Rock and Roll Voodoo

by Mark Paul Smith

  “I was asking Gabriel.”

  “Yes,” Gabriel said. “Only eat ones with the purple. You be fine.”

  The hitchhiker pointed out a road sign that said turn right for Raceland, Louisiana. “Okay, turn left. We don’t go to Raceland. This is Highway One. Turn left and it runs by Bayou Lafourche. On the west of the bayou is Highway One and on the east is Highway Three o’ Eight. The bayou is in the middle.”

  “Man, this is some of the flattest country I’ve ever seen,” Jesse said as he made the turn. “I thought Indiana was flat. This place doesn’t even have a bump in the road.”

  Jesse kept driving into the rain, past low-slung houses and shanties with wooden docks along some kind of canal.

  “What kind of traffic goes down that waterway?” Casey asked.

  Gabriel leaned forward between the seats. “Shrimp boats and tourist riverboats and pirogues.”

  “What’s a pirogue?” Casey shifted into interview mode.

  “It’s a small boat with a flat bottom so you can push-pole it through the shallow swamp,” Gabriel made the motion. “It’s a Cajun thing.”

  “What is a Cajun, anyway?” Casey asked.

  “It’s a mix of French Creoles who came down from Canada, Indians, blacks, and some English,” Gabriel said. “My momma says I’ve got a little of all of them in me.”

  “Looks like you might have had a rough night last night,” Jesse said.

  “It was a Fais do-do,” Gabriel said. “An all night party. I guess you can tell I haven’t been to bed yet.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Casey said. “You look fine. We’ve all been there.”

  “What do you do for a living?” Jesse asked.

  “There it is,” Gabriel pointed as a waterway came into view alongside the road. “Allow me to introduce you to Bayou Lafourche. It’s more than one hundred miles long from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. It be Main Street for Cajun country. Here you find real Cajun cooking and the Zydeco music. Do you know Zydeco?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jesse said. “I play in a band. We’ve got a fiddle player.”

  “Do you have an accordion?” Gabriel asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “So, come down here and find you one,” Gabriel said. “Zydeco is Cajun folk music. It’s like country music only with an accordion.”

  “I can’t believe we found Bayou Lafourche,” Casey said.

  “Gabriel found it for us,” Jesse said. “If it hadn’t been for him, we would have driven right past it.”

  Jesse was driving through a part of the waterway that was nearly overgrown with Chinese Tallow, Bald Cypress, and Willow trees when Gabriel said, “The bayou is so far south it makes New Orleans look like a northern city.”

  “Most of what I know about the bayou comes from the Hank Williams song, ‘Jambalaya,’” Jesse said.

  “Goodbye Joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh,” Gabriel sang. “Me gotta push-pole the pirogue down the bayou.”

  “That’s the one,” Jesse said.

  “Hey Jambalaya, crawfish pie, filé gumbo,” Gabriel continued singing. Jesse joined in on the chorus and they sounded pretty good together as they finished the song. After a little instant harmony, Jesse felt he could trust Gabriel.

  Casey turned around in his seat to ask Gabriel a direct question. “This is where the Voodoo comes from, right?”

  “Ah, yes, the bayou has all the Voodoo you can imagine,” Gabriel’s eyes widened in Jesse’s rear mirror. “Some of it can haunt you.” He thrust his open hands into the front seat. “Some can protect you, even from yourself. It is the magic of the spirit world.” He clasped his hands together as if in prayer. “There is much magic here. Today, you will find much more than you are looking for.”

  “What makes you say that?” Casey asked.

  “I don’t know why I say it,” Gabriel said. “I just know it be true. Feel it in my bones.”

  “So what about the magic mushrooms?” Casey asked, taking the talk back to the quest at hand. “How much farther? We’ve been driving almost fifty miles now.”

  “Not much farther. See, here is Lockport. Next is Larose, where the Intracoastal Waterway intersects Bayou Lafourche. Between Lockport and Larose, that is where we go.”

  “You mean that’s where you live,” Jesse said.

