From the Bottom of a Bottle of Rye Whiskey

I.

The Doctor Looks At My Chart...

and decides I will live to be 100.

Then she tells me to quit drinking.

I then take an emergency trip to Ciudad Chihuahua to watch federales gun down Indians and other drug crazed members of the Mexican society.

Federales have no fucking sense of humor about anything.

I suppose it is altogether fitting then that while sitting in a dirt floor putaria drinking sotol that a legless Yaqui Indian rolls up on cart and tells me...

"For five dollars" (in broken Spanish/Yaqui of course), "I can show you one hell of a time."

I am not interested. I just wanna sit here at the bar, mind my own business and get drunk. Maybe I can pay a puta a 5 spot to play with her titties but that's about it.

I give the Yaqui Indian a couple of bucks.

"Here ya go, now you can scram unless there is something else I can do for you."

'Si senor, yes you can."

OK so I bite. I am in a bar not far from the cathedral so how bad can it get? I give the Yaqui Indian another 5 bucks USian and his eyes light up. It's hard not looking down on him since he is basically sitting on the floor rollin' around the place. The odd thing is that nobody but me and the bartender seems to notice him.

The bartender nods like he is pleased with my transactions with the Indian.

"Follow me" he says, "I know where we need to go."

I am still buying this line of bullshit and I buy a bottle of Mexican moonshine and walk outside to the sidewalk. A taxi is waiting for us and I jump in the cab. The Yaqui gets into the back seat, cart, legless and all.

"Say hombre how'd ya lose them legs?" I ask.

The Yaqui tells the cab driver something in Yaqui that I am unable to decipher and off we go.

'Senor, don't be concerned about my lack of legs." he said.

Now I am starting to get a little concerned.

We end up on the outskirts somewhere outside of Ciudad Chihuahua. The blinding desert, seething with the smell of Mexico, raw desert air and my own unmistaken sense of inebriation combine into a vision that is somewhat illusory. We have arrived in an obscure Yaqui campsite.

Terribly skinny mutts walk around and shit everywhere which is odd because no one really knows how they are being fed. Shit eating dogs eating shit and the circle is complete.

I ask myself, "Why the fuck are you here? A gringo in a land of bandits, drug traffickers and campesinos."

I am such a dumbass, I willfully admit.

"Senor," he said "we want you to see something and take it back with you to the US."

"I really don't wanna see anything you wanna show me." I said.

"But Senor," he continues, "Dees ees bery importante!"

I am beginning not to like this at all. It is starting to become scary.

The Vaseline Machine Gun Bitch: II

II.

My guts start to liquefy onto the desert floor where I am standing. I decide I better pull it together or I will never get outta here.

Then she appears. A curandera appears from nowhere. Small clouds of powdered caliche billow up over her sandals and make her toes dirty. She approaches me with deliberation and a blank smile. I don't know why but I know she is a healer.

I decided then and there I didn't need another witch doctor looking at me. Why on earth did the legless Indian bring me here? I look down at him but his and everyone eyes are on her approach.

The curandera strides up to me and stops about 12 inches from my face. Without blinking an eye she rips opens my guayabera shirt and pops off all the buttons before I realized what she did.

She puts her hand flat on my chest just over my heart.

"You gringos smell bad." she said.

It's NOT like this bunch smell like roses either. I am not sure how much first impressions count here but I decided to take a big swig of the moonshine while we stare at each other. Neither of us are grinning. Besides, standing face to face with this curandera is making me shake like a dog shittin' a peach stone.

"Haha!" the Yaqui roller-cart man says. Then in PERFECT ENGLISH...

"Be careful what you say next, gringo. You don't want her to do to your pants what she did to your shirt."

Now I know I am in trouble cuz this legless Indian speaks perfect English. The curandera barks something in Indian to the legless man, then turns to me again.

"Your heart is strong, but your mind is weak" she says.

Ha! I could have told her that and I thought about what she said for a second or two and then offered her some moonshine. She grabs the bottle and tips it up, swishes the moonshine around her mouth and spits it on one of the skinny Indian dogs unfortunate enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. It whelps and runs off.

"What the fuck?" I say and at any other place and time this would have been an insult to spit out an offered drink. "Fuck it". I say under my breath.

A desert hot dust devil whirls through the camp and blows up her skirt. It's a Marilyn Monroe type of scene. She doesn't flinch. It carries away some of the delusions I have been having for the moment. I hand the bottle to the legless Yaqui man on the roller cart and he takes a nip of it and then another.

