab by now. You don't row out into Hell and expect better results. Now it's time to get out of the boat. Or I throw you out. You're choice. You insisted on this journey.

The title was transferred to the mechanic by the lead singer, the prosthetic breast customer. He had to be the lead singer, right? You don't put a man like that in the back. He would never accept it. And he'd been doing all the profane talking. Tackling that godforsaken mechanic. Singing would just be a natural for that man.

They signed their respective signatures. It was astonishing that an educator had actually gotten through to both of them. The educator had probably prepared them for this very moment in life. Someday you will have to junk a van in The Wasteland in our great land and your signature will be required. Their prior incarnations sat up in Mexican grammar school. The truth was just too horrible. Of course I will be out in The Wasteland trying to junk a van. I wouldn't have questioned the veracity of the situation myself if it had been presented to me as a tender young man. I absolutely will be out in The Wasteland of Mexico witnessing this for all future humanity. There is no question in my mind. You will need to write about it. There is something important here. Or at least I think there is. And that's all you need to navigate this life. Total certitude will get you through. I was pretty convinced that I was getting a pretty good glimpse at that elusive beast, The Mexican Dream.

The plates were removed. The leader of the band begrudgingly paid the mechanic. They painstakingly counted the cash. The educator had probably prophesized that too. Someday you will want to buy or sell a van in The Wasteland. Rudimentary mathematics will be required. You don't want to get screwed. You will want to try to screw the other guy which is why it's imperative that you pay attention right now. Hopefully your adversary will not have paid attention in school like you. Have I made myself clear to you?

The leader of the band then told the mechanic he had raped him with an outsize member. The leader of the band used much coarser language. And he delved into the lack of lubrication with great detail. He also commented on the depth of the penetration, the size of the testicles and so on. It was quite comprehensive. I was absolutely convinced that he was the lead singer now. He had a horrible way with words. And there was no questioning his leadership with respect to the van. His negotiation skills were first rate. I was planning on deploying him on the owner of The Tequila. Go in there and work your magic. But I'd be a fool to not hire the godforsaken mechanic too.

He had some interesting ideas for the leader of the band's mouth besides singing. Even the mechanic thought he was the voice of the band! He suggested that a mouth that dirty was only good for one thing. They were actually laughing at each other's insults and building upon them with astonishing ferocity. Until it got a little too personal when the mechanic asked the leader of the band if he was a faggot and the leader of the band asked the mechanic if he was an Indio. Well, there you go. It's all fun and games until someone plays the faggot card. Then out comes the race card. And there goes the farm. The lawyers take over.

It didn't appear that this business relationship had much of a future after that. It became one of those dead end deals where both parties walk away deeply insulted as well as convinced that they have been personally as well as professionally screwed. The ragamuffin children began pushing the van to its final resting place behind the gas station. They were probably concerned that the whole deal was about to disappear and they wouldn't have a van to torch tonight. Or defecate in. Or whatever was their custom.

Fortunately a hideously pregnant woman came out of a trailer and screamed the van into place. Her directions to the children consisted of telling them where not to put it. She spoke the family lingo of pure profanity. But I suppose you would have some choice words for the world if you were ten months pregnant in a trailer behind Mexico's finest gas station. About to give natural birth at any moment with a mechanic as your midwife. And the world was trying to junk another vehicle on your doorstep. And your husband just screwed a man with prosthetic breasts to get it. You would clamp your pelvis shut and go for eleven months.

At least it's not another mouth to feed, sister. It came with some cash attached. And maybe that bun in the oven will grow up to be a rock n roller. That van might come in handy. You just need your husband to screw somebody out of an engine. But that karma will get you. The mechanic is stuck in The Wasteland. He's never going to escape. Being oily will get you nowhere fast. That's The Gospel of the Wasteland.

Chapter

Jose Boston was sitting in the van nude. He was demonstrating the bad karma that comes from screwing people. Or he was illustrating some truth about The Day of the Dead. It was hard to tell because I'd rolled another bone to go with my tequila. But I was pretty convinced that The Day of the Dead ghost was demonstrating something. It was hard to nail that coffin down though.

Jose Boston had been relieved of all of his money. He had been relieved of all of his drugs. However Jose Boston had come up a little short on his debt to the band as scoundrels are prone to do. Well, the drummer had a solution for scoundrels that couldn't pay their drug debts to honest minstrels.

It's an old hitchhiker expression, the drummer explained, but it still applies. Gas, ass or grass, nobody rides for free. You're all out of gas and grass. Am I right? Jose Boston agreed. You'll just have to make up the difference with your ass. You have one of those, right? Jose Boston said no!

The drummer began by pulling Jose Boston's underwear right out from under his trousers. I didn't know that you could actually take off your underwear like that. Get a drug buddy to reach into your trousers and pull your underwear with every bit of anger that he's got. It looked like an incredibly painful way to undress. The underwear stretched and wedged horrifically before it tore. It was probably a relief to finally get it off. And a lot more tore than just the fabric. I wouldn't have wanted to be Jose Boston's taint. That's a part of your body that you like to take nice care of. Or at least not abuse horrifically. You don't go after it with an improvisational piano wire if you can avoid it.

After that it was just a natural to tear his slacks right down the middle to get at the injury. See if Jose Boston's taint required stitches. The dress shirt came off last. Jose Boston was trying to crawl away. He was hoisted by his shirt until it collapsed. The clothes weren't so much removed as they were shredded. They were the wares of the rag picker after the drummer was done with them. And the rag picker might even turn his nose up at them because they were covered in blood. The rag picker has his own little standards too. Just because he's the rag picker doesn't mean he doesn't have his own ideas about life. This is The Rag Picker Gospel. The rag picker is picking his rags. Or the rag picker is getting picked of his rags. It's a bit of audience pick because it can go both ways. It's open for interpretation, you see?

The drummer was possessed with horrific physical power. That's the thing that really held my attention. He was like one of those babies that can pick up a car. Only he was this incredibly gaunt guy in an apron. He was like the last starved human on the planet. And he wasn't happy about it. The Apocalypse was going to have a problem with him. They'd be like we're The Four Horsemen. He wouldn't care. The drummer would think that he could take them. And he just might do it too.

He picked up the pale horse and beat the red horse with it. Conquest, War, Famine and Death explaining to Jesus how they got their ass kicked. Then he stomped the black horse. The white horse ran off. We had to haul ass out of there too. He wanted to flay us. I thought we had this Apocalypse in the bag? Jesus is shaking his head. The scroll was sealed with God's right hand. No, dude, some drummer stopped it. He was wearing an apron. My daddy is going to be pissed.

The drummer also seemed to be imparting a moral lesson that a man could grasp. You think that you're going around safely in your professional attire. You know that costume in this life that gives you your identity? Your job, your sex or that thing called your religion. That little peg that your hat is precariously perched upon on the mighty hat rack of life. You're a derby, a boater or top hat perhaps.

You're a tour operator and a thief, in this particular instance. But you're easily defrocked. It's easy for somebody to rip off that mask. Particularly if you've ripped them off. Stealing is bad juju. That karma is going to get you. It's going to strip you right down to your arrival on planet Earth suit. And you'll be thankful that it didn't tear that off too. Private parts could easily be removed on a bad day with that drummer. The bleeding you'll just have to live with. That precious skin between your legs will scab over at some point.

It was actually quite amusing to watch this moral lesson unfold. The drummer was incredibly funny. He was just having a ball with it. But Jose Boston wasn't enjoying it at all. He was incredibly angry and deeply embarrassed. He kept trying to cover his privates but the drummer wouldn't let him. What a cute pee-pee, he kept saying. What a delicious bum-bum. I can't wait to get my money out of that. The drummer would make a lovely preacher for The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun. He wasn't leaving anything out.

But it was awkward to position yourself as a spectator. I was laughing at this sexual assault. Because that's what it was. I was laughing at this sexual assault? Then my conscience would come to life and tell me that's not right. This is a sexual assault. It's wrong. But it was incredibly funny so I laughed anyway. I was incredibly intoxicated too. And Jose Boston needed a good thrashing. There was that too. I was hard pressed to come up with a more malevolent crew to rip off. It defied reason to even do honest business with them never mind rip them off. It was like trying to turn The Day of the Dead into Christmas. You roll out baby Jesus in his manger. And they eat him! That was the kind of savage that you were dealing with. Baby Jesus in a pot.

Fortunately it wrapped up without penetrating. It got a little out-of-control, I must admit. There was a little playful thrusting. But the drummer didn't rape him like a college freshman. Or rape him like a football player at summer camp. Or rape him like a date. Or rape him like a priest. He just thrust him a few times between the buns. He said, you don't get me my money then next time I don't stop. I screw you like you screwed me. I know you're really stupid so I have to bring it down to your level so you understand. Jose Boston seemingly understood perfectly.

It seemed fair enough. It wasn't nice out there in The Wasteland which is why you stayed home. But I went to seek knowledge. And this is what I brought back, however horrible. You screw your fellow traveler at your peril. It was a good enough moral lesson for me and Professor Calico. It wasn't the twelve disciples and Jesus making thirteen. Talk about an unlucky number of dinner guests. But that wasn't what I was looking for. I was happy with my drummer.

I'm not sure that I would have cared if he'd raped him though. Jose Boston was a thief and a drug addict. The drummer was that much and more. They were both operating out in the land of no rules. You don't get to claim diplomatic immunity when the going gets rough out in The Wasteland. Say I want my old religion back. You aren't getting that. You're out there seeking knowledge and the devil pops up! You don't get to run off. We all knew that. Once you cross over into the land of dealing and stealing. Your ass is fair game. It's probably the smartest part of you too. Who wouldn't want to take a crack at that?

The bassist was wearing a cocktail dress that featured her spectacular breasts. I had shifted my attention to her at some point. She was strumming her bass. That's what tipped me off to her role in the band. She was also just a lot less confusing. I couldn't exactly pinpoint my fascination with her. But she had these astonishing breasts. They were breasts of biblical proportions.

They were tits of The Torah, cans of the Cabbala and guns of the Gods. They were boobs of Babylon, jugs of Judah and girls of Gomorrah. Shoulder boulders from Heaven. It was motor boating Mecca. That's how epic they were. Perhaps it was time to Gideon on up. Peek under the brassiere, settle the lands and erect a tower. I felt a boner of Babel coming on. Could my stiff one speak in tongues? Shall we see? You didn't think I was working on The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun? The Church Apocrypha was writing itself. God's hand. Not mine. Take it up with the big man if you don't like where we're going.

She was leaning against the van while the rape of Jose Boston was underway. She looked incredibly bored the entire time. She caught me looking at her spectacular breasts. They're real, she said. And that's how a rock n roll van died in Mexico.

Chapter

The lead singer was Maynard. The drummer was Danny. And the bassist was Paz. Jose Boston was still Jose Boston. But he got kicked out of the van in The Wasteland. So he went outside the narrative for all purposes. He was our first follower as I prophesized of The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun. Jose Boston was our first holy man walking The Wasteland. I finally got my wish and he was erased from the narrative. Or he was trailing behind it which was just fine. We're really going to miss you, Jose Boston. You were such a big help being passed out when you were being paid to drive us. And you made me have a pretty big tiff with my stupendously wealthy boss. Go with God, amigo.

Danny did it. All I did was laugh. I might have egged Danny on a little bit. He kicked Jose Boston out of the van stark naked. He was upsetting everyone by doing more than his fair share of drugs. But Paz took pity on him. She took off her dress and threw it out the window.

"Don't get busted," she said. "And don't use our names if you do. We'll see you at The Tequila, loser."

Then we drove off. Jose Boston chased after us like a dog nipping at the tires. He probably thought we were just kidding. He probably thought that we were coming back for him. What a bunch of jokers, right? But we weren't kidding. We were done with him. Even Professor Calico was done with him. You can't steal cocaine right out from under everyone's noses. You're going to get that little beak of yours slapped even by a holy man like Professor Calico. Thou shalt not covet the cocaine, amigo.

It was tough cowboy medicine out in the desert. But Paz was sitting next to me in her bra and panties now. They were sheer too. So there was no arguing with that. Danny was a genius. He'd gotten me a little closer to my Magdalena.

And this is what the world will be like if drugs are legalized. We'll all be half-naked and high on cocaine in a stolen van on our way to a rock n roll show in Mexico. And a madman in a dress will be chasing us. If that's not enough of a cautionary tale then I just can't reach you. You might as join Professor Calico's cult.

The band had their own little way of doing things. However it all seemed to make perfect sense if you could just get all the intoxication levels right. But if the alcohol level dropped and the marijuana level went up then everything went haywire until you got some cocaine into your system to smooth things out. Then everything would pinball around for a little while. And the whole tedious problem of managing your out-of-control buzz would rear its ugly head again. It's a lot of work being this high. That's another reason why I would strongly suggest that you don't do it. It is way too much work. Just stick to all the forms of legalized addiction from mood altering medication to addictive spending. Then do a little religion in moderation. It's just easier. I was caught in an abject nightmare. I had pushed Professor Calico headlong into this nightmare to teach him a lesson. But I had snared myself in the same web.

I wasn't sure if I had been condemned or saved. Perhaps those states just get mixed out here in The Wasteland. I was just thanking my lucky Aztec stars that we were safe now. We were in good hands with good people. So what if everyone including me has major off the charts psychological issues? Everybody is crazy, drunk and high. I'd add confused to that list too. Sexually, morally and whatever else you got. We could do it all in that van. Or we were willing to try it if you explained the proper steps. You can actually step off a plane and in a few short hours step into this? Airplanes should be unlawful. Let's start there and work our way towards the marijuana.

The strange thing is that once we got rid of Jose Boston everything did sort of smooth itself out in the van. Everyone required copious amounts of tequila, marijuana and cocaine to dial it down. But that's what we did. Nobody wanted to be the next Jose Boston on the side of the road. He was in for some hellish introspection while hitchhiking and coming down. And the trucker, trafficker or biker that had the audacity to pick up a guy that was wired in a dress was sure to be a treat. They're an indiscriminate crowd. You say thumb. And they say bum. Maybe a serial killer would get him. You say pill. And they say kill. Hopefully it would be a clean kill. Not one of those back to the house for seven years in a cage deals. That's what I would be hoping for if I were that high and hitchhiking barefoot in a dress in The Wasteland of Mexico. Somebody shoot me now. Or I'd just step in front of a truck.

We had our own problems to address though. We were in the final stages of hard partying. We were in that horrific space. That place where absolutely nothing is right. It doesn't matter what you do next because you just can't fix what you've already done to yourself. And even sleep isn't going to make things right. It's going to take several days to feel normal again. You need a big syringe full of dopamine shot right into your cerebral cortex. But you know what? You're not going to get it.

You've screwed up your body's chemistry to such a level that you're convinced that you'll never feel normal again. But there is more. This is The Gospel of Drugs and Alcohol. This crushing depression that you feel will never end. Guess what. It's worsening with every breath. Your whole life is over. Let's just face it. You'll never be normal again. You're always going to be half-naked, crazed and depressed in a van in Mexico with the damn Wasteland out the window! At least that's what you're thinking as you're crashing in that van in Mexico. And what a comfortable setting to do it in with such lovely amenities.

The van didn't even have alcohol or drugs anymore. And those were the only redeemable features to begin with. Absolutely nothing is included right now in The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun. Periodically we take everything away to make you appreciate everything that we give you more. We also give you nothing at the very moment that you need everything the most. We're not trying to build your character. We're trying to destroy it. How you doing? Beyond awful. Good that's what we're striving for. I'm heartened to hear that we're hitting our mark. Be sure to sob loudly so we can delight in that too.

All you are now is five stinky people in a van. You're not even an individual stinky person. You're a group condition. Welcome to the glorious world of rock n roll. A van load of mood disorders and cocaine farts. And the traffic entering the outskirts of Playa del Carmen was horrific. Apparently there was a terrible accident. But you couldn't even look at the accident because the traffic was so backed up. It was get out of the van and sit on the guardrail traffic because the tow trucks, fire department and police had to work their way through to the mother wreck. A couple of copycat wrecks had to be addressed first. Cheap imitators.

Chapter

We were in the Junkyard District in the outskirts of Playa del Carmen. Apparently this was where they dumped The Mexican Dream when they were done with it. Sorry Mexican Dream. You're all done. It's time for The New Mexican Dream. Into The Junkyard District you go.

It looked like they were dumping dead hotels out here too. They were stacked up willy-nilly in the junkyard district. Or rather the parts of dead hotels were strewn about the seemingly endless Junkyard District. Was there a connection here between hotel parts and The Mexican Dream? Could some meaning be forged between two seemingly incompatible concepts? Both getting dumped like hooker parts.

The Mexican Dream was a mega hotel in Cancun. And it got updated periodically. The old edition was torn down when the new edition was built. The faithful moved into the new edifice. Then you had a whole new dream until we tore that down. That was your religious parable right there. Don't get stuck in the wrong dream.

I was wondering if there were a Junkyard People. Were there old believers that clung to the old ways? They still believed in the ripped down ideas. Maybe this was where The Day of the Dead lived.

Had the Junkyard People set a trap to drum up a few wrecks for themselves? They needed some dead tourists to go with their dead hotels? It looked like a lovely place to haunt. It was all beginning to make perfect sense to me.

Clearly this was the very seat of Saint Death. Or it should be. It would give the Junkyard District some much needed pizzazz. What were disused hotel parts is now Saint Death's Kingdom. We were looking at a phoenix from out of the ashes. We cloak all the rubble under that old buzzard of ash.

The Junkyard District could be my fallback position if I failed to talk Professor Calico into something reasonable. I'd just tell him that the Junkyard District was an up and coming Hell. We're getting into the pit before the Devil himself. What could be better? We might even exclude Old Saint Nick. You see how that happened. Old Nick was a colloquialism for the Devil. Santa Claus was Saint Nick. Then I shoved the two together. You got a jolly bespectacled Devil.

But we claim The Morning Star for ourselves. The Morning Star can refer to Jesus or Lucifer. I could go planet Venus too. The astronomical symbol for the planet Venus is the same as the biological symbol for female ♀! Then Venus on her half-shell is just a natural.

I got back in the van. Passing out next to Paz was preferable to wandering the Junkyard District looking for alcoholic refreshment or enlightenment. I might become a permanent part of the decorating scheme at some unpleasant future point. Why hurry into the jaws of the lion in the morning? That would be another Jesus and Devil reference. Venus was tricky too. She could go sex and prosperity. I'd add circle of life and crucifix for the marrying and parenting type. Loaded is how I would describe that Goddess. I had bigger fish to fry though. I wanted to peter out like the Apostle Peter of fishing fame.

I didn't want Maynard to pass out ahead of me. He was installed behind the wheel of the van. Let him crash it while in park. I go out for beer and come back. He's passed out with Paz? And now I'm in-charge of the van again? That's the kind of shape that we were all in. It was a fool's mission to be behind the wheel in dead stop traffic. And The Valley of Saint Death was right out the window. You don't think I know how to get through that? As I lay me down to sleep. I pray to God my soul to keep. Then you turn up the heavy metal.

There was nothing left to do but tuck and crumble. There were no more drugs. And even if an emergency stash could be produced while you were stuck in this horrific traffic you'd have to be a fool to throw anything else on that fire. Your hair is already on fire. There are flames leaping out of your eyeballs. Haven't you had enough already? Just sit in this dead stop traffic peaceably like a human. Why do you have to be such a savage chain smoking black tobacco cigarettes? What are you French on top of all your other offenses? And stop glancing around and seeing if you can see some place that might sell beer way off in the distance. That store has already been looted by the people that had the good fortune to be stuck in dead stop traffic much closer. Next time you buy more beer on the overpass, you fool. And double down on the oranges too. You don't venture into The Wasteland without being properly armed.

However it just didn't seem physically possible to put anything else through that overtaxed system. My lungs hurt from chain smoking. My nose was killing from cocaine. My liver was at critical capacity from tequila. The nuclear reaction was about to give. What kind of fun is this if it ends in utter meltdown? And you're clambering for bedtime beer with your black tobacco cigarettes, you animal! Next thing you'll want is a rum bar in this van. Demanding Cuban sandwiches shortly thereafter.

There was no place to go in the van to seek comfort. But we were professionals. We'd been down this grim road many times before. This wasn't the first time that the electric bull had bucked us off and then circled back to gore us. This wasn't the first time that the electric bull had carried us off on the end of its electric horn back to its electric lair to casually stab us repeatedly in the kidney for the evening. Everyone planted in place like a bunch of electric agaves.

I'm baked. I'm stirred. I'm mashed. I'm about to be poured into a stainless steel vat. After that I'm going to be fermented. You're going to have to distill me a few times to get to silver. Barrel age me. Bottle me in a skull. Then you'll need salt and lime. And it will still be grim to drink me. Shooters of tequila made out of human anyone?

I might start screaming or crying for no reason at all. I'm horrifically depressed and way too old for this. How to account for the popularity of drugs and alcohol when you end like this? Wasted in The Wasteland having poorly conceived and executed religious ecstasies like your forebear seekers from off The Great Chain of Being from the apostles on up. I could go back 300,000 years and blow right pass Mohamed too. I'm pretty well practiced at it too. I opened my bloodshot eyes. What is the meaning of this? I have no clue.

Well, that was one of life's unanswerable questions that we were grappling with to no avail in the van. It was also topped off by a hearty finisher of regret. Why did I do this to myself? We know this doesn't work out. And we're in some van in Mexico? And my boss wants to found The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun? Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds. Chin up, rock n roller.

But we have to develop better coping skills. There has to be a better way to manage stress than alcohol, drugs and tobacco. Electroshock would be lovely right now. Or do we just kick everything up to God like Professor Calico. How is that religious freak doing? How is life on The God Squad treating him?

Professor Calico was gripping his bible like it was libel. Or maybe he was just finally figuring out that he was the sacrilegious one. He was probably hoping that his bible wouldn't burst into flames and immolate him like a protesting Southeast Asian monk. That's an odd form of religious certitude. I am so convinced of my religious rectitude that I am dumping gasoline on myself and striking a match. I wish my critics would do that. Skip the preamble. Just self-immolate and show me. Off to your virgins, your Buddha, your elephant or whatever.

That's what I wanted Professor Calico to do. Because what sort of religious nut are you when you're this deep into drugs? Who do you think you are? Some voodoo priest? I wanted to burn him at the stake. This Mexican catastrophe with the pseudo religious implications was his fault. He should have just stuck to modern religion that has been honed down over the ages to something almost livable.

I should have been in Los Angeles engaging in my typical bad behavior. I would have had four beers and ten cigarettes at the most. I probably wouldn't have even gotten high yet. I'd have a whole evening of bad choices ahead of me. I'd even have the option of driving myself to Las Vegas. Bow down to Sin City. Hookers, gambling and booze or whatever they worship out there lawfully under the flag of The United States of America. Professor Calico was a mad fool. We weren't even chasing The Mexican Dream. We were stuck in dead stop traffic.

Maynard wasn't driving. I was looking to him as a possible replacement leadership figure. He was the leader of the band. He could easily be shoehorned into the top slot at The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun. I certainly didn't want it. What was the candidate doing? He was strangling the wheel in dead stop traffic. He probably felt like he was driving a hundred miles an hour even though we were in dead stop traffic. He was probably praying to a four handed Indian deity. Keep me safe in one of your four palms until I crash into the valet at The Tequila. Don't let me pass out before then. I know I was. You're a grim god and we're not friends. But you're what we need right now, my Indian friend. Get Maynard to his final destination, The Tequila. Four handed Indian god help us. No two handed deity could possibly do.

Paz was somehow reading a romance novel. How could anything good come out of that? At some point she was going to start crying. I'd seen it many times before. There was no way that her current circumstances could measure up to the delusional myths that the romance author was serving up. And I can attest that what I was plotting to do to her wasn't going to measure up. It was going to be like something out of a poorly lit porno. The hotel room looks really seedy. A toilet flushes. Then out comes this hairy guy from the bathroom with a potbelly. He doesn't whisper sweet nothings in your ear. He's the right side of the Chinese restaurant menu. The Pu-Pu platter of love. Dr. Funk has come to town. And he's come to get down.

Danny, the biggest madman of all, was attempting to force himself to sleep through sheer will. He'd pulled his apron over his face. Whatever was going on with him was just too horrible to face. I joined him in the effort. My own demons were closing in for the kill. It was time to pass out. Lights out and turn up that heavy metal. I need something screaming in my head other than my own voice.

Danny and I leaned against Paz. We made a Paz sandwich. Perhaps she would see something romantic in one of us. It was time to Paz out, my friends, Paz out. Then the internal primal screaming commences. Saint Death swinging a cat.

Chapter

I was snoring or chocking when I came to. It was hard to distinguish between the two. It felt like a plumber had installed a toilet flapper in my throat. It was an outback environmental initiative to save air. You've been taking up too much of it, you see? We slowed the flow for the ozone layer or whatever. We're thinking ice-caps but we don't know. Something we overheard on television. How's the flapper working out?

I sat straight up in bed to facilitate the breathing process. It felt like the godforsaken Wasteland had been installed in my throat. I didn't know you could actually consume The Wasteland. Apparently I had though. And now I was dealing with the unpleasant results. But I had more pressing matters. Where on God's green Earth have I been birthed? Is this the born again portion of the program? Let's wade in the swim up bar, shall we? The religious iconography was apparently still doing the old pin wheel. A hurricane would sort it all out or end it all. Maybe an asteroid might help too.

Danny was drinking out of a booze dispenser that was attached to the wall. I was in a hotel room that had a booze dispenser attached to the wall? Bottles of booze were part of the decorating scheme? I must have made it to that fabled destination, The Tequila, after all.

They had gin, vodka, rum, brandy and tequila piped in. Five liters of liquor installed on the wall. What a great hotel! All I needed were dueling mariachis installed under my pillow. Or a taco cart instead of a bathroom. Mexico you're a glorious land with Montezuma with his knives out for gringos like me. I can't handle five liters of liquor on the wall. I have a stupendous capacity but I'll never get through three. And if they refill them on a regular basis! I'll never get out of here. Or I'll walk right through the sliding glass door. Oops forgot to open that. I hate when that happens when I'm three sheets to the wind on three liters of piped in liquor. Although it is kind of a party classic complete with an Emergency Room visit. I can't believe that I did that again. This time I walked backwards through it. I guess that's called falling. What sort of drugs have you got here?

I lifted up the bed sheets. What have we here? Is there a body to do a shot off? I've got five liters of liquor going hungry on the wall. Shall we dig right in? Paz was under the covers with me. But she was sleeping Nazi style. Her head was down at the bottom of the bed. Her head was actually dangling off the foot of the bed. It looked like she might have broken her neck. That was her unpleasant positioning. Paz had the old broken neck in bed? That's not good. Shall we sneak out of here? Paz and The Tequila, I can't say that I have heard of either. Hold on one blessed second. I think I see a sign of life.

Paz is definitely breathing. Because she is snoring so horrifically as the post cocaine customer is prone to do. They don't call it nose candy for nothing. They just don't tell you about the root canal that your nose is going to get courtesy of the candy. Your supermodel ends up snoring like a longshoreman with horse dentures.

At least we landed in the same bed. We were both completely naked which bolstered the old ego. And we're both still breathing in spite of appearances. Hooray! But, clearly, some improvements needed to be made.

For example, it would have been a more memorable experience if I had not been unconscious when I had been unceremoniously dumped into this bed like a roadside corpse. The old gringo dropped in the arroyo. He's a bit of a classic though.

The situation looked to be Danny's handiwork. There was that janitor's brush about it. This was the work of a man working with a mop and bucket. My guy wasn't an impressionist with a pond full of water lilies. My guy was a janitor. What are you going to do? It's rough out here in The Wasteland. They don't call it the heartland. It's The Wasteland with the fur on your chest that they unceremoniously rip off to make a fire. We're going to use your toenails as flint.

Our clothes were in tatters on the floor. They looked like someone had cut them off before enlisting them as cleaning rags. Someone had seemingly policed them up into a tidy pile before throwing up into them for reasons that only the perpetrator understood. Apparently I was in the Jose Boston condition. A Day of the Dead ghost with no clothes. What are you going to do? I was boldly searching for The Mexican Dream over The Day of The Dead. Only a fool wouldn't expect it to get ugly.

Danny had also kindly torn off my body all the bundles of money that I was carrying. I came into Mexico with twenty thousand dollars. Duct tape was how I did it. The money was strewn all over the room. The duct tape was growing hair or something. I didn't remember having it, my stomach hair and the first several layers of skin torn off my body. I was thankful for that. It was the most painless twenty thousand dollars that I had ever lost. And I didn't even lose it! I merely lost some fur that it was attached to. What wild beast could complain about that?

The message was clear. Mexico had torn me down to the elemental. I had been stripped of everything. I had lost my luggage. I had lost the clothes off my back. And my pin money had been torn off along with some skin. I didn't mind my sorry situation though because Paz was rocking her birthday suit too. Her clothes had been offered up to The Porcelain God or whoever too.

We had something deeply in common now, I suppose. Or it was terribly shallow. But we were in bed naked together. What do you suppose we should do about this? We were two nude people in bed together with relatively little in common but it wasn't a bad beginning. It was better than absolutely nothing. We could have negative points of interest. I like war. You like peace. I bet you a nickel we could protest against each other quite passionately. People do a lot worse out there on the dating circuit. At least we have a strong emotional response to each other, I suppose. Love easily gives way to hate. Perhaps hate could give the other way.

However our situation appeared utterly devoid of romantic flourishes. It seemed to actually have negative romantic touches. We had to climb back up to zero negative touches to move into positive romantic touches. It looked like it was going to be difficult climb too. Your hardened grudge love affair has better beginnings.

Paz and I were just two stripped corpses that had been dumped in a bed. But it could have easily have been a dumpster. Paz was partially hanging off the bed. She looked like something out of a crime scene actually. She appeared to have been lightly strangled with her bra.

The cups had been ripped out. But the elastic was still intact. It was partially knotted around her neck. It had to be self-inflicted though because I couldn't imagine Danny not finishing the job. Or he had tried to take off her bra out of kindness and she had fought him off in a drunken stupor. And Danny had gotten upset with her and made her live with her half strangled results. He probably ripped the bra cups out for reasons that were only explicable to him. Or Maynard had gotten into the mix. He would annihilate all bets. I want those cups for my prosthetic breasts in the clear plastic bra. Why shouldn't I have cups?

But Paz was most certainly still breathing because she was snoring like not one but two longshoreman with horse dentures. The strangled can't snore like two longshoremen with horse dentures. But it did look a little tight in there. I was thinking about letting out a little slack on the noose. But I didn't want to get attacked if she awoke. And take the blame for the whole mess.

Maybe just let that half strangled dog lie. Paz seemed to be okay with the situation. Perhaps upside down in the bed and half strangled was how she slept. It's time to tuck myself in with my bra elastic around my neck. Nice and tight tonight. See you in the morning hopefully.

Professor Calico was in an adjoining bed with Maynard. They were twisted together in a knot. They looked like a pretzel with four testicles. I didn't take the Professor for a bisexual customer but perhaps he was just working on his next sermon.

