0831

Conway, Arkansas

Most fucked up thing I've ever seen. We stop to get gas and relieve ourselves of the Red Bulls and Cherry Coke Zeroes at some random station. Some old man sitting outside the door watching people come and go. Most people looking at the weirdos from the city in their "fancy German car".

I'm about to pop, so Molly fills the car. I rush inside past the guy at the counter and into the restroom.

Thank the bloody universe it's not one that requires getting a key.

So, I rush into the restroom and to my left is a trash can. I see gauze and bandages, all bloody, flowing out and onto the floor. There's a pair of pants and a shirt folded neatly on the side of the sink where a very overweight man is standing. He's around sixty and has curly gray hairs escaping from everywhere: his wife beater, boxers, and Red Wing work boots. A real ladies' man, I'm sure.

He's peeling the final bandage from the right side of his forehead to reveal this huge boil the size of a fist that is seeping yellow fluid.

I've made it to the urinal and I'm trying desperately to ignore him, his body, the gauze, the wound and that smell... what the hell is that smell? I should probably walk away, but I'd have to change my pants in the car.

Luckily, I'm already using the restroom when the old man began squeezing the boil on his head. Both hands against the skin on either side moving closer, and closer, and....

The boil pops. At this point I'm not even trying to hide the fact that I'm staring. And fuck me if he's not spraying blood and puss and goop all over the walls and sink - and now it's oozing down his face.

Zip! Snap! Clomp, clomp, clomp! I rush out, almost knocking down some poor old black guy on the candy aisle.

I jump in the driver's seat of the convertible and say,

"Get in the car."

"But I still gotta go!"

"We'll stop somewhere else."

I can't think about that shit without thinking of an Ebola or Junta outbreak. Gives me the creeps.