  “Yes, yes,” Gabriel laughed his disarming laugh. “I do live there but that is where you will find the best mushrooms. You will see. I show you.”

  A few miles past Lockport, the road left the bayou and meandered through a stretch of ranch land. Gabriel motioned for them to stop. Jesse parked Harley off the side of the road in front of a never-ending field. The three of them got out to stretch. The rain had stopped. Across the road was a long, white, cattle fence, four feet high.

  “See that fence,” Gabriel said. “Climb it and walk a ways, and you find all the mushrooms you can carry.”

  “Aren’t you coming with us?” Jesse asked.

  “No, I don’t need any. They’re all for you. I had too much of everything last night. I need sleep. Thanks, you two, for the ride. Happy times. You have good hunting.”

  With that, Gabriel began walking down the road. Casey got two paper grocery bags out of the car. He and Jesse crossed the road to climb the fence. Looking around to see if the coast was clear, Jesse realized Gabriel wasn’t on the road. He wasn’t on the side of the road or walking into a field. He was nowhere in sight.

  Casey scanned the area from the top of the fence. “I don’t see where he could have gone.”

  “He’s the mystery man,” Jesse said. “Come on. Let’s get over this fence and hope he wasn’t suckering us for a ride all the way to his house.”

  They walked into the field far enough so as not to be seen from the road. A few cows grazed in the distance. Jesse felt his feet sinking in the sandy soil. The land was relentlessly flat. They crossed a dry creek bed with some shrub trees and began walking into fields of grass. Jesse smelled the piles of manure before he saw them. None had any mushrooms.

  The search went on without luck for nearly an hour. The sun came out from behind the clouds. It got hot and steamy in a hurry. Jesse was feeling discouraged. The heat made him wonder why he hadn’t thought to bring any water. Everything looked the same. He could tell from Casey’s slumped shoulders that his friend was also losing hope in the hunt. He was about to give up the search when he decided it was time to take a leak. There were scattered bushes nearby but he didn’t bother to hide behind one since no one was around. He relieved himself in the open field and marveled at the yellow arc of his urine stream glowing in the sun.

  The miracle began.

  There, at the very end of his shining relief, was a mostly-dry pile of cow manure, covered in magic mushrooms. They looked like a colony of tiny aliens atop the cow pie. He changed his trajectory to avoid pissing on the treasure.

  “Casey,” he yelled as he shook himself off and zipped up. “You’d better come see this right away. We have mushrooms, lots of them. I was taking a leak and there they were. Like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.”

  By the time Casey arrived, Jesse had already picked his first mushroom out of the manure. It had the purplish ring around the stem.

  “That’s the real deal,” Casey howled as he hopped up and down in a victory dance.

  Jesse took a few steps to the right and looked down. “Here’s another one with even more.”

  Suddenly, they were surrounded by a sea of magic mushrooms. Where once had been only sand and dry brush, there was now nothing but piles of cow manure, covered with magic mushrooms. They picked quickly but carefully, so as not to damage their sacred harvest. In minutes, they had half a grocery bag of what looked to be the finest magic mushrooms in all the land. They were big, some of them six inches long and three inches wide.

  “Should we try one out?” Casey asked.

  “Absolutely,” Jesse said as he stuffed a four-inch mushroom into his mouth and began chewing with a grimace.
r />   Casey stifled his own gag reflex. “You’re not even going to wash it first?”

  “With what?”

  Once Jesse finished swallowing the mushroom, Casey wiped one off on his shirt and made a sweeping sign of the cross as he sang, “My father plays dominos better than your father plays dominos, I got a bloody nose, amen.”

  Jesse laughed at the incantation as Casey popped the entire mushroom into his mouth and winced at the fungal taste.

  “Actually, the cow shit gives them a little flavor,” Jesse said. “They don’t taste that good on their own. They taste like, I don’t know, like worms I guess.”

  “How would you know what worms taste like?”

  “I don’t. The shrooms just don’t taste that good. That’s all I’m saying. Maybe they’d be better if you cooked them or put them in a salad with some vinegar and oil and salt.”