Parishioners, I'm going to delve into the sex that I had with a preoperative transsexual in Mexico. I did the first half of my life heterosexual so I thought why not go gay for the second half? Gay people seem to have more fun than straight people. However this guy wants to be a girl so maybe I didn't go gay. The guy that I experimented with wants to get his gear removed, you see? So perhaps sex with him doesn't count. His man parts were practically off him. We can chalk him off as a lesbian, right?

What heterosexual guy doesn't want to do one of them? You'll even pick up a few adventurous gay guys. They figure they just did the wrong girls. Some of them might be right. Or they just want to switch it up. They're tired of dudes. Or they just want to piss off their boyfriend. Show him up for cheating on them. Then the whole highly guarded sexual wall just falls down. Free-for-all is what I'd call it.

Can I get an Amen for The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun? Okay. Now everybody get ready to get passed around. We don't pass the collection plate. We pass parishioners. And you get to have sex with them! Provided they don't have sex with you first. There is that too. You might start out being the pursuer but you can easily become the pursued with this crew. Look what happened to your holy figure.

Danny was enjoying the Mexican brandy that was installed on the wall. Everyone was present and accounted for. We had made it to The Tequila after all. No harm no foul. Hooray! What glorious results. Is it time to hit the liquor dispenser on the wall and celebrate, ladies and gents? Wow, we broke the sexual wall or something. It's hard to tell.

However I had some unsettling recollections that I needed to work through first. The Professor wasn't the only one with a troubled Mexican past. I had some dim recollection of checking in via luggage cart which was kind of unseemly. At some point Maynard had found it necessary to stand me up. Or get me up on my knees. Or the front desk man had stooped down to my level and had spoken to me on the luggage cart. I think it was a combination of all three. I was stacked on top of Paz, Professor Calico and Danny. The speaking fell to me naturally because Maynard was in-charge of pushing.

Sir, due to a particularly large block of rooms, you have been upgraded to our sister property, The Tequila Palace. It is a mere ninety minutes away on our courtesy shuttle which will be arriving at the top of the hour. I just kind of rolled over on the luggage cart. The base model was good enough for me. Sir, I am afraid that you must be transported to the sister property. We have upgraded you. It went on like that for an unspecified amount of time. At some point I broke the man down by ignoring him.

Or Maynard convinced him to put us in this room somehow. Or he concluded that it was just easier to put us to bed. Or he just didn't care. Let them all crawl out of that room in the middle of the night ashamed for a bucket of ice. That horrific hangover will surely do all the scolding that is needed to be done. And it wasn't like we were doing anything disturbing to others when we checked-in. We were just a bunch of passed out people that required beds. No matter that most of my party couldn't walk or talk. Selling beds to intoxicated people was their business. Was it not? And they didn't even have to feed us tequila to get us into their product. We'd done all the heavy lifting for them. You just hammer the coffin shut.

We weren't even using the all-inclusive feature of the resort. We weren't eating and drinking like we were going to the electric chair. We weren't throwing up from binging on their booze. We threw up from binging on our booze. And we brought our own cleaning rags, sort of. How could they find any fault with us? We were ideal guests. Albeit we're now a naked mess but last night we were essentially perfect if you graded us on the Cancun party curve. Nobody had been arrested.

I was feeling pretty good about the whole situation until something hard touched me under the covers. That's how it is in this cold cruel world. You work your way through one unsightly and embarrassing problem only to encounter a much worse one. Something rolled over and brushed against my back in the bed. It wasn't Paz's foot which I would have welcomed. It was somebody else's stiff body part. What the fresh hell is this, I thought. Had we taken on more cargo? And then it dawned on me. For the love of God, I thought. I had drawn the short straw! And now it was poking me in the back?

Paz was just the consolation prize. I didn't even need to roll over to hazard a guess. I recognized by feel what was touching me. It was Jose Boston's penis. You made it after all, my good man. Welcome to the party. I'm heartened that all this intoxication has helped you shed your inhibitions. And your man parts are still in good working order in spite of your lifelong foray into the drug delights of Cancun. What a cause for celebration. Hooray!

However you had to take this particular hard penis in bed, in Mexico, up against your back, deadly serious because it was attached to Jose Boston. It was dripping a little bit too. It wasn't dripping that bad. But it was dripping a little bit. But it was the Jose Boston piece of it that made it troubling. Penises have been hard and dripping for millennia. That is the organs primary function for life on this planet. Peeing beer is just their hobby.

But there was no saying where this particular hard and dripping penis had been over the course of its fabled Cancun career. The owner of it couldn't account for his whereabouts. He was a Day of the Dead ghost! How could he ever speak for his haunted member? It wasn't even attached to him for all purposes. It was a freewheeling ghoul of ten thousand Cancun nights. It couldn't be called upon to answer for anything. It was blacked out like its owner. Now that's a troubling penis with a leaky faucet too boot.

I jumped out bed and pushed Danny out of the way. I had a big gulp of Mexican brandy right out of the dispenser on the wall. It was like tippling off the crusty nipple of dirty old Mexico. You sure know how to treat a man right, you old coyote. I howl at the moon for you, yelp. I mean help. Did I mention that I need help?

Chapter

You got six nude people in a hotel room. They need to get to a concert pretty soon. There is a foreign country out the window. What do you do?

You call room service and order the whole menu. Five pots of coffee too. And you don't even need money when the room service man arrives because this hotel is all-inclusive. You just leave the door open with the twenty grand in cash on the floor and slide into the Jacuzzi bathtub in the center of the hotel room nude. Fill her up with scalding hot water and soap. What a great country! Mexico, you old coyote, I love you.

If you just stick with her long enough she's bound to deliver up something. It's just questionable what she's going to deliver. And chances are it's going to be late. Or come tomorrow. But what's the hurry?

You're in Mexico chasing The Mexican Dream on The Day of the Dead. Kick back and relax in the Jacuzzi bathtub in the center of the hotel room. Enjoy your quest. We got tequila installed on the wall. Short walk over to that. Taco cart in the bathroom. Dueling mariachis under your pillow. Just don't plan on eating, sleeping or having a sane thought this weekend. But we have plenty of tobacco products to go with the booze in the tub in the meanwhile.

There is a bag of smoking horrors in this very room along with the twenty grand in cash. That's what qualifies as luggage these days. So dig into the bag of smoking horrors while we wait for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Whatever that meal is that is coming in the middle of the night because you skipped them all yesterday. Smoke up, pal. You could even have a cigar. Nobody will stop you.

Danny will slide into the Jacuzzi next to you. Put his arm right around you like your lovers. Take your cigar right out of your mouth. Take puff. Then offer you a puff! Off your own cigar! When did my cigar become his possession? But you'll take the puff to be polite and keep the peace in the Jacuzzi with the three nude dudes seeing as you're one of them. Maynard jumped in at some point. Although let's be frank here. You would have thought it less untoward if somebody had touched your crank. Your crank might be community property. But your cigar is absolutely not.

You're not just thinking I'd like my own cigar. You're thinking there is a whole box of them. It's not like you're hoarding them. Never mind your carton of black tobacco cigarettes from out of Argentina. And I've put twenty thousand dollars into the community pot! That's my money that everybody is walking on. You need something from the outside world? You just pick up the phone as long as it's fairly reasonable. You don't even need to check with me. Just use your own good judgment. Don't you figure that I deserve my own cigar in the damn Jacuzzi bathtub? I say nothing though.

Danny asks me if I'm a catcher or a hitter in the sack. Depends on the field is what I say. Paz could do anything she wants to me. You haven't got a shot. I take his arm off my back. Can I get that cigar back? He gives it back to me without insult. Help yourself to your own cigar from out of the box, I suggest. That's why I buy a box.

There are twenty four sticks left. Or order up a hooker off the floor if that's what you're looking for. Personally I think prostitution is trafficking. But I'll let you be the judge for yourself. That's what passes for casual conversation in The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun in the holy water. That's The Gospel of the Cigar too.

Chapter

You bought the ticket and took the ride. Now you're going to take it naked to the end of the line where the vines are eating the temples. Just because you have no clothes and you're already wasted in a hotel room with a gorgeous girl, and a bunch of creepy dudes, sitting in the Jacuzzi buck naked and smoking cigars with you, isn't going to get you out of going out in the middle of the night to discover more Yucatan peninsula horrors. Are you insane, man? You're in Cancun.

Cancun doesn't sleep on Saturday night. And it isn't making an exception for you. On the contrary it has big plans for you. All the zombies are coming out of the jungle right now. And you're going to get up on stage and entertain them. You're going to do some backup singing for Mexico's finest band, The Sugar Skulls. How do you like the sound of that?

You just have to get through the audition in the Jacuzzi bathtub in the center of the hotel room. It's not just for smoking cigars with Danny and Maynard in the nude. You can sing in there too. At least that's how Maynard wanted to do it. He heard me singing in the van. He wanted me to harmonize behind him. So drain the cigar bar. And get in the giant ashtray in the center of the hotel room and sing like your life depends on it.

I don't argue with men that wear prosthetic breasts. That demand that I get in a Jacuzzi bathtub in the middle of a hotel room in the middle of the night for the express purpose of auditioning to sing backup for some concert out in the jungle. Why not sing backup for a band that I have never heard of? How can I go wrong?

I drain the cigar bar down to nothing. I don't care if I'm naked and it's the middle of the night in dirty old Mexico. I sing. I make a point of singing my heart out.

I sang in parochial school for The Sisters of Mercy. I sang in Buenos Aires for a band called The Witches. We toured Latin America for over a decade. It was fated that I sing for Saint Death. You want to do this in English or Spanish? I can sing in an indigenous South American language too. Try to keep up with me, Maynard, because like a lot of people that couldn't make it in the music business, I can sing my ass off. Hang on to your prosthetic breasts. I'm going to tear them right off along with your wig. I might take your scalp after that. Then tapping on the side of your head with a spoon and scooping your brains out like a soft boiled egg is just a natural.

Singing is really an overrated skill when you think about it. Lots of people can sing. Look at all the choirs. But most people can't monetize it. So we drift off to business school. Or at least I did. You get better girls. You get better drugs. You make more money. You weave a circle around the rock n rollers twice.

Eventually Paz was summoned from the bed. She got in the bathtub too. And that's how I became a Sugar Skull. Weave a circle around that thrice. Crazy cat can sing. Feline wasn't just talking whack. Jaguar could do it.

The hardened room service man dropped the trays along with his jaw when he showed up with all my missing meals. He didn't know what to make of the four nude people jamming in the bathtub. Instruments had been produced so it was pretty loud. But I think the lack of water in the bathtub was what really threw him. He'd probably seen everything known to mankind happen in those bathtubs on his graveyard shift at The Tequila. The wet bar was old hat. But he'd never seen anything done in the dry. It was the air bath piece of it that really threw him. The wind got under his skin. Made those jowls flap. Or maybe it was just that lovely middle of the night wind down there. It gets going off the Gulf of Mexico. Blow you quicker than a Cancun hooker. I believe that's the expression that Danny used.

They're throwing nudist bathtub concerts without water at The Tequila now? It might be time to dust off the old resume. Take this show down the road to the Ritz Carlton where at least they're half-dressed and half-polite when they're half in the bag halfway between dusk and dawn. This all bag scene is just too weird. It's time to move on. Hook out.

Professor Calico was hippie dancing in the nude like some sort of upland fairy. I'm sure that wasn't helping put the room service man at ease. Professor Calico was doing that modified whirling dervish dance that hippies are prone too. I quite enjoy watching it though because it is proof positive that absolutely everyone can dance. There is no such thing as a person that can't hippie dance. Go cat go.

Jose Boston was manning the booze dispenser on the wall now that Danny had abandoned it. He was mixing up cocktails in his mouth or addressing his bad breath issues. You call it Mexican brandy. I call it mouthwash. Who knew what happened out on The Federal Highway to Jose Boston? Truckers, traffickers and bikers are an indiscriminate crowd. You say south. And they say mouth.

The room service guy briefly looked to Jose Boston for direction but quickly abandoned all hope. You didn't seek assistance from the nude man drinking cocktails off the wall. He was the least helpful person in a room full of unhelpful people which was some sort of honorific. Because how do you beat the rest of us? It's a real crunch at the finish line. All the donkeys are backing up to the finish line. They're pausing to relieve themselves as they walk backwards. The suspense of which ass will be last is just killing you. Then they all sit down. But Jose Boston was the original follower of the cult. He had one up on all of us. He had braved The Wasteland in a dress to be one of us. He had been forged out on The Federal Highway by truckers, trafficker and bikers. You couldn't take that gospel from him. The Gospel According to Jose Boston.

The room service guy stood there dumbfounded for a couple of seconds. He was just processing what he was seeing. It took a little time for his mind to catch up with what his eyes were seeing. And what his ears were hearing. I'd like to think that the music we were playing had some sort of hypnotizing effect on him because we were that good. It was one of those clicks in life where you just found where you belong. I belong nude in a bathtub in dirty old Mexico singing my heart out. You could do a lot worse.

I was singing right behind Maynard in a haunting harmony. We were doing this art metal tune that we all knew. We were actually crushing it. In the original version the lead singer mucked the lyrics on purpose to be artistic. You were like what the hell is that guy saying? You could only catch glimpses of the horror. But we polished those lyrics into a dagger for your heart. Shove it right into your chest and you're ghost like Jose Boston. Your soul is some green filaments working its way wherever it needs to go. And your meat puppet is gushing blood. That's what we were doing. Cutting strings on meat puppets and releasing souls. That's all. And this was just a rehearsal without the benefit of electricity. Wait until we power up this Frankenstein. Horror show is how he's going to go.

The room service guy was sitting there looking appalled. What the devil is this? Then the guy made a veteran's decision. He just dumped the trays on the floor. He dropped them from a pretty good height too. He knew exactly how high to drop the trays for maximum clatter. The coffee jumped up and jumped back down into the pots mostly. The plates with hats did their little hop. It was the perfect height to register your dismay without breaking anything. Maynard stopped the band.

"You aren't going to ask us where to put the food?" Maynard asked.

"And I'm not going to," he said.

The room service man turned and walked out of the room.

"I like a little snarl in my room service man," I said. "Somebody tip that man. He was outstanding."

"You want me to chase him down the hall?" Jose Boston asked. "And give him a big tip?"

Jose Boston was just standing there naked attached to the booze dispenser. There was money strewn all over the room. It was my twenty thousand in cash. There it is again. I knew that I had left it somewhere after Danny had ripped it off my body as an act of generosity. Then I had thrown it into the community pot. Or maybe he had. But I agreed with his ideals. We were a little Manson family now.

My twenty large is your twenty large, amigos. How does that grab you for friendship out-of-the-box? I know. It is very over-the-top. But you guys are over-the-top. And you've been over-the-top good to us. Call it payback. I could go cult too. That's the good Professor's stated purpose down here. I'd like to demonstrate to him the difficulties of forging your own little utopia. He plans on plunking down a bit more than twenty large but let's see how we do with the pin money, shall we?

Jose Boston had been surreptitiously hoarding our money for some time. He'd been policing it up for us like that Good Samaritan in the parable told by Jesus. Or was there something else afoot here. Could our trusted tour operator be a prospective thief? He did have a bit of a reputation as a thief. Was our cult riddled with corruption in the planning phase?

Jose Boston appeared to be looking for some excuse to go hide all our money in the hallway. I was wondering why he would want to do this considering that it was our money. It was the people's money! And one of the people was this serious white man, me. People tend not to steal from the serious white man, me. I do this little thing with my handgun that gets them a little tight. It's called a warning shot. Sometimes I miss with the warning shot. That's called getting hit. Then you walk with a limp. Or you don't walk at all. That's The Gospel of The Serious White Man.

However the serious white man has his own little way of doing things. It accounts for his great popularity with brothers and sisters from different walks of life. He's got a generous soul. And he dips in to it on a regular basis. What was the serious white man thinking?

He figured it wasn't such a bad idea to pay for Jose Boston to go away. He wasn't even hippie dancing. He just was just tits on a bull which was his base condition. I know. But Jose Boston was making a mess of the liquor nipples on the liquor dispenser on the wall. You think that tits on a bull could reasonably use a liquor nipple on a liquor dispenser on the wall? You're damn right he can't.

Jose Boston was licking them and touching them. And just being a menace to the liquor dispenser. How could you possibly soil something like that? The liquor dispenser's whole premise was dirty. It was the tit of dirty old Mexico.

The liquor dispenser's physical condition was decidedly low too. There were plastic parts floating in the bottle and whatnot. The vodka tasted like it had gotten confused with the gin. The rum was downright undrinkable. You knew for a fact that nothing up there was brand in spite of what the bottles were touting. You just took it all in stride at The Tequila. Welcome to the bottom of the barrel in Cancun, high roller. You aren't getting all your needs met at this price. You'll be lucky if you even get a single one met. You're drinking off the tit of dirty old Mexico. What could you reasonable expect?

Everyone had to use those liquor nipples. That was our bottom line. They were the five tits of dirty old Mexico that we all had to feed on. We were six people. That's too many people to feed on five liquor tits. I don't mind sharing with another guy or a girl. But I'm not sharing my tit of liquor with The Day of The Dead ghost, Jose Boston. Maybe it was time to send him off with some money. Go west in The Tequila, young man. We haven't got enough tits to support you.

Perhaps Jose Boston would go into the wrong room on his way back. He might walk into some Old Testament justice behind one of these doors in The Tequila. Or he just might never come back whatever the reason. The hallways of Cancun might just flat out devour him. They had consumed much more.

Perhaps Jose Boston could get beaten, robbed and left for dead and a priest would walk by and ignore him. Teach him a little something about the parable of the Good Samaritan. That was my preference. You don't steal from your host's benevolence. I don't care how poor you are. You want a couple hundred bucks for your pocket just because you want it. That's reason enough for me. I'd give it to you. But if you steal from your host's benevolence particularly after he's said it's your money too. Well now you're looking at violence. That's how the big bad wolf works. He's not a puppy. He never claimed to be. He's been very upfront you with you about being a wolf. That was the moral lesson that I wanted to impart. But I wasn't hopeful that God, the world or me could reach Jose Boston much less make a dent in his hide. God protects people like Jose Boston. How else to account for their continued existence? God sits up there on his throne and laughs at Jose Boston. He doesn't want to call him home. He only does that with the ones that he wants in his home. The rest of us have to lump it with the chumps.

Jose Boston reached for his dress and my money. I'd rescinded the people's claim to my money for now. He had a nice tidy pile of it arranged for his runner. The dress was the one that had presumably served him so well in The Wasteland. I couldn't blame him for clinging to it. It had gotten him here somehow. I shuddered a bit when I contemplated how. Truckers, traffickers and bikers are a particularly unpolished crowd. But Jose Boston was ready to jump back in. Who was I to stop him? Maybe he'd found his place out on the highway.

"You leave that dress right where it is so we know that you're coming back," Paz said.

"You expect me to go out there nude?" Jose Boston asked.

"It's called streaking," Paz said.

"Streaking or a beating," Danny said.

"What Danny says," Maynard said.

The parable was building itself. All I had to do was sit there with my cigar. Jose Boston grabbed a huge pile of money. He went running down the hall after the room service man in the nude. I poked my head out there. The room service man had a golf cart with an oven on the back to do his rounds. Cancun doesn't fool around. Probably got a midget in there cooking too.

"Take the gringo's money," Jose Boston shouted. "A bunch of nude people is nothing to get upset about. Look at me. I've got nothing on. But I got a big pile of dollars."

And that's when Paz threw a bathrobe out the door. She slammed the door shut. And then threw the bolt on the door to drive her point home. You're out.

"He's got plenty of money to figure it out," I said.

"Or not," Paz shrugged.

"There is that too," I agreed.

Jose Boston was kicked out of the frame again. He was a man in a bathrobe on the wrong side of a door in the chilly halls of Mexico's finest resort, The Tequila. Enjoy that brisk night air from off the Gulf of Mexico. It's blowing quicker than a Cancun hooker as Danny attests. People pay to bask in it too. Typically from within their hotel rooms while under the covers sometimes with the aforementioned tourist attraction. But you can't have it all, Jose Boston. Now can you?

You're the first follower of The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun. That ought to tell you everything you need to know. Figure it out. Or don't. That's also part of the All-Inclusive feature. It includes not knowing as a form of knowing. Enjoy.

We went back to playing our haunting music to drown out the knocking. But even Jose Boston had to figure it was a lost cause after the first rap. We can hear you knocking rock n roller. But you can't come in. We're singing about the shadow lands. And you don't fit in. Maybe we're not so all-inclusive after all. You can also get excluded from The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun. But you're not a real religion without hypocrisy. That's the number zero commandment. Thou shall pretend to have moral standards to which one's behavior does not conform. Now proceed to commandment one and keep trucking until you get to ten.

Chapter

It was getting so late it was getting too early. We were somewhere between the middle of the night and too early to go out. But it was too late to go to bed now. It was pretty much too everything. That was about the only thing that I was certain about. It was pretty much too everything. You could hang your hat on that but not much else.

It was too late to go to bed. Everything else was potentially debatable but going to bed was not. No one in that hotel room would have tolerated such a weak move. Your nose would have been shoved into a pile of cocaine if you tried to do it. Then you would have gotten the drug classic, the cold shower, just to straighten you out.

After that it would be off to the booze dispenser. And you'd be right back where you began. Or you'd be charged with being the jailor of the next prisoner. It was hard to figure out the rules of our hotel room behind the drug smog. You just sort of bumbled around until you had your next drink, snort or smoke. Maybe someone would try to lure you into the closet for sex. Or you could just wait in there and see what Lady Luck delivered up. Mixed is how I would describe those results.

It was definitely too early to go out though. We were all convinced of that. And facts were in short supply in that hotel room at this ungodly hour so we clung to whatever we thought we had before that fell apart too. Has anyone seen my lighter? I need to step into the bathtub for a smoke. I'm going to take another crack at a bath. I don't give a damn if it's full of glass. Broken glass is the least of my problems right now. Hell, it might even help. Then I'm off to the closet to see if anyone thinks I'm charming.

We were going to have to hunker down in the hotel room until that ball of fire rose in the sky. We were waiting on that sign. Then we would greet the rising sun like cannibals at the end of some misguided drug bender with pseudo-religious underpinnings out in some mosquito riddled jungle. It's time to eat the children because The High Priest said to do it. He took instruction from a jaguar or a rock. But he doesn't want us to violate the children because he'd prefer to do it himself. He only got into religion to subsume his sadistic side. And he was bored with the meager possibilities of normal life. He wanted porn and violence. It was that kind of jungle religious vibe with the sociopath calling the shots. That chap is a bit of a religious classic. His holy trinity is God, guns and gore. And it's mine too.

The decapitated heads would rain down the temple stairs somehow. Or at least that was the plan. We were going to take the stage at sunrise. That was our allotted hour out in the jungle on the altar of rock n roll. Because we all know rock n roll is as misguided as any religion. You can ruin your life with it just as easy as any religion. You might even be able to do a better job at it with rock n roll. Hail, hail, rock n roll or whatever.

But the whole plan was riddled with flaws no matter how you looked at it. We were in the midst of our third party in twenty-four hours. Nobody seemed to know or care where were playing. It was somewhere out in the jungle with the pee-pee mosquitoes according to Maynard. Somewhere out in the jungle with the pee-pee mosquitoes?

That was the only thing that he would get specific about, the pee-pee mosquitoes out in the jungle. They were apparently an actual species of mosquito. And there were billions of them out in the jungle according to him. They were Montezuma's mosquitoes. And they peed on everyone. Why you think they call them pee-pee mosquito? Well, you straightened me out, Maynard. I certainly won't be asking anymore questions.

As far as how we were getting there, Maynard was mum. He would just snort and say, that's the manager's problem, brother. Our job is to play. And the whole taking the stage with The Sugar Skulls was just getting worse by the minute. We were beginning to look like a very legitimate band.

A troop of makeup artists had descended upon the hotel room a few hours ago. They had arrived with suitcases full of makeup. They had racks of costumes. There was also some sort of primitive seamstress with a sewing machine and buckets of bones.

"I'm the seamstress with the bones," she said.

"It's a pleasure," I said.

"You like bones?" she asked.

"What's not to like?" I asked.

"Some people think it's creepy," she said.

"Perfectly natural," I said.

"The thread is tendon," she said.

"Nothing like the real thing," I said.

And then the whole thing got really weird because she started fitting my nude body with a costume made entirely out of bones. It was held together by tendon though which was comforting. She was very gentle with my private parts as she sewed. I hardly even knew she was working down there. What a lovely woman! She was going to make a wonderful mother for a corpse or medical skeleton. Maybe even something stuffed like a deer.

"How do you like your new skeleton?" she asked when she finished my bone costume.

"It's lovely," I said.

"If you had to pick between your skeleton and mine which would you pick?" she asked.

"I'd have to go with the exoskeleton," I said.

Then she blessed me into The Sugar Skulls. Apparently she was their Saint Death. She was the skeleton in the wedding dress that guided you to the afterlife?

"The Sugar Skulls are a skeleton crew," she said. "Only the crew is you."

The Sugar Skulls are a skeleton crew? Only the crew is on you?

"A skeleton crew," I said.

"The Sugar Skulls are a skeleton in the closet," she said. "Only the closet is you."

The Sugar Skulls are a skeleton in the closet? Only the closet is you?

"A skeleton in the closet," I said.

"The Sugar Skulls are a Jolly Roger," she said. "Only the Jolly Roger is you."

The Skulls are a Jolly Roger? Only the Jolly Roger is you?

"Roger that," I said.

"The Sugar Skulls are a Calaveras," she said. "Only the Calaveras is you."

The Sugar Skulls are a Calaveras? Only the Calaveras is you?

"Calaveras check," I said.

"Do you even know what a Calaveras is?" she demanded.

"It's a poem for The Day of the Dead," I said.

"A Calaveras is a poem that is written for The Day of the Dead that is intended to criticize the living," she said. "The Sugar Skulls play on all the metaphors,"

"I can't wait to hear them play," I said.

"That's not going to be a problem," she said. "They're super loud."

Along with being super loud the Sugar Skulls had super groupies. They were the top of The Sugar Skull groupie heap. I couldn't imagine what was at the bottom. But the top were the keepers of The Sugar Skull flame clearly. That village that is so oft talked about full of kindly women had finally arrived. Only it was replete with nonconformist hillbillies that were heavily armed, heavily high and bowed to some zombie god. How you doing ladies?

However rebel fighters would have been a better way to describe them. They were like a small army of jungle fighters with flame throwers. And they had come to burn the jungle down into their vision. They weren't interested in partying with us. They had come to immolate the whole village with themselves in it.

Perhaps they had come for a little of both. But the emphasis was on the work. At least it appeared to be judging from the appalling amount of resurfacing they did to me. I felt like a small planet getting terra formed by deviant aliens. I was happy with Jupiter. Why do I have to be Neptune now? Just give me a few halfway decent moons. And go easy on attaching the exoskeleton onto me. There still is a human somewhere under all of this. Periodically I would screech when something got prodded. Or hit with a needle. Then somebody would paint over the wound with Day-Glo body paint to staunch the wound. Welcome to the Valley of Skulls. You're going to die, sugar.

Chapter

They proceeded to turn us into Day of the Dead skulls. They painted our faces. They painted our bodies. They painted our hair. They painted our feet with glow-in-the-dark paint so we could find our way home whenever this curious circus wrapped up and the elephants drifted off to die peacefully in The Valley of Bones. And all you were left with were peanut husks, elephant dung and a Speedo made out of bones to guide your way home. Which way is home, old bone? Follow your bone. Keep following your bone. Until you get home or boned. Maybe both if you're the lucky type.

Six people worked on me. They divided my bodies into sectors. And they had apprentices mixing paint and cocktails behind them. They were fetching marijuana and cigarettes and bobby pins. They were fetching cocaine and hairbrushes and nail polish. And whatever else was necessary to get this unholy show on the road.

I was buried under a mountain of cosmetics and marijuana smoke. Is this how the avant-garde is constructed? It crawls out from under the make-up counter? I was waiting for a major lipstick company to slap their logo on me. We couldn't get the supermodels with the heroin addiction to wear our lipstick this year because we killed too many bunnies testing it but we did get a chap down in Mexico. He flat out doesn't like bunnies because he's prone to hallucinating them when he gets deep into the drugs. You're going to shudder when you see him though. He's painted like a green Day of the Dead skull. But don't worry. His black lipstick and orange fingernails look lovely. He's prone to outburst of profanity in three languages but if we get him drugged up enough our teenager demographic is going to love him. And their parents will have about four heart attacks apiece. He's appallingly evil and smart. The only thing that you're going to have to adjust to is the exoskeleton. He won't take that off. We already tried to get it off.

The exoskeleton fitting was a bit stiff as you can imagine. I didn't ask any questions about the bones. Where they clean bones? Humanely acquired bones? I didn't want to know. Those bones were touching my stones. The whale tale in the back was probably a dolphin's nose. Then we had the tendon holding it together. How green! We saved all the gasoline for his makeup.

I was sitting there going through protester horror. I wanted to phone in a complaint against myself. Just pick up the phone and start dialing with my orange fingernails. Get the Pope on the horn.

I think I'm a poem that is designed to criticize the living on The Day of the Dead. I need a papal opinion. That doesn't bother you. I'm wearing a jockstrap made out of bones. You don't like that? You're not going to like what I have to suggest.

I want my testis excommunicated. I want my penis to stay Catholic. I just want that exorcised. I like big boob Catholic girls that like U2. I've been doing them since middle school. It's this big long uninterrupted string of Catholic boobs and U2. I swear by them. You haven't heard anything like this since The Inquisition? You're damn right I want to get stoned. I've been doing that too since middle school. Then the big boobs and U2 just become a natural. What kind of dope are you, Pope?

It was like Saint Death had descended upon on us in that hotel room. Perhaps I had merely been cast against my will in a literary Calaveras. A poem written for The Day of The Dead designed to criticize the living. I was stuck in a nineteenth century literary tradition! No need to panic. You're just stuck in a nineteenth century poem written for The Day of The Dead designed to criticize the living. How bad could that be? Nice and comfy in there with the satire and skulls!

There was no place to move. There was no place to hide. And there was no escaping the poetesses with their makeup brushes and buckets of bones. Well, I guess this is what Hell looks like on a Saturday night. It's not unicorns jumping through rainbows on Jesus' tramp stamp. It's a Calaveras. A nineteenth century poem written for The Day of The Dead designed to criticize the living! And you're high? What are you going to do? You just have to try to kick back and relax with a black tobacco cigarette. At some point the religious authorities will stamp this poem out. Burn the book too. Then the author gets put in the mental hospital where he belongs. And we're done. Everybody is back at their comfortable religious level until the next madman from out of The Wasteland pops up. We stomp him out too. Or we call him The Chosen One. And follow him. That happens too.

