Praise for Poe Ballantine
Love & Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere
Poe Ballantine is the most soulful, insightful, funny, and altogether luminous “under-known” writer in America. He knocks my socks off, even when I’m barefoot.
TOM ROBBINS, author of Villa Incognito
Ballantine’s writing is secure insecurity at its best, muscular and minimal, self-deprecating on the one hand, full of the self’s soul on the other.
LAUREN SLATER, author of Lying
Poe Ballantine is brilliant, sensitive, unique, and universal. Reading his work is inspiring, agitating, and invigorating. He is utterly transparent on the page, a rare thing. He’s like a bird that’s almost but not quite extinct. This is his best book ever.
CHERYL STRAYED, author of Wild
If the delights of either Poe Ballantine or Chadron, Nebraska were a secret, that is over now. Love & Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere is an unprecedented combination of all of the following: true crime page-turner, violently funny portrait of a tiny Western town, field guide to saving a bilingual marriage and raising an autistic child, sutra on living with open mind and big heart. Many of the sentences start on earth and end somewhere in beat-poet heaven. Ballantine comes ever closer to being my favorite creative nonfiction writer and this is why.
MARION WINIK, NPR correspondent, author of Above Us Only Sky and The Glen Rock Book of the Dead
501 Minutes to Christ
Name an author we all need to read? Poe Ballantine’s exquisitely funky 501 Minutes to Christ.
TOM ROBBINS, Author of Jitterbug Perfume
Ballantine is never far from the trenches … the essays are readable and entertaining and contain occasional moments of startling beauty and insight. Still, the themes of addiction (to substances, people, new starts, the prospect of fame), dissatisfaction, and nihilism may limit the work’s appeal; as with writers such as Chuck Palahniuk, some will become rabid devotees, while others will be turned off.
LIBRARY JOURNAL
Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire
It’s a downmarket version of Ben Kunkel’s Indecision, with less surety but real vibrancy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ballantine’s genial, reckless narrator is part Huck Finn, part Hunter S. Thompson. And in a few pages he’s charming you, more than any “pot-smoking, card-playing, music-loving, late night party hound” really should.
THE SEATTLE TIMES
This second novel from Ballantine initially conjures images of Lord of the Flies, but then you would have to add about ten years to the protagonists’ ages and make them sex-crazed, gold-seeking alcoholics.
LIBRARY JOURNAL
Poe Ballantine, in this sequel to God Clobbers Us All, reveals that he is a writer with a keen ear and a blistering wit – it’s a prime opportunity to observe a writer’s joyful wallow in the decadence of words.
THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE
Edgar’s supersize pal Mountain is the best of the author’s creations: “He possesses a merry and absurd sweetness … combined with a body mass that can block out the sun.”
BOOKLIST
Ballantine’s second novel is … memorable … funny and smart.
PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY
Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire has the same amped tone and subtropical setting as Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary but less of the gonzo arrogance and more of that good ol’ American angst. The prose is poised on the brink of perfection, and the plot twists into an unexpected yet perfect conclusion that makes scotch and roadkill seem almost palatable.
SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN
God Clobbers Us All
It’s impossible not to be charmed by the narrator of Poe Ballantine’s comic and sparklingly intelligent God Clobbers Us All.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ballantine’s novel is an entertaining coming-of-age story.
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Calmer than Bukowski, less portentous than Kerouac, more hopeful than West, Poe Ballantine may not be sitting at the table of his mentors, but perhaps he deserves his own after all.
THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
It’s a compelling, quirky read.
THE OREGONIAN
Poe Ballantine has created an extremely fast page-turner. Edgar, in first-person narrative, is instantly likeable, and his constant misadventures flow seamlessly. Ballantine paints southern California with voluptuous detail.
WILLAMETTE WEEK
God Clobbers Us All succeed[s] on the strength of its characterization and Ballantine’s appreciation for the true-life denizens of the Lemon Acres rest home. The gritty daily details of occupants of a home for the dying have a stark vibrancy that cannot help but grab one’s attention, and the off-hours drug, surf, and screw obsessions of its young narrator, Edgar Donahoe, and his coworkers have a genuine sheen that captivates almost as effectively.
