Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America

by John Waters

  “John!?” I ask in shock. This woman recognizes me? It can’t be! “How do you know my name?” I wonder out loud. Suddenly she looks nervous. “Well … you don’t recognize me?” I stare at her quizzically and she smiles sweetly and then says the one word that explains it all. “Eggs!” she cries in the most identifiable voice in the world. “EDITH!?” I scream so loud, she jumps. “Yes, honey, it’s me…,” she shyly admits. “You’re alive!?” I shout, completely losing my cool at seeing the onetime star of many of my early movies. “Well, you don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” she chuckles with that famous off-kilter delivery. “But, Edith,” I stutter, “I thought you died in California.” “I didn’t really die. I just needed to get away, John,” she confesses timidly. “I wanted to retire from show business. Let my fans remember me when I was beautiful.” “Beautiful?” I think with ironic amazement before correcting myself—yes, she was beautiful and still is. “But your teeth,” I blurt, “who fixed your snaggletooth smile?” “I saved up money from the store and got them. You like ’em? Look, they come out,” she explains as she lowers her jaw and removes the bottom row. “No, no! It’s okay,” I beg, “put them back in!

  “How did you know I was here, Edith?” I marvel. “Officer Laddie and I are friends,” she explained, “we sometimes sing show tunes together just for fun. He buys used shampoo from me, too. He called me and told me he left you off hitchhiking and I couldn’t believe it. I just had to see you one last time.” “But why didn’t you ever call me, Edith?” I cry. “All those years! I dreamed you were alive, I really did!” “I just was afraid you’d want me back in movies,” she says quickly. “It was too hard for me to memorize those lines.” “But you were a star, Edith!” I shout for the world to hear. “Well, not as big as Divine was,” she humbly argues, “and he deserved to have all the fame.” “But you and Divine were great together in Polyester,” I gush, and for once she is silent. “That was then, John,” she finally says. “I’m happy now, too.”

  I start crying. I can’t believe Edith Massey is alive. “How old are you now, Edith?” I ask in amazement. “Ninety-four years old and still kickin’,” she answers with a coquettish giggle. “But how did you fake your death? I thought you were cremated,” I pry. “Weren’t your ashes illegally scattered by your friends in Los Angeles at the same cemetery garden where Marilyn Monroe’s were?” “Well, silly, you never saw my dead body, did you?” she asks with girlish mischief. No, I think, picturing Divine’s Alfred Hitchcockian belly peeking up as he lay in his coffin at the funeral home. “I never saw David Lochary’s body, either!” I suddenly blurt to Edith. “Is he still alive?” “I don’t think so, John,” she politely reasons, “but I don’t keep up with the Dreamlanders, so I wouldn’t know.” “But who helped you?” I grill her, amazed that she had pulled off her fake death with such aplomb. “Gene did,” she admits, mentioning her last roommate, who had called me from the hospital in Los Angeles where Edith supposedly only had a few days left to live. “But I talked to the doctors,” I remembered. “That was Gene’s friend,” Edith confesses with a titter. “But I still talk to Gene,” I wail, amazed that he’s kept this secret for so long. “It was my secret, John,” Edith explains with a sudden seriousness. “He kept it and I hope you will, too. But I missed you, John, I really did.”

  I sob out loud. “Pull over, Edith, please! Let me give you a hug! I can’t believe you’re alive!!” Edith’s eyes get a little misty, too. “Okay,” she says as she veers over in front of another car, which swerves away in the nick of time. “But remember, I work. I gotta open my store at noon.” On the side of the highway, Edith and I embrace. “Would you ever be in another movie?” I ask with excitement. “No, honey,” she answers kindly. “I liked being in the underground movies. I’d be too nervous to act with real movie stars. Besides, our old movies are still playing, aren’t they?” “Yes, Edith, but the fans and the press would go nuts to see you again!” I try to convince her. “No, John,” she says with finality, “who’d take care of Lovey?” “Your cat is still alive?!” I yell in shock. “Well, not the Lovey you remember,” she patiently explains. “She died in my arms, but I have had six more Loveys since and I love them all just the same.” With that, Edith pulls back into traffic and for once it is a smooth merge. “Wanna see my store?” she asks, pulling me shockingly right back into the present.