In lieu of Jesus Two I had to deal with the hotel room of damnation and doom. This was my cross. The Sugar Skull groupies behaved like Roman soldiers nailing Jesus to the cross. They were that evil. But wait a second. Aren't the Roman soldiers that drove the nails absolutely crucial to the crucifixion narrative? No Roman soldiers driving nails into Jesus and we haven't got a crucifixion. That means no cross iconography along with all the other incidentals. That's a lot of gravestones to pull. Never mind all the tattoos that will have to be removed. We'll keep the soldiers.

My soldiers were consumers of their crucifixion. I not only create Calaveras. I am one too. I felt like the Devil after he'd been thrown out of Heaven. Hell gave him a fiery a welcome. You might be the Prince of Darkness. But not even you are welcome here. Pound it, Lucifer!

Perhaps there was something to believe in in this jury rigged baptism by fire. Saint Death is a worker. And she likes to poke fun at you. The jokes are going to come off as iffy for most people though. I suppose you have to pick up a few critics to go big up in this comedy that is called the world. You're going to Hell! What is God too busy to tell me himself? He needs a dip like you?

Religion is a powerful topic. Why make it if your act if you aren't going to get some death threats? Guns and God is how I respond to my critics. You aren't the only armed religious freak. God wants me to have an AK-47 too. He likes me up in the hills on the marijuana too. Armed and mystical.

Polarizing is how I would describe the vibe in the hotel room. You were down with The Sugar Skulls or you were out on the whole scene. There wasn't much middle ground. Or at least I couldn't find it. And frankly the middle ground was littered with landmines too. You were better off in one of the trenches getting trench foot. Or out on the killing field stabbing the enemy with a bayonet. Then you lift him up on the end of your bayonet like a white flag. And you say we aren't quitting. This is where you get off. Bad going on grisly is how I would describe being a Sugar Skull enemy. They kill you then make a big spectacle of your corpse as a prelude to rendering the meat off your bones to get what they're really after, your skull.

Chapter

The sheer professionalism with which they transformed me into a Sugar Skull horrified me most. I was freaked out by the extreme high quality. These outback makeup artists were as good as anybody in Hollywood. They might have even been better than the corporate makeup artists from the publicly traded companies because they brought such a horrific edge.

These makeup artists were real artists of the affront. They could give it to you with both barrels right in the face. How do you like my sawed off shotgun now that I popped it off into your head? I could have stood a little barrel but I suppose you were going to blow my face off no matter the length. You got that right. It was just a question of which load. I liked the spray pattern for you. Buckshot takes the critic's head clean off. Then I can't recap after I cap.

These shooters were working for free because I asked. They were working out of love. It would be like sending some sniper up into some hill in Afghanistan. We want you to do this for God and country, son. No thank you, Sir. I smoke Taliban out of love. I love smoking them. That much talked about commodity that doesn't actually accomplish anything in the world other than make it go round which gravity is doing anyway. Love! What kind of band attracts this kind of dedicated following in the middle of the night in a hotel room in Mexico for free?

We've got costumes to take the stage at the Grammy's? Who cares if anybody can play? These costumes are worth the price of admission alone. All we have to do jump around up on the stage and we're a smash. Get up there and do some gratuitous solos. Throw in a few some rock god moves. The audience will love it.

I've been in a few bands so what's the problem here? Well, you don't get global level costumes made by your incredibly talented and dedicated fans in the middle of the night for free unless you're a first rate show. You see how that works? You don't get this kind of respect from your insanely talented fans unless you are one hell of a band.

You might even be the house band down in Hell as the absolutely hellish costumes suggest. Perhaps the costumes are trying to keep up with the act which is beyond awesome. The Devil is sitting down there with his horns in full blowback. Holy cow are The Sugar Skulls evil. I thought that I was bad but whoa!

Oh no, I think we might have a problem here. I'm supposed to sing with a Hell level rock n roll act? Good thing that I'm completely legless on liquor and drugs. Otherwise I'd be nervous. You ready to take the stage? Sure, why the hell not? I'll just have a few more drinks, smoke some more pot, do a few more lines of cocaine and then I'm good to go. Maybe even dip into the serious stuff.

Then some manager showed up. And I almost dropped dead on the spot. Saint Death put a spike right through my heart. The hotel room was full of maniacs on drugs in costumes. They were shouting nonsense at each other. And everyone shuts up and stops what they're doing when this manager walks in the door?

The guy looked like the Grim Reaper in a Brooks Brother suit. He was one of those deeply malevolent Preppies. I didn't know Preppies got that high up in Hell. But I should have expected as much. Of course they're running Hell like some sort of elite Boarding School. Super Preppy evil dudes.

The Catholics schools conquered Heaven. Or at least they thought they did. So we let them have it. And we built our own Preparatory School down in Hell. Apparently this was the Headmaster, the manager of The Sugar Skulls. This is The Gospel of The Super Preppy Evil Dude.

I stopped doing coke right off this girl's massive nipple. Everybody was using it like the town bicycle. It was this big laugh to do it. She was so proud of her huge nipples that it was hard to turn her down. I didn't want to hurt the girl's feelings, you see? It wasn't for me. It was for her benefit.

I put down my tequila. I crushed out my joint on the carpet. I threw my black tobacco cigarette into the Jacuzzi with a beer bottle chaser. I needed to clear the deck to get a good look at the Grim Reaper in his Brooks Brothers suit. You come to collect souls, Angel of Death? We've been waiting for you, Headmaster of Hell, manager of The Sugar Skulls. Holy Hell, though, are you one evil looking Preppy dude. Good Christ, I thought. I thought that I knew how to operate. This dude looked like played croquet with human heads in his v neck sweater. Bunny come hit heads with me. And get me a gin and tonic, please. Be careful with my pistol on the bar. The goddamn thing is loaded. It's got one in the pipe. The hammer is back. And that trigger is a hair.

The Preppy manager wasn't some rock and roll guy. He wasn't the rock n roll cockroach that I was expecting to come clicking in the door on all six feet with his antennas preceding him. He wasn't some heavily tattooed spider with hairy arms sticking out of a cheap leather jacket that he had scrounged out of some Army Navy store. Hail thee, rock n roll fellow in your combat boots. He wasn't that varmint at all. He was the super Preppy evil dude. Now The Sugar Skulls had my full attention.

I didn't realize that I was with real rock n rollers. I thought this band was just a bunch of poseurs. I probably should have recognized their nonchalance for the mastery that it was much sooner. But I was way too high. And as they say it's all rock n roll. Some days it's just more than others. This was clearly one of those days.

The manager was one of those evil Preppy dudes in a Brooks Brother's suit that shows up at your place of business to tell you that you're fired. You're company has been acquired. You're services are no longer needed here. You'll get no severance. You'll get no benefits. You won't even get the steam off my piss. I'm throwing you out the window. Have I made myself clear? Francis was that guy. He was a super Preppy evil dude. And he seemingly delighted in being one.

He looked about as rock n roll as grandma's pastel mink coat with a box of mothballs in the pockets. And he was smoking a big long whore cigarette out of a cigarette holder. But the cigarette holder with the big long whore cigarette didn't make him look effeminate. It made him look fierce. He could take on a big long whore cigarette in a holder without diminishing his ferocity one bit. I immediately liked him.

I figured that we'd found the General Manager for The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun. The cult would come to a grinding halt whenever he showed up with his big long whore cigarette in a holder. Everybody would jump out of the pool and run. Francis is going to start beheading us for croquet! Everybody run. And he's got some girlfriend named Bunny that is ten times worse than him. Super Preppy Evil Girl is the force that keeps him inline. She's in Nantucket, her holy land, so we're all safe for now. But when that chick touches down in her horse boots. We're all screwed.

Chapter

"My name is Francis and you work for me, Chippie," Francis said.

Maynard introduced me as the new backup singer. I wondered if they had butchered the last one. Put her heart in a Dutch oven and then ate her. It seemed like that sort of outfit with this cannibal at the top calling all the shots. Feed me the soundman now. And get me a roadie for dessert. Apparently I was a Chippie as well. Or Francis couldn't distinguish my sex under my prosthetic breasts. I had a pair of prosthetic breasts on just like Maynard that were quite lovely. Oh, well, some days in this life you're a chippie. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Francis was eyeing me greedily too. He looked like he wasn't a terribly discerning fellow in the sack. Super Preppy evil dudes are like that. It's part of their evil charm. And they have little Calaveras of their own to tell.

Did I ever tell you about the time that I took two transvestite hookers home for a threesome in Mexico City? I knew that I had quit smoking because I was doing grape flavored cocaine of a toilet seat with them. And I didn't even want a cigarette! Adam's apples like goiters as you could imagine but dashing in the sack. Super Preppy evil dudes will nail your jaw to the floor. And they delight in doing it. Francis was that kind of dude.

"Whatever Maynard promised to pay you is null and void," Francis said.

"He hadn't promised to pay me anything," I said. "I didn't think this was a paying gig."

"It most certainly is for you," Francis said. "I charge for clams."

"You charge for wrong notes?" I demanded.

"One night's pay per wrong note," Francis said. "You'll be broke by the end of the first song. Quit now and save yourself a lot of money."

"I'm good," I said.

"You agree to my terms then?" Francis asked.

"I'll do it," I said.

"You don't even know the music," Francis said.

"I can read," I said. "Do you have sheet music?"

"What do you think we're savages?" Francis demanded.

"I was thinking cannibals," I said. "Have you ever eaten a soundman?"

"Just Production Managers," Francis snorted. "This guy is crazy enough to be a Sugar Skull. We finally found a permanent backup singer."

I knew he was a cannibal.

"You think I'm good in the hotel room," I said. "Wait until you see me take the stage. Maynard is going to need a diaper."

"He sometimes performs in one," Francis said.

"I don't like taking bathroom breaks," Maynard explained.

"You'll need one when I get going," I said.

Maynard, Paz and Danny were laughing. The groupies were just standing there like this was completely normal. Or somebody had turned off the power to them. They were just power saving until the show. Don't want to fritter away good money on batteries for those groupies when they're not working for free. Or about to pay to play like me. What was I getting myself into here? I didn't even know the music but I wasn't about to back down to a super Preppy evil dude particularly with a head full of drugs. I'd have done it if I was sober. Don't do drugs if you don't want to sing for The Sugar Skulls. You have to be out of your skull to do it. You see how that works?

"Don't you want to know how much each wrong note costs?" Francis asked.

"I'd rather not," I said.

"You'd rather not?" Francis asked.

"Losing money has never motivated me," I said. "I've always been motivated by making it."

"You realize that I'm going to collect on this debt," Francis said.

"Not if I sing the right notes," I said.

"You don't know the notes," Francis said.

"You can't sing the wrong ones if you don't know what they are," I said.

"You're just going to stand there?" Francis asked.

"Thinking about it," I said. "It's like having an opinion and not voicing it. You can't be wrong."

I was wondering what kind of drugs that I was on. I knew the particular drugs that I had been doing. But they seemed to have morphed into something completely new in this particular instance. Perhaps it was just the sheer volume of drugs that was catching up with me.

I was like a spaceship that needed to unload. How to dump the junk and make the jump to hyperspace? The stars flashing by me like sugar skulls. Sitting in my tin can with the world a million miles below. Somebody get ground control on the horn, pronto. We got a problem with one our cosmonauts. He's not getting enough air for openers. And he wants to park it like it's hard on the dark side of the moon. At least that's what he's saying. I'm afraid we can't stop him.

However there were as always more pressing matters in the universe. Francis informed us that the roadies had taken all the personal instruments out of the trailer. He thought that it was ludicrous that Maynard insisted on hauling the band's personal instruments in some crappy trailer attached to an even crappier van. We had roadies driving semis for that. We had roadies driving semis for that?

And it was time to let bygones be bygones. Francis wouldn't steal everything like the last manager. Wait a second. The Sugar Skulls had a manager that could actually steal everything? The Sugar Skulls had items worthy of stealing too? Back up right there too. What kind of items precisely? Are we talking a pig amp or a couple of tractor trailers?

And we don't even own the skin on our own backs anymore. We sold that when we signed the devil's pact with our new backers. Our backers aren't the kind of people that you cheat. You wanted your old manager's head for stealing your plane. And they're the people to get it. Your instruments are the least of it. We'll all be lucky to get out of this alive. Never mind your silly instruments. Wait a second. The Sugar Skulls had a plane? And what's this about the new backers? What the devil are they, traffickers? I just somehow got enlisted to work for traffickers? And super Preppy evil dude is just the beard that they hide behind? Good grief.

Your new sound equipment has been tied into the festival's equipment which was somewhat lacking. Your new sound equipment has been tied into the festival's sound equipment which was somewhat lacking? This band actually possessed new sound equipment that could be added to a festival's equipment? Wait a second. We're playing at a festival? Who slipped me the Mickey? I've got to be having auditory hallucinations now.

Francis then informed us that there wasn't one half-dead drug victim that wouldn't hear the clearest show of his life even if he were passed out in the jungle half a mile away down some Mayan well. This band wasn't going to fail from lack of proper equipment. This band was going to fail because we were failures. Francis had done his job. He had provided us with the world's finest amplification. And now we even had a backup singer for the love of God. And the guy is completely out of his skull which is precisely what we need. Nobody in their right mind would join The Sugar Skulls given our deplorable situation with the backers.

We were all out of excuses. It was time to live up to our full potential as musicians or just spare our backers the trouble and go kill ourselves. I felt like I was in Guitar Army. Or perhaps even Guitar Cult. But either way, Francis, I salute you. Ka-boom! Fire the rock n roll cannon.

Francis then informed the groupies that he had rented a bus to transport all of us out to the jungle in style. The groupies were unpaid dancers along with being unpaid stylists. Typically they had to find their own transportation. But there was an important promoter somewhere out in that jungle that would be deciding the fate of The Sugar Skulls based upon our performance.

Francis suggested that the groupies work out some new moves on the bus. He wouldn't hear any excuses about it being too tight on the bus. There was plenty of room to practice in the aisle. Tonight is your night to make something of your lives. If this works out then we're all on the road all over the world. And if this fails then we're all dead. They'll kill us for the insurance money. Do I make myself clear? This is your personal Day of the Dead.

The groupies left cheerfully though. It seemed like they enjoyed themselves the most. And Francis wasn't even that harsh on them. He seemed to like them. It was probably because he wasn't paying them. And they certainly seemed to be able to provide for themselves.

The groupies could probably start a whole society out of those suitcases in the jungle if they had to. Start building entire worlds out of their suitcases. I made a mental note to make them the nucleus of Professor Calico's cult. And you didn't think that I was working on the big picture here, The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun? It was basically building itself. All I had to do was waive the baton. And get the traffickers, or whatever they were, off everybody's back including my own now. They were probably relatively sensible business men once you got them to put down the guns, the cocaine spoon and the glass of tequila. Or you just jumped right into their shark filled pool. Is nudity a problem here, gentleman? What's your desert island handgun? For me it's The Colt Python. I absolutely love that gun with a passion reserved for underage girls. Now shall we try to do some business?

Francis then informed us that he had dozens of other bands to attend to here at The Tequila. However he had a few parting shots for us before he blasted the precious few other bands that he actually cared about. The vast majority of the bands that he managed he just delegated the blasting to unpaid interns. Or he cared so little that he didn't even have an unpaid intern do it. Those bands were beneath delegated blasting. He could care less about them. They were just rock n roll widgets. You just launder your drug money through them and you're done with them. Murder them off when they piss you off. Well, I guess that solved the whole trafficker mystery.

There were buckets of rock n roll fools on drugs in this hotel that thought they could actually play on a big stage. But there were exceedingly few real musicians among them. And as far as singers that could actually front a big band? They were almost nonexistent. Lyricists, now you could just forget it. They practically didn't exist. But The Sugar Skulls, and Paz in particular, did possess potential but they had to be more professional. She could actually do it all very well when she cared to do it. He then gestured to the destroyed hotel room to encapsulate his disdain.

"You don't destroy it in the hotel room," Francis said. "You destroy it on the stage."

He closed by saying be in the lobby in half an hour or you're all fired which is code for dead. My buses don't wait on God Almighty. I'm certainly not going to wait for a bunch of devil fools. I'll just throw you to the backers and be done with you. Latin America is stuffed to the rafters with rock n roll fools.

And that's the keeper of rock n roll, Latin American Division. He's a super evil Preppy dude in a Brooks Brothers suit that isn't even a fan. But he knows all the numbers. And he tells you when yours is up.

Chapter

Maynard was sitting there laughing at me. He could see the horror on my face. This was a legitimate band? And it was in hock to traffickers to boot?

"And you thought that we sucked?" he asked.

"You do sort of give that impression with your broken down van," I said.

"We like to stay humble," Maynard said. "And we got money troubles."

"Our last manager stole everything," Paz said.

"He stole the bus, the plane and all the equipment," Danny explained.

"It was a cheap plane," Maynard said. "Hopefully it crashed."

"It was cheap for a jet," Paz said. "But not that cheap."

"Is that even possible?" I asked. "Can you steal a jet?"

"There are a lot of airstrips to put a jet down in the Americas with no questions asked," Maynard said. "Give it new numbers and it takes off."

"I think it was hot to begin with," Paz said.

"He took all your touring equipment too?" I asked.

"There is nothing that you can't disappear in Mexico," Maynard said.

"That was more of a local act," Danny said.

"I'll make a note of that," I said.

"The biggest thing that he disappeared was our future," Paz said.

"I miss my bank account too," Maynard said.

"I cry myself to sleep over my Porsche," Danny said.

"My condo in Mexico City wasn't bad either," Paz said. "It was a little small but that's exclusively the type of man that I seemed to host."

"We were huge in Central and South America," Danny said.

"Mexico goes without saying," Maynard said.

"We were gearing up for the United States and Europe," Paz said.

"There was talk of Asia," Danny said.

"Now we're just in a ton of debt," Maynard said.

"Working for slave drivers," Paz said.

"Our debt has been sold to the kind of people that you don't default on," Danny said.

"You don't get to change managers either," Maynard said.

"How bad are they?" I asked.

"Let's just say that you can launder a lot of money through a bunch of bands," Paz said.

"A lot of shows in Columbia if you know what I mean," Danny said.

"Couldn't get the marijuana backers?" I asked.

"They move that too," Maynard said.

"Little china white," Paz said.

"I'm heartened that they're diversified," I said.

"They're legit," Danny said.

"And now they run us and a bunch of other bands too," Danny said.

"Rock n roll laundry," Maynard said.

"We're heavily insured which is the most alarming piece," Paz said.

"One plane crash away from paying off," Maynard said.

"Or they cheap out and crash our bus," Danny said.

"We're not how we appear," Paz said. "And nor are you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"You could probably buy this whole band out of debt," Paz said.

"Make us the house band for whatever you're doing down here," Maynard said. "Let us earn our way out. Then cut us loose."

"We're not really going to do this church thing," I said. "You can't listen to Professor Calico."

"We meet a lot of people," Paz shrugged.

"We've been robbed by a very sophisticated thief," Danny said.

"And now we are beholding to an even more sophisticated thief," Paz said.

"You know thieves when you see them?" I asked.

"What band did you used to play in?" Maynard asked. "I remember you from somewhere."

"We all do," Danny said.

"You wouldn't be standing here otherwise," Paz said.

"You wouldn't be hearing our sorry tale of woe," Danny said.

"Because we couldn't trust you," Maynard said.

"Make a great story for the papers," Paz said. "Then we get killed."

"You and the Professor would have gotten the boot," Danny said.

"You figured that I could help you with this show at the very least?" I asked. "As long as it was a good enough band out of Latin America?"

"You can open and shut your mouth," Paz said.

"Sometimes music comes out," Maynard said.

"Maybe you can do more," Danny shrugged.

"What was the name of the band?" Maynard asked.

"The Witches from Argentina," I said.

"You were in The Witches from Argentina?" Paz asked.

"You were Boo Black?" Danny asked.

I'd told them that my name was Don Quixote. They knew that I was messing with them but they ran with it. Now if we could just sort out the windmill, The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun. How to tilt at that?

"I still am," I said. "Don't change your name for rock n roll."

"And don't change it back?" Paz asked.

"It's like sleeve tattoos," I said. "You can't go back."

"You are like the illustrated man," Paz said.

"With all these tattoos," I agreed. "What's in a name?"

The Witches were a cult band. We played music that musicians loved and pretty much everybody else hated. It was highly technical, meticulously executed and essentially un-listenable for the non-musical person. We also refused to sing in English which accounted for our regional following. Half of our songs were in an indigenous language that is spoken in Paraguay and parts of Argentina and Bolivia. The rest I just screamed. So that narrowed the fan base down a bit too. We were truly a drunken Indian band fronted by a fake one, me. And that's how we billed ourselves.

"Why'd you quit?" Maynard asked.

"Business school at The University of Buenos Aires," I said. "You should too."

"What happened to everybody else?" Paz asked.

"The world," I said. "Medicine, engineering, science, technology, business, all the good stuff, you know?"

"Did they change their names back?" Danny asked.

"Of course," I said. "I was the only fool that wanted a piece of The Witches to live on."

"I thought I recognized you," Maynard said. "You'll do."

"I'll do?" I asked.

"I need an elephant bellowing behind me with everything he's got to fill this runway," Maynard said.

"You mean a runway where a plane lands?" I asked. "Or where a model walks?"

"There's an unfinished airport out in the jungle," Maynard said. "We're playing that."

"You're playing on a runway?" I asked. "Jumbo jet or prop plane?"

"Jumbo jet," Maynard said.

"We don't fool around," Danny said.

"It's an international airport that didn't get finished," Paz said.

"It's one of our modern ruins," Danny said.

"Fifteen hundred hectares of private jungle," Paz said.

"That's almost four thousand acres," I said.

"There can't be people on all of it," Maynard shrugged.

"I think there are squatters that live out there permanently," Danny said.

"How many people are we talking about here?" I asked.

"It's hard to say," Maynard said. "There are tens of thousands of them camping out there right now."

"We're playing for tens of thousands of people?" I demanded.

"You don't think we're good enough?" Paz asked.

"International acts play for tens of thousands of people," I said.

"Not at dawn," Danny said.

"And not on the last night of a three day music festival showcasing up and coming Latin American talent out at some abandoned international airport in the jungle," Maynard said.

"We're greeting the dawn," Paz said.

"You can hang out behind the drums with me if you like," Maynard said.

"He cowers back there," Danny said.

"The fans think that I don't want to be a rock star," Maynard said. "But what I'm really doing is reading the music off a monitor."

"Our music and lyrics are incredibly complicated," Paz said. "I write everything."

"She has job security," Maynard said.

"We have to use monitors," Danny said.

"We turn our backs on the audience," Paz said.

"They think it's cool," Maynard said.

"But we do it because Maynard and I have to read the music," Danny said. "It's too complicated for us to remember. You'll fit right in."

"We're Paz's bitches," Maynard said. "She has a guy with fake tits and a dude in an apron. Now she's got you too. Some guy from The Witches of Argentina named Boo."

They all laughed.

"I'm the leader of the band," Paz said. "You've been speaking to the wrong person all along except when you spoke to my tits at the gas station."

"How's this?" I said. "I don't want to sound check now."

"No sound check," Paz said. "We just play."

"Most backup singers never make it to makeup," Danny said.

"This is how you tryout backup singers?" I asked.

"How else are we going to know if you're going to fit in on the road?" Paz asked.

"There are plenty of good voices in the choir," I said. "But what are they like naked, drunk and high in the bathtub in the middle of the night?"

"We're looking for the correct cultural fit as it were," Paz said. "And you got the money to get us out of debt."

"Apparently if we suck tonight then they'll kill us," I said.

"No more debt," Danny shrugged.

"You take your life in your hands joining this band," Maynard said.

"You think this is my first death cult," I said.

"This is all God's will," Professor Calico beamed.

Professor Calico came out of the bathroom. He was still festooned like a Sugar Skull. He wasn't in there showering or flushing the toilet. He must have been quietly admiring himself in the mirror. I'd hoped that he had drifted away with the groupies but that wasn't his style.
He was like the boatman on the River Styx. Only he's going to row us onto the rocks by mistake and sink the rowboat somewhere between the Earth and the Underworld. We'll have to swim the rest of the way in to Hell. Or something hideous from the deep will just devour us all. No Hell for you, chief.

"I can't wait to start my cult," Professor Calico said. "Skulls of Sugar will be my house band."

"It's The Sugar Skulls," I said.

"We can change the name around," Paz snorted. "There are a couple of bands out there with the same name suing us."

"You can't get blood out of a sugar skull," Danny said.

"We're all bone," Maynard said.

"We got sugar too," Paz said. "But don't tell anybody, sweetie."

Chapter

Professor Calico wasn't one to miss out on the intoxicated costumed moment. Nor was I for that matter. I was just a little concerned about what he might think his musical role might be in all of this. I wasn't overly concerned with his financial role. He could promise whatever he wanted to The Sugar Skulls but I still controlled the checkbook. And the checkbook was several thousand miles and one border check away, safely in the City of Angels. I could do a wire transfer though if I got intoxicated enough to want to purchase The Sugar Skulls. There is nothing wrong with a good old fashioned drunken impulse purchase. This rock n roll band owned by the traffickers looks like a real steal. I must have it. Now pass me the phone and the cocaine spoon. I must speak to my bookie in Tripoli too. My hand is itchy and I feel lucky.

However what really concerned me was my own ability to sing whatever musical geometry Paz had created. I didn't need Professor Calico up there trying to glom onto my mike. I couldn't have the Professor throwing me off. I wanted do this. And do it right. I'd never gotten on a really big stage in my life. And I wasn't going to get another chance. I wasn't viewing this as my big opportunity. I was viewing it as my only opportunity to do something like this in my entire life.

I'd been hustled by The Sugar Skulls. I was no fool. I wasn't going to really be asked to join the band. I was too old. There was no way that old man rock n roll fit in with the larger plan. They were just trying to get me to fall in love with the band. Maybe I could pull them out of debt. Or just rent them from the traffickers. Then break the traffickers down on price. This band is terrible. Look at them all painted up and on drugs. What use could you possibly have for these fools? Tell you what. I'll take them off your hands for the right price. I pay in what is called dollars. I'll even throw in a decent alligator briefcase to carry it in. And slowly back The Sugar Skulls out of their predicament.

The Sugar Skulls seemed like a pretty good selling point for a cult. Why not build The All-Inclusive Cult of Cancun around The Sugar Skulls? Was a name change in order too? Perhaps I should abandon the Church concept and go straight to cult. You didn't like the Church concept. Now you have to live with the consequences. We've gone Cult. Clearly The Sugar Skull hustle was working. I was getting hustled but I was viewing it favorably. Perhaps a broad sample of the general public could be hustled as well. And isn't that how religion works at its most basic level? It's a hustle. You got persuaded into against your reason. However The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun had taken on a life of its own and hustled the hustlers. It seemed to be operating like a poltergeist. And we hadn't even founded it yet.

Take Professor Calico, for example. Had the makeup artists taken him under their painted wing as an act of pity? Or had they made him an official Sugar Skull groupie? Was he an inside joke or a legitimate member of the tribe? Or had they just painted him because he was standing there in front of them? Was painting whatever was at hand including themselves their custom?

Was I the only free backup singer that was at hand? Or was I just some moneyed fool? I didn't care because I wanted to get up on that mighty stage and sing my heart out for the heavens. Only a madman wouldn't want to sing when you're this high and the stage is equally high. And you've got talent to match it. Or at least you used to have it, sort of. There seemed to be a religious parable here but I couldn't hazard it out. The Parable of the Old Man Rocker.

However I was taking the long view on all of this. The archeological point of view was the only way to maintain focus under these types of extraordinary circumstances. This was merely a moment for a future generation to study. Some solitary graduate student down the millennia could study this particular historical moment when all the other available bodies of archeological knowledge had been exhausted on the Yucatan peninsula. That lightly studied cult of Saint Death that popped up for an evening at Mexico's finest hotel, The Tequila. The solitary graduate student could speculate on how many drinks I had consumed. Or how many lines of cocaine I had done. How many bumps off that enormous nipple did Boo Black do? What is the symbolic significance of that? Then you've got to hazard your way through the liquor dispenser nipple which is purported to be the tit of dirty old Mexico.

Or how much of that good old fashioned club drug had I taken? That first hit didn't work. The first hit never works. They're prone to not working. What they need is a second or a third hit to get going. Then you're like oh no. It's getting a little scary in here now. How many hits of that good old fashioned club drug had I done? I'd stake at least four that I could account for. I wasn't satisfied with the old three strikes of liquor, cocaine and marijuana. I had to throw that old fashioned club drug into the dugout. Or drug out as it were. Then I somehow got into the bag of smoking horrors.

I wouldn't mind a researcher right about now. That was the crucial piece. However that fit of accounting anxiety quickly passed. I tamped it down with a quick shot of gin from right out of the booze dispenser on the wall. That's drink number one right there. That's what I was thinking. And what happened in the past is firmly in the past and we most certainly can't go back, Boo Black. The booze dispenser on the wall attested to that fact. I knew the booze that had been consumed out of that dispenser wasn't coming back. We were down to gin. Everything else had been consumed. I knew that dispenser on the wall was going to impart knowledge at some point. And by God had it delivered?

We were down to gin. The other liquors in the dispenser had been exhausted. And what could possibly be the symbolism of that? Only a madman would pause to speculate on that. I had a black tobacco cigarette from Argentina to work my way through it. The smoke was drifting in slow motion.

Gin has the reputation of attracting the awful. Perhaps the message in the bottle, from off the wall, is that we weren't that awful after all.

We were sweet like brandy. Fast like tequila. And smooth like vodka. And now we were down to grandma's dreaded gin. How many mothballs would you like with that? But there were more pressing matters to trouble the mind than the symbol system of the now depleted booze dispenser on the wall. That's how it is on drugs. Every time that you think that you're closing in on a universal truth something comes along and interrupts you. It's no wonder that you can't get anything done on drugs what with all the interruptions. You have to focus, people. Otherwise you're just a drug victim. We've got to make the drugs the victims. Pay they will.

Where was Jose Boston? Where art thou warrior of a thousand drug dawns? Are you still haunting the chilly predawn halls of Cancun's finest hotel, The Tequila? We want to get all the players recorded for that graduate student that stumbles upon us down the millennia. How would you like to be remembered? Have you learned anything yet? Or are you still a complete fool?

Fortunately hotel security had located him for us. They had his twenty. Or in his instance his thirteen. Jose Boston had been spotted at one of the all night bars. He was drinking in his bathrobe which made him quite the celebrity. Apparently he was flashing it open periodically for the ladies. It was one of those come retrieve your friend phone calls. Paz sent Professor Calico to fetch him.

Paz didn't want Jose Boston. She wanted the bathrobe. Although need was a better word. She was nude under a mountain of body paint. Her bra and panties had been stolen by some panty sniffing groupie. But Paz didn't care. She was going to greet that fireball out in the jungle in the nude. Future generations take note. Paz was the secret leader of The Sugar Skulls.

Chapter

I felt like an astronaut that had just crash landed on a foreign planet when I stepped out the door of the hotel room. Whoa, kind of big out here. I'm going to need a map of this planet and a rover. Are you reading me ground control? Or have I pissed you off to such a level that you won't even respond to me?