THE ABSINTHE LITERARY REVIEW
A wry and ergoty experience.
GOBSHITE QUARTERLY
Things I Like About America
Ballantine never shrinks from taking us along for the drunken, drug-infested ride he braves in most of his travels. The payoff – and there is one – lies in his self-deprecating humor and acerbic social commentary, which he leaves us with before heading further up the dark highway.
THE INDY BOOKSHELF
Part social commentary, part collective biography, this guided tour may not be comfortable, but one thing’s for sure: You will be at home.
WILLAMETTE WEEK
Meet the new guide on the lonesome highway. Poe Ballantine’s wry voice, clear eye, hilarious accounts and lyrical language bring us up short by reminding us that America has always been about flight, and for most of its citizens it has been about defeat. His wanderings, drifters, bad motels, cheap wine, dead-end jobs and drugs take us home, the home Betty Crocker never lived in. We’re on the road again, but this time we know better than to hope for a rumbling V-8 and any answers blowing in the wind. The bus has been a long time coming, but thank God it has arrived with Mr. Ballantine aboard. Sit down, give him a listen and make your own list of Things I Like About America.
CHARLES BOWDEN, author of Blues for Cannibals and Blood Orchid
Poe Ballantine reminds us that in a country full of identical strip malls and chain restaurants, there’s still room for adventure. He finds the humor in situations most would find unbearable and flourishes like a modern-day Kerouac. It’s a book to cherish and pass on to friends.
MARK JUDE POIRIER, author of Unsung Heroes of American Industry and Goats
Poe Ballantine makes writing really well seem effortless, even as he’s telling us how painful writing is. He knows that life is the most funny when it shouldn’t be, and that the heart breaks the most during small moments. These stories are shining gems. He kills me, this guy.
MIMI POND, author of Splitting Hairs: The Bald Truth About Bad Hair Days
In his search for the real America, Poe Ballantine reminds me of the legendary musk deer, who wanders from valley to valley and hilltop to hilltop searching for the source of the intoxicating musk fragrance that actually comes from him. Along the way, he writes some of the best prose I’ve ever read.
SY SAFRANSKY, Publisher, The Sun
Copyright © 2018 Poe Ballantine
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage-and-retrieval systems, without prior permission in writing from the Publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ballantine, Poe, 1955– author.
Title:
Whirlaway: the great American loon
y bin, horseplaying, and record collecting novel / by Poe Ballantine.
Description:
Portland, Oregon: Hawthorne Books, [2018]
Identifiers:
LCCN 2017016439
ISBN 9780998825700 (ebook)
Classification:
LCC PS3602.A599 W48 2018 DDC 813 /.6 – dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017016439
Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts
2201 Northeast 23rd Avenue 3rd Floor
Portland, Oregon 97212 hawthornebooks.com
Form:
Sibley House
Set in Kingfisher
98765432
Dedicated to Andy and The Hog,
with special thanks to Marion Winik and Steve Taylor.
ALSO BY POE BALLANTINE
Things I Like About America
God Clobbers Us All
Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire
501 Minutes to Christ
Love & Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere
Contents
1.Railroaded by Luminescence
2.Mudville / “I Wish It Would Rain”
3.Dyskinesia
4.Life Begins at Forty-One
5.Chivalrous Deceptions
6.The Key’s in the Ashtray
7.Island of the Butterscotch Beast
8.Dr. Seuss in the Sky
9.Gigantic Australian Counterclockwise Stampedes
10.Hermaphrodites, Bikers, and French Teachers
11.Coco Puff
12.Marvelous Marvelle / Let the Sunshine In
13.Sex and Murder Self-Help Book
14.Jimmy Is In Good Hands With God
15.Beauty Chasers
16.Tales of Scottish Mastectomy
17.Bee-doo Woman from Another Dimension, Possibly Hell
18.Martha at the Apollo
19.Psychotic Reaction
20.The Missing Prostitutes
21.The Bones of La Zona Basura
22.Mo Ho
23.Whirlaway
24.Zopilote Being an Indian Word for “Vulture”
25.Flowers in the Sea
26.It Ain’t Goldilocks
27.My Boy Lollipop
28.KLIK in Canoga Park
29.Boys Love Their Mothers
30.Try a Little Tenderness
31.Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?
