Dawn's Hwy part 4

The New World

One of the younger boys had put on a ceremonial necklace and leggings. He’d found a long stick somewhere and he drew a circle in the hard sand about three or four feet in diameter and then drew a cross in the middle dividing it into quarters. The Indians then scattered into the surrounding desert. Before Jim or Phil could figure out what they were doing, they started returning with pieces of wood, branches and scrub and stacked it for a fire. Jim noticed that they had stacked the wood at the eastern point of the circle, being careful not to break the circle’s boundary. Jim and Phil joined the search. About half an hour later the pile was deemed big enough. Then everyone found places in the shade of what seemed a cool spot and waited — waiting for what, Jim still didn’t know.

As the sun lowered itself in the western horizon, a vaporous moon appeared over the desert not yet fully revealing itself in the coming night sky. A signal must have happened that Jim hadn’t noticed because, without any words spoken, the fire was lit. Everyone gathered in a semi-circle between the fire and the drawn circle. The three elders came out of the house along with the shaman, who was dressed the same except that now he wore a necklace of feathers and shell. At the bottom hung a rattlesnake’s head. He walked towards the fire. One of the elders came up to Jim and Phil and motioned for them to come with him. He guided them to the front of the fire and motioned for them to sit.

There were already three others sitting at the fire, including the biker. The elders started drumming, slowly, the sound of a heartbeat. Soft rhythmic chanting began, creating a sound all its own, an insect sound like it was something that should have always been there. It built up until Jim could feel the resonance of the sound in his chest. One of the teenagers came around the front of the circle holding a clay jar out towards Phil, who was first in the line. He looked at the shaman questioningly, the shaman shook his head affirmatively, making a motion with his hand encouraging Phil to reach in. He pulled out a peyote button. Jim followed suit, and the shaman said, “chew slowly.” They each raised the buttons to their mouths and started chewing the bitter plant. The boy walked down the row offering the peyote to the other supplicants. The boy then appeared with another jar, which he again held out to Phil. There seemed to be a liquid in it, he could feel it sloshing around as he took the jar, “what is this?”

The shaman shot him a sharp look. “Drink but do not swallow. Rinse your mouth and spit it out and ask no more questions.” Phil did as he was told. Jim drank without question. It was Mezcal. The ritual was repeated six times. Then the shaman started dancing around the circle, one foot tentatively put forward, and pulled back, never breaking the barrier of the drawn circle. As he danced the beat increased. Jim thought the shaman looked younger, as if he was revitalized by the dance.

Suddenly there was a swirl of color, electric, it felt as if a door had been opened. Stars were falling from his long hair, silvery beams shot from his fingertips. Jim looked to the sky. It was dark, the moon full and bright, holding dominion over the desert. The music throbbed in his head. Motion started breaking up into the flickers of the fire’s light. Images flashed across his consciousness, animal sounds. A crow’s wing, Indians lying dead on a highway, his mother’s voice softly saying, “it was just a dream, Jimmy, it was just a dream,” as it turned to song. The music pushed against his chest, from the inside. It wasn’t the drumming anymore. It seemed familiar, like he’d heard it before. He looked around and saw, clearer than he had ever before. The scene was bent, curved, as if he was looking through some other lens. The music pulsed through him like a storm, and there was a sea of people, swaying like grass in the wind at his command. He’d discovered power, or maybe a new science, or perhaps a very old one. It was the spirit of music. Then it moved, slightly, then moved away from him more quickly, getting smaller with distance until he could see it as a whole. It was a smoky, gray, it had some weird stippling, almost a tactile appearance, then it undulated, it was alive! It moved away from him, he could see the scene was a facet on the scale of a rattlesnake, as the snake moved away from him, he could see every scale had a scene from his life, past, present and future. The farther it moved away from him the harder it was to discern those scenes until the snake had disappeared. The music pulsated through his body, it was scintillating, a scream came ripping through the atmosphere and he realized it was from him, but he wasn’t afraid, it was a part of him, it was him. Out of the darkness he saw a silvery spiderweb then nothing, he felt the prickling of fear at the edge of his consciousness, then some silvery nails pushed down out of the darkness and he knew he was in a coffin, he told himself not to be afraid if he let the fear in it would become a bad trip.

He awoke to the rising sun prying open his eyes. He was cold, confused, unsure of where he was. He looked around and saw he was in front of the shaman’s house. He tried to stand up, but he was weak. Everything came back to him — the night before, the trip, it had been more than a trip, more than random images thrown together by a subconscious struggling to find context out of the chaos of a drugged mind. It seemed more of a journey — it had coherence, meaning. In that moment he realized he was alive he was on the edge of life and death. Either was within his grasp. It was real, maybe all too real. He was living in the moment. The shaman was sitting on a rock poking the smoldering embers of the fire with a stick. Felix was sitting nearby; Phil was sitting next to the shaman and they were talking quietly.

“And you were there, and you,” Jim said.

“Welcome back to Kansas, Dorothy,” Felix said.

“Where is everyone?”

“They’re all gone,” the shaman said.

“Already?”

“They’re Indians, they’re used to it.” Jim made a move to get up.

“Don’t try to get up,” Phil advised, “you’re probably a little weak.” Jim let out a little laugh, scoffing at the idea, he tried to stand, but his legs were awkward and unsteady, like a newborn deer trying to walk for the first time. He sat back down on the ground.

Felix laughed at the effort. “You should have seen Phil baby trying to stand.”

