I picked up the bottle of pills lying on the other front seat and brought it up to eye level, but it was so dark in the van that I could not read anything on the label except the big word "experimental." I thought about taking some, which led to the inevitable thought about taking the whole bottle. Then my thoughts turned to the gun that was under the seat. Where the heck had that gun come from? And by the way, where the hell did I get this van that was full of cats? There were eight or nine cats in cages in the back of the van and they all seemed to be content, except they kept talking to me in different languages and making the usual comments about my lack of a love life. I was still holding the bottle of pills when the headlights picked out a sign beside the road. It was one of those informational signs that comment on various aspects for your driving edification and this one simply said, "Sills Ahead."
"What the heck is a sill, anyway?" I asked myself, but if there was an answer it got lost in all of the mumbo-jumbo that was going on inside my head. But I did not have to wait long to find out, because I simply came to one and I was impressed. Then after four or five, I was astounded, and then after a couple of dozen of them, I never wanted to see a sill again as long as I lived. They were these little ridges or whatever you might call them that went up about fifty feet and then leveled off for about twenty-five feet and then down you'd go and up the next one. Like I said, more than one was too many. Why the heck the Oregon DOT had built the road up and over these things was beyond me, instead of blasting and making the road flat. Probably some environmental concern or another. After about twenty or thirty of them, I began to feel like I felt the last time I rode a roller coaster, but finally I came over the last one and the road leveled off. I looked down at the speedometer and noticed that I was only doing about twenty-five miles-per-hour, so I sped up a little bit and continued to drive across eastern Oregon. I knew that the Cascades were ahead somewhere and that appeared to be my destination, which had been decided upon by me and a committee of voices, and after much debate. Somehow, we had decided that if life sucks everywhere else, in the Cascade Mountains we would find a paradise where a loony could live the soft, easy life that is so generally sought after. Hey, and why not? Steal a van full of cats and head for Oregon; as plans go this, was probably right up there with shock therapy, or was it?
Well, I could not decide, so I just stuck to the plan and continued on without giving much thought to anything. I had not even noticed that it was raining. You would have thought that with the windshield wipers slapping back and forth in front of my kisser, I would have noticed that fact. But it didn't become apparent to me until I saw the guy that was walking down the middle of the road, wearing a large hooded cape that must have been designed to protect him from the inclement weather. The guy had his arms held up and straight out to the sides, from the shoulders. And this made the cape take on a shape that looked like a big bat, because the cape was also tied around his waist and held by a stout cord.
Where he had come from or where he was going was a total mystery to me, and I rolled to a stop behind the guy, framing him squarely in my headlights. When I stopped, he stopped. Then the guy slowly turned around and stood there in front of me for a couple of heartbeats, with his arms still raised, while I vacillated about what to do. I could not see anything of his face which was shielded by the large hood. But in the meantime, I imagined a couple of dozen scenarios which usually ended with my bullet-ridden corpse sliding down an embankment into a ditch. Then the guy lowered his arms and brought his hands, which stuck out of the sleeves of the cape, up in front of his face. And he worked his hands and fingers in a rhythmic routine of exercises that I have only seen one other place: guitar players do them.
The guy exercised his hands and fingers for a couple of minutes or so, then he lowered his hands and started to move towards the van. He came on slowly, and I just sat there in the van, until he had come along side. He stopped and waited for a moment, then when he apparently realized I was not going to roll down the window, he reached out and rapped on the glass with his knuckles. I thought about flooring it and driving off fast, but when I thought about it, the way he had done those finger exercises had sort of put me off my fear. It seemed like such a simple and natural thing and in no way threatening. So I swallowed hard, then reached over and cranked the window handle a couple of turns and watched as the glass pane slide down into the door frame. Outside the hooded figure reached up with his hands and tossed back the hood, and then he leaned over and looked past me at the cats in their cages. "Good," he said. "I've brought plenty of cat food."
I managed to say, "Aw…"
"If you'll give me a ride, then I will cure you," the man said. He was sort of nondescript and I thought that he might be Chinese, but he could have been some other nationality, I suppose. Anyway he was in his early thirties with jet black hair that was brushed straight back. But his most striking feature was his eyes that were big, dark, and round and you could not tell where the pupil began or ended, it was all just some dark mass surrounded by white. He had a small nose that flowed down and blended into a large ample mouth. But the thing I noticed most and that was the most readily apparent whenever you looked at him, was this smile - it was incredible, as if some sitcom dad were looking down at the Beaver while he confessed he had smashed up his new bike, or something. That smile was infectious and the next thing I know, I had one, too. When was the last time I had smiled? It surely was some distant memory, but not now, and I like it and I like this man, first and always.
"Cure me?" I managed to stammer.