Fortunately hotel security was dealing with some sort of domestic violence incident in one of our abutting rooms. Apparently a transgender couple was beating the bejesus out of each other. Hotel security was in there trying to squash the beef but neither transgender person was willing to settle. I figured when you've gone that far out of societal norms that settling just isn't in your person anymore. And why should it be?

I glanced in there briefly because who doesn't want to see something like that? They were both incredibly hot and nude. They were rocking lady tops and man bottoms. So they had a little something for everyone. And if you're a smoking hot transgender person fighting with another smoking hot transgender person in the nude do you give a hoot what hotel security in dirty old Mexico thinks? You're damn right that you don't. You just keep putting up your dukes. You just keep trying to punch your lover in the fun bag. Or kick him in the jimmy. But you don't go for his face because he's prettier than any girl you've ever seen. And at some point you're going to want to kiss and makeup. You don't want to be kissing some old bruised tomato, now do you?

Hotel security had made the rookie move of leaving the keys in their golf cart while they were in that room fruitlessly trying to squash the beef. I climbed right under the wheel. The rest of the band jumped in too. Because everybody knows that you don't walk in Cancun. You steal a golf cart.

The hotels in Cancun are difficult to negotiate. They are truly like foreign planets. Or at the very least they're like the cargo ships that will get us there. They're like a poor man's Noah's Ark. And we were stuck navigating one in a stolen golf cart. It wasn't right. I needed six wheels just for openers. I couldn't keep four on the ground with my best steering. A Nexus Six behind the wheel would have helped too. Can I get an android up in here? I need to climb in the trunk with the ASTRO junk. I'm more human than a human. Hell, American freak, yeah.

The mega hotels in Cancun start off at five hundred rooms. They get going at a thousand rooms. And the biggest hotel has more than two thousand rooms. You can hire a decent act for the stadium that's attached if you're a big party. Throw yourself a righteous ripper with an international act. You can invite 9,999 of your friends and there is still room for little old you.

A lot of the monstrosity hotels are adjoined by sister properties. They're owned by the same drug lord, dictator, off-shore tax cheat or whomever. So if you're a really big group like the United Nations and you require a hundred and fifty kilometers of hotels. They can squeeze you in too.

The Tequila was relatively small at six hundred and sixty four rooms. You'd just shove the mission to Ghana in there if you were the United Nations. You'd build ten properties around it if you were a drug lord, dictator, off-shore tax cheat or whomever. Then plow down the swamp behind it and put in a bunch of golf courses. Or build an industrial park with everything from bakery to brewery behind to feed your insatiable guests which is what they did. So that's where they make our factory food in Cancun? I knew that I was closing in on The Mexican Dream. I just didn't think it was going to be a closed industrial park. Okay, time to turn around and find The Tequila. Where is the damn golf course? That's the suburbs of The Tequila. We drove off to the country of The Tequila, the industrial park!

The scale of The Tequila made finding your way around with a head full of drugs a bit difficult as you can imagine. I had to have that golf cart to correct for my margin of cognitive error which was horrendous. Being mechanized was absolutely crucial. I needed a golf cart with a little cattle catcher to bounce pedestrians out of the way but I was making do with what was at hand, the hotel cop cart. I just put the siren on and almost everybody got out of the way.

I might have tagged a few slow moving drunks but they didn't get stuck under the cart. What's a couple of crushed toes at The Tequila? It's less wasted people walking around in the middle of the night. They're rolling on the ground screaming. Shut up down there. I'm trying to drive with a head full of drugs. Don't make me pull this cart over and beat you silly like my transgender neighbors did to each other. Bejesus is what they beat out of each other. You think that I stood out? I was just acting normal at The Tequila. Nobody even batted an eye. Dude is wasted in a stolen cop cart. What do you expect? It's The Tequila!

We were a relatively small party of a couple of thousand at The Tequila but I still couldn't find my way around. We were fans of Latin American rock which wasn't helpful either. It seemed to be driving us lower. It was hard to pinpoint what precisely was wrong because we were so incredibly drunk and high which made asking for help irrelevant. I couldn't even trust myself. And I definitely couldn't rely on anybody else. There was no room for more voices in my head.

I had to rely on my own poor judgment. You see where it got me? I was wasted behind the wheel of a stolen golf cart. I wasn't expecting much better results anytime soon either. This could be the pinnacle of the evening for all I knew. Perhaps I would be looking back fondly on this moment while dealing with incarceration. God did I have it good before I got arrested. But I was one of the mechanized few and I was driving so I wasn't complaining. I left that to the slow moving drunks with the crushed toes. Sometimes I didn't give warning notices. Typically when Maynard reached over and purposely steered me into someone. Don't blame me. I wasn't trying to hit anyone! My passenger was doing that when I took a smoke break behind the wheel. I was in-charge of the accelerator but not the wheel. My crime was too fast but not steering!

We were trying to get the hell out of the rock n roll mess that was The Tequila to get to a destination that was at least fifty times more crowded and chaotic, a massive three day concert in an unfinished international airport out in the jungle. Isn't the zombie apocalypse supposed to come to us? I just drove around and around and tried not to hit anybody too badly. Or let Maynard hit anyone too badly while I was taking the periodic steering break. I figured at some point I'd probably crash the golf cart and climb out which is exactly what happened. Then I'd be onto my next drug mistake.

It was pure rock concert pandemonium in the parking lot when I finally found it. I had to take the golf cart off-road a bit to get to there. I had taken full possession of the cart at this point. I was steering and speeding. I had to take it across a dry portion of the swamp too. But no harm no foul. We'd have all drown if it were the rainy season.

I drove the golf cart up this incredibly steep embankment. I had to get a huge head of steam to get up it. The cart almost flipped over front to back but I turned the wheel downhill at precisely the correct moment and turtle rolled the golf cart expertly. Maynard could have never pulled it off by steering from the passenger seat. Everybody fell out relatively unscathed. Or they jumped. I was too busy steering and speeding to worry about the welfare of my passengers. Honestly I think it was the hill that saved us. It safely rolled the golf cart away from us. That hill was a hero.

The parking lot was a mess though. Everybody was walking around slugging booze out of the bottle. The necks of the bottles were largely smashed because they had been inexpertly removed from out of the booze dispensers in the rooms. Smashed is how I would describe them along with their customers.

They had that rock n roll swagger down pat though. But didn't we all? Although I hadn't been clever enough to get a road soda in the form of a bottle of gin with the neck snapped off. Clearly some improvements could be made. Maybe I could have ripped open my hand by breaking into the dispenser. Douse the wound with gin and keep on trucking in the free world. Those were my people. Good grief. This is what I look like from the outside?

I could see how this behavior wore on Francis a bit. I was getting a bit fed up with the rock n roll lifestyle myself. It interfered with my steering abilities. Then it screwed up my crash. And I forgot to get a broken bottle of gin from out of the dispenser! I don't want to give myself too much credit. But I did turtle roll the golf cart right next to the correct tour bus. And Francis was standing there delighted. I could have stood a drink though. Next time I wasn't dropping the ball on the bottle of gin with the neck snapped off. No matter my hand. I had two. And good Mexican gin is a precious commodity in this world. Nothing but good comes out of it.

"You're hired," he said.

"You don't care about the golf cart?" I asked.

"There is no way that these guys could have made it without you," Francis said.

"We're not late?" I asked.

"I built in an extra four hours," he said.

"Wise man," I said.

"I also hired replacement Sugar Skulls," he said. "They wouldn't have been as good but nobody would have noticed. I hear the jungle is quite the fright. You should steel yourself."

"You don't take issue with the golf cart being expendable," I said.

"Everything here is expendable including me," Francis shrugged.

"I might be able to find you a job," I said.

"That's what the groupies are saying," Francis said.

"They like to talk?" I asked.

"I don't think there is anything that they don't like to do," Francis said.

"I might have to hire them too," I said.

"You won't be able to manage them without me," Francis said. "You'll get too frustrated."

"How do you do it?" I asked.

"I smoke a lot of shatter," Francis said.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Marijuana glass," Francis said. "It's basically knockout gas."

"That sounds advisable," I said.

"You'll be screaming for it at some point," Francis said.

"After the show," I suggested.

"You probably can't sing on it," Francis agreed.

We got on the bus. The groupies were in every available seat.

"Where are we supposed to sit?" I asked.

"Sit on them," Paz said.

"You want me to sit on your groupies?" I asked.

"You're a Sugar Skull now," Danny said.

"You can sit on your groupies," Maynard said.

"They'll move," Paz said.

"Or they won't," Maynard said.

"It's all part of being a Sugar Skull," Danny said.

Danny was already sitting on one. She was a big girl.

I think she was the girl that I was doing coke off her massive nipple. She looked like the one. I was thinking that she was probably the best seat in the house. Leave it to Danny to position perch himself on the cocaine tit.

"Sit on a fat one," Danny suggested.

"Pick one with big boobs," Paz suggested. "You seem to like big boobs."

"Only a madman doesn't like big boobs," Maynard said.

"Except girls that have big boobs," Paz said. "We don't like big boobs. I wish mine were smaller."

"Better big boobs than a big penis," Danny said. "It looks good on paper but it doesn't fit anywhere."

"Even I can't tackle it," Paz snorted.

"There was like a foot between us," Danny said.

"It was like being on the end of a spear," Paz said.

"Fortunately we were having a three way," Danny said.

"Maynard had to jump on that grenade," Paz said. "It was just way too much for me."

"I don't even like guys," Maynard said.

"He likes lesbians," Paz said.

"I'm girl's girl," Maynard said.

"He's a preoperative transgender person," Paz explained.

"A gay girl in a guy's body," Maynard said.

"But Maynard didn't want to leave this brother hanging," Danny said.

"Neither of you had two penises in you at the same time," Paz said.

"We have one to begin with which is one too many in my instance," Maynard said.

"Less places to put them," Danny said.

"It's not like you don't have a mouth," Paz said. "You could have gone through your experimenting with guys phase with me and Maynard."

"I already did that with just Maynard," Danny shrugged.

"We weren't a good fit ever," Maynard said.

"The fit was fine," Danny said. "It was the guy piece of it."

"I'll just sit here if everybody will stop talking about their sexual past," I said.

I sat down on the nearest groupie and called it a day. She immediately started groping me which was awkward. I wasn't expecting a hand down my costume as a hello. But this wasn't a peck on the cheek crowd.

"Go easy on the costume," I said. "It's the only thing between me and total nudity in front of tens of thousands of people."

"That one is a problem," Danny said. "Not even I can sit on her."

Of all the groupies on all the tour buses in the world and I have to get a groper?

"Can I sit on your lap, Paz," I asked.

"I'm going to sit on yours," Paz said. "And drive you crazy."

"I think that's an insanity that I'll welcome," I said.

"You aren't going to tell me that I don't have to sleep with you to get you buy this band out of debt?" Paz asked.

"Absolutely not," I said. "You should sleep with me."

"I'm climbing on," Paz said.

"Be my guest," I said.

Paz hopped right on. And the bus pulled out of the lot as it were. So what's the score? What are we looking at here, ladies and gentlemen?

You have a groper under you and an incredibly hot woman wearing nothing but body paint writhing on top of you. You're getting some sort of double lap dance with a head full of good old fashioned club drugs. The entire bus is cheering.

Then the driver puts on some cheesy heavy metal song to get you in the mood. Good old fashioned strip club music. What do you do? Do you get ashamed? Do you get embarrassed because Paz has taken the joke to such a level that she is actually having sex with you on the tour bus in front of everybody?

The secret leader of The Sugar Skulls is personally breaking your Sugar Skull cherry on the tour bus? What are you going to say? Stop what you're doing. Disarm your weapon. Hell no, you're dealing with a professional here. You say turn up that heavy metal. You actually shout it. And the bus driver obliges. He turns it up. He turns up that heavy metal. Then the boner of Babel rears its ugly head. Shortly thereafter it starts spouting in tongues. Then we break out the Old Testament stuff. Cue the begetting.

Chapter

There wasn't much pillow talk because we didn't stop until we got to the jungle. You get your hands on a steeplechaser like Paz and you don't dismount. You jump those timbers from steeple to steeple. Ride the wind between Churches. Then you put that sweaty horse to bed. Give that filly a slap on the rump. Good riding, you spirited beast. Some days that's better than a deep connection though. Spooky mare, you old hayride, I love you. And this was clearly one of those days.

I was basically a mechanical dildo to put a fine point on it. It's good Christian work if you can get it. You feel like you've accomplished something when you're done. I may just be a dildo but I'm a damn fine one. I can hold my dildo head high. That mushroom tip way up in the sky is mine.

Paz complimented me on that front. She liked the riding equipment. It was good for the old ego to get complimented on the God given riding equipment. It was the rest of me that she could do without. She could do without my person in particular.

Paz was having sex with an old boyfriend in her mind. It was some guy that she could never stop thinking about. He was her first love and she was stuck on him forever. Or so it seemed. He didn't even have good riding equipment like me but she still loved him. That's how love is, I suppose.

It's some tiny penis from your childhood that you can never get back. I didn't mind helping her through her issues though. My penis is here for you, Paz. Anytime you need it, day or night. And all the in between times from now until death do us part and beyond. You just reach out for it in the afterlife and it'll be there too. I am the phantom penis in your head.

But then Paz gave me the man speech. She said that we'd just had sex together. But all we had was sex. And sex is just sex. It's physical act. It's not some deep connection between two souls. It's not like Heaven and Earth had moved because we had sex. It hadn't budged an inch.

The solar system was unmoved by our physical act. We were just a couple of animals, grunting in the night, that's all. I wasn't to fall in love with her. I wasn't to view her as a girlfriend. I wasn't to view her as anything. She was nothing to me.

We might have sex again. We might not. But under no circumstances did I have any claim on her. She was just some glory hole in a bathroom stall. She was just some hole that you shoved your penis in when it struck your fancy. Her vagina was like a black hole in outer space. No emotion escaped. Are we clear?

I immediately fell in love with her. Or maybe it was just lust. Maybe it was just explorer curiosity. She had a vagina like a black hole? No emotion escaped? Who wouldn't want to explore that? You drive the space ship right into that black hole in outer space to see what happens next. Who cares if it's a suicide mission? You go out in an orgasm of glory. Ground control I think I busted a nut in my spacesuit, advise.

But it was hard to position yourself with a head full of good old fashioned club drugs and all the other drugs and alcohol that were percolating in the background behind the mother ship. I had a whole solar system twirling around in there. I just didn't have the emotional capacity for a relationship with a black hole on top of all the other planets that I was juggling. Keeping all the gravities at the correct levels was nearly impossible. It was raining iron on Jupiter right now. And a couple of the gasbag planets were flaring up too. And as always there were more pressing matters.

We had to take the stage. And there was only one way that was happening in my tender stage. And tequila wasn't going to do it.

"Cocaine," I croaked.

Fortunately Francis had been down this sorry road of rock n roll in Latin America before. This dirt road in rural Bolivia was not new territory for him. He'd seen many a nude rock n roller at the end of his party rope in the sticks of Bolivia. He had a little spoon and everything. It was really quite lovely. I always get a confidence boost when I'm dealing with a true drug professional that has the proper tools and equipment. I didn't even have to hold the little cocaine spoon. He could sense how tender I was post coatis. And post dumping on the bus. How could Paz break up with me? I had barely done anything deviant to her. It was hard to break out the freaky stuff in front of everybody. I didn't want them to judge me. Lest they be judged.

Wait a second turn that around. I think I got stuck in a Literary Calaveras for a second there. A poem that is written for The Day of the Dead that satirizes the living. The authors use wit as a weapon. Or perhaps the characters do. The narrator does cocaine though. Of that much I am certain.

"Sniff," Francis said.

Then he did the other nostril like a perfect gentleman. He went around the bus and got the whole band fixed up. Francis, I salute you. Your cocaine is right off the brick. However given the trafficker status of the backers it was probably how he got paid. Nice job this month. I added some extra coke to your kilo. Sniff up like a preacher's wife in suburbia at a swinger's party. Preacher's wife likes her sex and drugs too. But she'll deny both. She's just self-righteous preacher's wife at a swinger's party. I love when those people sin. Because the Devil made them do it. I couldn't agree more. That's all you're made out of sister. You're nothing but twisted up bits of horn and horny.

And even the most enthusiastic consumer of cocaine will give it the old crocodile eye periodically because the fleeting euphoria of the drug is eclipsed by the dark side of the crash. Cocaine is a yin and yang drug. You get the yin but you've got to deal with the yang too. And the yang always ends in depression and regret because you've used up your yin in the rush. Then the lotus comes for his pound of flesh. Didn't think that I could pull that off? Yin up rock n roller. Yayo you too.

Chapter

Now it was time to take the stage. And as quickly as possible before any of my chemical levels dropped precipitously. But I was stuck on the bus! We weren't even remotely close to being there yet. I didn't care about logistics. I didn't care about the rest of the band. I was just concerned about my buzz! It was telling me it was time to play. And right this very second. No other second would do. You listen to your Jiminy Cricket particularly when that talking cricket is as high as a zeppelin. And that zeppelin is about to unceremoniously combust with the cricket behind the wheel! That's the only time you pay him any mind. When that cricket is on his kamikaze mission. He means business.

I didn't care that I was kilometers away from the stage. I didn't care that I was twelve hours away from making a peep on that mighty stage! I didn't care that the bus was about to hippo in the mud. I didn't care that the juice was knocked out to the entire festival. It would take twelve painstaking hours to get it back on. That was not my problem. I was ready to play right now. And my cricket concurs! He wants to scream bonsai! Ten thousand years of life for the Emperor!

This is precisely how a band falls apart. It starts out with a little youthful experimentation with drugs. Then the public sex on the tour bus rears its ugly head. And the next thing you know everybody is only thinking about their own cricket. Then he crashes his plane for the Emperor. The whole world erupts into war.

Fortunately we had other distractions than drugs, tardiness and kamikaze crickets out at the festival in the jungle. Apparently the concert security had collapsed at some point. Details were sketchy at the empty ticket booth. We picked up some hitchhikers to get the scoop.

Rumor had it that the security had collapsed on day one. Other hitchhikers claimed that it had never existed. But it was gone if it had existed in the first place along with shuttle service out into the jungle. This much couldn't be denied. There was no security and no shuttle service beyond us. The festival was a ghost running on its own machine. And it was a monstrous ghost that was measured in hectares. It might not even be quantifiable. There were pockets of the jungle that were just too dark to enter.

It was theorized by hitchhikers that the concert promoters had paid the Federal Police to stay away. Other hitchhikers speculated that the Federal Police wouldn't waste resources trying to shut down a totally out-of-control concert in the jungle. Or the police were just too busy with their side job of trafficking to trifle with fifteen hundred hectares of lawless jungle. How could anyone police it in the first place?

A good portion of improved Mexico is lawless for God's sake, man. We can't journey into the forsaken lands too. That heart of darkness is for fans of Latin American rock n roll. Nobody wants the jungle or the fans so we put the two together, you see? Let them tame the jungle or disappear into it. That's what appeared to be happening. But there were some campfires on the road that looked like improvement measures. We carefully drove around those. The bus driver appeared particularly fearful of disturbing the road people. I couldn't say that I blamed the man because some of them were armed. A quick explanation of our purpose resolved those checkpoints. We're here to make matters worse. We're part of the problem not the solution. They let us pass. Go with God, amigo.

Although we were all growing increasingly cool on playing. Maybe we'll just take a gander at the godforsaken lands. Perhaps something more constructive could be accomplished with our horrific buzzes. I was thinking skinny dipping back out at the beach with the cold beers close at hand. A bonfire to dance around. Then a little Sugar Skulls acoustic set becomes a natural. Perhaps a surfboard or two could be produced as segue way to beach blanket bingo. Maybe this is metal jungle scene is just too heavy for our blood. The Federal Police have abandoned it for God sake. Or refused to deal with it in the first place. And the last time that I checked they were lightly policing improved Mexico.

Nobody gave two hoots about rock n rollers in the jungle it was speculated by hitchhikers and Sugar Skulls alike. It was a private jungle and not a Federal jungle. And the Federal jungle was lightly policed to say the least. The vines were doing most of the work these days. Why should the private jungle be any better? Frankly it should be far worse as a much needed point of comparison. You think the Federal jungle is bad? Well, take a gander at the private one. At least we killed our savages. Yours are running the joint. Now back to the drug trafficking, gentleman. We have to go harvest the marijuana out in the Federal jungle. It's not fancy lab marijuana. We do weight. That's our thing.

The whole rock n roll mess in the jungle would wind down on its own at some point without government intervention. And if it became a permanent state of being in dirty old Mexico, who cared? It was on fifteen hundred hectares of essentially raw jungle. There was plenty of room for everyone to kick back. And let the owner get off his duff and deal with his jungle. Wasn't the capital city, the unfinished international airport, his throne? He was probably enjoying having customers in his capital. I was preemptively shuddering about encountering that. The road in with the guns and fires was horrific. The capital city was sure to be ghastly.

Chapter

People had been without security in that jungle for millennia. Why should The Sugar Skulls get special treatment? The Mayan didn't tell you to watch your step on the escalator. They threw you down the temple stairs as an offering to their savage gods. You'll be lucky to have your head still attached when this thing wraps up, gringo. You'll be walking home on two bloody stumps with your feet in an orange bucket. Then the traffickers will have at you out on the Federal highway. Behead you. That was the chirpy vibe on the way in. But we plowed on. We had to catch The Mexican Dream.

I was looking out the tour bus window in fear and astonishment. I was thinking that it just wasn't possible to fix this monster. We were driving by hectares and hectares of makeshift rock n roll campground. I felt like I was journeying up the Amazon of rock n roll to personally admonish The Horror. This is coming from a good place. I am one of you. But this must stop. You have pushed it way too far.

It looked like every fan of Latin American rock n roll in the entire Americas had made the journey. Some were camped out right on the road and we had to drive around their cook fires. Appease the armed ones by showing our instruments.

There was no infrastructure whatsoever in the jungle beyond one hard packed dirt road with a huge industrial power cable running next to it. Good grief! Somebody has brought these savages super high voltage power?

Tens of thousands of people were nude, high and seemingly disinterested in modern conveniences. Who needs plumbing when you've got sex, drugs and rock n roll in unimproved Mexico?

Some days you've just got to heave Frankenstein into the sea for the sharks. This monster just can't be fixed. And hopefully the shark won't barf him up into readily identifiable pieces. Clearly this was one of those mornings. But we had to take the stage first. Then Frankenstein was getting heaved into the Gulf of Mexico. Or he was getting dragged back to The Tequila by his neck bolts. Whichever made more sense after the show. We just had to wade through this rock n roll disaster first. We would play for the heavens. Then we would hopefully quietly slip away. Lock the pipe gate out on the highway on the way out.

Have I heard of an out-of-control three day musical festival at an unfinished airport in the jungle in the Yucatan featuring Latin American rock n roll? For the love of Mary and Joseph. I have never heard of such a thing. But it sounds like a very bad idea to me. You wouldn't catch me out there. Or maybe you would. Shall we embrace this monster? Or just turn him loose in the jungle?

I might have had a hand in creating this Frankenstein but he became too unruly for me. After he jolted to life I was done with him. I had to cut him loose in the swamps of Mexico. I hear that he's chasing The Mexican Dream. But he's not my problem.

Chapter

At some point our tour bus pulled a hippo and got stuck in the mud. The luxury of the hard packed dirt road was concluded. We were officially in the swamp. We let the driver try to get us out for a while because we were too scared to get out ourselves. There were just too many rock n roll savages to get past. They seemed to get more militant and better armed the deeper we went into the jungle. Who wouldn't bring their AK-47 to a rock n roll festival deep in the jungle? I was wishing that I had brought mine. And that's how the whole gun thing gets out-of-control. One guy invents the AK-47 then the whole world Rogers up. That's The Gospel According to The Assault Rifle.

The stage was apparently several kilometers away. Several kilometers away! Why not put the stage way back deep in the jungle? We don't want it out near the road where you could take a swim. Or grab a frozen margarita for your fractured nerves. Let's put it right next to the pee-pee mosquito's kingdom just to make a point. I'm talking all the way up the river where The Horror resides. Sound perfectly reasonable to me.

The only comfort that we did have was that the entire unfinished airport and the abutting jungle had been utterly and completely overrun by fans of Latin American rock n roll. The fans of Latin American rock had finally taken over the world! Or rather they had conquered a relatively small piece of the entire world that clocked in at fifteen hundred hectares of essentially raw jungle in the Yucatan Peninsula. We all can't conquer the whole world now can we? Just be content with your little victory.

Some days we can't even conquer one state in Mexico. Never mind all of Mexico. Forget Latin America. You aren't Conquistadors, man. You're fans of Latin American rock n roll! You get some swamp out in the sticks of the Yucatan. You just have to take it away from the pee-pee mosquitos. And they are dug in, brother.

These fifteen hundred hectares of Mexico were our victory of this much I was fairly certain. We claimed it for Latin American rock n roll. Or the pee-pee mosquitoes just conquered us. It was hard to say behind all the drugs and alcohol. But we gave it our best shot, I suppose. However the results were super sketchy.

We rolled up on our new world in our tour bus just like the Spaniards in their ships. We claimed this new world for our queen, Saint Death. At some point it was concluded that the tour bus was stuck until the dry season. Or perhaps it was a permanent part of the decorating scheme. The tour bus was another man's burden now. Perhaps it could be enlisted into the housing or fire scheme out here in the jungle. It wasn't driving out of here anytime soon if ever. That's for sure. It was super stuck. It was going to take something like a tank to get it out. Maybe the Mexican Army would fire on us at some point.

After an enormous amount of complaining we shambled off the tour bus covered in skull makeup. We stretched and yawned. We peed on the tires. We cracked beers for more pee later. The pee-pee mosquitoes weren't the only pee-pee creatures in this town. But this is the new dawn? This is terrible. Which way to the show? How many kilometers to the stage? Let's get this over with. I'm ready to play and then get the hell out of here. But nobody seemed to know which direction to the stage. Is there a donkey around here that I can steal like Jesus on his way into Nazareth?

We started walking. At some point we all ditched our shoes because they got so heavy with mud. We walked barefoot towards the capital city of our New World, the unfinished international airport terminal. The fans had seemingly paved the road with their clothes like the throngs of people that converged on Jesus as he entered Jerusalem on his stolen donkey. All biblical similarities concluded there for now.

My people had broken into our capital city judging by all the fencing and boards that had been ripped down. We can't all have The White House clearly. Our capital city was an unfinished airport terminal in an essentially raw jungle. We got a modern ruin for a White House? We didn't even get a real ruin! It wouldn't get there for a couple of hundred years. Provided nobody finished it in the coming centuries or demolished the poorly conceived and unfinished idea. The architects should have been shot as far as I could tell. It looked like something out of the Eastern Bloc after the bloody yoke of communism had been shrugged off.

There was plenty of room for improvement in our New World of Latin American Rock n Roll. That was the biggest selling point. It was a fixer upper world with a lot of charm. Welcome to our White House, an unfinished airport terminal in a raw jungle. Did I mention that we had to break in to it too? The good news is that we're a culture largely comprised of thieves, cat burglars and second-story men. The odd sociopath slips through too. What are you going to do?

I was already considering low balling the owner of the airport and making this the seat of our civilization. And you think that I wasn't working on the big picture with a head full of drugs? How else could I climb this high in the world while being this high much of the time? Although typically I began the festivities after the business day was concluded. I strongly suggest you do the same. It prevents that whole unfinished international airport and fifteen hundred hectares of raw jungle buyer's remorse. I hate that. But the free society replete with nonconformist hillbillies that came with it was pretty appealing. You couldn't go wrong plunking down money on them. What were our people like?

They were the fringe end of the metal community. They were dreadlocked menageries of the destructive disposition. They were outlaw bikers doing burnouts on the runway. And just plain old fashioned drug freaks that were arsonists. It was hard to figure out which were the rulers. Which savage do you bow down to first? Or do they all just attack at once?

All of our people seemed like they were cautionary tales that depicted the flaws of the rock n roll lifestyle, the Latin American Division. Clothing along with leaders seemed to be in short supply. So there was a vacuum in this new world? Anybody could dress and rule it, I suppose. King and Queen wanted, why not? Sartorial suggestions solicited along with general directions. I'd just go easy on the laws with these people. I'd be very cautious about strong suggestions too.

You have been forewarned researcher down the millennia. You are treading on cursed ground now. Turn back while you still can. Go study some death cult with a cleaner narrative. They strapped on their black Nikes. They waited for Haley's comet. Then they killed themselves. I know that I wanted a better narrative to walk through. But as always there were more pressing matters like that mighty stage that must be taken.

Where are my pike men at? Where are my Conquistadors at? It's time to storm the ramparts of rock n roll, Latin American Division, gentlemen. Let's kill everyone! Little itty bitty babies too. Let a feathered snake god sort it out, grizzle.

Chapter

You've got to kiss Argentina's ring periodically while on your jungle jaunts. Ernesto Guevara, the bearded gentleman of Cuban Revolution fame, was from Argentina. You know that communist fellow with the beard and the star hat that's prominently featured on t-shirts? That's Ernesto.

I went to school in Argentina with one of his relatives. Ernesto is quite the interesting fellow to have in the family tree. He was a bit of black sheep, you see? That's what the relative said to me. I love Ernesto.

However I prefer the pictures of him smiling. He was quite the rogue when he wasn't trying to overthrow the world. That's the quality that I most like in him. I like my revolutionaries to be rogues. Not just grim. The world has too many of them. But I suppose even charming revolutionaries have dark days too.

The weather is a little off in Mexico. You've had a few too many tequilas. Your tacos are not how you would like them. Your outlook is a bit grim. Then the next thing you know you're screaming revolution! You board a boat. And take down Cuba. The world shifts a little bit.

And some really grim days you have to eliminate all the governments of Latin America like the Spanish conquistadors. You load up the warships with unemployed soldiers and whatever murderous scum you've got because you're afraid that they're about to overthrow you. Go pillage the New World. Just send some gold home as a token of your gratitude. Queen Isabella, the first carpetbagger of the New World, I salute you.

However I am really looking forward to the next carpetbaggers. I can't wait for the aliens to arrive from one of the 40 billion Earth-size planets in the Milky Way. They'll make the Conquistadors look like kittens. They'll probably harvest our skin. And we'll all have to change our gods again which will be awesome. They'll have new alien gods for us to bow down to after they give us artificial skin. Hopefully it won't be too tight. It's kind of tight in here bowing to the alien god in the new skin. You say it will stretch out? Kind of like the new god situation?

We're all relatively new to our current gods when you take the long view. Our Paleolithic ancestors got us started on religion around 300,000 year ago. We don't even know what that religion comprised of. Perhaps they worshiped hunting as evidenced by cave painting. Then you jump forward to us. There is a certain amount of disparity over religion today. You have to admit it. People disagree on it. Some people worship money like me. Or they worship blood and oil. The vast majority worship revelations. They believe in what other people say the saw from the Disciples to The Prophet. That's only a couple of thousand years ago. The hunting customers got started 300,000 years ago. But we're principally concerned with what essentially happened yesterday in terms of human history. And what people say they saw.