  Yetta’s is located outside St. Louis in the tiny town of Hermann. “Why did you pick here?” I ask as we pull into the “free parking” lot behind her storefront shop, located between a church and a sausage factory. “Well, Gene and I ran out of gas, so I decided to stay,” Edith tells me happily. “I was ready to work in the sausage factory. I love sausage, but Gene wanted me to be my own boss. He had some money, and he stayed with me for a few weeks and helped me open the store.” “But no one recognizes you?” I quiz her as we get out of the car and she opens the back of her wagon and I help her carry in a big, damaged carton of Sure deodorant. “Just once,” she admits as we struggle toward the shop. “A punk-rock girl asked me if I was ‘the Egg Lady,’ and I just said, ‘What do you mean?’ and she let it go. I changed my name to Yetta just because I always thought it was a pretty name. Remember you named one of my eggs Little Yetta?” “I do remember, Edith,” I say with astonishment and sentimental nostalgia at hearing her say this name from the outtake bonus feature from the Pink Flamingos twenty-fifth anniversary DVD. “You need some used cosmetics, John?” she asks as she fumbles for her keys. “I got Maybelline eyeliner pencils and they’re only about half sharpened down. No tops, but you can use tinfoil for a cap.”

  Yetta’s is a jerry-rigged showcase of damaged products: toiletries out of their boxes and thrown into a 25¢ bin, makeup jars half-filled, shampoo tubes squeezed almost empty, loose Band-Aids without the paper wrappers, outdated sunblock, and a “pharmacy” section that is incredibly startling. Inside display cases with cracked, broken glass that must have been retrieved from a dump are prescription bottles with all the original patients’ and doctors’ names blacked out with a felt-tip pen. “You need a sleeping aid?” asks Edith, with the kindness of Marcus Welby, M.D. “We got all kinds—Ambien, Halcion, even some Percocets.” “No, Edith, I can sleep fine,” I answer, picking up a Viagra pill out of a “2 for $1” bin and then putting it back, remembering I was hitchhiking and loose pills without a doctor’s note might be trouble down the road. “Don’t you have trouble with junkies?” I ask. “I don’t know what they do with the pills, John,” she says with a shrug. “I’m not nosy. They’re always nice to me so I don’t say nothin’.”

  A male customer I didn’t even see come in approaches the old-fashioned, taped-together register with a half-broken toenail clipper that seems to have been rusted from some kind of flood. “They still work?” he asks Edith as he takes out a tattered plastic change purse. “We don’t promise nothin’ here at Yetta’s,” Edith announces, ringing up his 15¢ purchase, “that’s why we’re cheap.” “I’ll take these,” I say, plopping down on her counter a few items I’ve picked out. “Okay, John,” says Edith … I mean Yetta … as she jots down all of my purchases on one of those little receipt books with the carbon paper between each page. “Two eyeliner pencils, ten cents; Halo shampoo—bottle almost full, ninety cents; recalled Excedrin, one dollar—it don’t have nothing wrong with it, John, I tried it!” She adds it all up, “carrying the one” out loud, and announces the total. “Two dollars, but you can have it all for a dollar ninety,” she bargains. “No, Yetta,” I protest, “two dollars is fine.”

  I look around the store and see all the customers are gone. “Edith, I love you!” I whisper. “I love you, too, John,” she says as she takes my hand to lead me to the front door. Before I can leave, a twig-headed white boy with tweaker eyes enters and asks urgently, “Got any bottled water?” “Just Delta water,” Edith proudly volunteers, “over there on the left. That’s a collector’s item. Delta Air Lines don’t make their own water anymore.” “Thanks,” says the raver type
, anticipating the strengthened high the water will make on the already-digested Ecstasy in his system, “I’ll take four bottles!” As Edith rings up his sale, he sees my hitchhiking sign and says, “I’m going to just outside Topeka. Want a lift?” “Sure thing!” I yell as I kiss Edith goodbye. She looks into my eyes and coos, “Babs, where do eggs come from?” I don’t miss a beat, go right into the dialogue from one of the most famous Pink Flamingos scenes and answer quietly with full intimacy in Divine’s voice, “From little chickens, Mama. They lay them and we eat them. There will always be chickens…” “Eggs! Eggs, eggs,” she whispers back so only I can hear before going out of character and mouthing silently, “Don’t be strangers,” her signature sign-off line I remember so well from our shared past.

