Rock and Roll Voodoo E-Book

Mark Paul Smith

• Herausgeber: BQB Publishing
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

During the 1970s on a magic mushroom harvesting adventure in the Bayou, a young, aspiring rock and roll musician discovers the voice of Voodoo, which not only alters his life, but the life of his band, the Divebomberz.

When the band is on the verge of making it big, tragedy strikes, and Jesse is confronted with the hard truth that life is often a spiritual obstacle course designed to see if you can get over yourself.

A book for rock and rollers of all ages and for restless souls who have chased a dream only to discover that what they really needed was with them all along.

Leseprobe

Rock and Roll Voodoo

© 2019 Mark Paul Smith. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, digital, mechanical or photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except for inclusion in a review or as permitted under Sections 107 and 108 of the United States Copyright Act, without either prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictiously.

Published in the United States by BQB Publishing

(an imprint of Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company, Inc.)

www.bqbpublishing.com

978-1-945448-32-4 (p)

978-1-945448-33-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number : 2018966620

Book design by Robin Krauss, www.bookformatters.com

Cover design by Rebecca Lown, www.rebeccalowndesign.com

Cover photo and author photo by Michael W. Poorman

Editor: Caleb Guard

This book is dedicated to the world’s greatest living artist, my wife Jo Ellen Hemphill Smith.

SPECIAL THANKS

To Terri Leidich of BQB Publishing, who made this book happen. To Caleb Guard, my insightful and inspirational editor. And to Brenda Fishbaugh, beta reader extraordinaire.

PROLOGUE

“Life is a spiritual obstacle course, designed to see if you can get over your self.”

Rock and Roll Voodoo

Mark Paul Smith

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One Magic Mushrooms

Chapter Two Fritzel’s

Chapter Three Sauce Piquante

Chapter Four Carmen

Chapter Five Public Television

Chapter Six The Safari Club

Chapter Seven The Sea Shell

Chapter Eight The Voodoo Voice

Chapter Nine The Prison of Self

Chapter Ten The Truce

Chapter Eleven Pete

Chapter Twelve Tipitina’s

Chapter Thirteen Raceland Music Hall

Chapter Fourteen Metro Gnome

Chapter Fifteen Rod’s

Chapter Sixteen The Warning

Chapter Seventeen Rick

Chapter Eighteen Johnny’s Cimarron Club

Chapter Nineteen Rose

Chapter Twenty Dmitry

Chapter Twenty-One Slave Revolt

Chapter Twenty-Two The Barmuda Triangle

Chapter Twenty-Three Mad Dogs

Chapter Twenty-Four Red Light

Chapter Twenty-Five Maced

Chapter Twenty-Six Dallas Alice

Chapter Twenty-Seven Jail House Rock

Chapter Twenty-Eight Running on Empty

Chapter Twenty-Nine The Wedding

Chapter Thirty The Tape

Chapter Thirty-One Box of Time

Chapter Thirty-Two The End

Chapter Thirty-Three People

CHAPTER ONE

MAGIC MUSHROOMS

February 12, 1977

The early morning fog was thick as Jesse drove carefully across the Huey P. Long Bridge in New Orleans. Visibility was less than twenty feet. Turning on the headlights made it worse. The only thing he could see in the reflective glare was the rounded hood of his beat-up Volkswagen Beetle.

A foghorn blasted from a barge on the Mississippi River below like an angry troll protesting his passage.

“How can that boat be going anywhere?” he asked Casey, who rode shotgun. Jesse turned off the headlights and braked to a crawl. “He can’t see any better than we can.”

“Keep going, man,” Casey said. “There’s nobody but us on this bridge.”

“We won’t even be on the bridge if I drive off it,” Jesse said.

“Want me to get out and walk ahead?”

Jesse accelerated slightly. “No. I’ll keep it slow. We’ll be okay as long as I stay close to the side.”

A tall, box truck exploded out of the fog, headed straight for them. It didn’t have headlights on. Jesse grabbed the steering wheel and closed his eyes. The truck skidded and swerved and started to tip over on top of the Beetle.

Jesse inhaled and stiffened. He braced for impact. He tried to scream.

There was no collision.

The truck somehow regained its balance and missed the car by inches in a wail of screeching tires and screaming horns. A gush of displaced air shook the Beetle off its over-worn tires and moved it slightly to the right. The blast slapped Jesse in the face through his open driver’s window.

Then, everything fell quiet, as though nothing had happened. The truck had roared out of the fog and disappeared back into it before the danger could fully register.

Jesse brought the car to a complete stop. The fog enveloped them. His eyes teared up from the pungent, stinging blast of burned rubber. Casey’s eyes were wide and his mouth was open.

“Did that just happen?” Jesse asked.

“Man, I thought it was all over,” Casey said. “All I saw was the grill of that truck, up close and personal. How did he miss us? That was so close it banged my head into the window.”

“I think you banged your own head.”

“Maybe,” Casey said. “That thing was right on top of us.”

“We should turn back,” Jesse said. “That was way too close. It’s a bad sign.”

“No way. He missed us. It’s a good sign, or maybe even a wake up call. Probably means we should start paying better attention to what’s coming next. Yeah, that’s it. I can feel it. Something big is going to happen on this trip. Keep going. We must be halfway across. Come on, we’re sitting ducks here.”

“That, my friend,” Jesse said, “is an insanely positive spin on us nearly getting squashed like bugs.”

“Call it what you want but let’s get moving. Come on, I’m the navigator in charge.”

Jesse inched the car across the bridge, sounding the Beetle’s squeaky-toy horn every few seconds. Casey kept encouraging him to go faster. After a few nerve-wracking minutes, they reached the other side without further incident. Back on solid ground, it was still impossible to see anything but fog. Jesse drove resolutely, creeping along the highway, still shaken by fear.

“That could have been it for us,” Casey said, backing off his previous bravado.

“Did you smell the burning rubber?” Jesse asked.

“Feels like tiny bits of rubber are lodged in my nose hair. I can’t stop shaking. How about you?”

“I’m over it. Good to go.” Jesse said. “I live for those existential moments.”

Casey laughed loudly. “You and your existential moments. One of these days an existential moment is going to be your last.”

“Not today.”

“Not yet.”

