My Travels (or The Time I Killed a Whole Town)

Like everyone does once they graduate from college or, in my case, prison, I spent a large portion of my first year of freedom traveling this great land we call America. I've been all over the place; I've seen New York, New Jersey, New London, New Mexico, and other places, some of which don't even have the word "new" in their name--though these places were, of course, inferior, and I spit on their memory. I've seen the Grand Canyon, and also the Tiny Canyon. What, you don't know about that one? It's down the street from the Grand Canyon (ask for Perro). It's okay, I guess, but they shut me down when I tried to open a churro store there, so I had to kill the mayor--not the mayor of the Tiny Canyon, the mayor of Boston. Look, it's a long story, that's what I'm trying to say.

I did all this back in the 70's when hitchhiking was still a viable option, mostly because people didn't know yet that we hitchhikers are quick to kill you dead for half an erection.


pictured: me hitchhiking.
Anyway, that trip to the Southwest was pretty great. I had sex with a coyote. My only regret is that he wasn't alive to enjoy it. I went to--and lived in--a human zoo, and made friends with the zombies in the Indian graveyard next door (if Prancing Wolf is reading this, I promise I'll email you those pics when I get a chance, man). I remember how their baleful cries of "Brains! Brains!" used to lull me to sleep--now I can't even doze off without someone in the room moaning and scratching. One time a child got separated from his parents on a visit to the human zoo (or, as we called it, the "anthroparium") and wandered over to the zombies. Boy, I've never seen a group of zombies so happy, or a young child so terrified/devoured. The city council denied our petition to make that day a holiday, but we celebrated anyway, with a child-shaped cake filled with jam and human organs. If the banks didn't close, we'd make them close, at gunpoint if necessary. Anyway, we always made sure to invite that kid's parents to our holiday party, but they never showed up. I guess they were really busy.

After a while, I grew bored in that sleepy little town of Hambone--did I mention it was called Hambone? Stupid name. I hopped a ride in an empty car at the back of an astro-train and traveled through a wormhole that dumped out in the middle of Nebraska. There I did a few odd jobs to get some money, just a little something for food, shelter, and Brazilian fart pornography. Maybe a little farm work over here or a little mayor-killing over there--just the normal stuff us hobos do in the small towns we visit. I was working at a carnival, catching rats to grind up into kosher hot dogs, when I met the love of my life, a leopard lady working in the freak show. I gave her the biggest rat I caught that day, and she bit its head off right there, which in carny-speak means "we're dating, my horse" ("horse" is carny-speak for "lover"). We made love day in and day out. Sometimes we'd just kiss in the bushes as my dwarf friend, David, watched us. Sometimes we'd dry-hump in the portable toilets, in case one of developed an instant case of violent diarrhea (neither one of us ever did, but it was nice to have the option open). I kept detailed photographic records of our sexual exploits (Nala, if you're reading this, I promise I won't send those pics to Prancing Wolf). What can I say? We were two horses in love, and extraordinarily horny and weird.

That all ended one day when I walked into our S&M tent with a new pain-bridle and found her sleeping with Hugo, the resident strongman.


pictured: the strongman.
I was heartbroken. I flew into a rage, and threw open the hatch on my rat vault. The whole carnival was flooded with rats. Only myself and about a dozen others, like the stilt-man, escaped the town with our lives.

I guess I needed to just get out, partly because there was a warrant out for my arrest (crybabies--who doesn't like being covered in meaty rats?!), but more importantly I needed someplace a guy could just get lost. So I packed myself into a cardboard envelope and mailed myself to the Big Apple. Having seen that, I stole a schoolbus and drove to New York City.

Something about New York is different. The first day I got here, I saw the Statue of Liberty give birth to a black baby made out of iron (he later became Mike Tyson, heavyweight champion of the world), and I knew I was home, that this was my city. I guess that's why I had to kill its mayor.