  GOOD RIDE NUMBER SIX

  CRAWFORD

  My luck never seems to run out on this trip. I don’t even have to stick out my thumb and already I’ve got a good ride with a Pierre Clémenti look-alike with dreadlocks. I wonder if black people are mean to this guy, thinking all white boys with this hairdo are rich “trustafarians” who are stealing their culture? I can’t help but imagine what my hair would look like in dreadlocks! Ha! His name is Crawford and he definitely has a bohemian charm despite the dark circles under his eyes that usually come along with most freegan-type anarchists who love MDMA-type drugs but are too cool for “cuddle puddles,” glow sticks, outdated happy-face tattoos, or baby pacifiers and now drift from one illegal dance party to another being cooler than Coolio. Everybody makes fun of hipsters these days but I still love them.

  “You do molly?” he asks as he guzzles that Delta water down to bump up his drug high, like an alcoholic with a fresh pint of hooch. “No, I think my drug days are pretty much behind me,” I confess, trying not to be so square that he throws me out. “I mean, I can’t think of a new drug that sounds appealing. Roofies?” I joke. “I’m afraid I’d stay home and date-rape myself all night long.” “Salvia?” he offers, and I’m proud I know what it is—the still-legal plant that Miley Cyrus got high on in that video that went viral. “No,” I back off, “I hear it causes hysterical laughter in some people, which sounds great—if I still made movies.” (Hey, you do! Remember that $5 million is waiting for you in Baltimore.) “I’d put it in popcorn, though, whenever the studio forced me to have test screenings,” I add. “Cool, man,” Crawford vaguely answers before chugging down another bottle of Delta water. “But then I read that salvia can also cause ‘extreme bouts of mysticism,’” I continue. “No thanks! Everybody has their limits.” “Ever try helium?” he blurts as he grabs a partially deflated HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY Mylar balloon from the backseat, unties it, and takes a big huff. “Yowee!” he yells in a gas-induced high-pitched squeaky voice. “How about meow meow?” he quizzes me in the exact Alvin-the-Chipmunk tone that always makes me horny even though both Alvin and this guy are probably straight. “I read some kid took meow meow and ripped his balls off,” I say, laughing nervously. “Yeah?” answers Crawford, not realizing how much he was paying tribute to David Seville’s little creatures with that accelerated voice. “Then what? Don’t tease me with narrative, bro.”

  I can’t believe my ears but I think I hear in low volume on the radio the Chipmunks themselves singing their first great hit, “Witch Doctor,” and turn up the volume full blast. “Ooh eeh ooh ah ah,” I sing along before taking a big hit of helium just to be friendly. “Ting tang walla walla bing bang,” sings back Crawford, cranking the volume even higher before grabbing back the balloon and inhaling. “Hold it in as long as you can,” he orders me in a vibrating voice, and we both do so, exhale, and scream out the chorus in a frantic, sped-up Chipmunk voice that salutes our alarming cross-generational musical tastes.

  Time flies when you’re doing helium and I’ve almost forgotten I’m hitchhiking. Crawford is a great driver when he’s this light-headed, or maybe I’m just so dizzy that I don’t notice his speeding. I finally feel “bad” in my old age, suddenly one with youth. A real filth elder at last.

  The sun is going down as we pull up to a junkyard outside Topeka, Kansas. A graffiti-like announcement, CONTAMINATION GENERATION, is scrawled over the old JUGHEAD’S AUTO PARTS sign, and lots of kids seem to be pouring inside. Crawford gets out and is instantly mobbed by punkish girls with pinned eyes, all of whom seem to be happily hallucinating. He’s some sort of star and I didn’t even realize it. Nobody recognizes me except one overweight girl, who says, “You look like John Waters. Bet everybody tells you that.” I answer, “They do,” and she leaves it at that.

  We walk by “security,” although the need for a guard when the event is free is beyond me. This guy seems to be the last of the auto-part Dawn of the Dead gearhead scavengers who were left behind after the junkyard closed down. There’s nothing left of value to secure. Every working car part has long been picked clean. The air bags are defused, the trunks emptied, tires stripped. The carcasses of these damaged vehicles are piled three and four stories high.