The fog evaporated as Jesse drove further away from the river. The rising sun peeked through a dense layer of low hanging clouds. It was going to be a hot and humid day on the bayou. Jesse couldn’t help but make the obvious comment. “It’s comforting to know that we’re out of the fog and still have no idea where we’re going.”

“Of course we do,” Casey said. “The magic mushrooms are on Bayou Lafourche.”

“Do you have any idea where that is?”

“Head south. It’s the bayou. How hard can it be?”

“The bayou is thousands of miles of waterways and swamp. Bayou Lafourche is only one of those rivers.” Jesse glanced at Casey. “Did you think to bring a map?”

“That would take all the magic out of it. Keep going south.” Casey pointed out the window.

Jesse checked the rear view mirror. “We’re headed west.”

“How can you tell?”

“Look behind us.”

Casey turned around. “I don’t see anything.”

“The sun rises in the east?”

“Oh, yeah, I see what you’re talking about. Don’t worry about it. Just keep following the road. My guys say cross the bridge and follow the road.”

“You keep calling them your guys. Do you even know them? Jesse asked.

“I don’t know their names, except for the one who calls himself Gypsy. I buy psychedelic mushrooms from them. They’ve got the best shrooms around. Gypsy says they come from Bayou Lafourche.”

“And did this Gypsy of yours tell you exactly where to find the shrooms?”

“What’s with the cross examination?” Casey asked. “Obviously, they didn’t give me a treasure map with an X marks the spot. They can’t be that hard to find. From what I gather, they’re everywhere.”

Jesse kept driving west on Highway 90, feeling more and more like he was on a wild goose chase. It wouldn’t be the first unsuccessful drug run they’d made. One mission to Ohio State in 1969 had seen them pay $2,000 for 500 worthless pills.

Jesse and Casey had been close friends since they were ten years old. They grew up together in Indiana and had both graduated from college five years earlier. They were now twenty-seven years old. Casey was a second year law student at Loyola University. At 6’2” tall, he was a ladies’ man with California-surfer good looks. He had a strong chin with a big smile, playful eyes, and curly, blonde hair. Jesse was playing in a four-man, acoustic-rock band on Bourbon Street. He was 6’3” tall with a full beard and frizzy hair that flowed over his shoulders and halfway down his back. The one-inch difference between Jesse and Casey’s heights had always been a factor in their never-ending competition with each other.

Casey had helped convince Jesse to bring his band to New Orleans. “It’s the perfect place for a musician. Tourists come from all over to hear the music of Bourbon Street and New Orleans. They do the traveling. You stay in one place and make the money.”

Despite finding somewhat steady work in the bars on Bourbon Street, the band hadn’t exactly hit the big time. Jesse was in the process of learning, the hard way, that New Orleans is not Los Angeles. Nonetheless, he was determined that his band would find a drummer and hit the road to rock and roll stardom.

“I’m telling you, Jesse, if we find shrooms, we can make a fortune. Let’s face it. We could use the money.”

“If we can find them.”

“Don’t be so negative,” Casey said. “What’s the worst that can happen? We get a tour of the bayou.”

“If we can find the bayou.”

The sun kept rising to disappear into the clouds. It looked like the day might be rained out. Jesse drove on with continuing misgivings. He didn’t know where they were going but he knew where the conversation was headed.

“You know, if the band thing doesn’t work out, you can always go to law school,” Casey said.

“That’s not going to happen.” Jesse slapped the steering wheel with both hands. “I knew you were going to bring that up again.”

“Why not?” Casey asked. “Your father’s a lawyer. You two get along great.”

“I do love my father. But I don’t want to end up in a suit and tie, upholding a system that throws people in prison for doing what we’re doing now.”

“What are you talking about?” Casey asked. “There’s no cops on the bayou.”

“I’m not quitting my band to sell out and go to law school.”

“You always say that. Going to law school doesn’t mean selling out. Once you get your degree and pass the bar, you can represent all the revolutionaries and rock poets you want. You can change the system from within.”

Jesse slowed down the car. “What a load of bullshit. The system’s going to change you more than you will ever change the system.”

Casey leaned forward to stretch. “Why not give law school a try? You don’t have to make any career decisions. Just try it. You could still play in a band.”

Jesse took a deep breath. “How many times do I have to say it? I’m not going to law school just because you did. And I’m not going because my father wants me to. I’m a musician, and I’m going to make it in the music business or die trying.”

Casey didn’t respond. Jesse decided not to rehash the argument. At the moment, he was more worried about getting hopelessly lost on a mushroom mission.

The Beetle had no air conditioning and no radio. The only sound during the conversational lull was the hot air gushing through the open windows.

As the road headed south again, an oncoming Louisiana State Trooper slowed down and looked them over carefully as he passed. Jesse’s VW Bug was a car any self-respecting law enforcement agent would want to pull over and search. It had a banged-up front hood held down by a bicycle chain. The rear bumper had been beaten into a wavy shape from multiple accidents. The red paint job had faded into a rusty-orange color. Two decals of Goofy were pasted on the front. Jesse called them his twin Goofys like they were some kind of fuel injection system for his little cartoon of a car.

Jesse had named the car, Harley, after the motorcycle he could never afford.

“What were you saying about no cops on the bayou?” Jesse said. “Shit, he’s slowing down. He’s going to turn around.”

Casey turned around to look. “Wow. What’s he doing down here?”

“Apparently, we’re still in Louisiana.”

“Are you holding?”

“Nope,” Jesse said. “They can search me all they want. You?”

“I’m good. Or bad, depending on how you look at it.”

“It’s a rare moment in sports when neither one of us has any drugs,” Jesse said. “How did we even get in the car without a couple joints for the road?”

“I thought you had some,” Casey said.

“If I had any, we’d be smoking it by now.”

“And that’s the problem with getting an early start.” Casey closed his window halfway. “The early bird doesn’t get the worm. He forgets his maps and his stash because he didn’t get enough sleep. The worm gets to sleep in.”

Jesse wasn’t listening. He was looking in the rear-view mirror, eyeing the trooper’s brake lights shining bright.

“Oh, shit,” Casey looked over his shoulder again. “He’s stopping. He’s going to come after us.”

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you,” Jesse said.

“Very funny,” Casey kept his eye on the trooper’s vehicle.