A forty year old man that was orphaned as child and had few accomplishments the first four decades of his life until the angel Gabriel came to him in a cave to give him his first revelation from God in 610 CE. That's Muhammad. But what if that was me out in the jungle of Mexico? Would you believe me?

Or you could go Jesus with his little walk on the water. He was a lousy sorcerer. That guy. He could turn water into wine. I'll grant him that. But he couldn't pull the nails out. His magic gave out.

Then you jump back about 4 billion years for lights out. Life doesn't even exist on our planet. You can't worship anything if you don't exist. It's kind of tough to worship one cell when you haven't got one. That's when you declare fatwa. You don't do it on your fellow man especially if he is a seeker just like you. Me? I'm not looking for anything. I'm just telling you what I thought when I went looking for God at an out-of-control heavy metal concert in unimproved Mexico. That's all.

So I figure that the alien gods are going to be good for us. They'll settle all the arguments. All the old gods are frauds because we've got a new god from outer space that trumps everything. He's this big grim kraken. Hooray! And it will settle the whole debate about race because we will all be the inferior race, human. We'll also all be in our new tight synthetic skin after the aliens flay us. We're finally all inarguable one race now. But don't expect that tentacle beast to listen to us anymore than the old gods or the older gods and so on back to when matter came out of nothing or whatever happened. Nobody has a bead on that. But that grim sea monster of a god from the Milky Way isn't going to be nice. You know the old saw. Meet the new gods same as the old gods. Pray for space invasion.

Chapter

I think I tripped off into another Calaveras in dirty old Mexico. Or fell into a black tobacco cigarette from Argentina. Don't smoke. Or if you insist on it against my admonishments then at least don't be a savage about it and smoke black tobacco cigarettes from Argentina. Class it up and smoke menthols. Or just go straight to the big long whore cigarettes. Show everyone that you're impervious to critics. Make the world explain the concept of hoots to you before declaring that you don't give two.

Which way to the stage, amigo? I couldn't even see it yet. It must be deeper in the godforsaken lands somewhere. Maybe it's just beyond our grasp like that dock on the rock that's been set on fire by arsonists. You work with the pieces God gives you.

But there wasn't even any music playing in the jungle to guide our way. Where all you sirens at trying to crash me on the rocks with the fiery dock? Latin American rock n roll, you are a strange music. Downright devilish. And you don't even play at your own festival. Perhaps there was just currently a music vacuum along with a power vacuum in this new world. The Sugar Skulls could fix both if we could just find the damn stage.

In the meanwhile we had to wade through this predictable rock n roll festival mess. The hero always has to slog through a quest to get to the Golden Fleece or whatever he's going to burn, kill or have sex with. Then it's the depressing journey back home to the unfaithful wife with the monstrous hangover to boot. Don't even bother telling me you were lonely. I tagged a couple of wenches on the King's road. These six ragamuffins are mine now. Say hello to your mother.

The concession stands had been looted. Apparently Maynard and I had stumbled upon the original village complex of the festival. You know that place where you're supposed to spend gratuitous amounts of hard earned cash on overpriced food and beverages while trapped deep in the jungle at a three day music festival? Well, that had been looted. It had been burned as well.

Then the fans had seemingly taken the festivities inside another partially complete airport terminal. This one was like the baby version of the bigger one. It was the starter Eastern Bloc airport terminal after the bloody Stalin shrug off. I don't think having them break into this one was part of the original plan either. The unfinished baby airport terminal had seemingly been commissioned into the looting and arson scheme. It's quite difficult to burn down an Eastern Bloc concrete airport complex but the fans had given it a pretty good shot. Or they'd enlisted Puff the Magic Dragon. Put that hippie dragon to heavy metal use.

Soot licked up a good portion of the terminal and there were still some tended bonfires going. It was curious what use you might have for a bonfire in an appallingly hot jungle. Perhaps the smoke kept the pee-pee mosquito at bay. Or you just had no clue why you were so appalling hot as you threw airport terminal parts into your bonfire. Maybe this door will cool me off. Or burning things just became a habit of repetition. Nothing more than a nervous tick.

The unfinished baby airport terminal citizens were almost entirely naked too. I figure once you've got the breaking and entering charge under your belt that nudity is just a natural. It didn't seem to be much of a sex cult thing though. Or that was in remission for right now. It was appalling hot in our jungle. That was probably the primary nudity function. And it was apparently customary to nude sunbath in front of our starter White House. Is this any way to greet visiting diplomats such as The Sugar Skulls? Hang out on the starter South Lawn with zero on? The starter President is that way. Don't expect him to be sane, sober or dressed. He's the worst of us. That's why we elected him starter President. We figured he'd give our critics up at the real White House hell. You think we're bad? Wait until you get a gander at our starter Commander and Chief. Then you just shuddered. But it somehow made perfect sense. Perhaps a cult could be fashioned out of this ungodly mess. One of these airport terminals was bound to pan out. And who knew? Reason dictated that there must be more terminals to be discovered out in the jungle.

We just had to paint everyone like a Sugar Skull. Who wouldn't want to be painted like a Sugar Skull in a place like this? I was actually wishing we weren't covered in makeup because we stood out so horrifically against the muddy background. We were like neon fools in a black and white world. But the really bad abuse wouldn't come until later when we couldn't produce any music.

The heat was what held my attention for now. It was a miracle that the Mayan found the motivation to accomplish anything. How could you build an advanced society complete with urban design and mathematics with this type of jungle heat bearing down on you? It was a complete mystery to me. I couldn't imagine what the Mayan could have done in the polar zone.

There would be Mayans on Mars by now. There would be beheading on Brown Dwarfs. There would be sacrificing on sub stars! But then again Mayans did come from outer space. Maybe the jungle was quite luxurious when compared to Jupiter.

Chapter

My people weren't doing as well with constructing an advanced civilization out of jungle parts. The active ones were jumping off the roof of the third airport terminal into a large rain vat full of green water to cool off. Maynard and I had discovered another airport terminal. This seemed to be the height of invention of my civilization. It actually looked like a great deal of fun. Who wouldn't want to jump off the roof of an unfinished Eastern Bloc airport terminal into a rain vat full of green water to cool off?

Everything else about my people appeared to be regressive from the arson to the mud rituals. It was pretty clear that we were as a people devolving away from civilization. Well, that's what the world will be like when the religion of rock n roll takes over. Or just corrupts everyone down to this level at some misguided and greedy festival that's backfired. Why put it out on the beach and charge reasonable fees for everything? Portable toilets are just a terrible idea too. Let's put it way up the jungle and get super greedy. I bet the fans will like it.

The authorities were probably going to have to send out the coroner from Cancun at some point with his dump truck. I didn't think that the average fan could hazard his or her way out of here. Or the swine flu farmer would have to set his hogs loose. Or the creatures in the jungle would slink out at the end of the show and drag off the corpses as they had been doing since time immemorial. Stuff them in trees or under rocks for safe keeping. Rock n rollers would be jaguar snacks. Or the owner of the airport would just padlock the gate shut after he refused my appallingly lowball offer. Whatever got out of my private jungle is out. And whatever is in is in for the long night. Let the vines crawl over everything. The lock is snapping shut for millennia.

I haven't inspected my unfinished airport in decades. And my grandchildren don't intend to either. We took a big settlement from our construction insurers after the fans of rock n roll destroyed it.

We're depreciating it and taking losses against our more fruitful heavy civil construction projects such as bridge, tunnel and highway projects for the next millennia. Let the vines takeover as they did for the Mayan. That's the plan. Why should my ruin be any different? It's bigger and better built. And in five thousand years tourists will flock here to marvel at it. Cancun Calaveras is what we'll call it.

Chapter

I remember mad Maynard offering me a sip of water at some point. The mad ones look really good on paper. Shambling around after them on the road style, you know? In real life they're a total nightmare. I know this intimately because I am one. I don't care to shamble around after myself. Never mind anyone else. I don't appreciate tailgaters either. And you most certainly don't want to catch up with us. You want to run the other way.

Most important of all you don't want to be one of us. We're not a good recipe for living. You enjoy us from your comfy chair. You enjoy our little peccadilloes. Then you close the book. And you are done with us.

However on this outing I was stuck with the mad ones. We were thirsty for life. Or we were just plain old dehydrated. Dried out from wandering the godforsaken jungle.

Maynard offered me a sip of water. Water, bro? Why not? I knew it was a bad move. But I took a sip of the water like a mad fool!

You never take a sip of water off a guy wearing prosthetic breasts particularly if you're wearing a pair yourself. Lost in the unimproved jungle down in dirty old Mexico! Looking for the stage at a heavy metal festival! And you're searching for The Mexican Dream to boot? Are you a fool, man? Of course you're going to get dosed with hallucinatory drugs. That's not water. That's Mexican flying juice. Then you get cleared for takeoff by the feathered Mayan snake god. Fly be free. Go catch The Mexican Dream. It's that snake in the eagle's claw on the Mexican flag. You can catch it. But let's be frank here. Only a fool would expect better results.

One prosthetic breast wearing guy figures he's hooking up the other prosthetic breast wearing guy by giving him hallucinatory drugs. He's doing you a favor. He's your friend. The world isn't lining up right for either of you. Am I wrong? Look what you're doing! You're wandering the jungle in prosthetic breasts. But powerful hallucinogenic drugs just might fix everything. Happy motoring with the headlights on your chest.

But it was the hallucinogen that was percolating in the background that seemed to steer me past the sirens with the snakes for hair out in the darkest pockets of that jungle. Those fans of Latin American rock n roll with the snakes for hair had it out for me. Maynard saved me! Otherwise the sirens with the snakes for hair would have surely gotten me. I was saved!

I like it when hallucinogens are as powerful as a religion. And this one not only saved like good old fashioned evangelicalism. It was coming on like The Second Coming of Christ. Oh, oh, this could get ugly. I'm supposed to take the stage and sing songs that I don't even know in front of tens of thousands of people? Well, at least I can't find the stage for now. And I'm with the lead singer! And he's lost and deeply out of his skull too? No Sugar Skull problems for now. Whew.

Chapter

"I think we're getting close," I said.

"We've practically caught it," Maynard said.

Maynard was pretty hot on catching The Mexican Dream too.

"Was it doomed for failure from the inception like the doomed for failure Mayan predecessors?" I asked.

"The Conquistadors, the prior victors, were condemned too," Maynard agreed.

"The unfinished airport is a symbol of colonial progress that has been crushed," I said. "Have the people of the sun come back around again?"

"Blame it on The Hacienda," Maynard said.

"You mean Saint Death?" I asked.

"Her too," Maynard said.

The Patron Saint of homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, traffickers, taxi drivers, bar owners, bike messengers and Latin American rock n rollers lost on drugs in the jungle. Give it up for Our Lady of the Holy Death. She's about to do her thing and guide us to the afterlife safely. Yeah come up people! Then we put you six feet under.

That's one of Saint Death's primary functions. Guiding her patrons to the afterlife safely? Do you really care how you get to the afterlife? Frankly, I don't think it's a destination that I want to reach quickly. It couldn't be much better than unimproved Mexico. And I'd prefer to make a lot of pit stops along the way. Keep screeching piss call the entire way. However if the train is leaving the station with Saint Death at the stick and your options are on the train or under it which would you pick?

"Blame in on the Hacienda," Maynard muttered.

A lightly studied cult of Saint Death that had briefly housed itself in a modern ruin on the Yucatan peninsula was about to recede back past the hurricane high tide mark. The seawater wells in the jungle that had once been filled with hurricane swells where the child sacrifice was performed were drained as well. Wells and swells and well. That's how we found all the baby skulls. And you know what happened next? Up popped The Sugar Skulls.

The regressive society with pseudo-religious underpinning had failed miserably. It was a post-Mayan and post-Conquistador flameout out at the unfinished airport out in the jungle. That's about as good a synopsis as anyone could hazard while under a Mayan myriad, a pyramid, of drugs. Bumbling around the godforsaken lands of Mexico searching for that elusive beast, The Mexican Dream. You can't catch that wily coyote, man. He's up in Tijuana leading illegal border crossings.

We leave the rest of the mystery of the cult of Saint Death to our solitary graduate student down the ages. Go with whatever squid you are worshipping from Planet K whatever. God will be dead by then. Long devoured by a kraken from Planet K whatever. Or murdered along with the devil by Latin American fans of rock n roll. But what had the fans of Latin American rock n roll accomplished? Surely there must be a take home morsel of truth. Was there any pre-Columbian wisdom to savor while you hitchhiked back to The Tequila with the necessary piped in cocktails awaiting you?

Perhaps the cult of Saint Death that popped up for an evening or two, I could even argue three for the symbol system fan, had defeated mathematics, history and religion ever so briefly in the Yucatan jungle. Or your best guess because not even the feathered Mayan serpent gods had a good bead on the practitioners of Saint Death, The Latin American Rock n Roll Division.

Apparently Boo Black is going to sing for the heavens from our makeshift altar with The Sugar Skulls. The big feathered Mayan serpent god was the speaker. I didn't think that this festival could get any worse. I'd wager you one dead baby skull from out of the Mayan well that there are plenty of chills and thrills ahead before the last corpse rides out of here in a hearse. Or The Sugar Skulls tail tuck it back up to The Tequila for their piped in cocktails.

That's what the feathered Mayan snake Gods were saying. Jive talking feathered snakes. You can't shake me. I'm going to shake you before this is through. Can you believe the stones on this white devil? It's a miracle he can walk. I prefer the term green devil because my eyes are the color of the lamp at the end of the dock. That's where you get off. And your momma gets on.

Or at least I thought we were talking trash. Ye Mayan Gods of the ancients and High Priest Black were slinging literary Calaveras at each other. I was slinging poems written for The Day of the Dead to criticize the living at Mayan Gods? Ye Gods! That's what counts some mornings in the Yucatan. It's what's going on in your head. Not what's going on out in the jungle. Those godforsaken lands can't be tamed. History tells us that. You block out that horror before it becomes a cause of permanent insanity. It's a poor prescription for living but some grim mornings that's the only operational piece of your sanity. The ability to block is what keeps the permanent madness at bay. You take that feature away and the feathered Mayan serpent gods swoop in for the kill. Bagock!

Chapter

It must have been primordial scary the first night of the festival. I was glad that I wasn't out here hallucinating with Ye Mayan gods. I was thanking my Mayan stars that I was only hallucinating on morning three. That first night might have even topped the chills of the ancients. You figure the Mayans weren't on mind altering drugs. How bad could the human sacrifice be?

But you try watching a Mexican soap opera while on mind altering drugs. It actually makes all the predictable plot twists kind of interesting. So you've got the Mexican soap opera with the ghosts under your intoxicated belt. Now try watching tens of thousands of people that are equally out of their minds overthrowing a three day rock festival out in the sticks of Mexico. That one doesn't come with a little frame around it. You're a principle in it. Or an extra depending on how you behave yourself. You might even be an unwilling ghost when the celebratory gunshots go off.

Being on mind altering drugs smack dab in the middle of an out-of-control rock n roll festival in the jungle makes fifteen minutes watching a Mayan priest do his dirty work look lovely. You get to go home and hide in your hut until the next equinox. But the festival had found its own comfortable level on the dawn of day three. Or at least I was telling myself that the really bad violence was concluded as I made my way through the human, animal and unidentifiable sacrifices. Is that an actual human finger over there? Gross. And how exactly do you lose your finger at a rock n roll show? We were all barefoot too. We'd somehow reconnected with the other Sugar Skulls. Carefully was how we were going through the open sewer.

Most things that could be smashed had been smashed. And this is how we'll all be living after the zombie Apocalypse. We'll be hanging around the baggage carousel in a ruined Eastern Bloc airport looking for something to eat. A bonfire will be burning where there was once a proposed gate for Customs. Bathrooms will bedrooms. Sewers are pools. And then the alien conquistadors will come through. Use our carbon atoms for coal. That fabled light at the end of the tunnel is actually the furnace on an alien space ship. And we're the coal. Pray to the kraken from Planet K whatever. Did I mention that we were barefoot? Talk about a rookie move. First time at the rodeo, I see? No boots? The bull with the horns for your innards is right over there. We're going to zap his balls with an electric cattle prod just for you.

We were closing in on the stage though. The camping density was increasing exponentially. We'd seemingly found the mother of all airport terminals in the godforsaken lands. The departure gate for your final destination. People were camping wherever they wanted. They were doing whatever they wanted. And nobody could do a damn thing about it. It seemed like progress at the time. The ground was getting muddier but it was somehow firmer at the same time.

The rock n roll savages were just too numerous to even self-police. And even if you personally behaved yourself it didn't help because your neighbors were beyond help. And they still had quite a bit of snarl left in them before they even began to remotely question themselves. What are you looking at pal? I'm defecating here. You think because you're here to play that you're some kind of hotshot? Without me you aren't my excrement which I'm going to pick up and throw at you. Only the language was a little coarser. And the bowel movements were looser. They were seemingly largely comprised of blood and water. Perhaps the drinking water was contaminated seeing as it was doubling as the sewer as it often does in primitive cultures. Who wouldn't want an All-Inclusive water supply? You could drink it and poop in it at the same time. It was great! Perhaps I had found that fabled arroyo that has surpassed the side of the highway as the ultimate dumping ground for gringos. But there was nothing advanced about the fans whatsoever. It was like they were the thing that came before apes on man's journey out of the primordial muck.

It was like wading through a primeval swamp. Pardon us lower order primates, sorry to disturb your merriment with fire, cooking Mexican raccoons and defecating blood and water, but we're here to play for you good people. We are optimistic enough to think that we might be able to entertain you lower order primates. I know. It's beyond absurd as far as ideas go. But we're on LSD, you see? It's a really fresh dose. It's coming on hells bells too. Liquid hellfire is what we're on when I actually think about it.

We think we can actually please people that are as drunk, drugged and baseline disturbed as you. I can't imagine that you're much of a day at the beach sober. It's going to be incredibly tough to even remotely reach you in your current state, never mind please you, but that's what we intend to do. Call us fools and much worse as you've already done. But we think that we can do it. We've got total certitude actually. That's what's holding us together along with our drugs. Plus we want to get our bare feet out of the mud. Which way to the stage, juggler of swords?

We could see it now. It's right over there beyond the massive fire. But how do you get up there short of sprouting wings? We'd prefer not to walk all the way around it. The thing is absolutely massive as I'm sure you have noted by now while juggling your swords. Those were our most sensible people. The jester, the juggler and the village idiot were the most helpful people that we could find along with the Frisbee aficionado. And they were no help. The soap bubble people were particularly helpless. They were right up there with the rainbow hippies that couldn't even tell you what they were doing themselves. They asked us what they were doing. Being free is what I said.

Directions to the artist's entrance for the stage were in short supply. We just slogged on towards Mecca. Trying to figure out where the access point might be to get into our Sacred Mosque. We didn't want to add to this appalling pilgrimage. We wanted to throw stones at Satan right now. But Allah clearly had other plans for us first. Slogging through these pilgrims was apparently the top of his list. What could be the message of all of this?

It was like Babylon had crashed on a deforested wasteland deep in the jungle. Imagine a strip mining company putting their stamp on a few hundred hectares. Then a few fires and hurricanes come through. Then the Babylonians moved in to the muddy pit to put on the final touches. They had a lot of hours left in them before the society fully turned on itself. The old snake eating its tail. Or they'd just reel you in and wrap you in their boa until you became one of them. There was that risk too. Conversion to their way of thinking seemed like a distinct possibility. That looks kind of interesting over there. Maybe I should try to fire walk too. I wouldn't mind burning the poop off my feet. Only a fool wouldn't fire walk out here. It's the only sensible thing to do at this goat rope. Was this The Garden of Eden of The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun? From whence we all came? Good grief!

Chapter

We walked up to the mighty stage like barefoot mendicants at the end of a brutal pilgrimage. The only real estate that the concert promoters seemingly still held was the stage and the sound towers. They were loosely held at best. The fact that you couldn't have sex with them or eat them is probably what saved them. And the festival goers were at least mildly interested in Latin American rock. Or they had been at some point before they fell into their merriment of fire and destruction.

The fans of Latin American rock weren't going to stop you if you could get up on that stage and actually play. But I wouldn't want to go up there and suck because there was no security between you and tens of thousands of fans of Latin American rock. Never mind the fact that you found it impossible to find the access point up to the stage with a head full of drugs. Those fans would find it like the back of their hands. You better give them everything that you had, rock n roller, because judge, jury and executioner were all one out there in the jungle this fine dawn.

The singer could become the sacrificed with one swift stroke of the machete. Or a well-placed AK-47 round in the hat from some guy in the back. So much for peace, love and rock n roll. It was all war, hate and noise now. Welcome to the New World Order. But don't worry about it because you don't have to deal with it. You're victim number. You're the first corpse in the stack. How do you like that? Not so comfy, right? Wait until we throw a couple billion bodies on top of you. We're reaching for the stars. We're stacking the stiffs one at a time. How else do you expect us to reach the stars? We aren't rocket scientists. That's not what we do. We're savages. We stack stiffs. You want jet propulsion? Go somewhere else.

The festival revelers and the festival performers were policing themselves of this much we were certain. Or there was no policing authority whatsoever. That cricket as conscience had walked off the job too. He got tired of all the competing voices in my head. However it was seemingly sort of peaceful at the festival even though we had apparently no formal or moral authority. Or the really bad violence was concluded. It had burned itself out as it typically does. But it was incredibly hard to discern between the festival revelers and the live event staff because everyone had gone native with the horrific rock n roll behavior. It didn't seem like anybody was actually working.

We bumbled upon the entrance to the stage. We climbed up some stairs to the mighty stage and that was it. To say that the stage was being manned was like saying I hope Hell is going to be cool. It's Hell, you idiot. The scene up on the stage appeared to be taking its cues from the tail end of a carnival in Valhalla. We didn't even rate modern Hell. We got the abandoned Viking one, Valhalla.

The live event staff had apparently decided to construct their own Valhalla up on the stage. Or at least the lowest level of the live event nation had decided to do it. The bottom of the live event nation rung appeared to be tasked with running the show. Or holding it in place and not screwing anything up beyond themselves on drugs until the power came back on. There was currently no power at the show. How do you put on a music festival without power? The answer was you don't. You need something really progressive. It's called power.

The current keepers of live event nation were peons, drug addict caterers and production assistants with no function beyond sitting on apple boxes. The live event people of substance were crashed out in trailers behind the stage. There was no power so there was no job until the power came back on or they were tasked with taking everything down. The state of events was explained to us quickly. There was no power so nobody of consequence was manning the lamp at the end of the dock. That bad boy needs watts.

In the meanwhile the peons, drug addict caterers and the production assistants with no function beyond sitting on apple boxes were tasked with minding the shop. How were they doing at it? Not so good. As I already outlined they had gone full-blown carnival workers on all of us. The sweet smell of crystal methamphetamine was wafting through the air. That whole crystal methamphetamine look is so distinct. It turns everyone into the same person. I suppose that is the hideous drug's one good feature. Your meth head is interchangeable. And this is what happens in live event nation when the power goes out and all the adults go to bed. The meth heads takeover! You thought the heavy metal scene was bad live? You should see it without any power when the college educated people all go to bed. You'll be wishing you could get back up to what you thought was a bad level. This scene was just awful.

All the Viking carnival workers in Valhalla were drinking and doing drugs like it was their job. Getting stupendously high was the only way to get through this carnival of the absurd in Valhalla for the absolute bottom rung of live event nation. Your live event nation meth head and your live event nation meth head in training had to have their crystal to be vigilant with the neighborhood watch. All they were tasked with doing was watching. And they couldn't do that very well.

I couldn't blame them though. There was precious little to watch. The equipment wasn't sprouting legs and walking off. Nobody wanted to carry it out of the jungle. I was thinking about taking out a few more bolts on my Tilt-A-Whirl. Make this House of Horrors my permanent home. Carry around a running chainsaw for laughs until I took out that garden hose artery in my leg, the femoral artery. Oops, I didn't mean to cut into that. Guess I'm done. Well, I had fun. Chuck my corpse into the crowd before you set it on fire.

It was like Jose Boston had been tasked with running the world while the gods got some much needed sleep. Don't touch anything. Don't let anyone steal anything. And absolutely do not wake me up until the power is back on. Those were the orders the peons, drug addict caterers and production assistants sitting on the apple boxes were given with regards to minding the shop because I asked. But how could you sleep with people like this guarding your fortune? I couldn't even begin to put a number on the live event equipment that was stacked up out here in the jungle. However even King Solomon of rock n roll does periodically need to slumber particularly when the power to his Temple is out. I couldn't wait to meet the King Solomon of this festival. His wisdom must have fearsome along with his abilities with exorcism and magic. The real King Solomon was a swordsman too. What with his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines? But how could he find time to sleep with his thousand women? Apparently he died of old age but I had my doubts. I figure he croaked on a hayride. Or more likely one of his seven hundred wives topped him. Or a whole troop of them. But enough about the builder of the first Temple in Jerusalem. What about the money man behind The All-Inclusive Church of Cancun? What the holy hell was he thinking?

Was this unfinished airport out in the jungle the departure to my final destination? Is this where the burro resided? The winged donkey that was going to take me up into the sky was poking around out here? Mexico's Pegasus lived like this? Perhaps he was back in the trailer with King Solomon of Latin American rock n roll with his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. How do you sell a guy like that on virgins in Paradise? He just scoffs at you.

It seemed like there was some sort of symbolic import out here at the unfinished airport up on the mighty stage. What with King Solomon's temple and whatnot. But it also seemed to be some sort of inverse of the symbolic import of the Cancun International Airport. That was the arrival piece of the equation as far as The Mexican Dream was concerned. Perhaps this was the departures piece. How to symbolically position The Wasteland in the middle? Was that just the filler like Godzilla? You put a sprig of marijuana on The King of Monsters. Sprinkle some cocaine on top. Then dunk the cross between a gorilla and whale in tequila before you eat him. Or is the symbol system just out-of-control again? Every society has a symbol system that reflects a specific cultural logic. But what happens when a person points out that the cultural logic is illogical? I suppose that's what stones are for. They stone you to death. And that solves your problem.

However as always there were just more pressing matters. I couldn't be concerned with the symbolic import of my story. I leave that symbolic mess to the graduate student down the millennia. Work your way through my symbol system or just chalk off the entire mess like a corpse. Let some other detective downstream deal with it. Or cremate the whole mess. Kiss it up to your Kraken God from Planet K Whatever. I don't know what this is, Kraken God, but it's your mess now. Hold it in one of your suction cups. May the tide always greet you? May the shark always be at your back? I think I'll just slink out of here before I upset you Kraken God. I'm a little unclear on how to bow down to you. How exactly do you please a Kraken God? I have brought you some lovely calamari and squid ink pasta as an offering.

Frankly I was just too busy dealing with the one true God, money. Or at least that's what I was thinking. Money is the one true God of planet Earth. I had my epiphany on LSD in the jungle at a totally out-of-control rock n roll festival featuring up and coming Latin American talent of which I counted myself among even though I hadn't sung a single note. The power was knocked out. I had absolutely nothing to do with my manic imagination. So I found my God. Her name was money, honey. And she was female like Saint Death! Hooray. If that's not Biblical enough to reach you then I don't know what will. I leave you to your old gods that you won't pay you. Mine will. Sit tight and she will cash right in. Or break you like a check. There is that too. Count you like coins. Then slide you into a change holder. Are you ready to change?

The festival workers and the people working for the bands weren't getting paid. They weren't getting any change. This is what I was observing up on that mighty stage. Why should they work? That was the other part of my epiphany. You shouldn't work if you aren't getting paid. Money, the one true God of Planet Earth, agrees with you. You don't work for free. You work for money. That's the whole religion in a nutshell. I told it was a good religion.

There was no way that the festival workers were getting paid. The fans had stolen so much of it away. They had also destroyed so much of it away. Broken it down into little itty bitty pieces. Then set them on fire. But the workers couldn't just abandon ship. They had to stick it out until the bitter end to keep their jobs and their credentials with the fans, yes. You can't fold up when the heavy metal gets a little too heavy, now can you? We built this Frankenstein and we mean to watch him tear our beating hearts out. Right out of the ribcage. Then shove the pulsating heart into his mouth. Then it's lights out. But the real reason that the festival workers had stayed was to safely guide the equipment out. They wanted to rock n roll another day.

You can't do that whole rock n roll thing without tractor trailers full of equipment. It's not some out of the trashcan art. You can't flash the heavy metal horns without a couple of tractor trailers backing you up. You might even need a horn section to go with your devil horns. That's how it is rock n roller. You need a lot of eighteen wheelers if you get big up in the rock n roll game. And not even your most heavy metal dude would have been able to take one practice amp off that mighty stage and walk it by all those rabid fans. They'd never let him pass. They'd burn his amp. And he'd be flogged for being a quitter.

The only way that you were getting those multiple mountains of equipment out of the jungle was when the fans of Latin American rock n roll had decided that they had had enough. And it was definitely beginning to look that way. No power out in the jungle was guiding that ship. Perhaps the backers had knocked it out on purpose.

Sunday morning is just a natural for getting super depressed and wanting to go home. Even rabid rock n roll fans aren't immune to the laws of the universe. A couch somewhere was beginning the siren call to all these rock n roll fans. They would tuck and crumble Sunday night without question. A broken down couch with a bottle of mescal in the ghetto of Cancun would be the coda. Some flesh eating drug within easy reach in tidy gorilla fingers on the broken mirror. Or a Jacuzzi bathtub in The Tequila for the uptown customer with the liquor piped in. Dueling mariachis under the pillow and a taco cart for a bathroom. We'd all find our own curious level. Go where God wanted us.

That was all fine and good. We would all climb back onto The Great Chain of Being when this catastrophe wrapped up according to God's plan. You're down the bottom. I'm up the top. Hooray! You'll do great in the next life. And I get screwed. What are you going to do? But what was really perplexing was did the bands cultivate this barbaric audience? Or was the barbaric audience the purpose of the festival? And the bands were an afterthought even for the musicians themselves? How else to explain how everyone came out here to listen to music but then overran the festival? The music couldn't be that important. How could it?

It was just an excuse to behave this way. It was the ritual of this bad behavior that was the religion of rock n roll. Nobody seemed to care about the music. It was the bad behavior that rock n roll afforded. That much was clear. It just offered the road to hell. Rock n roll was just a siren call. The destination was what everybody was after right, Hell? Well, here it was in all its destroyed glory.

Welcome to Rock n Roll Hell. It's what we'll all be doing on Sunday if rock n roll gets off the ground as a religion. But it won't. It will just pop up periodically and then peter out which is what it has always done.

Rock n roll is like a penis that can't get up. Someday soon it won't even do that. It will just retreat up into the body and piss itself to death. You could probably say the same thing about religion. I wouldn't do it though because you'll draw too many critics. People will absolutely flip out as they are wont to do when you question their superstitions.

Religion is like a penis that can't get up. Someday soon it won't even do that. It will just retreat up into the body and piss itself to death. It's not going to do it though. You have it confused with rock n roll which we all know is the Devil's music.