  But there’s life, all right. A freakazoid fashion show is taking place atop a three-tier pile of Vandura 2500s. Fat Bettie Page–type squatter girls proudly model Road Warrior–meets–One Million Years B.C. couture as radical crusties cheer them on. Different bands are playing on stages made from wrecked Ram 3500 vans or crumpled school buses that look as if they were hit by a train. Yobjob, a British trance band, grinds out the static sound of repeated beats, while tripped-out pirate kids whirl in otherworldly abandonment. A noise band called the Fire Starters plays their greatest hits—each one sounds exactly the same and none lasts longer than five seconds, while young, tattooed, branded freaks, some with artificial limbs due to motorcycle accidents, pogo dance in mock nostalgia.

  Crawford hurries through the adoring crowd as fans hand him all sorts of new drugs I’ve never even heard of. Suddenly there is a loud roar in the distance that sounds as if a million chain saws have been turned on. A huge forklift carrying a smashed Cadillac with Crawford’s band’s name, THE VON BRUSSELS, tagged across the windshield rumbles through the parting crowd. Marshmellow, a fiercely sexy slum goddess with more piercings than I’ve ever seen (including Ubangi lip plates and hanging earlobes) and a neck tattooed with terrorist-group logos, plays a guitar made of animal umbilical cords, strengthened with, I bet, freshly sniffed glue. Otis, a cute, nonracist skinhead-type guy I would really go for (if he wasn’t once a woman and had had bottom surgery), is blasting a boom box playing a synthetic symphony of terrifying animal mating calls that sound like human cries of distress. The forklift drops their Cadillac stage atop a larger, burned-out bread truck that is roasting on a huge bonfire in the middle of the junkyard. Crawford is hoisted up by a crane to the stage and embraces the two others in a hotbed of sexual unity. I realize that not only are they a band, they are a revolutionary threesome, and it is a lovely sight to behold.

  Crawford is the lead “singer,” if you can even begin to call his tortured screams mixed in with mock opera arias “singing.” Suddenly the entire junkyard is his stage. The other bands give up, knowing they can’t compete. Women and men begin taking off their clothes and dancing tribally with a fury that would make any adult nervous. It’s like Mortville-à-go-go.

  As the bonfire begins to rage below them, Crawford gives the signal, and both Marshmellow and Otis stage-dive off the forklifts and land on separate OverBuilt Model 10 car crushers. The crowd is going wild, watching the fire lick its way up, knowing Crawford is timing the musical finale to the tweak of the audience’s drug trips. I watch the hypnotic orgy of deafening sounds reach its Boléro-type finale as Crawford’s vocal cords are pushed to such a limit of howling, screeching volume that both his eardrums pop and blood shoots from his throat just as he jumps off his bread-truck-roof stage as it bursts into flames and lands in Marshmellow’s car-flattening platform. Taking his plasmatic cue, Otis ignites the ferocious engine of his machinery and begins crushing automobile cadavers as Marshmellow does the same, and Crawford breaks into spasmodic Saint Vitus’ danc
e moves and joins them in shrieking a warlike, speaking-in-tongues gibberish that only the Devil himself could ever translate. I get the vapors and collapse.

  The next morning I awaken, neatly tucked in a bed made out of an old ambulance stretcher nestled inside a onetime-fancy Pace Arrow movie-star trailer, the kind Melanie Griffith and Stephen Dorff both had on Cecil B. DeMented’s set. Like every vehicle at Jughead’s Auto Parts, there’s been a tragedy inside, but enough time has passed to mute the original horror of the event. Only three walls are left standing, and one is crumpled. Obviously there has been a hideous accident. Maybe a 10K light crashed down from a crane on set? Or on the way to a location a Teamster driving the honeywagon truck fell asleep at the wheel and rear-ended the movie-star trailers? There’s been a fire, too. You can see multiple flame marks near the kitchen area. Maybe freebasing? I see a burned-out tiny piece of a movie call-sheet clinging to the springs under where a couch once was and pick it off carefully. “Day 8. Drive Angry,” it reads. God, I saw that movie.