e—the three of us—basically drove from Cincinnati to Reno, Nevada, without sleeping. In the trunk we had 30 hits of acid, an ounce of mushrooms, an ounce and a half of Cincinnati schwag, and a few aspirin. We drove and drove and drove. Although we hit St. Louis, Alley Springs, and Lawrence, we really didn’t sleep until Nevada.

Take it, Dirk...

Explication time, COME on!

Dirk?

We were a traveling pharmacy—take it, Dirk! Dirk?

I was not high. No.

I was not in Cincinnati. No.

I was a messiah. Yes.

We had been together . . . for quite a long time.

My nuns were getting restless.

I had insisted upon midgets.

As usual, the “i”-dentity of the “I” (and the “we” when pluralistic impulses take over) in the above sentences has no stable referent, being, in both cases, fictions contrived by William and Scott in a bald attempt to force me to contribute more “text” (as we so quaintly call it these days) to the “Hypertext of The Unknown”—which I will gladly do, once I get some sleep.

But before I do, let me clear up just a couple of things. Whether I am a messiah or the leader of a sick, pathetic cult whose only purpose is to humiliate its pitiful adherents and divest them of all their worldly goods is a matter of debate, I’ll admit, but all I ask is a fair hearing, an open-minded consideration of all the relevant evidence, and blind acceptance (ha, ha; just joking on that last one, at least the ‘blind’ part—ho, ho, ho, just joking again!) of what I learned on my most recent pilgrimage to the West Coast, my somewhat truncated 40 days in the wilderness. And about the drugs . . . o.k., I’ll admit the trunk of my car contained enough controlled substances to warrant severe punishment by the consciousness police (i.e., your tax dollars at work regulating the boundaries of perception)—enough to incarcerate, indefinitely, both me and my sainted mother (who accompanied me on the first leg of the journey). However, the presence of such substances should in no way discredit the insights . . . encountered? generated? stolen? Finally, I forgive William and Scott for wanting to leach a few of my miles and pretend they experienced them firsthand, but let’s face it, I’ve sworn to do what I can to protect humankind from its own frailties, and so how can I allow William and Scott to be besmirched by their misguided attempts to link themselves with the mundane gospel about to be revealed?

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