Fortunately we couldn't play it because the power blew. An electrician had to drive a dirt bike out to the highway and scale a pylon to fix it. Or get electrocuted trying. No juice. No metal. That's how it is big up in the game. And some days you can't even play and have some holier-than-thou person say you're going to hell because you're already there. And you know it. I already got the message, thanks. At this point I'm just trying to keep my seat.

Chapter

Everyone was giving us that hostile drug look. The Sugar Skulls were wandering around the jungle again. Suns up. Guns up. As the old soldier expression goes. It had to be late afternoon by now actually. We had been wandering around for hours. But the power still wasn't up. Francis, our doctor Frankenstein, was going to signal us if it came back up. Nobody knew exactly how he was going to do it but we would know the sign when we heard it. Perhaps just a bass drum kick would do it. Or a trumpet solo of the Apocalypse. Maybe some beast would just coming running at us.

We went back out into the jungle to check out the natives in the meanwhile. They were deep into that hostile drug look. And they were getting worse by the minute because more and more of them were waking up. Apparently the Jerks of the Yucatan were a nocturnal people. The Jerks of the Yucatan being what came before the Mayan. Jangled is how I would describe our people. We had wandered very afar as your drug scrounger is prone to do. We were like a pack of jackals loping after an invisible gazelle. We couldn't quite sink our fangs into him. He was as elusive as a unicorn. Perhaps the drugs forever out of our grasp were the bitter pill of The Mexican Dream.

Fortunately the hostile drug look hasn't moved much since Woodstock. You'd think stronger drugs would give it a bit more oomph but they haven't. The hostile drug look is stuck in a moment. That's grandpa's old fashioned hostile drug look. Personally I'd like it to get a little more hostile. It would be nice if we could modernize it a bit. I'd like my skin to stand straight up.

It's hard to reach me when I'm this high wandering the jungle for evermore drugs. I turn into a wooden Indian of cigar store fame. It's the only advantage of drugs that I can personally recommend. You can effectively block out the annoyances of modern life in the jungle. That whole wandering around in the pee-pee mosquito kingdom looking for more drugs isn't annoying. You don't mind the godforsaken lands at all. We weren't having the best of luck at it either but I didn't care. It was almost impossible to flap me because I was on so many drugs. But the fans of Latin American rock n roll were giving reaching The Sugar Skulls as a whole a very good try. They seemed to surmise that we were late arrivals.

I can't blame them for being angry with us for showing up a bit late to the show though. And we'd seemingly killed the power with the power of our presence. At least that's what they thought. What did you Sugar Skulls do with the power? Everything was fine until you showed up. You killed the power! The Sugar Skulls suck!

I'd be hostile as a hyena in a leg trap too if I were out in the godforsaken lands living like a zombie for three days and some band shows up in fresh body paint with a relatively fresh drug outlook. And they killed the power to the whole festival! I wouldn't care that blaming them for knocking out the power was illogical. That's precisely why I would do it. It would make perfect sense.

What makes you so special that you get to step off a nice tour bus with only one day of hard partying under your belt when I've been out here living in a puddle getting mangled on drugs since Friday? Hell, I got here Thursday night to get started early. I haven't even seen my biker old lady since Friday when she went off for a little gangbang with the Heaven's Devils, Cancun Division, for Christ sake. She's probably tackled the Oaxaca Division by now. I don't even want to think about the Mexico City Division. They have sprawl.

What gives you the right to show up on Sunday afternoon out in the jungle on four hits of an upscale club drug? And you're on LSD too? What kind of fag are you in fake breasts? Next thing you'll be walking around in panties. This is a heavy metal festival. You think you're proud of killing the power? We killed the Devil out here yesterday. Take a look over there if you think I'm lying. He's tits up over there in that arroyo. Tore his horns off myself.

I did it on a flesh eating drug. That's what I'm on right now. They don't call it crocodile for nothing. It eats your face which is what I'm going to do to you if you suck up on that stage. You suck up there. I'm going to eat your face. Then I'm really going to get going. You get that power back up by sundown or you're a real Sugar Skull. You're looking for The Mexican Dream? Well, pal, you're looking at.

Chapter

The massive stage was just sitting there when we finally got back up there after The Mexican Dream chastised us. There were no other musicians. We were the whole show? Is this how The Day of the Dead is supposed to operate? Nobody else wanted at this kamikaze flight?

We were seemingly the only musicians in attendance at the entire festival. There didn't seem to be any hanging around in the mud. There didn't seem to be anymore arriving. Had the Sugar Skulls conquered Latin American rock n roll? How's that pylon coming along? I mean to take the crown of Latin American rock n roll ever so briefly. However I need power to do it. There's always a power problem in Paradise, I suppose.

I figured they had to be camped out somewhere, the musicians. That angry biker on flesh eating drugs in the mud couldn't be the keeper of my holy grail, The Mexican Dream. Maybe some musicians could be produced to help point me in the right direction. Or turn me off the quest. Give it up, amigo. It's that angry biker on flesh eating drugs in the mud. You tracked the wily beast to his lair. You even lived to tell about it.

Musicians seemed like the most likely candidates for the keeper of the dream now that I was back on the stage. Musicians seemed like they might be The Trojan Horse. The Mexican Dream was merely within them. Or they produced it by playing.

There weren't any musicians on the stage to ask except The Sugar Skulls. The peons, drug addict caterers and production assistants sitting on the apple boxes said that there weren't any musicians in the production trailers. Well, where did they go? Not my problem, amigo. I just watch the equipment. When the power comes back up then I won't even get to do that. My boss will send me to the trailer. Tell me to clean it. I hate this job.

It was still unclear if we were going to get cleared for takeoff. Board that Tijuana donkey out in the godforsaken lands. There was still no power. And there was some debate about letting us play if the power could even be restored. There wasn't any great reception when we climbed back up there to check on the status of our dead festival. Still a corpse? We were arguably the least popular Latin American rock n roll band on the planet at that very moment. Researcher take note.

The promoter looked pissed that we had actually returned. We were just going to prolong the inevitable grisly end of this doomed festival. But now that we were here it would probably incite a riot if we were just sent back down the stairs again without playing. I'd rather jump off the stage. Or be thrown off it.

The fans of Latin American rock n roll needed at least one more act to end this thing righteously, lest we forget that. The germination of this whole poisonous weed was music. But I don't think that the fans cared what the last act was anymore. They were just expecting someone to fold this thing up in the dark. And they may or may not pay attention to the music. But to keep the peace a band was going to have to get up on that mighty stage and take the sun down. Blow it right out of the sky. Smash the Mexican Pegasus right through it.

Perhaps high volume would pacify them. Or just beat them down a few pegs. It didn't really matter though because that's what we were going to do. Try to beat some manners into the fans of Latin American rock n roll with ear shattering volume. I was seriously looking forward to blowing their eardrums. I couldn't wait to watch the blood pour out of their skulls.

You don't heckle musicians looking for The Mexican Dream. And you definitely don't call them fags for wearing fake breasts. Because they're not fags with fake tits for starters. The whole gender bender thing with the fake tits is an act. And the point of the act is to make it okay to be queer. Or whatever you want to be such as a lesbian like Maynard. Being a fake queer is even fine with us. We don't care if you're real or not. Be as plastic as you want. Because what we're ultimately fighting for is to be different. Our message is different. Whatever it is that you want to do that's different we're good with it. Hell, even be normal too. That's cool too. It's kind of weird but we can live with it.

We're even fighting for monsters on flesh eating drugs that hate us. We don't like your self-expression because it's hateful, stupid and directed right at us. But we'll fight for your ability to condemn us even though it offends us. You see how that works? That's how cool we are. We're granting you something that you won't grant us. It's called acceptance.

Finally the way that you get a musician's goat is you topple the tour bus after the show. Then you set in on fire. The tour bus is their penis, vagina and rear end all rolled into one. The tour bus is Noah's Ark, the Virgin Mary and our Savior on wheels. Are we clear on that? The tour bus is God Almighty on his throne up in the Heavens. That's how important it is to us. Talk about a rookie move. And the kicker is we'd already consigned the tour bus to the jungle. Our holiest of the holy had been kissed up to God. We had nothing left to lose.

We were going to ear rape those fans. Teach them lesson one about rock n roll. You don't screw with the musicians especially when they have horrific amplification. And they're not afraid to use it. Why put all these sound stacks out here in the jungle if you don't expect a few really powerful voices to roar through them?

The Church of Rock n Roll is cruel heading into the sunset on day three of an out-of-control festival. Nobody forgives and they certainly don't forget. The parishioners are a bunch of savages in the mud on primitive drugs derived from household cleaners. They'd just as soon eat your vocal cords as listen to you. But they can't play the rock n roll game better than you. They're not the only rock n roll savages in this jungle. It was time to rain heads down on them. We'd put off drowning them in their own blood long enough. The power came up! It was time to bludgeon the front row.

Chapter

We just walked out there like we owned the stage. It ended all the arguments with the promoter. Francis threatened him with a pistol. I knew Francis was a handgun customer. A handgun is just a natural accoutrement for the serious cocaine consumer. The circle of life can't be changed.

Everything was powered up and working including us. Really strong electricity has a way of deterring people, I suppose. Even rioting rock fans don't pick up industrial power cables. Or they don't do it twice. Maybe it rained a bit and took care of the really curious ones the first night. I wonder what happens if I touch that cable that is buzzing? But how the hell did the electrics get this much power out here? Blow it out? And then get it back on again?

It sort of gave me the shivers to consider how it was actually done. I could see some guy scaling a transmission tower. Don't worry I know what I'm doing. I've tied into plenty of pylons before. Then some other guy drives up in his monster truck with his spool of cable on the back. Is it hot? Lower that line down to me and we're good to go. Then they blew it out? And somehow got it back on? I want to hang out with those guys after the Apocalypse. We'll be making blender drinks. Don't worry. I can get this power station back up. His partner in the monster truck is napping. Ping me when it's hot. I'm getting a few winks.

I made a mental note to not touch anything other than my guitar cord. I didn't know how well the ad hoc electrical grid was holding together in the jungle. And I really didn't want to know precisely how those outback electrics got the power in here. It was scary enough just plugging my guitar cord into an amp which was way downstream from the pylon. How exactly do you dial down ultra-high-voltage down to this? Anybody got a broomstick to hit me with if I get zapped? I plugged in and then I completely froze. I didn't get zapped by electricity but I did get one hell of a shock.

The sun was setting like a gasoline demon. I glanced down into the jungle at the tens of thousands of people that I was going to play for. It looked like their heads were on fire. Were they the people of the Sun? Had they come back around again? I felt like the Mayan had beaten the Conquistadors. And somebody had elected me High Priest. Hooray! But what the Hell am I doing up here? I don't even know the tunes. And how do you fake your way through a festival show? Isn't that kind of a tough thing to fake particularly when you're out of your skull?

Fortunately the music started without me and the stage fright sort of disappeared. I turned around to look at The Sugar Skulls because they were really good. They were astonishingly good. Where did that come from?

The Sugar Skulls played this really crisp art metal. Every note snapped. Paz was hitting her bass like an anvil. Danny was punching holes in the heavens with his drums. And there were three guitar techs sitting on stools in the back burning down the house. It was like they were playing The Northern Lights. They were that good.

They were guitar trolls. You know the type? Those rock n roll dudes that look like they live exclusively on heroin, Jack Daniels and cigarettes. Because that's what they do! Those are their actual food groups. Maybe a bean and cheese burrito sneaks in once in a while but that's it. They croak of an overdose or work in guitar stores because they are so highly problematic to take on the road. They live exclusively on heroin, Jack Daniels and cigarettes with the occasional outlier bean and cheese burrito. And even the guitar trolls when pushed will admit that's not a good prescription for living.

Guitar trolls are an abject nightmare to work with. They can't show up on time. They smell. They're always going through withdrawal. They have nothing to recommend them. But they can play absolutely anything. They're guitar trolls.

Playing guitar is the guitar troll's one area of excellence. And they are just incredible at it. They can play the music upside down, backwards or anyway that you like.

They can play The Northern Lights as attested by these three. A collision of solar wind and magnetosphere named after the Roman goddess of dawn is just an opener for them. They're just doodling around on that. Wait until they exit the solar system. After that they can walk you through The Milky Way.

You just have to deal with all their problems which are unmanageable. And chances are you're too high to identify them. They're just too much trouble so you have to get rid of them. They go to the guitar store until they croak. And that's that. No more guitar troll problems.

I shouldn't have been surprised that Paz had three of them. She probably figured that they could somehow police themselves if she had enough of them. And she was right. They had somehow made it to the show. And by God were they playing. They were just astonishing. They were guitar gods from the Heavens. They were making short work of the very rare red aurora version of The Northern Lights. And there were three of them! Paz was a musical genius. She had a band within her band. And she didn't even have to manage them. This was the first time that I had seen them.

The music had these really complicated arrangements and polyrhythm time signatures that actually sounded really good. Sometimes complicated music comes off as just that. It's just too complicated for the ear. The ear doesn't like it. It's a ton of fun to play but it's terrible to listen to. The fingers love it but the ears hate it. It's like that with most complicated music. But it was the exact opposite with The Sugar Skulls. The music was super complicated but the ear loved it. It was kind of dark and spooky but it wasn't cartoony. It took itself seriously but it wasn't afraid of a little wink. We're messing with you with all this darkness but we're serious too. The shadow lands are coming to get you. The red aurora is descending. The change has come. Whoa, that's kind of scary. You had me for a second there. Do it again. It was like that.

The music was messing with your head but in a good way. You had to try to figure out which were the serious parts. But there was also this little jive going on with the comedic parts. The comedic parts were dark and serious too. The music was light and dark at the same time. It was this haunting thing that poked fun at you. How did you pull that off, Paz? You're playing a Calaveras. You're The Sugar Skulls. And you play Calaveras. Good Christ, Paz! You're brilliant.

My wig was sitting there in full blowback. I wasn't ready for that. You guys are really spooky. But you're really good too. And you're kind of funny too. Get out of here, Sugar Skulls. It was also an absolutely huge sound suited for stadiums. Some rock n roll is better in an intimate venue. Some little guy singing about his housecat behind his acoustic guitar. You're in the coffeehouse thinking that's kind of cool. I dig the cat singing about his cat. This music was suited for the universe. It was like a space ship powering up to explore new worlds. Shall we pop over to Mars? Or we could take a crack at Planet K whatever. Wake up some kraken god. Give him a little fright instead of the other way around. I could go Mega-Earth too. What planet strikes your fancy for domination?

I could see why Danny and Maynard found it necessary to bury their heads in their monitors which is precisely what they were doing. They were really good mechanics but the music was taking them right to the edge of their talent. They were probably out past it at various points. They were like astronauts out on a spacewalk that were attached to the mother ship by tethers. Don't go out any further, gents, or we can't reel you back. That tether snaps and you're in the sun. It gets a little toasty in there as you can imagine. Roger that.

Paz was all set though. She was playing this stupid long bass. It was some custom job that only an Amazon or Paz could play. She was hopping around barefoot and naked under all her body paint. I'd go around nude too if I could play bass like that. You don't need anything else in this life because that bass would provide everything else. Paz was smiling. She even threw in a few rock god moves for my amusement. Paz was totally in her element and just loving it. She wasn't overdoing it and playing bass like a lead instrument. She was just killing it.

The guitar trolls were crushing it on the guitar and smoking. They had some sort of rhythm for whose turn it was to smoke. The other trolls would play the smoking troll's notes for him. They'd just go around the circle like that. Guitar trolls are proof positive of a divine being. Their talent is God given. They definitely don't work at it. Guitar trolls don't even understand the concept of working at something. You could probably explain it to them when they woke up in the morning. But the entire lesson would be lost by the time they got going on the heroin and liquor. Then they just start shredding. You ask them how they do it and they say you just do it. That's their message.

The groupies were doing this really weird dancing. It was super slow and strange but a perfect counterpoint to the music. It was also all the stage presence that was required. The band was the music and not the stage presence. The stage presence was covered by the groupies with their modern dancing. And it was super weird which was super interesting. Then Maynard started singing.

I was expecting him to howl. Or screech like some heavy metal singer. But he started singing like a little angel. He was like this little cherub with his harp descending down from the heavens on his magic string. God is up there with his fishing pole. I'm sending this cherub down. Not even I know what to do with him. I think this one might not have been invented in my image. Or I made a mistake. You figure it out.

Maynard had to be classically trained because he was that good. I would have loved to have talked with his classical singing instructor. Did you know the little angel was going to wear prosthetic breasts and paint himself up like a Day of the Dead skull? Then sing his heavenly numbers. The singing teacher probably didn't see that one coming. I certainly didn't. I didn't expect heavenly sounds to come out of that package. It was a total record scratch but in a good way.

Maynard might have been singing like a little angel but what he had to say was truly horrific. He was singing about having sex with Jesus. Not the grownup one. I was sitting there like whoa, dude, easy. This is just the opening number? And he was gesturing for me to get next to him to sing backup.

Maynard wanted me to do that haunting melody thing behind him. You sing just a little bit behind the lead singer and lower and you get it right. You haunt the hell out of everyone. You're the lead singer's ghost for all purposes. But I was thinking, I don't know. You seem to be blowing the doors off the joint without me. You've probably got the coast of Portugal shuddering right now. It was that loud. And that clear. Francis had certainly delivered with the amplification. And I'm a little uncomfortable with the material. I like material with a little edge, don't get me wrong. But I didn't expect the Devil's personal play list. The tunes he's cranking when he's fricasseeing a sinner for supper down in Hell. Running barbecue sauce up and down his back. I don't think that I'll be able to talk my way out of this one if Heaven truly exists. I didn't mean to sing about a pedophile priest that takes a crack at your only son in front of tens of thousands of witnesses. I think I'll just wait until the next number. Maybe the material will lighten up a bit. I could go for a blowjob from Mary maybe. I figure the Virgin Mary could probably give a pretty good hummer. But then again I just don't know. Maybe this whole Sugar Skull thing is just a little too rough for me. Or I'm just getting too old. The kids today are playing a whole new game. They're wagering their souls against rock n roll. Although selling your soul to the Devil at the crossroads for a few guitar licks is a bit of a golden oldie. But you know what? I'm a pass. Maybe I'll just go take a piss. Just wander off into the jungle. I don't even think I want to be a spectator for this. It's really appallingly dark material even by my standards. Saying you want to rape baby Jesus because your parish priest raped you? That's pretty rough by even pentagram standards.

But Maynard wasn't the type of guy to let it go. He kept gesturing at me to get next to him. He was getting really insulting too. He was mouthing insults at me in between verses. He was calling me a pussy poseur. That needed a good priest raping. And it got a lot worse from there. You're already treating me like the hired help? What am I just a singing troll? I demanded. He said, yes. You're my singing troll. You get over here and sing before I kick your ass. I'll stop everything and fight you right here if I have to. You ever get your ass kicked by a guy with fake tits?

A guy wearing prosthetic breasts singing about a priest raping baby Jesus just threatened to kick my ass? And that's what did it. Maynard pissed me off so I went over there to try to sing better than him. You aren't the only classically trained singer on this stage. I've been singing my whole life. And you aren't the only Catholic guy with some bad experiences with the Church. You aren't the only guy dragging corpses of hurt and hate behind you. You want to sing your anti-religious anthems? I'm going to knock you right off your cross. Then I'm going to have sex with your hand holes. How does that grab you, Maynard? Put out your hand. I'm going to drive my dick right through them. The damn guy smiled. He was playing all of us like that fabled fiddle. And we burned down that house just like Rome.

Chapter

The Mayan jaguar gods were sitting there listening to our music. I'd like to think that I caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of my eye. Those yellow eyed killers of the ancients. Those stone cold cats of the underworld. Those chill cheetahs of Cancun. And The Feathered Serpent god had come out to hear us play too? Or perhaps it was just those hog-nosed Mexican raccoons that were out there. Those mooches of the ancients, the aardvarks of Noah's ark, the masked rats.

Those pig-nosed raccoons came out to hear us play. Or just clean up the garbage at the festival. And bite a few ankles as ankle biters are prone to do. It was hard to tell who or what was moving around out there behind all those drugs. Is that a jaguar or a raccoon? Could be either, I suppose. There is no sense getting caught up on details at an intoxicated moment such as this.

Something was out there in the jungle or it wasn't. Of that much I was certain. Or it had already been exterminated. Or everything had been packed up on a ship. It had been sent to Spain so Queen Isabella could turn her nose up at the creatures of the New World. Or hoist one over her bed. And then have it very carefully lowered by a footman. It didn't really seem to matter. That was the crucial piece. The jungle was out of my purview. It was not in my wheelhouse. I was too busy being a rock n roller. Sometimes you've got to know where you fit in the larger schemes of things. I was a rock n roller. And that's all the world was willing to task me with.

It was more like doing mathematics than playing music up on that mighty stage though. I wasn't slugging whiskey and spitting at everybody. Rock n roll! Even the guitar trolls were just sitting on stools. I had my back turned to the audience the entire time. Pardon me while I do my sums. What is the square root of b flat? It was like that.

I had to read the music off a monitor. And I had to read the little words under it. The lyrics were particularly bothersome. At some point Maynard hailed two of the guitar trolls over to relieve us of our guitars. They were playing better than us. It's not like we needed a guitar army. And Guitar trolls can by definition play guitar better than the boss. They can play circles around the boss. They just can't write the songs, sing or front the band which is why they're delegated to wearing black and shredding guitar in the back. And they're lucky to be there. I asked mine if he was singing backup too when I handed him my guitar to take away. Somebody was singing behind me and I couldn't figure out who was doing it. Nah, he said, that's Francis. He hides behind us. We're all tits on a bull in the back. We sit on stools and shred. Make you sound like rock gods. That's rock n roll for you. It's a magic act with three mimes in the back. Head faking the audience. Then Francis starts singing. The audience didn't seem to mind though. I know that I didn't. The guitar parts got a lot cleaner now that they were in the hands of the professional. And the singing improved immensely too. That rock n roll village that is so oft talked about had finally arrived. Only the savages were riding in on the tits of a bull in the dark. What are you going to do? You aren't going to get an elephant out here. He's in India having a bath in the Ganges. Leave him to his toilet. Are you insane, man?

Chapter

I didn't move my feet once. Not even when Reynard the Fox walked by. It was just a hallucination. What's an anthropomorphic red fox and trickster from medieval Europe doing on a mighty stage at a time like this? Perhaps it's just a harmless hallucination. He's an anthropomorphic red fox and trickster from medieval Europe. How bad can he be? Your mind is just inventing things. People have been taking instruction from burning bushes from time immemorial. Your hallucination is just small and suited to your station. He's an anthropomorphic red fox and trickster from medieval Europe. That's all. He's sly, amoral and self-seeking. But he symbolizes the triumph of craft over brute strength. Not bad, right?

You should also rejoice that it's not something bigger like an extinct genus of the crocodile. You'd have to navigate around that. Shove it back to some Jurassic pond. Or butcher it on the spot. Then figure out the symbol system. And whatever the creature, real or imagined, it's just some amoral fox. You give it a swift kick in the trousers and move on to the next hallucination. Sayonara, ye faithless trickster. Cue the crocodile. You have to defend yourself against this horrible symbol system. Or it will just takeover your life and start operating you like a poltergeist. But I have more bad news.

You've ditched your bone jockstrap somewhat unwisely at some point. It was careless, I know. And it walked off like a Greek skeleton warrior! Or that trickster fox carried it off to casually gnaw upon it. It's hard to say because at some point you doubled down on that good old fashioned club drug. Or perhaps it was something else. You have a sneaking suspicion that you might be on more of grandpa's LSD. You and Maynard both boarded the magic bus again a couple of numbers ago. He gave you another cap full of whatever is in his water bottle. It was electric blue this time so I don't think it was water. You tend not to consume electric blue water by the capful. And some sort of rabbit appeared shortly thereafter. When the truth is found to be lies! Then out came Reynard the Fox but you put a stop to that.

You're up on that mighty stage singing for the heavens like some nude Old Testament dude. You're on a pedestal in the Valley of Hinnom. The earliest recorded conception of Hell. That much you couldn't fake. Or maybe you could. But as always there are far more pressing matters to trouble the overworked mind than what is real or mere hallucination. We've got a rock show to put on here. And we're professionals, sort of.

The lightening engineer has seemingly come to life. That's got to be a good sign. We warrant special effects. Or it's just the end of the world which wouldn't be bad either. But it seems more like a full tilt rock n roll show with flames, lasers and fog. Do we really need all those visual effects? Aren't we good enough? Can't the music just stand by itself? Why do we have to bury everything under a mountain of fire, lights and fog?

It was like being cast as an extra in the Apocalypse. I need you to lie over here while the four horsemen of the Apocalypse come through. I believe the one on the white horse is going to stomp you. Then the one on the pale horse is going to shove a scythe into you. The Red Horse will probably just ignore you. But I expect the Black Horse to end you. Why didn't you say so? Carry on, my good man. Hit me with more flames, laser and smoke. Perhaps the horsemen will miss me. Or I'll just get set on fire by mistake by the special effect engineers that are seemingly high on propellant. I wonder what happens if I mix and then vaporize all these dangerous chemicals? Perhaps we can make some really ungodly drugs out of all these pyrotechnic compounds. It looked like they had given it the old college try. I like when my pyrotechnic man is performing his own chemistry experiments on himself. It gives you a confidence boost. I am not only a maker of horrific special effects. I am an avid smoker of them too.

I was just standing there nude holding onto the stick like Noah on his fabled ark with his Old Testament hair in full blowback. And like Noah I couldn't be concerned with what the animals were doing down in the hold while trying to steer through these rising seas. I had more pressing concerns than what was going on below deck. That menagerie is probably engaging in some ill-advised end of the world bestiality below deck by now. You just lower the hatch very carefully. Pretend that you didn't see the warthog having sex with the donkey. We're trying to make a wonky. Get it honky? You block the whole memory out. You focus on the hurricane up in the vocal department. You focus on that musical storm that you're trying to steer through. You want to get that ark nice and high up in the mountains so nobody can ever find it. You steer those vocals straight up where the prayer flags are flapping.

Maynard was blowing the dog off the chain. The pooch was soaring like a kite. I was tasked with letting out the string. I was letting that spool roll out. That's how I was rocking it out. Letting that spool all the way out. The kite was somewhere over the near side of the Moon. But I was inching it over towards the dark side of the Moon where it belonged. We're heading into the black and out of view. Ground control we're signing off. I was just hoping that I had enough string to pull it off. The world has plenty of cosmonauts but precious few that will go where no man has gone before because you don't come back. You crater on the dark side of the Moon. But it's one hell of a ride.

Meanwhile back on the blue planet the imitation smoke was churning like an imitation God was smoking a pipe. Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe particularly when it's in the maw of an imitation God. And I was up on the poop deck righteously howling at the fiery heavens. I was trying to taunt them into a direct hit. Is that all you've got? Take me out with a bolt of lightning right now. I deserve it. Fraud, you don't exist. I knew it. Score one for me and none for God because he doesn't exist. If this isn't going to shake him then nothing will.

I was actually trying to bury Maynard the entire time. That was my true target and not the heavens with their celestial beings and whatnot. I was trying to totally overshadow him as a vocalist. I wanted to be the backup singer that steals the show right out from under the lead singer. You know the one? It's usually some gospel singer in the back. The aging rock star needs a little soul so he plucks some lady out of a gospel choir down South. He's impressed by her pipes until she blows him out. Just tears that little rug right out from under the aging rock star. Or right off his head, in this instance, because Maynard was wearing a wig like me. You're not the only naked maniac in a wig wearing prosthetic breasts that can howl at the heavens. You think you got that market cornered just because you're on an obnoxious amount of drugs? Well, there is a brand new cross dresser in town. And this show girl came to get down. Jump, jump, jump around. I was trying to send his wig into next week. Kick it down the street. Chase after it. Set it on fire. Stomp it out. Douse it with a big splash of urine. Put it back on his head and repeat. How you doing now? Not so cool because I took you to school.

You aren't the only bewigged nutcase that has pipes. I meant to howl. And howl I did. That was the crucial piece. But it took every painted pony that I had under the old musical hood to just stand there like a pagan idol, stone feet bolted to the stage, to get my vocals right. I wasn't just trying to be right on the money. I was trying to be loud as hell. And right in the pocket too. And that's a tall order for old man rock n roll.

Maynard, Danny and Paz were figuratively killing themselves on that stage. That's what they were doing musically over and over again. They brought the bathtub, the rope and the oven. They brought the handgun, the cyanide and the Golden Gate Bridge. They even brought your dead ancestors. We were done up like Day of the Dead skulls. Uncle Whatever is back from the dead and his dick is hanging out just like the good old days.

Calaveras is the word in Spanish. That's what you'll say when you're called before some fearsome god to explain reading this book. It wasn't your fault. Some skull in a wedding dress forced you to do it. Calaveras is what it said. Then it recited some poem meant to ridicule the living. Hopefully it will be the Aztec god of the underworld that calls you to the carpet. You'll recognize her by her big mouth. It's for swallowing stars. But swallowing stars will only get you so far as evidenced by her short career. Saint Death swallowed her. Star you later.

Chapter

The Sugar Skulls reminded me of this very famous band that literarily exploded on the music scene. The sheer intensity of their artistic vision captivated millions. You would hear them play and think to yourself they can't possibly keep playing with this intensity. It's not sustainable. But the next number would be even more intense and you would say to yourself they can't possibly do this for the entire show. But they did.

No band can possibly keep up like that you'd think on the ride home. They're going to burn out. Then fade away. But they kept it up for a great long while. It took a lot longer to burn out than even the most optimistic observer of the band could have ever imagined. But eventually the reckoning came because some music just can't grow old. Or it can as long as it keeps eating stars like the Aztec Queen of the Underworld. The Sugar Skulls were one of those bands. I could envision Paz eating a star out of the sky to keep going. Or doing it myself if it would get me to the end of the show.

I need a star over here pronto. That's what I told Francis and he obliged. I think he was largely surprised that I could hold my own. I don't think he cared how I did it as long as I kept doing it. And that is precisely how bands fall apart. It starts with a little youthful star eating and then the next thing you know you're demanding the smallest of the modern constellations to keep going. I want The Southern Cross! Or you're back doing cocaine off some groupie's huge nipple. That tipple doesn't look so bad compared to eating the smallest modern constellation, The Southern Cross, now does it? And I had to have it. Get that nipple over here pronto. Maynard is looking tuckered too because I'm trying to beat his head in like a Viking with a battle axe.

Maynard knew what I was trying to do. I wasn't trying to hide it. I wasn't trying to be polite. I was trying to shove my musical pillage into his face. I was trying to cut his head off too. Put it on a pike for all the peasants to see. That's how we deal with critics in my kingdom. How did he like it?

Maynard loved it. He pushed it higher and higher. You can't cut off my head with your battle axe, you silly Norse man. He was like a Nordic god taunting me to follow him to Valhalla. Come check it out. Right up this dark alley, Mr. Battle Axe, and then after that it's Valhalla. Then the knives would come out. Welcome to the Hall of the Slain. Your blood is the decorating scheme.

