We left Joe in the back of the van with a sleeping Missy and a horny Candy. What happens next is full of the gospel truth! Mark, my friend, if you’re still alive and not incarcerated somewhere, call me!
They left Asheville two hours later, heading west on Route 40 for Knoxville. Missy was still asleep in the back. Candy drove and sang along to Tom T. Hall’s “Me and Jesus” on the CD player. Joe sat up front on a hot water bottle, his ass still a little sore.
On the way back to Asheville two days later, Joe drove the van, while Mark (a hitch hiker that they had picked up in Knoxville) kept him company. A strange banging noise could be heard from the back of the van, and the poor vehicle swayed from side to side with a maddening rhythm.
“Dude, you should have, like, made sure that bio-diesel station was still in business before you left Asheville!” Mark pointed out, glancing curiously towards the curtain that separated him from the back of the van. “What’s going on back there?”
“You don’t want to know,” Joe replied in an irritated tone. His pride was slightly wounded at the thought of retreating back to Asheville. He consoled himself, though, by hoping that he could leave Candy there this time.
The past two days in Knoxville had been fun; he had to admit that. He had slept with Candy, with Candy and Missy, with just Missy, and with Missy and two other black women from the Grotto. Sleeping with two women at once had always been a fantasy of his, although admittedly, he had always thought it would be two, petite, white women. Missy’s taste for large, black women was a bit disconcerting, but hey, his prostate never felt better.
Candy was starting to get on his nerves, though. She kept trying to read his fortune, and insisted that he touch her icons before having sex. Half way to Knoxville, he had also discovered that part of her “stuff” included a black cat named Shiva.
“So, dude, where was I?” Mark continued, with Shiva curled up contentedly on his lap. “Oh yes, I had just hooked up with the stripper, Valerie, in San Fran, and she drug me off to Hawaii.”
Joe had picked Mark up at a rest stop just outside Knoxville. Mark was hitching his way to Asheville in search of a place to stay, and some quality weed. He loved to talk, and was excited to tell his life story to Joe.
“We were having a rad time in Hawaii, you know, until Val’s 18 year old sister came to stay with us. Like, man, here I am on this beautiful fucking island…a stripper supporting me…I’ve got nothing to do but entertain her beautiful kid sister…and I go and mess it up by fucking the sister on the beach.”
“You fucked the 18 year old sister?”
“Yea, dude. I’m, like, not proud of it, but how many times can you sit on a beach with a beautiful woman…drinking wine…the waves lapping up to your feet…reading Lord of the Rings…before something’s going to happen!”
“You’re a Tolkien fan?”
“Dude, you have no idea! But let me finish…so, I do the sister. Valeria’s like totally pissed. I panic. I run back to San Fran, and shack up with some of my music buddies. We’re all, like, jamming one day, when we look out the window and there’s these thugs, you see…and they’re staking the place out. Turns out Val hired a hit man to ice my ass. After several days of hiding in the apartment, man, I made a break for it. My buds hid me in a stand-up bass case, and we peeled out of San Fran in a mini-van. I haven’t been back since.”
“So, you’re going to hide out in Asheville for a while then? “ Joe asked.
“Hell yea! I know this, like, really strange hippie couple there. I’m going to move in with them…they don’t know that yet, but I’m sure they’ll help me out. I left my other buddies down in Colorado. Mini-van died around Boulder.”
“How funny! We’re headed toward Colorado for a Libertarian convention.”
“Dude, you’re, like, going to wrong way! But rad, man, I had you pegged for a Libertarian, for sure. Say, you wouldn’t happen to be into Mill would you? That Utilitarian shit is rad!”
Joe felt his eyes misting over, “I love Mill!”
“Right on, man. We’re going to get on famously…I can feel it!” Mark opened the curtain concealing the back of the van, after a rather loud succession of banging noises caught his attention.
“Dude, do you know there’s a black chick ramming the crap out of a white chick in the back of your van? Cool!”