The brake lights went off and the trooper kept going, much to Jesse’s relief. There was no telling what a thorough search of Harley might reveal.

“That’s right,” Casey said. “Keep moving. Nothing to see here.”

Jesse felt invigorated. Nothing makes the heart beat like seeing a police car while on a drug run, even if you haven’t scored yet.

It started to rain, an annoying drizzle at first, then hard enough to make deep puddles in the road. The more it rained, the more lost Jesse began to feel.

He was looking for a gas station to get directions when he saw a sign for Boutte, Louisiana. Next to the sign, a man was holding out his thumb for a ride. His clothes were ragged, mainly blue jean. His shoes looked like they might be Converse high tops but they were so battered and worn it was hard to tell. He was short and thin and maybe a mix of black and Creole. His Afro was flattened and matted from the rain and whatever he’d slept in the night before.

“We should pick that guy up,” Casey shouted as he pointed. “He might know where the shrooms are.”

Jesse pulled over and stopped. Casey got out of the two-door car, flopped the front passenger seat forward, and helped the hitchhiker wedge himself into the back seat. The new passenger smelled like wet dog as he mumbled some kind of thank you in an indiscernible dialect.

“I knew it,” Casey said, reaching back to shake the man’s hand. “You’re Cajun, aren’t you? Say something in Cajun.”

The disheveled man, who looked to be in his mid-thirties, held out his hand and said, “Laissez les bons temps rouler.”

“Yes,” Casey said so loudly it made the man jump in his seat. “Let the good times roll. I know that one.”

The three men laughed together as Jesse got back on the road and shifted through four gears and up to highway speed. Harley still ran like a top, despite its battered appearance.

“We’re looking for magic mushrooms and Bayou Lafourche,” Casey said, wasting no time, getting to the point.

“I can take you there.”

“To the bayou or to the mushrooms?”

“Both.”

“No, you’re kidding. You really know where the shrooms are?”

“Ya, mon,” he said, sounding a little too Caribbean.

“What’s your name?” Jesse asked.

“Name Gabriel.”

“Nice to meet you, Gabriel. I’m Jesse. You’ll have to forgive me, here, but I’ve done some hitchhiking myself and I’d hate to think you’d let us drive you all the way to your house just because you say that’s where the mushrooms are.”

Gabriel laughed in a way that made him seem charmingly believable. “No, no. I wouldn’t do that. But the best mushroom fields do happen to be right near my house.”

“How far from here?” Jesse asked.

“Not far, maybe half an hour, maybe a little more.”

“What do you know about magic mushrooms?” Casey asked.

“I know the cows eat the mushroom spores and their body heat germinates the spores and they shit them out and their manure fertilizes them,” the hitchhiker said. “After that, all it takes is heat and moisture. We’ve got both today. They don’t need sunlight.”

Casey looked at Jesse in triumph at having found the right man for the job.

“That’s good enough for me,” Jesse said. “How do you know the psychedelic mushrooms that are safe from the poisonous ones that can kill you?”

“The good ones have little purple rings around the stem,” Casey interrupted.

“I was asking Gabriel.”

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “Only eat ones with the purple. You be fine.”

The hitchhiker pointed out a road sign that said turn right for Raceland, Louisiana. “Okay, turn left. We don’t go to Raceland. This is Highway One. Turn left and it runs by Bayou Lafourche. On the west of the bayou is Highway One and on the east is Highway Three o’ Eight. The bayou is in the middle.”

“Man, this is some of the flattest country I’ve ever seen,” Jesse said as he made the turn. “I thought Indiana was flat. This place doesn’t even have a bump in the road.”

Jesse kept driving into the rain, past low-slung houses and shanties with wooden docks along some kind of canal.

“What kind of traffic goes down that waterway?” Casey asked.

Gabriel leaned forward between the seats. “Shrimp boats and tourist riverboats and pirogues.”

“What’s a pirogue?” Casey shifted into interview mode.

“It’s a small boat with a flat bottom so you can push-pole it through the shallow swamp,” Gabriel made the motion. “It’s a Cajun thing.”

“What is a Cajun, anyway?” Casey asked.

“It’s a mix of French Creoles who came down from Canada, Indians, blacks, and some English,” Gabriel said. “My momma says I’ve got a little of all of them in me.”

“Looks like you might have had a rough night last night,” Jesse said.

“It was a Fais do-do,” Gabriel said. “An all night party. I guess you can tell I haven’t been to bed yet.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Casey said. “You look fine. We’ve all been there.”

“What do you do for a living?” Jesse asked.

“There it is,” Gabriel pointed as a waterway came into view alongside the road. “Allow me to introduce you to Bayou Lafourche. It’s more than one hundred miles long from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. It be Main Street for Cajun country. Here you find real Cajun cooking and the Zydeco music. Do you know Zydeco?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jesse said. “I play in a band. We’ve got a fiddle player.”

“Do you have an accordion?” Gabriel asked.

“Not yet.”

“So, come down here and find you one,” Gabriel said. “Zydeco is Cajun folk music. It’s like country music only with an accordion.”

“I can’t believe we found Bayou Lafourche,” Casey said.

“Gabriel found it for us,” Jesse said. “If it hadn’t been for him, we would have driven right past it.”

Jesse was driving through a part of the waterway that was nearly overgrown with Chinese Tallow, Bald Cypress, and Willow trees when Gabriel said, “The bayou is so far south it makes New Orleans look like a northern city.”

“Most of what I know about the bayou comes from the Hank Williams song, ‘Jambalaya,’” Jesse said.

“Goodbye Joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh,” Gabriel sang. “Me gotta push-pole the pirogue down the bayou.”

“That’s the one,” Jesse said.

“Hey Jambalaya, crawfish pie, filé gumbo,” Gabriel continued singing. Jesse joined in on the chorus and they sounded pretty good together as they finished the song. After a little instant harmony, Jesse felt he could trust Gabriel.

Casey turned around in his seat to ask Gabriel a direct question. “This is where the Voodoo comes from, right?”

“Ah, yes, the bayou has all the Voodoo you can imagine,” Gabriel’s eyes widened in Jesse’s rear mirror. “Some of it can haunt you.” He thrust his open hands into the front seat. “Some can protect you, even from yourself. It is the magic of the spirit world.” He clasped his hands together as if in prayer. “There is much magic here. Today, you will find much more than you are looking for.”