Paz and Danny were in there own little friendly slaughter too. Danny was hitting his kit so hard that I thought he was going to break it. Or break one of his little bird arms. He was standing up to hit his drums harder. Then he would silence the note and do it again. Meanwhile he was playing his lead parts too. He was like two drummers in one. It was like the Hindu god Shiva had given him two more hands. I didn't know that he was a rock n roll fan. Shiva is purported to be the patron god of the arts along with yoga so maybe it wasn't too much of a stretch. He also has that third eye which is pretty rock n roll. Danny was making good use of his new hands along with his new third eye and the snake around his neck. Apparently Shiva took a real shine to him. I would have been happy with just the holy river flowing out of my matted hair which Shiva rocks most horror show.

Paz was hunting Danny the Deity with the bass like the Hindu goddess Kali, the goddess of time and change. She was chasing him down these really dark paths and kind of cornering him. Then she'd play a way for him to get out. Or he would just smash his way out. He had his four hands full though because Paz wasn't suffering any four handed fools in her rhythm section. She had four hands herself. She went right after Danny with that Lord of Death Kali thing. But it seemed like there were a couple of other gods up on that stage too. Had all the gods, new and old, come out to hear us play? Had The Sugar Skull woken up all the gods that had ever been for The Day of the Dead?

Paz was also like some seriously pissed off Greek god with a custom lute that had come down from the Elysium Fields to rain holy hell on us. Danny was like Thor but with four hallowing hammers. Then we had the cherub with the fake breasts getting backed by the former lead singer of The Witches of Argentina. They were apparently Viking Catholics. If that's not weird enough to turn you off devil music then I don't know what will. You're a hopeless heretic, enjoy your evil.

It was like there were three sets of music going on in every song. There was the song itself but above and below it there were all these rhythmic competitions that you had to play into. And the guitar trolls were shredding the heavens down into little bites for their Aztec Queen. The guitar trolls were her subjects. They just had to get through Saint Death to get to her which was nothing for them. They battled death every morning when they woke up.

We didn't play so much together as we played to push each other. Nobody was trying to steal parts. Or take anyone down a notch. It wasn't like that. Everybody was trying to make their mark. But we were also playing to push the other players higher. And it worked.

You do your part and I'll do mine. But I'll just do my part better than you. That was the vibe up on that mighty stage. Nobody was playing for the audience. We were playing for better than you. I'm better than you. You're better than me? No, I'm better than you. Wait a second now Danny is trying to be better than the both us. And he's doing it. Paz is helping him. Maynard pick it up. We're going to bury those Hindus. We can crush them on this number. Go Vikings! And those damn guitar trolls need to be crushed. They're Catacomb Culture people from 2800 BC. They're not evolved enough to be Battle Ax People like us. Let's try to bury them under our vocals. It went around and around like that. A hellacious Black Mass of old and new gods steeped in syncretism, the melding of seemingly incompatible schools of thought from theology to mythology to cosmology with stops at cosmetology and musicology.

We might as well have been in a music studio in Ohio if it weren't for the groupies. They were doing their weird dancing which was awesome. And they had a lot of minor percussion parts which were really cool. The groupies were really good at it too. They played all kinds of minor percussion instruments at really crucial parts. They did the click sticks. They shook shell instruments. They did the bells.

They busted out all these world instruments like the plastic bucket from the Home Improvement Warehouse. That's a classic world instrument. They had some better instruments too. But the plastic bucket seemed to be featured the most. And who doesn't like a plastic bucket solo? You can go grab some Jack Daniels with the guitar trolls. Settle your hallucinations down to a reasonable level. Have a lovely conversation with Reynard the Fox.

The groupies did all these incredibly weird sound effects like out of a horror movie which is where I think that they originally hailed from. The groupies all probably had advanced degrees in horror movies. People actually study them. And I'm one of them.

It gave the music which was huge and even bigger feel. All those little detail percussion parts from out of a horror movie really make a big difference, particularly when there are a ton of them going off like fireworks all over the stage. The horror soundtrack heard around the world.

But the point is that I didn't even look at the audience after the first glimpse. That's why it would have been nice if the Mayan jaguar gods had come out to hear us play. See how the polytheism has progressed. We got the polyrhythm down pat, stone cold killer kitty cat. We've got claws. And we're not afraid to use them. Hear us roar, you bearded, toothless hoar.

The massive audience could have walked out to the highway for all I know. I definitely couldn't see them because there was just too much going on up on the stage. I was buried behind a mountain of sound. There was a village of groupies after that. And they're in some massive drum circle that features world class plastic bucket drumming and horror sounds. Then we got the hopped up on propellant lighting technicians dropping flames, fog and lasers on us. The sound engineer has all but dropped a nut because the music is so loud. And that's what we'll all be doing on Sunday night if The Sugar Skulls gets off the ground as a formal religion. Bring your own orange bucket for the drum circle. Because I don't think you want to be a spectator. You want to be a creator in this Apocalypse. I couldn't even hear the audience. Never mind see them. Is there anybody out there? Is there anybody listening?

Periodically there was some sort of audience feedback. It sounded like cheers, I suppose. But Maynard wasn't the kind of guy to wait on audience approval. He just launched into the next song as soon as he had a sip of water out of one of his water bottles. This time I go with the club drug. Or I hit the LSD again. That sip of water from out of one of his magic bottles was way more important to him than anybody applauding. He would sooner kill you than not sing.

Maynard wasn't singing for his fans. He was singing for himself. The fans just got to ride on the coattails of his prosthetic breasts. Do you think a man in prosthetic breasts cares what you think? He just takes for granted that you hate him. Then he works out of that place to make you like him.

His interest is in the act itself and not the feedback. He strapped that music on like a pair of fake breasts and pointed those headlights right at you. And he knew. He knew that he was awesome which was why he was up there doing it. He didn't need you to tell him. The world had already voted on him. He'd been elected high priest of rock n roll and the fake tits were The First Lady. They had ceremonial duties such as looking perky at state dinners.

The audience might as well have not existed. That was the crucial piece. And there were just too many of them for one mind to comprehend. And when it was finally done and time to get the hell out of there all I wanted was a bed at The Tequila with Paz in it. And God was good. I got both. After a bit of bargaining with the big man upstairs. God please get me the hells bells out of here in one piece. And please don't make me walk barefoot all the way home. I promise to be a better person. I promise to not do this again. I am done with this life of excess. I am done with this life of sacrilege. I am ready to sit in Church and have only partially heretical thoughts. I will make my payoffs into the poor box at the Catholic Church. Are we square?

I made a lot of promises that I had no intention of keeping. But at the time they were high and heartfelt which apparently was good enough. Being high while bargaining with the big man upstairs wasn't a problem because I was heartfelt. I believed my prayers because I was high. That's what I think persuaded him. High and heartfelt is enough on some days. And if I don't get massive amounts of booze into me from off the wall in The Tequila before I start crashing then I'm going to really flip out. I must have that booze dispenser now. It's the only thing between me and total insanity. The chemical coping system must be fed.

God wasn't even angry with me for singing about having sex with his only son. It got a lot worse from there too. What Maynard did to Mary and Joseph was truly horrific. But God has bigger concerns than The Sugar Skulls. He also doesn't like a narcissist preacher that thinks God has a hand in every little petty detail of his or her lives. And what happens in Cancun stays in Cancun. Particularly in the jungle where the Mayan jaguar gods are slinking around, meow.

Chapter

Paz and I were sitting in bed at The Tequila. We were naked. It was apparently the custom of the patrons of The Tequila. Sitting in bed naked in The Tequila was de rigueur. Anyone that was fashion conscious did it. It was the sexy thing to do. It was like going to watch people walk back and forth in clothing on a runway in Paris during fashion week or whatever. It was super sexy, darling.

Paz and I weren't too sexy though. We were drinking beer and smoking black tobacco cigarettes for breakfast in our birthday suits. That's what we'll all be doing after the end of the world, hacking butts and drinking cold ones on a bald mattress with nothing but your bare ass to console you in some rundown mega hotel in Cancun. God help us.

They don't mention that in Revelations because they don't want to scare you off the Apocalypse. But take it from me. I've seen Earth 2. It's not that bad. You can just shrug that bad boy off with the heaters and cold ones on the bald mattress in Cancun. It's Earth 3 that you've got to be weary of. That's just a sandy planet of critics. Everyone is as cranky as a snared bear with a colon full of sand. Keep it in mind people. We've got to be better caretakers of Earth 2. Earth 3 is a sandy horror. Don't sand on your second chance.

Paz was a real lady though. She had a plate on her crotch to prevent me from fixating on her vagina. There weren't any fig leaves available in The Garden of Eden 2. The fig leafs didn't work out so well on the last pass so we were giving dinner plates awhirl on this outing. They're a lot harder to penetrate and they're fireproof which is why Paz's codpiece was also serving as the community ashtray. I like it when a codpiece is also a community service. It makes for a lovely ashtray for those delicious morning cigarettes too. Don't forget the cold beer to wash it down. Did I mention that I needed help? People like me behave this way because we are unreformed juvenile delinquents. There is a reason. It's just unreasonable.

We were watching a Mexican soap opera on the television. Your mind just revolts if you don't feed it something nutritious at some point during a horrific drug and alcohol bender. A Mexican soap opera is what stands between you and total madness some Monday mornings in the Yucatan. And this was one of them. It was a little kernel of the civilized world that you could cling to.

It's why Spanish sailors sucked on lemons on their way back from conquering this savage land. They needed something to remind them of their bitter old world full of kooky priests with poorly conceived and executed spirituality. And they had to deal with that empty blue horror, the Atlantic Ocean. That bitter fruit is what staved off the blue madness while they sailed with all that ill-begotten gold in the hold for those greedy priests in housecoats with The Inquisition percolating in the background to boot. And thank god for those murderous thieves because without them we wouldn't be in bed with the heaters, cold ones and the Spanish language soap opera at The Tequila. Conquistadors, I raise my cigarette to you. I blow a smoke ring for you pike men smoldering down in Hell. May the Devil hold you in his ashtray and crush you.

Because everything would be in Mayan if Montezuma had won. And I'd get thrown off some temple for something that I had said or done. Or I'd be a high priest kicking heads down the temple stairs. Dropping babies into sinkholes like tokens into a turnstile to appease some angry Aztec god that fed on stars. But the winner converts all.

The winner gets to dictate the religion and customs of the future which is why I was flying high on that broken down mattress with Paz, cold beer and heater in hand. It was all God's plan. It wasn't horses, steel and germs. Or perhaps it was. It was all kind of confusing coming down that Monday morning in Mayan town. Or I was climbing back up. It was hard to tell.

About the only thing that I was certain of was that Paz and I had gotten our own room at The Tequila. I'd been getting up in the evening and checking under the bed. I was pretty convinced that there was a rabbit under there. He'd followed us back from the jungle. We somehow ditched Reynard the Fox. I think Maynard took him home with him. Or Francis hooked up with him. But at some point even I had to admit that it was just Paz and me in the hotel room.

All the other creatures were mere drug delusions. It takes a true drug professional to come to that conclusion. I am seeing things that aren't there. I am also convinced for some ungodly reason that there is a rabbit tracking me. But he's not real so stop obsessing about it. You're just in this room with Paz in spite of what your eyes, mind and bones are telling you. They're all wrong. Have some Mexican brandy and kick back and relax. There aren't any lapin in here.

However being in the room with just Paz and no wild hare seemed like divine intervention after the jungle. How else to explain it? How did we shed everyone without God's hand? Along with a good old fashioned bribe to The General Manager of The Tequila. He saw fit that God got us into the honeymoon suite. Right after I stoved in the window of the first destroyed hotel room to get the money to bribe him. Neither party seemed to care that we weren't married. Or that we had already destroyed one room. Stoved in a window just to be thorough. God and the General Manager looked the other way. They even upgraded us to the honeymoon suite! Neither cared that we weren't married. It seemed kind of rude. Weren't Paz and I good enough for the institution? You don't think we warrant marrying before putting us in here? Shouldn't we get a nice little Catholic wedding too? Perhaps a quickie at the swim up bar with a defrocked padre? Come on.

But there were no objections from the heavens and certainly none from the palm of the Manager's hand. I didn't see a single bolt of lightning flash out of his greedy hand or out of the sky. I had been looking. Why have you forsaken me?

A bribe is what got us into the honeymoon suite, the holiest of hotel suites. Or rather it was that sacred sanctuary of connubial creationism until we desecrated it. But we weren't alone in that Black Mass. There was an extraordinary amount of Saint Death activity last night here at The Tequila. But we would have embraced that man dressed up like a woman, The Pope, if he darkened our door. We would have gotten him high on dope. Or he could have just blessed us from the Pope mobile as he drove by. That was about all we rated. Give them the blessed wave and put the pedal to the metal in the Pope mobile. The Pope is dope. You can't rope him. But I just did, kid. Researcher take note.

Fans of Latin American rock n roll were getting smashed on tequila last night as the name of the hotel suggested. The fans of Latin American rock n roll were just getting louder and louder as the night progressed. The profanity was truly horrific. You'd think, to yourself, it just can't get any louder and more profane here at The Tequila. But then it did. It got louder and more profane until the very small hours when even the loudest and most profane person had crossed over into downright devilishness. Get the Pope on the horn, we got a problem. Get him out of the woods, pronto. I don't care if he's not done with his toilet. You think a man in The Tequila gives a hoot about the Pope's toilet. You're damn right it's easier to straighten out that dude form Notre Dame what's his name, Quasimodo.

It was like what the end of days are going to be like as enacted by fans of Latin American rock n roll on the demon tequila. What kind of desert misanthrope invents tequila? Absinthe just isn't good enough for me. My visions aren't startling enough. I'm going to make booze out of this prickly bush. Burn it and take instruction from the flames like Moses. He isn't the only bearded freak that can talk to fire. Then I'm taking three more buttons of mescaline and inventing mescal. I must have that worm. You think my bottle of booze isn't going to have a worm at the bottom of it? You think again, pal. That worm is mine.

Chapter

At least the soundtrack won't be bad for the run up to Earth 2. Turn up that heavy metal! And we know what the beverage will be so bring your own salt and limes. Don't forget the nipple for the cocaine. And some eye patches for your pupils that are bound to spring pinholes at some point. You'll just have to use the third eye in your forehead to bumble around. That Hindu peeper sees everything when you finally crack open your forehead. That eye is like Maynard. It knows. It's just questionable what it's going to do with the knowledge. Nothing good I would expect.

However we weren't visual witnesses to the end of days at The Tequila. We were merely audio witnesses. Listeners of the end of the world as perpetrated by fans of Latin American rock n roll in the finest hotel in Mexico. Appropriately named, of course, because we don't fool around when we get this far out over the edge. We like our hotel named right. Viva La Tequila.

People had pounded on our door. They were looking for shelter. Let me in. They were looking weapons. Do you have any bottles to smash? They were looking for the answers to life's questions such as have you got any booze or drugs? Or the big question of the evening, what am I doing here? That one was the best. It was typically whimpered. What am I doing here? I need help. Oh dear, child, we've come to that end again?

Chin up, rock n roller, at some point the sun will come up. And the reckoning will come when we are all charged for damaging our rooms. I'd paid a bribe to get into the honeymoon suite. I was fully expecting to pay one to get out. How many pesos for my passport? The good news was I hadn't given mine. I had paid a bribe and shouted drunken nonsense like the true professional. I claimed the first hotel room had been mercilessly attacked by vandals. What the hell kind of hotel are you running here? I'm lucky to be alive. A whole pack of jackals attacked my room! The General Manager just wanted to get rid of me at some point. Paperwork could be managed in the morning when I was more sensible. Or it could be skipped altogether with another bribe.

The General Manager of the Tequila was of the corrupt school of hoteliers. He was like that Argentinean cop that was thrilled to pull you over for speeding. And he was doubly delighted to find a laundry list of felons inside your vehicle. Did you know that you were driving the wrong way down the street too? Well, how much to make it the right way along with all the other wrongs in this vehicle? Then he peers into the car and licks his chops.

I see you need a hotel room? You look a little under the weather. Well, yes, my good man. We are sadly oversold. We can accommodate you ninety kilometers from here at our sister property, The Grand Tequila. Well, you see, my good man, I am a more of a base model customer due to the rugged nature of my riding style. Then you had to guess at the precise number of dollars that would shrink those ninety kilometers down to zero. Take the grand out of the equation.

The bribes on the way in were the least of it. The bribes on the way out were going to be far greater and more universal. The fans of Latin America rock were going to single-handedly fund a total renovation of The Tequila by the end of check-out today. Or the General Manager would just abscond with the money. That's what I would do. What's a dinged up room when you're on the all-inclusive plan? It's get me another beer to smash in the bathtub. And get Maintenance in here to shovel out the tub when I go for a midnight skinny dip in the pool. I aim to take an arm chair with me. Paz wants to lap dance on top of me. And only a fool would say no to that. Then we will need a nice hot bath devoid of glass.

It's actually quite cathartic to throw your Corona bottles from bed into the Jacuzzi when it is prominently featured in the middle of the hotel room. It's a delight to think of what else has gone on in there before you. However you're going to pick up a lot of critics as the evening progresses. No matter, you just keep smashing your bottles and living The Mexican Dream. It's your god given right to smash your Corona bottles in the honeymoon Jacuzzi at The Tequila while chasing The Mexican Dream. And it even flushes if you push the broken glass down the drain with a lamp. I'd recommend unplugging it first though. I got a nasty shock on the first pass.

Just about everybody in the entire hotel had knocked on our door last night for some reason or another. Stop smashing bottles. Turn down that television. And that goddamn radio. You've flooded the hallway again. I just shrugged them off. I was riding that painted burro into the sky. You don't dismount that donkey because of critics. You prod that painted burro higher. Until he explodes in the sky and the toys rain down. That's when you know you're done. The painted burro is actually the piñata? You ride the piñata to total greatness? And you're the toy that rains down?

The only people that weren't knocking on the door were the maintenance people. I kept calling them to deal with various maintenance issues that occurred over the course of the evening but they refused to accommodate me. I finally got the truth out of them when I went down to their shack out in the swamp in a borrowed Speedo. They were out there smoking pot. I figured that I had found my people. Is this where The Mexican Dream resides? It's out in a maintenance shack in the swamp behind The Tequila and the occupants are all high? Well, God bless you. I've finally found it. I knew that biker was a trickster. Mere decoy for The Mexican Dream hunter.

However the knowledge that they imparted was disappointing. They were waiting to give their final assessment upon check-out. In the meanwhile they were just smoking marijuana out in the swamp. Why didn't you just say that hours ago and spare me the walk through the swamp in a borrowed Speedo? I thought you had wisdom out here in the swamp. And this isn't even my Speedo. I had to borrow it off a friendly neighbor from Mexico City. Guy took it right off. I was better off questioning him. At least he lent me his Speedo. And his wife barked at me because she was so wasted. Or she's a canine. But you guys are totally useless. The owner of the Speedo was probably the keeper of The Mexican Dream. And he's certainly passed out by now. He was slurring terribly when I left.

And I didn't need an outside room assessment. I could do it myself. The assessment would be as follows. This hotel room is totaled. It's too desecrated for even a honeymoon hayride for the bolted bride of Frankenstein. Screw the door shut. Throw some straps over that. Electrify the door just to be doubly sure. Not even Frank with his electric crank wants in here now. The room was a ruin. Something for our graduate student down the ages to wonder at. So people reverted back to apes in The Third Millennium A.D.?

The lion share of the knocking was Jose Boston though. I think The General Manager put him up to it at some point. The General Manager was that kind of slippery fellow. He found Jose Boston a home for the night by paying him to knock on my door? I think he even told him what to say.

Chapter

"How do you like living The Mexican Dream?" I asked Jose Boston through the locked door at some point.

"The Mexican Dream is ten meters wide on a good day," Jose Boston said.

"Where do you find the ten meters?" I asked.

"It's the space on the beach between high and low tide," Jose Boston said.

"That's where you can find The Mexican Dream depending on the tide?" I asked.

"Sometimes it's underwater," Jose Boston said. "Or covered in seaweed but a tractor comes along and drags it off."

"Does it drag off the seaweed, The Mexican Dream or both?" I asked.

"I don't know," Jose Boston said.

"I think you're trying to say that it's a paradise for tourists," I explained. "But it's hell for locals."

"I didn't say that," Jose Boston said.

Jose Boston had apparently rolled out his centerpiece of drug wisdom as an opener and that was all he had. And some dawns in Cancun that's as much drug wisdom as you're going to get. So it was paradise for us. And maybe it was hell for him. But how were we going to get there? I wanted to watch the tractor drag it off.

Chapter

Paz and I took the fabled trip to Hell. That wholesome classic is still available. The Mexican Dream was just too much of a wily coyote for me. I had to chase more realistic quarry, The Highway to Hell. Turn up that heavy metal! Then you flash the devil horns. And then you giggle like a little girl. It's a glorious in-joke. We're on The Highway to Hell. Ha-ha-ha! You even repeat it a few times because you think you're so clever.

Until the hotel room starts vibrating like a spaceship reaching its breakup point. The artificial gravity in the space ship starts to fail. Matter starts sailing around the room. Initially only the feathers from within the pillows take flight. However soon after that everything all the way up the carbon ladder takes flight. Brains in skulls start sailing around the room. Dragging their humans after them like anchors. Pretty soon after that it's interstellar shipwreck. The hotel room smashes in outer space.

The planet Titan takes you out. Neptune nukes you. The Sun smokes you. Io offs you. It's hard to tell. But you can bet your monkey in a spacesuit that outcome the extraterrestrial pirates in their tenders to pick the corpse clean. They slowly row out in the zero gravity. Or they just lure you into more asteroids with lanterns. Trick you into thinking that's a lighthouse somewhere over there in the Milky Way. Then they sink you on one of the 100 billion planets. That's about how demonic possession works at The Tequila, more or less. Sailing brains, galactic shipwreck and then the extraterrestrial pirates slowly row out in zero gravity.

It starts out as an intoxicated joke. Cue the drug induced foolish laughing. But nobody is laughing when the intoxication level goes outer space. And the next thing you know zero gravity has taken hold. Everybody is floating around the pirate ship unable to get their wooden leg back on the ground. Then the parrot shrieks planet ahoy. But it's too late. Mars murders you. Then Saturn comes around for the scraps.

Chapter

Paz and I were bleeding, burned and bruised by dawn like a pair of down on their luck witch doctors. Or we were the dead animals that the witch doctors use in their rituals. Fortunately The Day of the Dead was concluded. What was dead was dead. And what was alive was getting out.

The room looked like there had been at least one chicken fight. Or a lion had devoured a Christian or two. Two types of blood were splashed on the wall, pagan and Christian. I needed a Santeria priest and a Roman Catholic priest, pronto. I needed a communion wafer and a hot glass of chicken blood. I could even do a little voodoo and juju. Why not cover your bases when you're this far out over the spiritual edge?

We were limping around that hotel room whenever we needed more booze or to pass blood out of one our overworked orifices. Towels were in short supply. They had been torn into bandages to staunch the bleeding and to make appropriate footwear such as smoking slippers. So this is how the avant-garde is constructed? Out of hotel room parts in Mexico? Perhaps it had been deconstructed a bit too. The symbol system was a mess. Of this much I was certain. It was time to hang an out of order sign on the story and call it a day. My signs could no longer be ciphered. They had taken on a life of their own. You say symbol. I say cymbal.

Broken glass was littered everywhere. You had to climb across various pieces of broken furniture like that bridge to Babylon to avoid it. But you risked glass splinters in the old smoking slippers no matter how you did it. And the cigarette lighter seemed to be truly possessed. It was constantly disappearing and then reappearing in unusual places. It was some sort of lantern that was forever out of my reach. Or it was directing me towards the rocks. But I was too intoxicated to pay any attention. And the liquor dispenser kept siren calling me. It's hard to possess a demon that's already possessed. The demons are so busy fighting amongst themselves that you can do what you like.

I wouldn't have minded the demonic possession of the lighter that much but it was a smoking implement as well as a beer opener. It seemed to testify that magic was still with us. That old toothless, bearded hag with the green face and the big long whore cigarette, you know the one? She was watching over us. I love you, you old forest witch. Keep smoking your Salem cigarettes. Just stop fiddling with my disposable lighter. That tool is the only thing that is holding Paz and me together as a couple. She is going to murder me. Or I'm going to murder her. I don't know which bloody end is going to come first. But as soon as we run out of cigarettes we're both goners. Or I'm going out for a pack and never coming back. That was a distinct possibility too. Old man runner is a classic. I'm going out for a pack of cigarettes. And I'll be right back. See you the smelly hell later.

We were like that old married couple now. Neither of us was up for sex for about three months. It wasn't from boredom though. It was from overuse injuries. Everything needed to heal including the psyche. The flashbacks were horrific.

Paz and I were sitting there on the bald mattress cringing periodically. I just got a flashback of something that we did. Don't even tell me. I have to share it with you because it's too desperate and perverted to bear alone. Just give me the porn executive summary. I don't want the sex worker summary. Then you would sit there and mull it over in your head. That wouldn't be bad to watch on TV. But I wouldn't want to do it.

I did that? And then she did that? Then we both did that? I didn't even think that was even possible. But I'm pretty sure that we did it. Then after that we did that? I'm sick and you're sick. This is horrible. We need help. We're full on molesters. Call some Christian organization to burn us at the stake. Perhaps some Muslims can stone us. Or some Hindus could hang us from a tree. You say sinner. I say winner.

Thankfully as always there were more pressing matters like Mexican soap operas. I'd have gone insane if there weren't a ghost chasing an unfaithful Mexican housewife on my television. But where were my Cancun players? Where are Professor Calico, Danny, Maynard, Jose Boston and Francis on this glorious Monday morning? Where are my Cancun players at? Had they gone ghost too? Dudes, where you at?

I had no idea. And I didn't care. I was thankful that they weren't amongst the wreckage in the room. What use could I possibly have for them? I had won the lottery with Paz. I was in bed exactly where I wanted to be with exactly who I wanted to be with. But look what it had done to me? Finding God, The Mexican Dream or whatever I was looking for down here had destroyed me. What are you going to do?

I was a broken man in bed watching Mexican soap operas, drinking beer and filling an ashtray on a girl's lap. Is this how you greet the modern work week? Did I want more people to emulate me? Hell no! We can't build a decent society out of heaters and cold ones in bed in Mexico. It's like the Conquistadors all over again. Only you're conquering yourself.

We've got to strive for Mars, people. We've got to conquer the universe and spread our religion. We've got to rape, rob and pillage. Then we can kick back with the heaters and cold ones on Kepler-22b and relax. Otherwise they'll conquer us and convert us to their religion. Then we'll be their Mayans.

I heard the humans were okay at operational math. They could sort of add and subtract. Two aliens discussing taking a vacation to their Cancun, the planet Earth. I wouldn't bother with the ruins though. The tour operator makes you stop at this wonky human village and buy all these trinkets. The whole planet is a tourist trap when I really think about it. Earth is a scam.

Although I've seen much worse Monday mornings in this modern life as well as a few primitive beginnings in undeveloped corners of the Americas such as Paraguay. But what I would say to that graduate student down the millennia that is going to study the cult of Saint Death that popped up for a few evenings in and around Cancun, for all posterity, when all the archeological knowledge has been exhausted on the Mayan peninsula? I would say that you're going to have one hell of a challenge reconstructing what happened, pal.

I played a pretty crucial role in the cult of Saint Death popping up for two nights in The Third Millennium A.D. Perhaps we might even go three evenings for the symbol system fan down the ages. But I wasn't really sure what had happened during the crucial after party hours last night. It's why scripture is such a narrative mess.

The disciples are all kicking back. They're drinking jug wine courtesy of the boss, Christ. It's like an office party. You've got to get as many wines in you as quickly as possible because they're free. And your host just keeps producing more jugs of wine. He's that boss that insists that you drink with him for the purpose of team building. However the real reason is he's a drunk. So you oblige him and get tanked. And the fact that he's a drunk is his only good quality. Everything else about the guy sucks. Why shouldn't you enjoy the only good part of his personality?

But once you're lit up like a Christmas tree, in honor of your, boss, Christ, you refuse to eat the fish. It just doesn't look that good when you're this deep in the jug wine. It smells bad too. It smells like Jesus cruisers with too many desert miles on them. But you're more than willing to keep hitting that red. You want to hit Magdalena too. You know that floozy from the office with the big boobs? Why should Christ have all the fun? You deserve a crack at that too. Magdalena is a legend in the sack too. She's fun bags of The Bible.

Then the next thing you know. You wake up in your hut in Jerusalem with the hells bells hangover. And now it's deadline time. You slap Magdalena on her big rump. It's not looking so lovely in the grim light of day. Because it's got some attention seeking broad attached to it.

I have to start scribbling something on this Dead Sea scroll right now about the office party. Why God makes me do it and doesn't do it himself is a mystery. I can't get the details right. Why doesn't he just write it himself if he's The Almighty? What's a book of words after you made the entire universe by hand? You have to go. I'm on a deadline, toots. Magdalena begrudgingly takes her big ass out of your hut. Or you have to have sex with her one more time for her ego. Send her out on top. Jesus dumped her. She needs a lot of attention, poor girl. Then you start scribbling. It's just words. How could they possibly matter that much? It's not an actionable item like waging war in God's name. It's just words.

I can't even remember what happened. The boss made some speech, I think. I was too busy drinking and trying to get laid. I was killing myself to get into that floozy's tunic. She wasn't even as whorish as advertised. She was like one of those girls that exudes sex but doesn't really know how to do it. Not that I know what the Hell that I am doing on any level. My current writing situation testifies to that fact. I cannot even recall The Last Super. I was too looped. It was the last one, know what I mean? What kind of idiot blackouts at that?

I'll just have to wing this one. Or call Judas. He's bound to remember something. He's a betrayer that guy. He's bound to get Jesus crucified. Then resurrected and the salvation of humanity will happen. Wait a second Judas might not be that bad. He's absolutely essential to the Resurrection narrative. And that's precisely how religion felt on this glorious Monday morning. It was just another man's stories. And they were riddled with narrative skips and bad sentence structure. An editor would throw the bible in the trash if it were submitted today. It's an illogical mess. That's why religious leaders always fall back on Faith. Nothing else can hold that bag of rags together.

I was dead center in the story of the Saint of Death cult. But I couldn't piece together exactly how I got to this very spot. The narrative was biblical in the poor sense of the word. There were too many lateral steps that had gone missing. Or the vertical steps had gone horizontal. Did I have to delve backwards to make any sense of it at all? Or do I just kiss up the mystery to the unfortunate graduate student down the millennia? Have it your way, Burger King.

Chapter

There was a wolf at the door. But isn't there always a wolf at the door? Or they're just in between doors. And they'll be knocking on yours shortly. And it isn't just one wolf. It's a whole pack of them. Or if it is just one wolf then he's not at your door. He's currently growing in his den. Once he gets big enough to devour you in one bite then he'll darken your door. Even in the future there will be electric wolves at doors. And they will most certainly dream of electric sheep while knocking on doors made out of force fields. However for once it was good news. The door and the wolf seemed to be in perfect harmony. Mexico, you're a great country!