He's enjoying this for some reason and I am getting nervous. The dogs quit yapping, they get disinterested in me, the stranger and trotted off looking for some shit or whatever. In the distance I hear an AM radio playing some narcocorrido music. It's coming from a Ford F150 beat up pickup, the windshield is decorated with small dangling pom-poms and the traditional plastic Jesus on the dashboard.

"You need to be healed." the curandera says. "Your stench gives you away."

"Yeah," I said. "Your sn......."

I stopped myself and didn't say what it was that I thought gave her away. Chances were, judging from her general demeanor, had I almost said what I felt she would have shot my balls off and fed 'em to those damn camp dogs and my day would really have been ruined.

She returned to where ever she came from in the same manner she arrived. People started scurrying around and it was only me and the legless Indian who was getting ready to knife one of the camp dogs, for pretending to pee on his pitiful condition.

We are now approached by someone new. He's wearing a long sleeved gimme shirt, a cheap and dirty pair of pants and a pair of knockoff Nikes.

What's the purpose of all this? I wonder...

I'm A Steamed Bratwurst In A Basket of Fries: III

III.

The badly dressed Mexican looks way too serious for my liking.

"The curandera", he said, "she would like you to follow me to prepare you for dees cleansing."

I look down at the legless Indian, he's shrugging his shoulders. "No way fuckhead." I said. "Sounds too much like a colonic."

"What ees a colonic?...You have no choice in dees matter." he said, "Please follow me."

A guy wielding a machete really shouldn't be trifled with, especially if his main ally is a spooky witch doctor of some kind. The Legless Indian moans briefly that his legs hurt.

"Dude," I said, "You don't have any legs. It's phantom pain."

Note to self, I need to ask this wacko how he lost his legs.I suspect they were lost in a cock fight in some back alley in Ciudad de Chihuahua after refusing to pay off his gambling debts.

The Man With A Machete lights up a smelly cigar and acts as if he just entered heaven. Then he motions us to this shack that looks like an upside-down basket with blankets thrown over it. Not far from the door is a large pit with red hot coals.

"Streep yourself naked Senor." he said. "You must be cleansed." He raise the machete over his head.

"Bullshit!" I tell him but immediately begin to comply. I hear mumblings inside the hut.

A squat woman with skinny legs approaches us with a bowl of dried green leafy crap of some kind. She sets it down and starts rubbing the herbs over my body and what little body there is of the Legless Indian. Each moment gets more bizarre and although I haven't showered for 24 hours I smell as bad as anyone would in 100+ degree F heat. I was, after all, sitting in a nice cool bar minding my own business when all this shit started.

We're told next to enter the hut. I let the Legless Indian go first. The guy has a knack for walking with his hands instead of legs. The thought does cross my mind that he may have been some gold medal winner in the Mexican Special Olympics. I enter by backing in. I had to crouch down since the blanket covered hut was only 4 feet high at best.

"Don't fart Senor. It's cramped in here."

Inside is completely dark except the center where there is a pit of glowing red hot rocks, each about the size of two fists. My eyes adjust to this scene and to my right the naked curandera is sitting cross-legged. Her eyes are closed and she doesn't say a word. No greeting, no fuck you just silence. Heat is radiating out from the glowing pit. I feel like passing out.

The curandera says something in Indian and takes a gourd looking ladle fills it from a pot and empties it on to the glowing rocks in the pit. Steam explodes off the rocks like a gunshot. We are immediately covered with super heated dry steam and I have to cover my face.

"Jesus!" I yell out.

"Silence gringo!"

Then she pours more of the noxious liquid on the the still glowing rocks and I feel myself about to pass out. I am light-headed and somewhat nauseous from the moonshine pouring out of every pore in on my skin.

I feel myself blacking out so I try to keep from falling into the glowing rocks. I do remember falling on the Legless Indian and I started having weird dreams of leprechauns and gnomes.

Then nothing at all.

Ballad of a Very Thin Man: IV

IV.

_{Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word now
And you say, for what reason?
And he says, how?
And you say, what does this mean?
And he screams back, youre a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home
Ballad of a Thin Man - Bob Dylan}

I wake up, fully dressed underneath the shadow of a mesquite tree. One of the camp dogs is licking my toes. I notice that the Legless Indian is trying to dislodge it from my foot by throwing rocks at it. They are uncanny in being able to dodge the thrown missles.

"Senor, if I may say so, you are a wimp."

"What's next?" I said, "Walking on red hot coals followed by laying on broken glass bottles? I'm getting outta here this place sucks. It ain't fun anymore."