“What makes you say that?” Casey asked.

“I don’t know why I say it,” Gabriel said. “I just know it be true. Feel it in my bones.”

“So what about the magic mushrooms?” Casey asked, taking the talk back to the quest at hand. “How much farther? We’ve been driving almost fifty miles now.”

“Not much farther. See, here is Lockport. Next is Larose, where the Intracoastal Waterway intersects Bayou Lafourche. Between Lockport and Larose, that is where we go.”

“You mean that’s where you live,” Jesse said.

“Yes, yes,” Gabriel laughed his disarming laugh. “I do live there but that is where you will find the best mushrooms. You will see. I show you.”

A few miles past Lockport, the road left the bayou and meandered through a stretch of ranch land. Gabriel motioned for them to stop. Jesse parked Harley off the side of the road in front of a never-ending field. The three of them got out to stretch. The rain had stopped. Across the road was a long, white, cattle fence, four feet high.

“See that fence,” Gabriel said. “Climb it and walk a ways, and you find all the mushrooms you can carry.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” Jesse asked.

“No, I don’t need any. They’re all for you. I had too much of everything last night. I need sleep. Thanks, you two, for the ride. Happy times. You have good hunting.”

With that, Gabriel began walking down the road. Casey got two paper grocery bags out of the car. He and Jesse crossed the road to climb the fence. Looking around to see if the coast was clear, Jesse realized Gabriel wasn’t on the road. He wasn’t on the side of the road or walking into a field. He was nowhere in sight.

Casey scanned the area from the top of the fence. “I don’t see where he could have gone.”

“He’s the mystery man,” Jesse said. “Come on. Let’s get over this fence and hope he wasn’t suckering us for a ride all the way to his house.”

They walked into the field far enough so as not to be seen from the road. A few cows grazed in the distance. Jesse felt his feet sinking in the sandy soil. The land was relentlessly flat. They crossed a dry creek bed with some shrub trees and began walking into fields of grass. Jesse smelled the piles of manure before he saw them. None had any mushrooms.

The search went on without luck for nearly an hour. The sun came out from behind the clouds. It got hot and steamy in a hurry. Jesse was feeling discouraged. The heat made him wonder why he hadn’t thought to bring any water. Everything looked the same. He could tell from Casey’s slumped shoulders that his friend was also losing hope in the hunt. He was about to give up the search when he decided it was time to take a leak. There were scattered bushes nearby but he didn’t bother to hide behind one since no one was around. He relieved himself in the open field and marveled at the yellow arc of his urine stream glowing in the sun.

The miracle began.

There, at the very end of his shining relief, was a mostly-dry pile of cow manure, covered in magic mushrooms. They looked like a colony of tiny aliens atop the cow pie. He changed his trajectory to avoid pissing on the treasure.

“Casey,” he yelled as he shook himself off and zipped up. “You’d better come see this right away. We have mushrooms, lots of them. I was taking a leak and there they were. Like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.”

By the time Casey arrived, Jesse had already picked his first mushroom out of the manure. It had the purplish ring around the stem.

“That’s the real deal,” Casey howled as he hopped up and down in a victory dance.

Jesse took a few steps to the right and looked down. “Here’s another one with even more.”

Suddenly, they were surrounded by a sea of magic mushrooms. Where once had been only sand and dry brush, there was now nothing but piles of cow manure, covered with magic mushrooms. They picked quickly but carefully, so as not to damage their sacred harvest. In minutes, they had half a grocery bag of what looked to be the finest magic mushrooms in all the land. They were big, some of them six inches long and three inches wide.

“Should we try one out?” Casey asked.

“Absolutely,” Jesse said as he stuffed a four-inch mushroom into his mouth and began chewing with a grimace.

Casey stifled his own gag reflex. “You’re not even going to wash it first?”

“With what?”

Once Jesse finished swallowing the mushroom, Casey wiped one off on his shirt and made a sweeping sign of the cross as he sang, “My father plays dominos better than your father plays dominos, I got a bloody nose, amen.”

Jesse laughed at the incantation as Casey popped the entire mushroom into his mouth and winced at the fungal taste.

“Actually, the cow shit gives them a little flavor,” Jesse said. “They don’t taste that good on their own. They taste like, I don’t know, like worms I guess.”

“How would you know what worms taste like?”

“I don’t. The shrooms just don’t taste that good. That’s all I’m saying. Maybe they’d be better if you cooked them or put them in a salad with some vinegar and oil and salt.”

They kept picking and chatting about their amazing good fortune until their backs and legs were aching, and both grocery bags were filled to overflowing. The sun was in full force and they were sweating profusely.

Jesse felt a subtle body rush sneak up his spine like two cups of strong coffee. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He started twitching his nose as his hands and feet began to tingle. He was breathing more deeply. His hair felt like it belonged to someone else. Euphoric feelings of physical freedom, like walking on clouds, washed over him. Then, the clouds turned into pillows of sexual pleasure, floating in release from the bonds of everyday reality. Arousal surged from the inside out, combined with paisley imagery, undulating, from the outside in. He was stuck in the middle of a world with no beginning and no ending. It became increasingly difficult to remember where he was or how he fit into the scheme of things. He had fallen down the rabbit hole in Alice In Wonderland. The world shifted from “knock, knock” to “who’s there?” Nothing felt familiar, although even little things became exceptionally enjoyable. Taking a deep breath felt as athletic as doing a back flip. Turning around sent the entire planet spinning. Being able to fly seemed a distinct possibility.

He wandered aimlessly as the visual hallucinations and color changes and otherworldly perspectives began to change everything. It didn’t take long for a disorienting paranoia to descend. He turned to Casey and realized his friend was as far out as he was.

The two men hugged each other to get some kind of a grip on reality.

“Hang on tight, my brother,” Jesse said. “We have lift off.”

“I’m hanging on,” Casey said. “I’m hanging on like Sloopy. This is doable. We’ve been here before.”

“It’s not as radical as some of the acid we’ve done.”

“Hang on Sloopy,” Casey started singing.

“Sloopy hang on,” Jesse joined in.