Mexico's Global Airline had located my luggage somewhere on the globe. My past had been found. The details were sketchy though. Mexico's Global Airline couldn't be concerned with the specifics of where my luggage had been because they were global. The entire planet was their carousel. So if things journeyed a bit afar within the realm, what was the big deal? Relax the entire planet is under the corporate umbrella. Mexico's Global Airline is global. We're a corporation and we said it so that's what makes it true. We work like religion, you see? Have Faith in us.

I asked why they didn't go cosmic to cover themselves. Your luggage is somewhere in the cosmos, sir. But we're a cosmic airline. Doesn't that put your mind at ease? Why don't you just do that? Dump the junk and make the jump to hyperspace. Suitcases flying out the tailpipe as you strive for the stars. Reach for the cosmos with The Milky Way out the window. How does that sound to you on this glorious Monday morning in Mexico?

The lost luggage man was short on answers. He shrugged. He gave me the customer service grimace. You want your luggage or not, amigo? I like that surly attitude in my customer service representative particularly when I'm drunk, nude and high in Cancun. It's the surly piece that makes it all work. I invited the man into our room while I searched for a tip. I closed the door. I have a few questions first. We went through it all again. Why are you not cosmic?

And this is precisely why you do not want do drugs as a young person. Forget all the other admonitions such as it will lead to dead brain cells. As evidenced in your proclivity for weird music and weird sexual partners. None of that matters. Society has changed and we are embracing all of that. The byproducts of the drug culture have gone mainstream. We're all drug victims now. You don't even have to do drugs. You can completely screw your life up through the mainstream. Or the mainstream will do it for you if you're the passive type. Fill you up with all kinds of lies.

The reason that you do not want to do drugs as a young person is that you will likely persist with it until middle-age if you are not lucky enough to land yourself in rehab. And your behavior will become increasingly bizarre and unsettling to others including yourself. Until one glorious Monday morning you will be standing there in a hotel room in Mexico, totally nude, watching yourself behave in this hideous manner but you'll be hopeless to stop yourself.

You'll ask inane questions about lost luggage like it's the most important thing in the world. Where has my luggage been? This is important. I must have the answer. This vital information cannot be withheld from me. You will tell me. Do you understand? I will accept the mystery of The Mexican Dream but this is totally outrageous. I have questions about my luggage that must be answered. And saying that you don't know is totally unacceptable. I must have total certitude about this. It's that or pure madness for me. It's really that simple. You will tell me because you have to save me.

The lost luggage man didn't know where my luggage had been. What was really infuriating is that he seemingly didn't care. The lost luggage man couldn't grasp the serious nature of the situation. We're talking about my past here. You lost it! My past is no small item. It runs towards unloved, misunderstood and distrustful. And those are the good qualities! Why else do you think that I'm a middle-aged juvenile delinquent? I was neglected growing up, you idiot. But you're not going to get away with it. I have beaten the world back. And you will be no exception.

I was standing there nude before him to try to make my point clearer. I don't have any clothes, you see? I don't have on any clothes because you lost them. You are the root of my nudity. Mexico stripped me down to the essential. You have certain charges to answer for as the ghost of your machine. Was this the burro handler of the Mexican Dream? Then it all went sideways from there.

I was standing between him and the door now. I'd thrown the bolt. It was his fault though. The lost luggage man was guilty of being locked in my room by his own omission. Because we all know that you don't proactively go into a drug crazed person's hotel room at dawn especially if he invites you into the room. That mental case doesn't have nice designs for you.

You only go in if he tells you that you cannot come in. Then you barge your way in like the police. Hands up. Up against the wall and spread them. Cavity check! You'll find a gun up there. You never go in a hotel room in Cancun at dawn if the occupant casually invites you in. Why don't you step into my room? Can I offer you a cold beer and a black tobacco cigarette from Argentina?

Only a fool would fall for that. And once you're in that room it goes without saying that you are on your own. Even your gods won't help you. They are too busy laughing at your rookie move. All the other gods get a good chuckle too. Look at the fool that fell for the crazy person on tons of drugs that we've all been protecting for all these years. That drug fueled maniac is finally paying off. Wake up the old gods too. They're going to want to get a look at this too. We finally have our holy fool!

You're lucky if the nude crazed person doesn't attack you with a Larry. A Larry is a bottle of beer that has been opened but hasn't been touched beyond the opening act for reasons that are inexplicable. A Larry is a bottle of beer that has been opened for no reason at all. And it's just sitting there doing nothing. It goes without saying that there were quite a few Larry in that room that could be easily enlisted to bounce off a head. Then they would cease to be a Larry. They would become a weapon. That's the Gospel of the Larry.

I gathered that the man was uncomfortable with the situation. I couldn't say how I got there though. He just appeared to have fear in his eyes at some point. He was glancing about the room. He looked like he was considering commissioning my improvisational weapons to attack his host. I took it up with the fellow.

"You think you deserve a Larry?" I demanded. "Were you neglected growing up?"

He just sort of shrugged.

"That's a racist shrug right there," Paz shouted. "He's giving you the old gringo shine."

"You have a thing against the gringo?" I demanded. "You shine him."

"Don't let him get away with it," Paz shouted. "He has to pay for his crimes."

The lost luggage man looked like a cornered animal that had accepted its fate. He was going to be eaten by the primordial beast from the swamp. The old crocodile was cocked to go off?

Wait a second. Why did it get so hostile? Maybe my serotonin level just crashed a bit from drug abuse. Couldn't the old crocodile in the swamp with the dead eyes find a better solution? I tried to reach the lost luggage man again.

"Let me make myself clear," I said. "We're not crocodiles here."

"Get him," Paz suggested.

"You'd think that the luggage man would have found his comfort level with the clothing optional customer that is mildly dismayed by his situation as well as quite intoxicated on Monday morning in Cancun, no?" I said. "I've been running around naked in the jungle, you see? It was Sugar Skull activity. A Calaveras come to life like a poltergeist. Not my fault. But it takes a toll on a man. It turns him into a skull of his former self."

The lost luggage man seemed even more perplexed. I plowed on to make my point clear.

"How could I be expected to be clothed after my clothes had gone on vacation without me?" I demanded. "You stripped me of my skin."

"His skin could have gone to India," Paz said.

"It could have gone to India to find itself?" I gasped. "Good elephant deity riding a mouse!"

"His skin was supposed to go to Cancun to found The Church of the All-Inclusive," Paz explained. "You ruined everything."

"It might have changed faiths while in India," I said. "And now I was supposed to just embrace it with no questions asked? That's not how the world works. My skin has to answer to certain facts. Otherwise we're floating down the Genghis on our backs watching the elephants get baths. The elephant doesn't like to be disturbed in his toilet. You understand? He's The Lord of Success."

And then the whole situation went hideously sideways because Paz popped out of bed like a wolverine and tried to strangle the man. I held her back though.

"He stole our plane," she snarled.

"You're probably right," I said. "But let's not jump to conclusions. What's the hurry?"

"I want my past back," Paz snarled. "And my future too."

Paz had the lost luggage man confused with the band's old manager. It was an honest mistake though. Apparently the lost luggage man bore a striking resemblance to the band manager that had stolen everything from the band including their future. It seemed plausible that they could be both working for the same outfit, Mexico's Global Airline. The manager had run off with an airplane, had he not? It was all beginning to make perfect sense in that hotel room.

Mexico's Global Airline just kept hiring the same man in slightly different shapes for similar jobs all over the planet. One man stole your future. And a very similar man returned it if it was found to be useless. We stole your past but it wasn't really worth it. You have to take it back now. Your future didn't pan out either.

We had you confused with somebody better, whatever. We'd love to stay and chat but we've lost our elephant riding on a mouse in India. He's only The Lord of Success though. You understand?

Then Paz attacked the lost luggage man again. Paz which means peace attacked the lost luggage man again? What was the symbol system of that? Peace attacked the man that tried to steal your past? And wrecked your future?

Paz was just sitting there watching a Mexican soap opera that featured a ghost chasing a housewife. She was totally nude and covered in hideous body paint that made her look like a skull. She was enjoying a refreshing cigarette and beer for breakfast like a perfect lady. And the next minute she was trying to strangle the keeper of the past? How did we get to that?

I thought I was making a connection with the man. We were practically brothers. We were making this Hindu religious connection concerning elephants. And then Paz tried to ruin everything for me? I told you that drugs are a nightmare. They'll attack the keeper of the past. Then the next thing you know peace is a beast.

Paz went for the lost luggage man's windpipe on the third try. It wasn't so much that she was unbelievably strong and crazed. She was certainly both. It was just appalling difficult to get a hold on to a nude person that is all slicked up in a drug sweat particularly if you're in a nude drug slick yourself.

Paz just wouldn't stay put no matter how many times I threw her on the bed. I was trying to throw her on the bed gently but she was fighting me too much. I suppose this is how the romantic types like that transgender couple reel in hotel security to the room. Hotel security gets curious to see what modern romance looks like these days. Violence is eclipsing love these days. Or it's just a regression back down to the mean. Hate is back winning again. And the keeper of the past must pay.

So you've got two nude people in yesterday's body paint fighting at The Tequila. One of them is desperate to strangle a stranger that is delivering lost luggage. The other is trying to keep this relatively simple transaction below the level of a police action. Why should the lost luggage man take the brunt of everyone's misplaced anger at the injustices of the world? He's trying to right the universe. Or at least not make it worse. So what if he's short on answers and rude to a point. You can't hold it against the man because look at the clientele that he's dealing with. You and your friend, Paz, are certifiable.

And you're not even his defender. You were seriously considering strangling him yourself moments ago. It's just a technicality that you're his savior. The whole situation could easily flip if Paz would let you resume interrogating what you would characterize as your prisoner and not hers. So how exactly do you settle this without the mental hospital orderlies with the syringe full of antipsychotic medication as well as that golden oldie of the nuthouse, the straight jacket? After you make short work out of the hotel security and they call for heavy duty reinforcements from the Cancun nuthouse that know how to make short work out of psychotic tourists like you. That's when everyone goes pro. Or The Federal Police just roll up in a tank. You know that expression when the going get weird, the weird turn pro? It didn't apply here. You want to keep your amateur status.

You throw Paz onto the bed for what seems like the thirteenth time because she keeps popping up like a wolverine no matter how many times you do it. You've got a bit of rhythm with her now. Why spoil it? You unbolt the door. You push the lost luggage man through it. You slam the door shut. You bolt it again.

You turn around extremely quickly because Paz has popped up like a wolverine again as expected. Only this time she has a slightly different target in mind. She's coming right for you. And she's built up a little head of steam because you had to dispense with the lost luggage man.

You tell her that she can't hold her drugs. Then you put your forearms in front of your face in that classic boxer's defensive move. And right on time Paz takes a wild swing at you.

But you saw it coming because you rope a doped her. You duck at the last second as that haymaker tries to connect with your head. You then grab Paz around the waist in a modified fireman's carry. You carry her kicking and screaming into the bathroom.

She's clawing your back to shreds but no matter. You walk her and yourself right into the cold shower which has been blazing all night. Because you knew that a cold shower was going to be in the cards at some point. You knew it. You knew that one or both of you was going to have to get thrown in that cold shower at some point for a timeout for bad behavior. There was no getting around the bad behavior or the punishment for that matter. The cold shower was Fate.

And that's how you end a drug and alcohol induced psychotic break at the world's finest hotel, The Tequila. Or at least cool it down to an acceptable level. And at some point Paz relaxed. I let go of her. She put on the hot water. She started washing the body paint off us with soap and hot water. And that's how you shed your Sugar Skull. Your Calaveras just goes down the drain. That poem that you wrote that mercilessly pokes fun at the living is paint down the drain. It's just more pollution in the swamp. And its largest target was you.

The end of the party line had been reached. We'd jumped the tracks out in the jungle with the vines growing all over the station. Only I was pretty sure that we went after the wrong conductor. I don't think we boarded the right painted burro either. But we did explode into the sky. Sadly the piñata remained unscathed. It was forever rotating around the planet unscathed. It was the unreachable piñata of being. No human stick could hit it. That's what made it so unbearable. You could never break it. Just like your past.

However Mexico's Global Airline seemed about right at the time. And if that's not enough of a drug cautionary tale for you then I leave reaching you to another nude man in another hotel room in Cancun. I can't reach you.

Your situation is hopeless. But you have my blessing to keep doing whatever drugs that you're doing. Just don't cry to me when you're assaulting strangers in the nude in the Yucatan. I tried to talk you out of it. Or walk you. Or mock you. I did something. At least I think that I did. That's the crucial piece. Go with God, amigo. The other fellow is your father. And he doesn't want you. He can't even be bothered with crucifying you.

Chapter

We were listening to reggae as a coda. It was terminal reggae. A Reggae outtake that preceded us slipping away under the unsuspecting nose of The Tequila's cruel management.

Pardon me, Mr. Black, we have your staggering hotel bill for your perusal. Destroying your hotel room is not part of our all-inclusive plan. Our records indicate that you destroyed two. A bit of a record even by our standards. You don't say? I'm going to take a quick jaunt down the beach while you recheck your figures. I ripped the second room a hearty new one. I'm afraid that you are undercharging me for my second mistake. Take another peek at my work. And we'll be right back to settle the tab posthaste. Credit cards that might have been produced when I was drunk that have not been canceled within the past few minutes will be produced. I'm afraid that your billing system needs a few minutes to update along with my own. I've just reported my identity stolen.

We'd walk down the beach to another hotel. Then jump a cab to the airport and never look back. Cancun, I've never heard of you. Some maniac stole my passport and credit cards and flew down to the Yucatan to ruin my good name. You think that's a bunch of hooey? Well, it's your move Mexico. Wheels up, I'm out of here. I'm a guy with two passports. My second identity is in good working order. And I'm thinking about getting a third for a fresh start in middle age. Plenty of countries will take me in for a price. Mr. Black of Venezuela. How about that?

I know that the original plan was to pay for all the damages that we had racked up at The Tequila like good old fashioned God fearing Christians. Perhaps even buy the hotel as a token of good will. Smooth over all those shattered nerves with dollar bills.

I am contrary to appearances the caretaker of a fortune. And my billionaire boss has good use for The Tequila even in its dissembled state. But that wasn't looking like such a hot idea right now. How had the winds shifted so suddenly?

When the hero is this deep down the drug well it becomes necessary to fire up the world's most potent marijuana to lift him out of his corpse ridden arroyo. Marijuana induced psychosis was about the only way that I was getting out of that hotel room. I was in a coma after my shower. And reggae is just a natural accoutrement to the vegetative state. You're just too tender for more heavy metal. You need Rasta man vibrations. So you make it happen.

Then your whole worldview shifts like a tectonic plate smashing under a continent. A volcano breaks open. Lava pours into the Gulf of Mexico. What was Mexico is now Jamaica. And Jamaica looks like the solution to all your problems. It's walking distance now too. What with the volcanic bridge. I like it when volcanoes are helpful. They're not just for throwing people into anymore.

But why people like to smoke marijuana is a mystery to me. I was smoking shatter which is the freebase of the marijuana world. Legalize shatter! It's the freebase of marijuana!

I was actually chasing the dragon. I had a piece of tinfoil, a glass straw and a butane torch. So I was doing the heroin of marijuana, I suppose. Legalize the heroin of marijuana! Don't criticize it.

You just need a butane torch, a glass straw and tinfoil to smoke it. I suppose what I was doing was a little unsightly. Probably not what the proponents of the legalization of marijuana had intended. Marijuana had merged with chemistry and become a monster. And now a monster was smoking it. Indeed.

So the angle of entry was a bit steep. You needed some kind of monster to smoke it. You needed tinfoil, a glass straw, a butane torch and don't forget the shatter. That highly engineered chemical substance was the crucial piece. Mine was this big window pane of it. It looked like something that an archeologist would dig up. It was this big piece of amber glass that was pure THC! My butane torch claimed to go up to 2500 degrees. But I had my doubts. It was hard to get the shatter started.

Perhaps we'd have to tone it down as a sacrament of The All-Inclusive Church of Jamaica. Roll it out one little amber spec at a time for the really hardcore followers that paid the big bucks to study Church Apocrypha like the Scientologists. You paid the big bucks so here's the real deal.

Our money man was smoking the heroin of marijuana when the idea of Jamaica came to him. He was smoking the world's highest test marijuana. Calling it marijuana is quite egregious though. Because the product in question, shatter, is so manipulated by chemists that it bears no resemblance to marijuana whatsoever.

The marijuana that it hails from never saw sunshine. It wasn't even grown in soil. It was grown in rocks under plasma lights in a lab. It was cultivated with carbon dioxide and tons of chemicals. It was harvested by a chemist. Then it was condensed down into a glass like substance using a chemical extractor. And that's how you make shatter! It's the physics of marijuana.

Our money man had a stupid big piece it. It was like a windowpane from off a death star. It was like a piece of fireproof glass that you could observe the heavens from within your space craft at zero gravity. And the cost of it was equally hyperspace. But that's when he had his eureka.

He was smoking enough shatter to get the whole Parish high. He didn't even know what our prophet, Professor Calico, was doing. And he didn't care. He figured Professor Calico would catch up. Or he wouldn't. The shatter was driving the entire Church bus, you see?

It's like our money man wasn't even there at all. It was all shatter. That's how it all started. People don't like to have their beliefs completely shattered. But that's what happened. It was like when God got snuffed by evolution. Superstitious people still clung to the old ways. But the old ways were dead and gone. It was like clinging to the religion of drugs and namely, marijuana. It had been eclipsed by science as shatter clearly attested. Marijuana was dead. It was all physics now.

Perhaps reggae was a better angle of entry. We could just dissemble about the shatter revelation. A founding member of The All-Inclusive Church of Jamaica, no particular job description such as money man, was listening to reggae when the idea of Jamaica popped into head.

We just evade the whole shatter revelation. Nobody likes a shattering revelation. So we just erase the whole thing. No shatter. No revelation. Everybody is back at their proper comfort level full of good old fashioned illogical superstitions. We're all smoking some herb that was cultivated down by the river with good old fashioned sunshine. God shine down on all of us. I just took another puff like that caterpillar with the hookah. But let's face it. I had far surpassed him. He looked antique compared to me.

But you see how Jamaica was beginning to percolate? It was just a better storyline for our followers. Everything could be shrouded under a much needed haze of conventional marijuana smoke if necessary. A couple of old time Rasta's growing herb down by the river. We'd just sort of gloss over that too.

There was nothing wrong with the old fashioned herb revelation at The All-Inclusive Church of Jamaica. Don't get us wrong. We don't condemn it. We don't condone it. We don't mind you growing it down by the river, old timer. Set it and forget it. We like your style, old time Rasta man.

You're not a chemist. You can't make our sacrament in the lab with physics. But we were very infrequently on the old fashioned herb. We just want to make that crystal clear. Now put your money in the Parish poor box so we can make more shatter in the Church lab and have more chemical revelations. This is where god, science and mysticism merge. And the results, as you would expect, are unholy.

Our money man says that we're going broke on this venture. We need mysticism through science, pronto. Apparently the Red Strip bill alone is horrifying. You'd think it's our holy water. We have to build our own in-house brewery like Belgian monks, bunch of drunks. Then we have to come up with a brand new mystical idea pronto. Then we have to monetize it yesterday to pay for the debts that we're racking up today.

We can't afford to set it and forget it down by the river. The herb is too weak. The revelations aren't startling enough. And we can't warp it into something new right at the end. It's shatter or bust. We're actually just like so called conventional churches when viewed through the shatter glass. We're the opiate of the masses. Shall we shatter that?

The reggae that inspired me was beamed from a satellite in outer space to a satellite radio in our destroyed hotel room in Cancun. So don't picture a bright blue ball spinning carefree in cosmic eternity. Picture a satellite beaming into the ghetto dawn. There is the sweet smell of shatter in the air and a carnival worker puts you on a dangerous teacup ride that was hastily assembled by carnival freaks. I'd hang on tight because the bolts aren't on right. Most of them are lost and not found. And they thread the wrong way. There is that too. But why get bogged down in details? Do you want to buy the ticket and take the ride?

That satellite up in space played Bob Marley for the far reaches of the universe including this hotel. Turn up that reggae, Paz. I remember shouting at some point. This Mexican soap opera is super depressing. I need something to drown out this ghost. She's starting to freak me out. She's just so relentless. Just give it up already. You've lost. And get me the smoking equipment and that frightening piece of shatter. I mean to smoke a lot of shatter while I ponder our next move. Are we out of booze?

I can't possibly take a pound of shatter through United States Customs. That's way up there in trafficking. And I can't take you, Paz. Perhaps I could get us into Jamaica. Nobody is going to look for a pound of shatter on the way in to Jamaica. It defies logic. And I could probably take you too. We could give it a whirl. How do you like Red Stripe beer, Paz?

I think that I've got an idea that will solve everything. The All-Inclusive Church of Jamaica! Satellite radio has solved everything. And this shatter is a smash. Turn up that reggae! Is there any rum in this room? I could use a toot.

Chick a boom, chick a boom, chick a boom, boom, boom and here it comes. Rasta man vibrations, yeah!

I don't think that you can copyright that. Or at least you shouldn't be able to. And if you have, well, bully for you too. But I'm not paying you just like The Tequila. I wanted to be one of The Man just like Bob Marley. And that's just some tough Bob Marley medicine for you. He rebelled. He became one of The Man. And that's what I aimed to do. Turn up that reggae music! I'm so high that it sounds like it's in a tin can. I can barely hear it but it's reaching me somehow. Where's my emergency bottle of Havana Club Rum? I'm going to need to prime myself for the run. Havana Club is my junta rum. Kick back after the revolution and enjoy. We're the imperialist puppets now. I'm going to have to call room service if I can't find mine.

Paz put the reggae on the satellite radio. Or the satellite radio was putting it on for us. Somebody was putting something on. And some cosmonaut was moon walking. And some moon age day dreamer was freaking out. A couple of extraterrestrials were preemptively practicing their victory dance for when they conquered the Earth. Everybody was flossing across the heavens including me. I was Sugar Skull dancing in that destroyed hotel room. Some Monday mornings in Cancun you've got to do a little weird dancing. And clearly this was one of them.

You can't make up how a church got founded in Cancun. Or maybe you can. Joseph Smith isn't the only guy that can return plates to an angel. My angel had dreads. And Jamaica was what he said. You got a problem with that?

But Paz was putting on eye armor for the world. Or perhaps she was taking the last vestiges of it off. She was separating her eyelashes with a pin. She was half draped in a towel.

She had yet to embrace our new religion. She wouldn't have cared if I told her about my revelation either. She would have scoffed at me. That was the important piece. I had an unbeliever right there in the room with me. But you know what? Every now and then reggae comes around again. And now was one of those times. I and I vibrations, yeah!

Let's just get past the fact that an angel in dreads appeared to me. And Jamaica was what he said. Have a little faith. Take the fabled leap.

The thing that holds me about my angel is that he wanted everyone to be Rasta.

Do you need to be from Jamaica? Do you need to smoke herb? Do you need to be a musician?

No.

You're all Rasta.

How long we been?

Ever since.

We're all Rasta according to my angel. Take it up with him if you have a problem because he's the one that inducted you. Not me. We've all been Rasta ever since. That's what he said. And you can't slip out of ever since. Because ever since goes back beyond the beginning. It is the beginning.

His genius wasn't that he was a prophet. I don't think that he could see the future any better than a dinosaur. Here comes the Ice Age better get a fur coat. That's what the dinosaur over there said. His genius was his generosity. He wanted to share his vision with you. Whether it came about or not was up to you. He wasn't leading you. You had to lead yourself. Go dig up your own golden plates out in the woods like that wonky honky, Joseph Smith. I hear they built a pretty big religion out of that fable complete with custom underwear, murders and multiple wives. It's Shakespeare in Utah with long underwear.

I was wondering what sort of reception we might get in Jamaica if we bought a nudie hotel and turned it into a Church. I was sunning my jimmy when I tripped over my plates. I don't care if you believe me or not. I was sunning my jimmy when I tripped over my plates. Go get your own religion if you don't like mine. Because mine knows how to elevate a man and knock him down in one move. What can yours do?

However I had more pressing matters than how I was going to position my religious fable. I needed to somehow dress myself and figure out the necessary steps to get to Jamaica and score a nudie hotel at a deep discount. Then I could delve backwards and fashion my fable with whatever pieces were at hand. Or just fabricate freely which is what religion has been doing since time immemorial. But you can't score a distressed nudie hotel in Jamaica while dancing in The Tequila in Cancun. Or perhaps you can but I wanted to do this thing righteously. My God deserved as much.

For me there were several clothed steps that must be taken. Plus I wanted to pull a Houdini on the current mess. I wasn't paying for the Cancun learning experience. Cancun was just another man's nightmare now. Let some drug lord, dictator, off-shore tax cheat or whoever chalk his corpse however he liked. Throw it into the swamp with the golf cart for all I care. I was wondering if management was tacking that onto my bill too. Jose Boston had probably squealed. Getting sued was probably cheaper. I'd just not open my mail from Mexico for a couple of years. Then settle for pennies on the dollar. It also seemed like the whole Boo Black identity had run its course too. That whole juvenile delinquent thing was getting a little old. I couldn't imagine doing it in my fifth decade. Never mind taking it to the retirement home. Perhaps it was time for some adult coping skills. Was it time to change? Caterpillar out!

Fortunately there were a couple of extra suitcases on the luggage cart that didn't belong to me. Opening one seemed like the first step towards a new beginning. How about a fresh start in another man's suit? Maybe I'll just peek in my suitcase first. It might be better to put on some old friends. Slowly evolve out of this Boo Black identity. We've got a lot of juvenile delinquent in the rearview. It might be advisable to work my out slowly.

However deeper examination of the luggage cart revealed that I still hadn't gotten my luggage. Where could it possibly be right now? But the luggage cart itself was also a bit of a local mystery

I couldn't entirely account for how it had gotten into the room. I was unclear how it wheeled itself in. Had it carried itself in like a poltergeist on its own volition? I couldn't recollect the luggage man doing it. I'd invited him into the room. But I had no recollection of inviting the luggage cart into the room. Apparently it had snuck itself into the room at some point. Or it was just the first miracle of The All-Inclusive Church of Jamaica! Somebody elevate that lost luggage man to sainthood pronto. Or elevate this cart of luggage to sainthood. It was biblical in nature. That's for sure.

I am the Saint of Lost Luggage. I have lots of lost luggage. How would you like to select something from off my cart which travels like a poltergeist on its own volition? I don't mind if I do, my good man. And your luggage cart is quite the miracle. But I'd like my lost luggage. I don't want someone else's lost luggage, you see? I want my lost pieces. That's the operational piece. A man needs his missing pieces. Not another man's missing pieces. Because you start to let your guard down and the world shoves you into whatever suitcase they want. But then we scared him off. Can I get an Amen?

Apparently the nude holy figure isn't for everyone. Frankly he's more of an Apocrypha figure as I've pointed out. He's an early selling point. Some of the most rabid early followers go for him. But once critical mass is reached it becomes necessary to erase him and whitewash Church history. Our founder wasn't a blood thirsty savage. He was a Saint. Or at least that's what we're selling now. The reality is just too horrible. And it doesn't package very well now that we're going mainstream. Boo Black had to go. All signs were pointing that way.

I started digging down through the cart. There was no need to be the nude Apocrypha figure for The All-Inclusive Church of Jamaica. And we all know that the church elders were going to turn on me at some point like a pack of jackals if I was foolish enough to stick with it. However I discovered that I still hadn't gotten my lost pieces. I was hoping that they were buried down at the bottom. But we all know that hope won't get you anywhere. It's as empty as Faith.

I had gotten everybody else's lost pieces. But not mine. And now I was the keeper of that? I didn't like the symbol system of that.

I was the man at the end of the line! I was that green eyed beast with the lantern for eyes! I was the keeper of the station out in the jungle that was covered in vines! I was the conductor that switched your train right off the tracks!

It's this way to the painted burro in the sky. It's total greatness for you from here. Or total calamity. There is that too. Watch out for the unbreakable piñata in the sky. I suppose you can't win them all. Your fate is unbearable too. Go with God, amigo.

But that's what I proposed to do after all. Man that station at the end of the line. Send all comers off into the sky on my painted donkey. You know the one that looks like a zebra but is really a donkey covered in paint in Tijuana? That's your Pegasus.

But that fit of madness soon passed. I'd found my bottle of emergency Havana Club. Or I'd found another man's emergency bottle of Havana Club in his suitcase. So we were saved! Or we were back down in the humdrum world of the condemned. I dug right in. Reanimating is how I would characterize that rum. I was half dead. Perhaps even three quarters. The rum was going to bring me back. Or just finish me off. I was fine with either option.

Then I selected this particularly hideous suitcase from the bottom of the cart. It looked like it had been traveling around the Globe for decades. What are you doing suitcase of ten thousand flights? You lost a long while? Well, now you are found, my friend.

You got some disco duds in there for me? That white suit will do. You're my size too. I like those white dancing shoes too. They're my size too. Don't mind if I do the hustle. Now what's this down the bottom of the suitcase? You got a bottle of grandpa's old fashioned cocaine too? Back when pops was doing rails off the toilet seat with grandma in the disco in Acapulco? Old school, I like your style.

And as Casey Jones suggests you can't drive a train without rails. I like to hammer my metaphors home. And it was track time in Cancun. It was that glorious moment when the train had to jump the tracks. Fly off like a painted burro into the sky. Smash that previously thought unbreakable piñata in the sky. Let the toys rain down. Or orbit around like new planets. Of this much I was certain. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Turn up that terminal reggae. I mean to depart this station righteously now.

I and I vibrations, yeah!

Find fault with everything else in this story but you leave that reggae beat alone. That's the last sound that we heard when we closed the door on The Tequila. The beat that conquered the world for a moment before it receded back to the hills of Jamaica where it is hunkering down growing stronger right now. Although I have it on good authority that it is currently conquering the Milky Way.

We walked out into that chilly dawn hallway in Cancun. That hallway of a thousand frights. And it did not disappoint. We walked straight into Professor Calico, Maynard, Danny, Francis and last but not least, Jose Boston. They even had the guitar trolls! It was high time to elevate all my Apostles of Cancun to Sainthood. Can you say private jet? Drop her down in Havana for a pit stop, my good man. I have a hankering for revolution. And we need Cuban cigars and rum refreshment. Chick a boom, chick a boom, chick a boom, boom, boom and here it comes. Rasta man vibrations, yeah! See you in Jamaica. Also I have a little confession to make. You know that international bestselling author of religious themed novels? The one that is massively wealthy, beyond brilliant and stupendously outrageous. I am Professor Calico.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to David J. Gardiner and Bradford Kendall.

Dave designed the covers and Brad contributed the illustrations.

Visit davidjgardiner.com and bradfordkendall.com to see more of their work.

A WORD ABOUT THE COVER FONT

Eduardo Recife designed Porcelain.

Please visit misprintedtype.com to see more.