  They kept picking and chatting about their amazing good fortune until their backs and legs were aching, and both grocery bags were filled to overflowing. The sun was in full force and they were sweating profusely.

  Jesse felt a subtle body rush sneak up his spine like two cups of strong coffee. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He started twitching his nose as his hands and feet began to tingle. He was breathing more deeply. His hair felt like it belonged to someone else. Euphoric feelings of physical freedom, like walking on clouds, washed over him. Then, the clouds turned into pillows of sexual pleasure, floating in release from the bonds of everyday reality. Arousal surged from the inside out, combined with paisley imagery, undulating, from the outside in. He was stuck in the middle of a world with no beginning and no ending. It became increasingly difficult to remember where he was or how he fit into the scheme of things. He had fallen down the rabbit hole in Alice In Wonderland. The world shifted from “knock, knock” to “who’s there?” Nothing felt familiar, although even little things became exceptionally enjoyable. Taking a deep breath felt as athletic as doing a back flip. Turning around sent the entire planet spinning. Being able to fly seemed a distinct possibility.

  He wandered aimlessly as the visual hallucinations and color changes and otherworldly perspectives began to change everything. It didn’t take long for a disorienting paranoia to descend. He turned to Casey and realized his friend was as far out as he was.

  The two men hugged each other to get some kind of a grip on reality.

  “Hang on tight, my brother,” Jesse said. “We have lift off.”

  “I’m hanging on,” Casey said. “I’m hanging on like Sloopy. This is doable. We’ve been here before.”

  “It’s not as radical as some of the acid we’ve done.”

  “Hang on Sloopy,” Casey started singing.

  “Sloopy hang on,” Jesse joined in.

  They sang as well as they could remember half the lyrics. They did not panic. Jesse and Casey had been tripping since 1968. They were cosmic cowboys. They’d taken a few radical rides on Owsley LSD from the San Francisco area. Even so, they were having trouble staying in the saddle.

  The shrooms were potent.

  “Breathe deep,” Jesse said. “Don’t fight the feeling. Let it take you where it will. It’s like a rip tide. If you swim against the current it’ll drown you.”

  “I hear you, brother,” Casey said. “I’m breathing deep and this shit’s taking me places I’ve never been. It feels like floating on a river in the sky.”

  “Hang on, Sloopy,” Jesse hugged Casey again. “I think we’re in the rapids.”

  The Paranoia came and went, alternating with euphoria. Casey and Jesse began dancing around in wide circles with their arms spread out like wings. The mind-boggling experience was huge fun even though it was more than a little scary. It was a roller coaster ride without a track.

  Losing your mind always has its ups and downs.

  Every time Jesse had tripped on acid or anything else in the past, he got to a place where he knew no one could possibly save him. The trick, he had found, was in not looking to be rescued.

  Casey wandered off and found a dead bull by a shallow, dry creek bed. It looked like it had died of thirst on the spot. He pulled hard on one horn and the head detached from the body. Jesse had to choke back a puke reflex as the head came off with a sickening, flesh-ripping, tendon-snapping, bone-cracking sound. Jesse watched in amazement as Casey became spellbound by the mystical energy of the skull he now held in his hand. The bull hadn’t looked decomposed enough for the head to come off that easily.

  “Talk about grabbing the bull by the horns,” Jesse said.

  The detached head mesmerized him. It seemed to be looking into his soul, like it had found new life once liberated from the body of the bull.

  The horns were clean and nearly two feet wide. The eye sockets were empty. The nose and broad, flat head still had hunks of hair and flesh hanging on the bone. All the teeth were still imbedded in the upper jaw but the lower jaw had somehow remained with the body. There was no dripping blood. The skull was dry as the sand and appeared to be floating in thin air.

  It looked like Casey was about to be devoured by a cannibal zombie bull, raging in revenge at all the meat eaters in the world.

  “This is the spirit of Bayou Lafourche,” Casey proclaimed as he shook the skull and began picking off some of the larger chunks of flesh and hair. “He will protect us from evil.”

  Jesse began backing away. “Are you out of your mind? You better drop that thing. I can’t believe you’re even touching it. It’s freaking me out. It looks like the devil himself has come out to play.”

