Chapter One
"The outlook is beak."
"Don't you mean the outlook is bleak?" Ema says, lighting up a cigarette.
"I know what I mean!" I reply, looking out the window at the giant chicken.
If I had known then, the next time I'd be looking at a giant chicken, I'd probably have stayed there and looked a lot longer.
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It wasn't too long after me and Ema had come back from Washington, and we'd pretty much emptied our supply from there. Sure we stopped in bars and hotels in California and picked up a free tab or what have you, but we hadn't bought anything, and we didn't have much left.
Back on the road, "On the road again," I sing as we cruise down the freeway. "On the road again!"
I pull over to the side of the road and Ema leans back to open the case.
"Alright, we got," she pauses, holding up a brown bottle. "No ether, no grass, we got one acid tab! We could go halves?" At the time desperate for something, anything, I agree, although it was a little disappointing.
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We'd just been out for a drive, maybe gone a little bit further than we should of, you know how it goes, when you're seventeen, first love, ect etc. First love? Wow, I was beginning to talk shite without the aid of anything illegal.
Ema was a friend, albeit a very attractive friend, but right now she was just a friend. She was also seven or eight years my junior, not that that would matter in a loving and stable relationship. But we didn't have a loving relationship, apart from platonic love, oooooh, look at me using big words, man! Nor would it be stable.
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The next morning we spent in a diner in North California, cheap and cheerful, although I was either in a bad mood, got out of bed on the wrong side, or was just low and miserable.
I sullenly ordered a drink with many colored E-numbers to try and gain a little happiness, but this plan sadly backfired.
We sat outside in the parking lot, relaxing in the car.
"Its been fifteen hours," I tell Ema.
"Since what?"
"Since we shared the acid. I've got-" I fumble around in my pockets, "Twenty seven dollars," counting a few loose quarters.
How hard could it be to find something? George Jung was wandering about the beaches of California selling his wares and we couldn't find anything? What was wrong with the world? Sure had changed since the 60's.
So, sitting in that parking lot we came to realize, we hadn't found anything in this neck of the woods, we'd have to go elsewhere. I take my feet down from the steering wheel, and turn on the gas.
"Where we heading?" Ema asks.
"We're going on a roadtrip, to wherever we need to," I say, putting the car in gear and backing out.
Not far from the diner we stop, and collectively count all the money we had. Which came to a grand total, of twenty seven bucks. At this rate we'd have to sing on street corners for spare coins. But if the worst came to the worst, I had a pretty good singing voice.
We got onto a main road, we were crusing along when I vaguely wondered about something. I leaned over to the passenger side, clicked the dash open and took out the fly-swatter. My old friend.