Demon’s Head, Mississippi is America’s taint. Before anybody asks, Florida is her phallus. Either Louisiana or Texas is her asshole depending on how willing someone is to mess with Texas. That midway point between humid sweaty gross heaven and humid sweaty gross hell is officially and irrevocably Demon’s Head.
Smack dab, dead center near Columbus and Paleville, she reeks of sex and swamp ass. What with the armadillos, possums, Texas road alligators, various gangling birds, actual ‘gators, and the occasional piece of furniture peeking from the vibrant overgrowth to the sides of the freeways, it’s not hard to believe that there might be monsters hidden amongst the muck and mosquito farms. There are.
The bugs are mesozoic by the way. Hang out in good ol’ landmass long enough and you’re bound to see a skeeter carry off a cat.
Roaches roam like miniature coked out wildebeest. They teem from subterranean vents like the legions of hell putting on a post apocalyptic drag show. They gleam. They flutter. Their chitinous thumbnail bodies flash in sunlight that might scare their lesser cousins elsewhere in the world. All evil must also have a home, and Demon’s Head, Mississippi is roach heaven.
The vampire hates them. Alaska, matron saint of sick puppies and broken creatures, thinks they’re cute in a Gygaxian sort of way. Kat tells me to leave them alone and get Catbus the Third back to prowling, but she doesn’t mean it. Catbus remains thirsty, and the night is yet young.
Prodding fountains of filth with a stick is one of the deep entertainments. It’s like staring cryptically into a campfire, or watching a sunset. Deep in the lizard brain, tucked somewhere between “can I eat it?” and “can it screw?” is the impulse that seeks profundity in the profane. What horrors might this drive have caused before man, hollow vessel of the divine that he is, discovered the satisfaction of a good, long, rot-poking stick?
The ladies keep bickering over whose turn it is to pay for gas while I stir the pot beneath a sallow streetlight. Can it be called a streetlight if the paving is more muck than asphalt?
Anyway, the roaches don’t seem to mind the escalating absurdity in the women’s arguments. Somewhere around the time I discover the pleasure of rodeoing periplanar americana off and into the cicada screaming darkness, one of the women claims it is her turn to pay for gas because the moon is full.
Alaska loves Reina and wants to cover as much of the vamp’s expenses as possible. Reina feels obligated to pay for fuel since this trip is primarily for her. Kat is an instigator. There are older dances in the book of love than the sisterly virtue-signal-and-posturing boogie, but not many. The winning argument seems to have something to do with wanting to get the numbers to line up right on the pump. Charlie might love his angels, but I’m just the driver.
Anyway, roaches pop like precambrian water balloons. I stepped on one earlier. It took one mistake to decide dancing around the issue is the wiser move.
Driving hours all night to visit Reina’s parent is back stiffening work. The fountain of pestilence is just the latest stupid excuse I’ve conjured to try and stretch the old gams between stretches of highway.
Kat touches the back of my neck to see me jump. She says, “How’re the Scooby auditions goin’ handsome?”
I have to toss the stick aside to fold my arms and pout, but it’s worth it to see her smile. “I thought I was the Scooby?”
“Please, you’re Freddie pretending to be Shaggy and you know it,” says Kat.
She’s not wrong. “Then I suppose that makes you Velma?”
She shakes her head, upsetting the landing approach of a seagull sized bloodsucking insect. “More a combination of Daphne and Velma. Don’t try ‘n put me in a box. I contain multitudes.”
I open my mouth to keep the banter going, but she’s two steps ahead of me.
“Reina is the other half of my Velma-Daphne monstrosity. Alaska is Shaggy, obviously.”
“Wait, why can’t I be a mix between Fred and Scoobs?”
“You saw Fullmetal Alchemist, right?”
Driving the vampire, her girlfriend, and my girlfriend ain’t much, but it’s honest work. The bubblegum queen of the night has weird requests every now and then but that just keeps things interesting. Seriously, imagine a squeak from the backseat at two in the morning asking we find a gas station with an open shoppette so she can grab fresh fruit for bananamancy or some other esoteric oddity. I dare, “I think Reina might be part Scoob.”
“You’re being racist,” says Kat. Her eyebrows lock into position like flaps on a guided missile. There’s a subtle snapping sound in the bushes. I can’t help but feel like my toe just found a buried landmine. I check my pant legs to make sure a roach hasn’t decided to add insult to injury.
“Fine. Okay Vafne -”
“- Delma.”
“Whatever. Riddle me this. What happens if a zombie bites a werewolf?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, and what happens if a werewolf bites a zombie?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“I’m changing the topic so we don’t have to talk about how you think I’m being racist by pointing out that Reina is the least human human us humans have on our little human roadtrip.”
“It’s ‘we humans,’” she says.
“Whatever.”
“This isn’t working,” she says.
I pull out a pack of flammable suicide notes. They’re the red kind, because everytime I go for the menthols Kat talks about having a black ex-boyfriend. “As God is my witness, please don’t be saying what I think you’re saying.”
“See?” says Kat. She holds a flame my way. “I knew you’ve been cheating on me.”
I take the first drag. Muttering around the smoke I say, “Only in spirit,” but the words are lost in the wind and the kerfuffle of a bear mascot loping from the swamp towards the two of us. I catch the fluffy oversized ears out of the corner of my eye just in time to see the thing rise from all fours. Blood is aproned down from the seam of the costume’s throat giving the jolly anthropomorphic cheerleader a dropped candy apple sticky-hairy look. It’s like someone gave a teddy bear a Colombian necktie. It’s running towards us.
Kat lets out a squeak when the mascot scoops her up and keeps running. Her eyes meet mine. There’s terror in there, but a bit of glee spicing her emotional cocktail. She squirms. She struggles. She manages to knock the mascot head askew, but the absurd abomination just keeps trucking into the gloom and grime of the midnight swampland of Demon’s Head Mississippi.
“Guys,” I moan. Alaska looks my way, eyes half lidded and glossy. “Did anybody else see a bear steal my girlfriend?”
"1975-76 Polar Bear Mascot" by Northridge Alumni Bear Facts is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.