They sang as well as they could remember half the lyrics. They did not panic. Jesse and Casey had been tripping since 1968. They were cosmic cowboys. They’d taken a few radical rides on Owsley LSD from the San Francisco area. Even so, they were having trouble staying in the saddle.

The shrooms were potent.

“Breathe deep,” Jesse said. “Don’t fight the feeling. Let it take you where it will. It’s like a rip tide. If you swim against the current it’ll drown you.”

“I hear you, brother,” Casey said. “I’m breathing deep and this shit’s taking me places I’ve never been. It feels like floating on a river in the sky.”

“Hang on, Sloopy,” Jesse hugged Casey again. “I think we’re in the rapids.”

The Paranoia came and went, alternating with euphoria. Casey and Jesse began dancing around in wide circles with their arms spread out like wings. The mind-boggling experience was huge fun even though it was more than a little scary. It was a roller coaster ride without a track.

Losing your mind always has its ups and downs.

Every time Jesse had tripped on acid or anything else in the past, he got to a place where he knew no one could possibly save him. The trick, he had found, was in not looking to be rescued.

Casey wandered off and found a dead bull by a shallow, dry creek bed. It looked like it had died of thirst on the spot. He pulled hard on one horn and the head detached from the body. Jesse had to choke back a puke reflex as the head came off with a sickening, flesh-ripping, tendon-snapping, bone-cracking sound. Jesse watched in amazement as Casey became spellbound by the mystical energy of the skull he now held in his hand. The bull hadn’t looked decomposed enough for the head to come off that easily.

“Talk about grabbing the bull by the horns,” Jesse said.

The detached head mesmerized him. It seemed to be looking into his soul, like it had found new life once liberated from the body of the bull.

The horns were clean and nearly two feet wide. The eye sockets were empty. The nose and broad, flat head still had hunks of hair and flesh hanging on the bone. All the teeth were still imbedded in the upper jaw but the lower jaw had somehow remained with the body. There was no dripping blood. The skull was dry as the sand and appeared to be floating in thin air.

It looked like Casey was about to be devoured by a cannibal zombie bull, raging in revenge at all the meat eaters in the world.

“This is the spirit of Bayou Lafourche,” Casey proclaimed as he shook the skull and began picking off some of the larger chunks of flesh and hair. “He will protect us from evil.”

Jesse began backing away. “Are you out of your mind? You better drop that thing. I can’t believe you’re even touching it. It’s freaking me out. It looks like the devil himself has come out to play.”

Casey laughed at Jesse’s squeamishness and began dancing while holding the skull over his head and chanting nonsensically.

The sight took Jesse out of his paranoid nausea and made him start laughing. The mushroom visions turned the skull into a clown balloon. It looked like Casey might float away at any moment. The horror became comical.

Jesse laughed so hard that Casey couldn’t help but start laughing too. They couldn’t stop. There was a hysterical spirit in the air. They both ended up on their knees in the dirt, trying to catch their breath.

The skull was not laughing with them from its place in the sand.

When they finally got over the laughing jag, they looked at each other and realized the world was nothing like it had been forty-five minutes earlier. The sky was broiling and the earth was rolling like the sea. Jesse was so disoriented he could barely distinguish fantasy from reality. He looked Casey in the eye and it seemed for a moment like his friend was about to panic. Then everything seemed hysterically funny again and he was back in the dirt, laughing until his stomach hurt. Casey was laughing right along with him.

Jesse was first to recover from the laughing jag. “By the way, I’m tripping my brains out. I’m not sure how much higher we can get or how much longer this is going to last. We’d better get back to the car while we still can. Why don’t you ask your freaky cow skull friend how much more weird this trip is going to get?”

Casey grabbed the skull by both horns and began doing the twist. He looked like a cross between a drunken matador and one of those guys losing the race at the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Jesse grabbed Casey by the arm to try and stop him from dancing. “Put that thing down. I’m getting a bad feeling out here all of a sudden. A feeling like it’s way past time to head for home.”

Casey set the skull down. “There, I set it down. See, it’s not evil. It won’t hurt you. We will be taking this home with us, for sure. It’s too cool. It’s the perfect memento for our bayou trip. More than that, it’s got a power all its own. Remember, Gabriel said we’d find more than we were looking for.”

“I don’t want that mess in my car.”

Casey picked up the skull. “Don’t worry; I’ve got an old towel in the car. We can wrap it up. Come on. Let’s go. I’ll carry the skull, you get the shrooms.”

Jesse could see Casey wasn’t going to be talked out of it. He picked up the two grocery bags filled with magic mushrooms like a reluctant carryout boy and began walking back to where he thought the fence might be located.

Walking a straight line proved impossible. Jesse was floating through a world of mystic visions and breathing patterns of color and light in the hot, humid sunshine. He realized how thirsty he was. It occurred to him that he had more than $3,000 of illegal drugs in the bags he carried. It seemed a journey of epic proportion, but Jesse eventually found the white fence they had jumped two hours earlier. He could see Harley parked along the road about a quarter mile away. It was comforting to see something familiar, although even the dull-red Beetle seemed to be hovering several feet off the ground.

Casey slid the skull under the fence and climbed over. As Jesse pushed the bags under the fence, he realized that the contraband could land both him and Casey in jail for a long, long time. As soon as his feet hit the ground on the other side of the fence, Jesse’s worst fears were realized. Some kind of police car was coming toward them on the road in the distance. It approached at a high rate of speed. In his altered state, it was impossible for Jesse to tell if the lights on top were flashing or not.

“Let’s get out of here,” Casey said.

“No, no, we can’t run. He already sees us.” Jesse said, feeling eerily calm inside. “Just act like we’re on our way home from the grocery store.”

“What about the skull?” Casey looked like he was getting ready to run.

“He won’t see it. Here, have a cigarette. I’ll light it for you.”

“Oh, shit. We’re going to get busted,” Casey said as he fumbled with the cigarette. “Here we are, tripping our brains out and we’re going to jail. I’m going to get kicked out of law school. I’ll be a failure. My family will disown me. Shit, shit, shit.”

Jesse lit Casey’s cigarette. “Nobody’s going to jail. We’re fine. Here we are, stopped for a smoke break. What could be more innocent?”

The police car whizzed by without so much as looking their way. He didn’t even slow down to check the abandoned car on the side of the road. Once he was far enough down the road, Casey and Jesse collapsed in a pile of relief alongside the fence.