"Senor," he said, "it will do no good to leave. Dees indios can track a mouse at midnight in a fart, through the desert."

I had to admit it was hopeless. He motioned me to enter the hut where la curandera lived. My initial thought of doing this was one of puking my guts out, curiosity decided to win the day. There was no quick way of of the camp and maybe the cleansing did something to my formerly alcohol-addled brain.

I needed a drink and this place was clean as a whistle.

At this point I was curious about the shenanigans of this carnival.

"la curandera wants to see you", the badly dressed man said.

"I don't have nothin' to say to her." I said, "All I want from her or whoever, is a one way ticket out of here."

I had no idea if that would have any affect on anyone around here. I doubted that anything would happen. What does everyone do around here anyway?

I made my way to her small house and was told to enter The roller-coaster-Yaqui-on-wheels refused to go in. He looked white as a ghost and gray around the ears. "Senor, dees ees your gig. I'm staying out of it." I suppose he's right but after all he still got me talked into this mess.

Had I had a couple of drinks I wouldn't have been so shocked when I stepped in with the smell of all those herbs hammering my nostrils. It was dark as a cave and smelled as earthy as one.

"Seet and don't speak." she said.

"But..."

"Shh...You talk too much and when you do, eet's stupid." she said. "I need you to do this one thing for me. Then your journey is over. You're free to go any time you wish."

I listened to her for about five minutes and I nearly fell out of my chair. I was intrigued and mildly amused. I figured that if nothing else this would be a fitting conclusion to a ridiculous ordeal. I had no idea why she wanted me to do this.

It would become apparent soon.

_{You hand in your ticket And you go watch the geek Who immediately walks up to you When he hears you speak And says, how does it feel To be such a freak? And you say, impossible As he hands you a bone}

_{Because something is happening here But you dont know what it is Do you, mister jones?}

<sub>It's a whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry
If I don't get rye whiskey, well, I think I will die

I'll eat when I'm hungry, I'll drink when I'm dry
If the hard times don't kill me, I'll lay down and die
I'll tune up my fiddle and I 'll rosin my bow
I'll make myself welcome, wherever I go
Rye Whiskey - Tex Ritter</sub>

I had to admit it. Her suggestion was quite reasonable if not completely off the wall. I suppose she knew this stuff better than I did and it was spooky.

I have read many times that if you commit suicide, then you are doomed to repeat that act over and over until the end of time. I never believed it. Not really and not ever.

One evening I found myself in a flop house of horrors in some unknown city in Northern Mexico, surrounded by pinheads, leprechauns and gnomes, spinning the cylinder of a loaded revolver next to a box of shells. This was it, I'd had it and no more of this crap. I gave the instrument of my demise one last look and put it to my head. In one smooth motion I cocked the hammer back, squeezed the trigger then heard a click and then a brain-rattling noise. My neck was sore from the force of the blast.

There wasn't much left that I wanted to see anymore.

The next thing I notice is that I am sitting at the same table, with the same revolver in my hand next to the same box of shells with one empty shell casing in the cylinder. Amazed that I had fucked up something so simple, I looked at the revolver and found an empty shell casing. I must have grazed myself but I felt nothing and there was no mess on the wall.

"GAWD DAMMIT" I said to myself.

I decided the next time I would do it right and stuck the cocked gun's barrel in my mouth and once again pulled the trigger. Once again I heard a click then an incredible noise and once again I found an empty shell casing in the cylinder.

And again I looked around and saw no blood, no splattered brains, no smell of powder, no powder burns...nothing. It was like hitting the rewind button during "Debbie Does Dallas" and ending up at the same spot every time where she's getting plowed. This went on round after round until the box of shells was emptied and having tried blowing the back of my head off. The only result before the end was a click and an explosion and a white light. I found myself reloading the emptied cylinder until the box of shells were empty.

A futile attempt at total lameness that quickly progressed into a hilarious comedy of some freakish show.

I suppose that to most it appears that they have taken their lives and don't realize they are stuck in this loop and keep repeating it to this very minute...over and over trying not to be a failure in this one thing in life.

Looking back at it (and what I have learned since), that was when I first experienced the horrid Quantum Immortality and Suicide. From then on existence to eternity would be the strangest anyone could imagine. An existence that no one would ever believe in a million years...not even now...not even you.

Way up on Clinch Mountain I wander alone
I'm as drunk as the devil, oh, let me alone
You may boast of your knowledge an' brag of your sense
'Twill all be forgotten a hundred years hence

Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, you're no friend to me
You killed my poor daddy, God damn you, try me