"Yes, your dementia - I have brought the medicine with me," the man said through the open window while he got soaking wet. "Move over and I'll drive."
"You'll drive," I repeated.
"Yes, for I know where we are going and you do not," he said. Then he reached down, opened the door, and moved around it while motioning for me to crawl over into the other front seat. I hesitated, but then I complied and moved out and around the console and sat myself down in the passenger's seat. The man paused in the doorway to untie, then remove the cape and hood by pulling it off over his head. He was dry beneath, but that did not last for long as he paused to stuff the folded cape behind the seat and take off a leather bag that he carried by a cord over his shoulder. Then he got into the van and closed the door behind him.
"How many cats are there, anyway?" he asked once he was in. "I hope they like potem."
"What's potem - and who are you?" I asked the man, looking directly at him.
"My name is Ar - Ar Provaboda Nighthorse, and I was sent by a friend to find you and help you," he said matter-of-factly.
"Why me - uh, why you - what the hell are you talking about?" I asked bewildered.
"Do you believe in Gods, my friend?" he asked, giving me that smile again.
"Gods?" I asked unbelievingly. "Sure, I'd like to meet them and thank them for giving me this spiffy mental condition."
"It was an accident of the birthing process. A God cannot be present at each birth; there are millions every minute, when you include the animals, for whom the Gods care each as much as for humans," he said.
"But..." I said.
"The Gods would have taken the accident from you, if you had asked them too, but you seemed to stubbornly cling to it as if it is the source of your pride," he said. "There are Gods everywhere around you - why do you choose not to see them?"
"But - you said you could cure me, they sent you to do that," I stammered.
"Yes, they did - and I will, but first I must feed these cats," he said, and he brought up the leather bag that he had worn under the cape. He opened it, reached in, and brought out a bag full of strips that looked like beef jerky. He opened the plastic bag, reached in, and took out some of the strips and began to pass them out among the cats by offering them between the bars of the cages. And the cats gripped them in their mouths and devoured them. Several cats had seconds and one or two, thirds, then the animals began to settle down. Ar reached back and opened all the cat cages, leaving the doors open. The cats all looked at the open doors and then looked at each other, then several of them came out of the cages and began to explore the inside of the van. "There's a turnoff not very far ahead, let's drive up there and then we can get down to business," Ar said.
"So let me see if I've got this right," I said sardonically. "Some Gods sent you and you're going to cure me of a mental condition that I have had ever since I was eleven, some thirteen glorious years. Are you sure I'm the only one given to hallucinations around here?"
"You're correct to play the skeptic, mister - eh," he said.
"My name is Paul - Paul Carson, didn't the Gods tell you that, too?" I asked.
"Gods don't use names, that's something peculiar to human beings. We not only give ourselves names, but we have names for all the Gods too - which they use when they deal with us, but mostly to prevent confusion: ours," he said as he drove along.
Several cats came up front and checked out the front of the van. One even jumped up onto the console that was partially between the seats, and I reached over and stroked him down his back and sides. The cat seemed contented and friendly, and I turned and saw that all of the cats had gotten out of the cages and were lying on the carpeted floor of the van.
"Well, maybe I'm just a wee bit skeptical - because I have tried just about all of the medications know to man, over the years and none of them ever helped," I said to the man.
"You only tried the ones that are known and recognized by the AMA, which is a small part of the total number," he said. "I too am a Doctor - a Doctor of Ayurvedic Medicine with a degree from the University of Benares. And we consider and use every substance on the earth as medicines. But mostly we deal with herbal medicines for there seems to be one for each illness - though finding the right one is the trick, for one that works for one man may not for another."
"Yeah, I know some people that are into herbs, but not for their medicinal value," I said to him.
"Drug abuse is just that - there are many people that abuse drugs for a variety of reasons, such as weight loss or weight gain, or just to get high. Where they are misusing a drug for one or more of its side effects, instead of its proper medicinal value. If you do that, you run the risk of becoming as sick as if you had contracted a disease itself," the man said. "Well, here we are at the turnoff - we can pull over here…"
He steered the van off the road into a place created where another road joined. Ar parked the van and turned halfway around in his seat to face me. I just sat there and looked back at him. "Now, before we begin, let me explain that the medicines that I am about to give you are two powerful psychotropic substances that have been used in tandem for thousands of years to abate psychosis. The quickest and safest way to administer them is by setting them on fire and breathing in the fumes. After you do this you should slip comfortably into a deep sleep that could last for one or two hours, and then, when you awaken we will know - for a certainty we will know."
"You want me to smoke these drugs?" I asked.
"No, not smoke them as if you might a cigarette," he said. "I'll show you - but first there is one stipulation. You must agree that if you use these preparations and you are cured, or let's say, greatly improved, which is what I think will happen - then you must agree to stay with me for the next six months. Is that understood?"