“Oh, man, I can’t take all this,” Casey said.

“Okay,” Jessie said. “Here’s the plan. We walk to the car without all this baggage. Then we get in the car, turn around and come back to get our stuff.”

“Good plan,” Casey said. “Let’s get out of here before that cop comes back. I can’t believe he didn’t stop to check us out. One look in the bags and we’d be in handcuffs.”

“He’s probably late for lunch. Or maybe he’s headed back to the station for shift change.”

Casey pointed down at the skull. “No, I’ll tell you what just happened. The Voodoo cow skull just saved our ass.”

“What makes you think it’s Voodoo?”

“It’s Voodoo from the bayou,” Casey said. “I can feel it. Look at it. It’s staring back at us, like it knows more than we do. It’s exactly what the mystery man, Gabriel, said we were going to find.”

Jesse looked at the skull and understood what Casey was saying. The skull looked like it was trying to communicate some kind of message. The empty eye sockets and nose bones seemed to be snarling out a warning.

“What’s it trying to say?” Jesse asked.

“I don’t know but it doesn’t look good.” Casey bent down to take a closer look at the skull.

“You’re the one who wants to bring it home,” Jesse said.

Casey picked up the skull by both horns. “Let me tell you something about this skull. We didn’t find it.”

“What do you mean?” Jesse asked as he stared at Casey and the skull.

“It found us.”

CHAPTER TWO

FRITZEL’S

The band had a one-bedroom apartment on Esplanade Avenue on the east side of the French Quarter. Esplanade was lined with tall trees and historic, Creole mansions. The band’s apartment building was not one of those mansions. It was a modern-ugly brick building near the Mississippi River and the old U.S. Mint.

The other three members of the band were singing and working on vocal arrangements when Jesse walked in and put his two grocery bags of contraband on the narrow kitchen counter. “You’re not going to believe what I got at the grocery store.”

“Steaks for a week?” Butch guessed. He was the band’s lead guitar player and Jesse’s main songwriting partner.

“Better than that,” Jesse said.

Tim, the band’s fiddle and slide guitar player, had a guess of his own. “Two twelve packs of cold Coors beer?”

Dale, the band’s lead vocalist and self-proclaimed “best looking guy in the band,” didn’t say a word. The look in Jesse’s eyes said he was delivering something much stronger than beer.

“Is that what it looks like?” Butch asked, peering into one of the bags.

Jesse picked out a large mushroom and held it up for the band to see. “These came right out of cow pies on the bayou today, gentlemen. Casey and I picked them fresh this morning for your tripping pleasure. Be careful, I ate one about four hours ago and I’m just now able to carry on a conversation. The drive back to New Orleans was a killer. We had to stop every ten minutes. This shit will freak you out.”

“Looks like they’ve still got manure all over them,” Tim said.

“Let’s try them out right now.” Dale reached for the bag.

“No, no, we better wait.” Jesse held back Dale’s arm. “Believe me, these things will kick your ass. We better wait until we get set up and tuned up at Fritzel’s.”

“That’s only an hour away,” Butch said. “It’s Sunday. We play 6 p.m. to midnight.”

The Fritzel’s gig had been a salvation for the band, known as The Divebomberz. It was six nights a week at $120 per night, plus tips, for the whole band. Before Fritzel’s, the band had been so broke they spent their last $10 at the grocery store on red beans and rice. The band played on a small bandstand at the back of the club. A door to the right of the bandstand led to an open-air brick patio outside. It was in this private garden that the band gathered for its highly anticipated mushroom ceremony.

Butch had tuned up his Epiphone acoustic guitar with the Barcus Berry pickup and small Fender amp. Tim had his fiddle rigged with a similar pickup and a Marshall amp. Jesse’s bass guitar ran through a small Peavey amp. The band used one of Jesse’s harmonicas as a pitch pipe for tuning.

Dale was always in tune and always in costume. While the rest of the band wore blue jeans and t-shirts, Dale was in a blue, silk, flowered jump suit with sleeves as wide as his bellbottom pants.

“I believe I’ll have two to start,” Dale said.

Jesse handed him one. “These shrooms are strong. Start with one and see how you feel in a half hour.”

“I’ll start with half and see how I feel in an hour,” Butch said.

“Me too,” Tim said.

“I think I’ll have one more just to be sociable,” Jesse said.

The band ate the mushrooms and took the stage to kick off the performance with “Jambalaya” and “Hey Good Lookin” by Hank Williams. The club filled up fast for a Sunday. The crowd was singing along by the time The Divebomberz got to “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “Sweet Home Alabama.” The band sounded great, hitting all the changes and accents perfectly, singing four-part harmony better than ever.

The magic mushrooms began kicking in about halfway through the set. Slowly but surely, the psychedelics started turning the music into something you could taste and touch and see. Rainbows began pouring out of the small but powerful speakers.

“Let’s hear it for my band,” Dutch shouted between songs as he rang a ship’s bell near the front cash register. “First one to the register gets a free Heineken.” Dutch ran his bar like a carnival barker. He was a barrel-chested, grey-haired brawler from Holland who loved to shout. He wore a ship captain’s hat to emphasize his authority and hide his bald spot.

Dolly, the vivaciously plump waitress, struggled through the growing crowd to bring the band a round of frosty mugs filled with Heineken beer from the tap.

The more the shrooms elevated and intoxicated, the better the band played. The better they played, the more they cranked the volume. The louder the music, the more wild the scene became. The music created a magical loop that spiraled upward into a zany crescendo. Jesse felt like he was riding on top of a freight train. Tim’s fiddle was dancing wildly with Butch’s guitar. Dale’s tambourine turned the euphoria into a gypsy caravan on steroids.

Fritzel’s was packed with people by the last song of the set, “Daybreak and Dixie,” a bluegrass classic that the band transformed into hard rock. The crowd was on its feet as the band took off like a jet airplane. The entire room, including Dutch, was getting a contact high. The music became a tunnel from the real world to a realm of fantasy and pleasure. Jesse was watching his dream come true. His bass guitar and songs and band were rocking the Bourbon Street crowd into a fever pitch. Six months earlier, he could not have imagined such a scene. Now, he was a major part of making it happen. He looked at each of his fellow band members and saw them being equally swept away by the moment.