  Casey laughed at Jesse’s squeamishness and began dancing while holding the skull over his head and chanting nonsensically.

  The sight took Jesse out of his paranoid nausea and made him start laughing. The mushroom visions turned the skull into a clown balloon. It looked like Casey might float away at any moment. The horror became comical.

  Jesse laughed so hard that Casey couldn’t help but start laughing too. They couldn’t stop. There was a hysterical spirit in the air. They both ended up on their knees in the dirt, trying to catch their breath.

  The skull was not laughing with them from its place in the sand.

  When they finally got over the laughing jag, they looked at each other and realized the world was nothing like it had been forty-five minutes earlier. The sky was broiling and the earth was rolling like the sea. Jesse was so disoriented he could barely distinguish fantasy from reality. He looked Casey in the eye and it seemed for a moment like his friend was about to panic. Then everything seemed hysterically funny again and he was back in the dirt, laughing until his stomach hurt. Casey was laughing right along with him.

  Jesse was first to recover from the laughing jag. “By the way, I’m tripping my brains out. I’m not sure how much higher we can get or how much longer this is going to last. We’d better get back to the car while we still can. Why don’t you ask your freaky cow skull friend how much more weird this trip is going to get?”

  Casey grabbed the skull by both horns and began doing the twist. He looked like a cross between a drunken matador and one of those guys losing the race at the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Jesse grabbed Casey by the arm to try and stop him from dancing. “Put that thing down. I’m getting a bad feeling out here all of a sudden. A feeling like it’s way past time to head for home.”

  Casey set the skull down. “There, I set it down. See, it’s not evil. It won’t hurt you. We will be taking this home with us, for sure. It’s too cool. It’s the perfect memento for our bayou trip. More than that, it’s got a power all its own. Remember, Gabriel said we’d find more than we were looking for.”

  “I don’t want that mess in my car.”

  Casey picked up the skull. “Don’t worry; I’ve got an old towel in the car. We can wrap it up. Come on. Let’s go. I’ll carry the skull, you get the shrooms.”

  Jesse could see Casey wasn’t going to be talked out of it. He picked up the two grocery bags filled with magic mushrooms lik
e a reluctant carryout boy and began walking back to where he thought the fence might be located.

  Walking a straight line proved impossible. Jesse was floating through a world of mystic visions and breathing patterns of color and light in the hot, humid sunshine. He realized how thirsty he was. It occurred to him that he had more than $3,000 of illegal drugs in the bags he carried. It seemed a journey of epic proportion, but Jesse eventually found the white fence they had jumped two hours earlier. He could see Harley parked along the road about a quarter mile away. It was comforting to see something familiar, although even the dull-red Beetle seemed to be hovering several feet off the ground.

  Casey slid the skull under the fence and climbed over. As Jesse pushed the bags under the fence, he realized that the contraband could land both him and Casey in jail for a long, long time. As soon as his feet hit the ground on the other side of the fence, Jesse’s worst fears were realized. Some kind of police car was coming toward them on the road in the distance. It approached at a high rate of speed. In his altered state, it was impossible for Jesse to tell if the lights on top were flashing or not.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Casey said.

  “No, no, we can’t run. He already sees us.” Jesse said, feeling eerily calm inside. “Just act like we’re on our way home from the grocery store.”

  “What about the skull?” Casey looked like he was getting ready to run.

  “He won’t see it. Here, have a cigarette. I’ll light it for you.”

  “Oh, shit. We’re going to get busted,” Casey said as he fumbled with the cigarette. “Here we are, tripping our brains out and we’re going to jail. I’m going to get kicked out of law school. I’ll be a failure. My family will disown me. Shit, shit, shit.”

  Jesse lit Casey’s cigarette. “Nobody’s going to jail. We’re fine. Here we are, stopped for a smoke break. What could be more innocent?”

  The police car whizzed by without so much as looking their way. He didn’t even slow down to check the abandoned car on the side of the road. Once he was far enough down the road, Casey and Jesse collapsed in a pile of relief alongside the fence.