"Shit, if you can cure me, I'll let you adopt me - if that's what you want," I said to him.
"Then you agree?" he asked.
"Yes, agreed - I'll stay with you for as long as you say," I said with conviction.
"Good. All that I ask is that you remember your pledge when the joy of being cured is upon you and things may seem otherwise," he said. He pulled up the leather bag, opened it, fumbled through it, and brought out a small metal bowl and two plastic bags that were rolled shut. They both looked like the bags of illegal drugs that I had seen people use and had even tried myself, to no avail.
"You're sure that's not some controlled substances that you have got there - I've tried just about all of them," I said.
"No, these are not illegal drugs of any sort, they both can be brought in any well-equipped health food store or ordered from the web from thousands of herbal products purveyors, worldwide," he said. I watched as he set the bowl on his lap and filled it most of the way full from the two bags, re-rolling them afterwards.
"Why do you want me to stay with you for six months or at all?" I asked him.
"Shiva is the Goddess that came to me and told me that I must prevent you from going to Albany," he said to me. "Apparently, you show up there several weeks from now and do things that are so horrendous that even the Gods agree that they must be prevented. There is a five-month window within which you could effect these deeds, so you must stay with me for six months, which I think you will rather enjoy, and then you will be free to go anywhere you wish."
"And do you know what the heck it is I'm going to do, that is so bad?" I asked.
"No, I only know what I must do. Anything else is none of my business," he said.
"Damn," I said.
"Don't worry about what you can't do anything about," he said. "Besides, living with me may be rather a pleasure, I live with my seven girlfriends, you see. They are rather tempestuous girls and demand constant gratification. Are you any good with women, my friend, for I could use some help."
"You have seven girlfriends?" I asked incredulously.
"Well, more than that, to be truthful," he answered. "And I could use someone who could take some of them off my hands. How about you, do you like women?"
"God, I lust after every women I see, but if one gets near me, my mouth clamps shut and I take on the aspect of a catatonic deaf-mute," I said.
"Well, don't worry, I'll teach you," he said. "Are you familiar with the Buddhist tantric love rituals? I use an approach to lovemaking that is based on them."
"No, I must have missed that - I hope you've got some Cliff Notes," I said.
"Well, like I said," he said. "I will teach you about them and you can simply follow with whatever you wish to add. Now, let's get started - and if all goes well you will sleep for a couple of hours. In that time, I will drive us up to Mountain Home, which is in the heart of the Cascades - I've got to pick up Jeannie and her sister and then we will continue on to my place near McCredie Springs. All set?"
"Sure," I said. And he picked up the metal bowl and mixed up the green and brown substances in the bowl. He pulled out a Bic lighter, then showed me how to sit with my head down and then he placed the bowl in my lap and flicked the Bic. He lit the mixture in the bowl and it burned dryly and with vigor, while giving off a lot of smoke that curled upwards into my face and around my head.
"Just breathe normally but deeply and try to get as much air as you get smoke," he said. And I sat there while taking a couple of deep breathes and I was trying to figure out what the smoke smelled like, not smoke but… And that was the last thing I remember.
That is until I heard this blonde girl say, "Who's that, and what did you do to all these cats? They're all dead!"
"No they're not, I forgot they were here when I gave Paul his first dose of herbs - they must have breathed in too much of the mixture, but they'll come around in a little while," Ar said to the two girls as they entered the van. One sat on the console and the other sat on the driver's seat, while Ar remained outside the van door.
I woke up and looked at them. And I was alone - no, I mean totally alone. For the first time that I could remember there were no voices or sounds or whirligigs going on in my head. Instead, there was something that I was not used to: peace and quiet. The girls looked at me and, over their shoulders, I could see Ar's head. They all peered at me as if I had two heads. And that is when it happened. I smiled and once I started I could not stop. I started to giggle and this led to laughter. It was the greatest feeling of my life, and I wanted to just sit there and laugh about how good I felt. But then it dawned on me that normal - dare I use that word? - normal people might find this a little strange. So I turned, looked at the two girls, and gave them my best grin and said, "Oh, I'm sorry - I'm forgetting myself, my name's Paul - it's a pleasure to meet you both."
The blonde girl smiled coyly at me and said, "Hi, I'm Jennifer - give me some of what you're on."
"I'm not even sure what it is - but it's wonderful," I said to her.
"Um, you're on some of Ar's herbs - enough said," the other girl said. She was a petite brunette with long lustrous hair that hung almost to her waist. She would not quite look at me but kept her eyes on Ar.
Then I heard, "Meow," from the back of the van, and slowly, the cats started to come around.