32.Whiplash I Was Taking a Bath
33.Mister Jang-Jingler (Dance)
34.Back to the Island
35.The Giant Clam Eats Children
36.Love Does Not Experience Time
37.Give Me Stilton, Blue and Gold
38.Run Through the Jungler
One exists in a universe convincingly real, where the lines are sharply drawn in black and white. It is only later, if at all, that one realizes the lines were never there in the first place.
—LOREN EISELEY
1.Railroaded by Luminescence
AS AN ILLUSTRATION OF WHAT I WAS UP AGAINST AT NAPA STATE Hospital, what they used to call an asylum for the criminally insane, my fellow inmate Arn Boothby, an angry three-hundred-pound paranoid schizophrenic who regularly “cheeked” his meds, tried to kill another inmate one day in the client convenience store by grabbing his throat and throwing him through a glass display case. I was standing in line to buy a pack of breath mints at the time and can attest to him saying, “P. S. I Love You,” as the blood spread across the tiles. Boothby was tackled by two psych techs; a staff nurse and hospital police converged within minutes to beat in Boothby’s brains behind closed doors. Boothby told me later they would’ve killed him had not Dr. Fasstink inadvertently intervened. Boothby went to jail, vacation time for most of us at NSH, and I didn’t see him at the card game for a few months. When you’re surrounded by murderers, bank robbers, arsonists, and child molesters you’ll play cards with just about anyone.
And I know what you’re thinking (I really do): that I’m innocent, that I don’t belong here. Every inmate says this. Well, I’m not innocent, but I should’ve never been sentenced to a high-security psychiatric hospital full of overmedicated, violent maniacs when I had done nothing but shoplift and make a few crude remarks to women in bars, ride twenty-five-thousand miles on an imaginary bicycle, fancy that I was the ruler of the universe, and run a few delusional undercover operations for the CIA, all brought to you by not taking my meds—or so it was explained to me. I think it was the pattern more than the nature of the violations, and the fact that I had left the halfway house before the expiration of my term, that swayed the judge. Whatever the case, I was mandated by court order to an indefinite term at NSH, and once you’re in one of these places you’re pretty much at the mercy of the people who run the show.
I did myself no favors at Napa State, for I was outraged to have been placed in a community rife with the worst kinds of con artists, malingerers, and career criminals who’d pled insanity to avoid life sentences in a penitentiary. Then there were the genuinely insane inmates, not a minor case among them, all wandering around freely to do whatever they liked to whomever they pleased. Half the inmate population had killed or tried to kill someone. All the barbers were murderers. One of the barbers, my close friend and first choice for a haircut, Randy Sturtz, had killed his brother and then a neighbor over a cinnamon roll. Cecil Jebb, my roommate for six months, had raped a woman and then tried to strangle her in the parking lot of an Oakland shopping mall, the only time, he liked to brag, that he’d ever been caught. Darvan Laval, a dining companion of mine many evenings who loved to fight, had killed a schoolmate when he was fifteen. Most of the staffers were unarmed women who could not handle the larger, more dangerous male criminals and often had to resort to calling the police. It was no coincidence that about every three months a troublesome inmate would die after a mysterious reaction to an injection or a scuffle with the cops, always behind closed doors.