The set ended to thunderous applause as the band retired in a full sweat to the back patio garden.

Dale took off his shirt and began drying himself off with a bar towel. “Oh, man, we sound better than ever. And I am officially tripping like a mad dog.”

“I need about four beers to get back down to Earth.” Tim sat down hard at one of the chairs around a glass-topped table.

Jesse passed him a thick, smoking joint of marijuana.

Tim took a massive hit and passed it on to Butch.

Butch held up his hands. “No way. I’m high enough already. I’m not even sure how I’m playing my guitar. It feels like it’s playing itself.”

“You sound fantastic,” Jesse said. “We all do. The crowd is going wild. It’s like they’re getting high with us.”

“We are,” Casey said as he burst into the band’s meeting like a magician coming through a curtain. “I’ve been passing out shrooms since before you got started.”

He was carrying the perfectly cleaned cow skull. “Here it is boys. This is the Voodoo spirit of the bayou, from me to my good friend, Jesse. I spent the last few hours cleaning it with bleach and a brush.”

The band instinctively took a collective step backward. The skull was ominous and glowing white in the low light. The bones below where the nose used to be formed a sinister, hollow scowl. On either side of the broad, flat skull, an evil, empty, eye socket glared fiercely, knowingly. The skull presented as a spiritual force of nature.

Dale was the first to recover from the shock of the skull. “What’s his name? It looks like he’s mad about something.”

Jesse leaned in close to his mushroom-hunting, Law School friend. “Jesus, Casey. What are you doing bringing that thing in here?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t love it,” Casey said to the band.

Then he addressed the skull, “This is your new band, Voodoo cow skull. You’re going to help them write hit songs and make it to the top of the charts.”

“Is he our agent?” Tim asked.

“He’s more than that,” Casey said. “He’s your ticket to spiritual enlightenment.”

“I think I’m having enough enlightenment for one night,” Butch said.

Casey put the skull down and took a hit on the joint. “How about those shrooms? The mystery man led us right to them. By the way, where are they? I need some more. I passed all mine out to the crowd.”

“You did what?” Jesse asked.

“Don’t worry, I’m giving them away. I’m not selling anything.”

Jesse turned to look at the band and then returned his focus to Casey. “Are you out of your mind?”

“No wonder people are getting so crazy,” Butch said.

“Come on, this is going to be a night to remember,” Casey said. “What do we care? They were free.”

“The Voodoo cow skull says pass them out,” Dale said.

“Might as well share the wealth,” Tim agreed.

Jesse put his hands on his hips. “You’re going to cause a riot.”

Casey held his hand out for more shrooms. “Perfect. Let’s blow this scene into some front-page news.”

The band looked at each other and then at the skull. A unanimous decision was reached without a word being spoken. It was as though the skull had dared them to add fuel to the psychedelic fire.

Jesse relented and gave Casey a large bag of shrooms. Casey left quickly, without saying thank you, to distribute them to the crowd. The band took an extended break trying to get their bearings for the next set. The cow skull hung out, sitting on the table like another member of the band. Tim was the first to ask it a question. “What song should we start the next set with?”

Jesse was surprised to find himself actually waiting for the skull to answer.

“He says come out swinging with ‘The Orange Blossom Special,’” Tim said.

The band was still laughing when Dutch came back to the patio. “What’s going on back here? It smells like one of your pot breaks that take too long. You’ve got a packed house out there. It’s more than packed. It’s getting dangerous. I’ve never seen it like this. People are lined up on Bourbon Street to get in. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s time to go out there and knock them dead.”

Once Dutch left, each member of the band picked another magic mushroom and held it up for a toast. “Here’s to knocking them dead and living to tell the tale,” Jesse said.

“I’ll eat to that,” Dale said.

“God help us all,” Butch said, chewing on another mushroom as the band went back into the bar to take the stage.

The club only sat fifty people at small tables, but it had a long wooden bar that stretched the entire length of the shotgun-style building. The header over the bar was covered with hundreds of neckties; a visual gag from Dutch about how many people had “tied one on” in his establishment. Beneath his gruff exterior, Dutch was a good-hearted jokester. Sight gags based on American sayings were his favorites. The tip jar near the cash register was always propped up to “tip” at an angle.

The band had to remove people from their playing area to begin the second set. The small bandstand was a two-level riser, slightly higher on the back. Butch and Tim were set up behind Jesse and Dale. The crowd from the street was surging into the club, pushing people forward and onto the first level of the bandstand.

Somebody outside yelled, “Mushrooms at Fritzel’s!” Evidently, Casey had been spreading the word, as well as the magic mushrooms.

Jesse could tell that the night was going to get even crazier than it had already become. People were screaming with their hands in the air. Their eyes were wild and the band wasn’t even playing yet.

Tim hit the first note on his fiddle and the roar of approval from the crowd almost drowned him out. The band turned up its volume as “The Orange Blossom Special” went from blue grass to rock and roll and back again. Butch’s guitar was blasting a Chuck Berry rhythm under the screaming fiddle while Jesse thumped his bass hard on the one and the five of every chord. Dale had a tambourine in one hand and a shaker in the other, sounding a lot like the drummer Jesse knew the band would have to find. The musical frenzy ignited a primal response from the drug and alcohol crazed fans. They raised their arms and cheered in unison. People were standing on chairs to get a better look at the band. Jesse was overwhelmed by the crowd’s enthusiasm. He could see the crush of people trying to wedge their way into the club. The music was the only force keeping the band from getting overrun. People in back were yelling and pushing to get closer to the action. Women were climbing up on the bar to dance. A few big guys near the front were linking arms to hold back the crowd. Drunks were chugging pitchers of beer. Dolly had trouble maintaining her balance on the slippery floor and fell down with a full tray of Tequila shots splashing all over.

The room seemed to be rotating like a merry-go-round gone wild. Two delirious young women tackled Dale to the floor. He pushed them off and got back up, shaking his tambourine, without missing more than two or three measures. The temperature in the room rose to sauna bath levels. Dutch had called in his backup bartender, who was in a full sweat by the time he fought his way through the crowd and into position behind the bar. The backup waitress never did make it in. The crowd was tight as a rugby scrum. More than a hundred and fifty people had crammed into the club.