“You need to eat,” the shaman said. “I’ve prepared breakfast for you.” He pointed to a large platter covered with a cloth and a jug that was between them. Jim pulled the cloth off. On the plate were dried meat and tortillas. The jug was filled with water. “You need something elemental to rebuild your strength, meat, bread, water. Eat and drink slowly and soon enough you’ll be strong enough to fight again.”

“What happened?”

“You tripped your asses off.” Felix said, laughing.

“Oh, shit.” Jim said,

“You traveled dawn’s highway, you had your journey through joy and the dark night of the soul. Now the world is new, it was born anew with the dawn. You discovered power, you must be careful, and you must be prepared.”

“For what?”

“For the moment when life breaks your heart.”

“No chick can ever do that to me.”

“No, it’s not something so trivial, it’s deeper and you must recognize it for what it is in the moment. And you must be ready, or you will succumb. Within a destiny lies fate.”

“I heard a song.”

“You must remember the song, if only for yourself. You forget at your own peril.”

“What does it mean?” Jim asked.

“We find the lessons in life we want to.”

“And there it is,” Felix said, “the vague mystical statement of the fraud.” The shaman smiled benignly.

“Was that what it was like for you Phil?” Jim asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” the shaman said. “If you tell each other what you saw, it wouldn’t have the same meaning to the others as it did to you.”

“I’m going to Sonora to meet a friend of Senor Reyes’” Phil said.

“Yeah!” Jim said, “let’s go to Sonora then all the way down to Mexico City, find some hookers, do the whole Kerouac ‘On the Road’ trip!”

“No, Jim, you still don’t get it. It’s just not kicks and adventure. Didn’t this mean anything more to you?”

“Man, I’m just looking to have a good time, for the experience, to inscribe them on our consciousness, so when I die, I’ll have something to remember.”

“Is every experience equal? One experience is as good as another?” Phil looked at Jim and Felix, “don’t you see? This is a revelation, the moment when physics becomes metaphysics.”

“But you’re still looking for something with a set of rules,” Jim said, “imposed by a tradition. You may want something new, but you want the safety of rules. I’ve spent too many years locked up. I’ve already served a life sentence, now all I’m interested in is freedom.”

“What about all those aphorisms you’re always spouting from Nietzsche and Rimbaud? Aren’t those your rules?”

“I’m beyond that, man. You have to be more Dionysian in your thinking, you have to immerse yourself in the madness, in the unconscious. Nietzsche and Rimbaud are just sign posts in the wilderness — they tell me I’m on the right trail.”

“Jim, you seek chaos wherever you go.”

“The universe is chaotic. It’s the mind that imposes order.”

“Philosophy without wisdom Jim, that’s more of Felix’s getting fucked up, and not Rimbaud’s rational disorganization of the senses. That’s the choice you’re going to have make sooner or later getting fucked up — or real searching.”

“Fuck you, Phil!” Felix said, he headed back to the car, “c’mon Morrison, let’s go. He’ll probably end up dead in the desert anyway.”

“I have a philosophy. That’s a lot more than a lot of people have, and I’m willing to live it until the end. Can you say the same?” In that moment Phil saw the difference between Jim and himself. He saw the fork in the road, the paths that he and Jim diverged from here, moving farther apart until they would only be able to see each from afar.

“’Excess leads to the palace of wisdom, huh Jim? What have you learned?” Phil turned and headed to the shaman’s house.

In Jim’s movie mind, he saw the final scene of this modern western, of the new sensuous wild west for a turned-on generation that wasn’t afraid to see everything differently, in disconnected images with the mind choosing the order, creating its own context. The car raced across the desert floor, the asphalt fleeing behind them, in front of them the mountains in the far-off distance, the car racing after the setting sun, chasing the ever-receding horizon.

#

“Is that the god’s honest truth as to what happened?” Hanson asked.

“Hmmm,” Jim said, cocking his head to the right, a smile on his face. “There’s a truth in there.”

“Listen you little prick!” Hanson said, jumping out of his chair. At that moment Ellison walked back into the interrogation room, leaving the door open.

“Mr. Morrison,” he said, “you’re free to go.”

“Why?”

“The charges have been dropped. Phillip has returned home, mystery solved.” Jim got up and was as far as the door. “Mr. Morrison,” Ellison said behind him.

“Yeah?”

“Stay out of trouble son I don’t want to see you back here again.”

“Right, dad.”

Jim walked out of the police station. He was downtown and had to walk all the way back to Sunset. He walked at his laconic but purposeful gait, taking in everything, remembering it. It was late afternoon. The few people on the street were straight — short hair, suits and not turned on. The tan and white buildings all seemed to recede into the landscape. As he moved away from the moment, it was the past. It didn’t make any sense to look backward, to remember. It would be a sorry nostalgia. The future was forward, in front of him.

On Sunset, it was a neon infused night which was never quite dark and hummed with the electricity of creation. He could feel it; the energy rippled across his skin like a soft breeze. He was ready to change the world. He had changed his. The street was swarming with people and he was a part of the Sunset night. He would spread his wings against the night, the stars would fall from his hair. He was a force of nature. With a wave of his hand, the storm was at his command. As he neared The Whisky, he could feel the music thumping through the walls, and the doors. He walked in and was swallowed by the music.

This is an early version of Dawn’s Hwy which appears in The Lion Communique. I’m also the author of The Doors Examined. For more information and more of my books Jymsbooks to join my monthly newsletter!

Still from the video Wild Child by The Doors.