I was even more outraged at getting thrown into a unit with sexual predators. And since I wasn’t, had never been, and would never be a sexual predator, I refused on principle to take the class on sexual harassment, my only official prerequisite besides good behavior for getting released. I also refused the voluntary work. I’d been a journalist in the free world (I had moved from San Diego for a job at the San Francisco Chronicle, where I was given the Bay Meadows/Golden Gate beat and my own weekly horseracing column) and I was not about to descend to menial labor in the vulnerable company of barbarous psychopaths. In the first few months I was there a psych tech was murdered by an inmate, the whole hospital went into lockdown. And, though it was always us versus them and this was a good chance for me to be left alone in my room and listen to the radio, many of the staffers took out their fears and frustrations on us, withholding privileges and invoking arbitrary punitive measures, as if we had all conspired to kill their comrade and needed to be taught a lesson. I often felt like that character in the movie Shock Corridor, the undercover reporter who commits himself to a mental institution to solve a murder, gets caught up in a riot, receives shock treatment, goes berserk, and never sees the free world again.
At twenty-seven years old I was not emotionally equipped for living under lock and key behind sixteen-foot cyclone fences and having my ass stabbed every three days with drugs that turned my brains to buttermilk. Not only was I bipolar (my original diagnosis, eventually changed to schizophrenia) and prone to dramatic mood swings, I was angry, lazy, selfish, contrary, immature, arrogant, headstrong, and a lover of pranks. I thought I was important because I had invented the now widely used track classification system that distinguishes primodrome, mezzodrome, and llamadrome, or high, middle, and cheap purse tracks. In case you are not acquainted with horseracing, the system is called the “Plum Variable” or simply “the Plum,” as Andrew Beyer’s homologous speed figures have simply become “the Beyer.” I had also come from a somewhat prestigious family. My father, Calvin Plum, was the notable southern California horse trainer who’d won both the Santa Anita Derby and the Del
Mar Futurity twice, and who had also at one time been the largest grower of poinsettias in the world. One of his wives, my third stepmother, had been married to the legendary songwriter Burt Bacharach.
Looking back, it almost seems as if it were my sole mission to never grow up so as to prolong my stay at Napa State indefinitely. Though never a fighter before my commitment, I had to become one to survive, especially when someone tried to play grab-ass with me in the showers (the ones who came at you low you had to get around the neck and the ones who stood their ground you could run into walls with your head and drop them before the attendants came running). I organized the first decent lottery the hospital had seen in years, did not resist the black market (though I stayed away from illegal drugs), participated in numerous tobacco-for-sex arrangements, Vaselined the underwear of my rivals, hosted weekly poker games, invented tranquilizer bingo, and palled up with the killers and fighters so they wouldn’t kill or fight me.
In spite of all my shenanigans and refusal to take the harassment class, due to overcrowding, budget and staff cuts, and a long waiting list to get in, the hospital was prepared to release me. The fact that I was one of the few inmates who hadn’t committed a felony (I still had the right to vote!) must have nagged the one or two administrators who cared. But then came the incident with Morris, the unit supervisor who was putting the watusi on one of my tobacco girls. He warned me to stop seeing her. I told him in so many words to cram it, so he blew the whistle on me. Half the people in the hospital exchanged tobacco or money for sex, and since we weren’t saints but lunatics with needs like all human beings, the hospital usually looked the other way.
But Morris and I didn’t get along. I was constantly switching his nametag with those of female attendants (for two hours one day to the giggling of dozens he was “Amy Ocampo. Staff Nurse”), and whenever I could I would glue his pens together. And he needed to deflect attention from his own multifarious misdeeds (including the homebrew he sold black market and the female clients he took home on weekend passes) so he hit me with “sexual aggression,” a label that goes a long way against anyone who’s already been tagged a sexual predator. Then a mysterious “second party” informed my shrink, Dr. Fasstink, that I was having sex for money with Tasha Little, the thirty-four-year-old mulatto girl on T-17. They had a mini-team on the case and declared that I was “wheeling and dealing.” Wheeling and dealing is commendable in free society, but at Napa State it set me back one release hearing at least. Dr. Fasstink, a dainty Latvian with limp wrists and a close-cropped Freudian beard, increased my Haldol from 100 to 125 mg. A few weeks later, Tasha left me for a forty-seven-year-old Cuban fruitcake called Rey Waldo Diaz.
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