Three songs into the second set, Jesse had to stop playing momentarily to puke into a cup. The room was spinning. So was his stomach. Nothing seemed real anymore, not even his own vomit. Butch saw him do it and had to do the same. The music never faltered. The club became dangerously overcrowded. Jesse could see Dutch was having a hard time selling drinks. Customers at the bar were packed so tightly they couldn’t move their arms. It was a crush of humanity.

Across the street from Fritzel’s, Murphy Campo and his Jazz Saints were playing to an empty house. Next door, Johnny Horn and his Jazz Giants had a roomful of nothing but chairs. The neighboring club owners were not happy with the hippie happening at Fritzel’s.

It had been Johnny Horn who sat Jesse down three weeks earlier in the back patio to impart the facts of life about the music business. “Here’s the way it is,” the older trumpet player said in his raspy, cigarette voice. “We’re all whores in this business. What you’ve got to decide is whether you’re a cheap whore or an expensive whore.”

That important lesson was on Jesse’s mind as the crowd grew ever more wild and crazy. He was feeling expensive.

Near the end of the extra-long set, between songs, Jesse heard what sounded like someone speaking through a bullhorn. The garbled sound was coming from Bourbon Street, behind what could only be described as a mob scene. Whoever it was, he was beginning to make the crowd settle down. Eventually, Jesse could hear what was being said through the bullhorn.

“This is the New Orleans Police Department. You are in violation of the city noise ordinance. Your decibel levels are too high. You must stop playing immediately.”

It was obvious the police could no more gain access to the bar than anyone else. But they had a bullhorn, and they were warning anyone who could hear them that further police action was imminent. The band looked at Jesse for a heads up on what to do.

Jesse said to Butch, “Never argue with a man with a microphone.” He was referring to himself, not the bullhorn operator.

“Don’t do it, Jesse,” Butch warned.

“This is the New Orleans Police,” the man with the bullhorn said again. “You are in violation of the city noise ordinance. We will start making arrests if you don’t stop playing and clear this area.”

The crowd booed loudly. So loudly they drowned out the bullhorn.

Jesse quieted them down. His microphone was louder than the bullhorn. “Okay, everybody quiet down. I need to talk to the police. Please, be quiet so the police can hear what I have to say.”

A hush fell over the crowd. Even the bullhorn operator seemed curious and ready to listen.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your cooperation. I have something to say to the New Orleans Police Department. Are you ready to hear it?”

“Yea!” everybody in the crowd screamed.

“I said are you ready to hear it?”

“Yea!” everybody screamed again, as if it was possible to get any louder.

A small voice inside Jesse’s head told him not to proceed. He paid it no heed. A darker force was driving him. A force that told him he had the hottest band in the world and that the rules no longer applied to him or anybody he knew.

“All right, then. Here’s what I have to say to the New Orleans Police Department.” He made the crowd wait a full ten seconds before he shouted into the microphone.

“Fuck you, pigs. Fuck the New Orleans Police. Go back to your pigsty. We’re having a private party here. Go fuck yourselves.”

Pandemonium erupted. The cheer from the crowd sounded like some football star had just scored the winning touchdown as time ran out in the game.

The band kicked into “Little Liza Jane,” and the party rocked on as though the evil police had finally met their match and been defeated forever. The bullhorn operator didn’t try to compete with the rock and roll hysteria. The band played on with all the wild determination of a herd of horses that just broke through the gate. Jesse saw Dale looking at him with profound admiration. Butch, on the other hand, looked at him like he knew the episode would not end well. Tim kept playing fiddle like he was welcoming the Devil to New Orleans.

Victory was short lived. Eleven minutes to be exact.

As the band was bringing their extended version of “Liza Jane” to a frenzied conclusion, the lights went out like a knockout punch. The music stopped like Death itself changed the channel. A shocked silence pierced the room for a brief moment until it was replaced by a collective howl of disapproval from the disoriented crowd. Shouts of confusion from the crowd turned into screams of panic. The total lack of light disoriented those who were already hallucinating. The sudden darkness left the crowd with nowhere to turn. Desperate souls pushed and punched and shoved and clawed for whatever exit they could find. All Jesse could see in the sudden blackness was the cow skull from the bayou, flashing on and off in the darkest corner of his brain like a subconscious neon sign. He thought he heard it say something, but when he listened again, there was nothing.

The band put down their instruments as best they could in the darkness and groped their way back to the patio garden. Butch lit his lighter. Even in his frightened state, he had to chuckle at the jack-o-lantern faces gathered around. “Looks like we really fucked up this time. Nice work, Jesse. Way to be diplomatic with the cops. Who’s ready to go to jail?”

Jesse hung his head. “I’ll go. I’m the one who got crazy on the microphone.”

“I say we climb the wall and get out of here,” Dale said.

Tim sat down cautiously. “Let’s just stay back here and hope they don’t arrest us.”

Dutch walked in, carrying a lantern that was bright enough to light up the entire patio. “Time to pack up your gear and get out of here. I can’t have horseshit like this going on in my club. I don’t know what you did to make the crowd so crazy but that thing with the police was more than wrong. I might get shut down for good. So guess what. You’re fired.”

Dutch turned around and walked out, leaving the band in the dark. Nobody lit a lighter. Darkness was appropriate for the moment. It took a few minutes before their eyes gradually adjusted to the starlight of the patio and the lights from adjoining buildings. Fritzel’s was the only club to have its plug pulled.

Butch fumbled for a chair and sat down. “Feels like it’s time for a band meeting, but I think I’m too high to concentrate.”

“Let’s not do anything until the lights come back on,” Tim said. “Maybe the police won’t come looking for us.”

The police never did enter the club to arrest anyone. They had an extremely tolerant attitude toward musicians. In three months at Fritzel’s, the band had been busted four times outside the club for smoking marijuana. Each time, the officers simply confiscated the weed and let them go. Musicians were expected to be eccentric and creative. The cops gave them room to move and license to explore. After all, it was the musicians of New Orleans who gave Jazz to the world. They called it Jazz because the girls in the brothels where the bands played wore jasmine perfume.

Knowing the laissez-faire attitude of the police, Jesse had been emboldened on the microphone. What he hadn’t counted on was the political clout of the nearby club owners who were losing customers to the psychedelic party next door.