Fear and Loathing Flashback

This is a compilation of present and past that was inspired by H.S. Thompson.

The plan was to see movie that we couldn't catch back in the burbs. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was the obvious choice. The classic was set to start at midnight.

Pre-purchased Sunshine Cinema stubs awaited us in the Bowery district. We had only an hour. Our cheeks braved the windy walk to Bedford. Our layers lasted through several stops on the L. We even dared to board the dilapidated F for this adventure.

Sunshine Cinema's stadium seats looked more like a modern day college classroom at first. But as I sunk into a chair, the sight of Johnny in that floppy Gilligan hat greeted me with no surprise. This wasn't the first time I'd sat in on this mission. But would it be the last?

My eyes seemed to stick to that shiny red boat of a convertible. We sailed at top speed down that desert of a highway, dust clouds blurring all that was once clear.   

I blinked and the theater was gone. My crossed legs were now sprawled across the carpeted basement of a typical suburban home. Tony Montana stood before me, his white suit glowing and flowing until he seemed to wear a mystically hypnotic pond. Mesmerized, I stood to dive in. Then two throw pillows blocked my target.

"Rita," said the left pillow.

I turned away from Tony, searching for the mouth of this stuffed beast who spoke with an accent that was distinctly Northeast Philly in style.

"Rita," said the right pillow.

I told my fingers to reach forward. I urged them to unmask this cloth-covered monster who somehow knew my name. But they failed to follow instruction. Did I have fingers? I looked down to check.

"RED SUSPENDERS!" said a voice from above.

I glanced up to see two boys: one with big brown Italian eyes, one with frosted hair and freckled cheeks. Then they vanished into pillows. Tony Montana's cheeks began to drip before my eyes. He was melting. Was I melting?

Before I could investigate, the heads of the two boys I'd seen earlier floated into my line of sight: one from the left, one from the right.

"Reeeeeeeedaaaaaaa," they chorused ominously.

Their faces were familiar, as were their voices. But before my scattered brain could place them, they were pillows once again.

"RED SUSPENDERS!" the pillows said before dissolving into the floor.

Just then, a loud SNAP filled my ears and stung my back. Had my spine been broken? Was I paralyzed? I flung myself around to see a giggling boy diving deep into what looked like a couch. Then the cushions gobbled him up face first.

I turned away and looked below. Red suspenders ran down my shoulders, curving slightly outward to frame breasts that were hidden deep below an oversized white oxford waitress shirt. The shirt was flowing and glowing like an enchanted river, only this one ended on black velvet shores of doom. I tried to take a closer look. I had to see how this valley of black could stop such a vibrant body of water.

The pillows stopped me. Hovering inches from my eyes, they said my name again and again. I felt reeds part behind my back. I heard a snap. Then everything faded to black.

"Rita," said a voice without a northeast accent.

"Hey," he said. "F*****g take it already."

I opened my eyes to a half-gone, double-rolled, boating monstrosity. I put the paper to my lips, breathed in deep, and held in it as I handed the mess back to its creator. Water cascaded down the windshield of my Volkswagen, distorting the glow of traffic lights in the distance.

I wasn't driving. The voice wasn't driving. We sat like statues in seats scarred with cigarette burns. The luxuries of movement and speech were reserved for the sole purpose of passing the one thing that mattered between us.

"How many did you take?" said the voice.

I turned to see who he was, to see if he was human. He was a redheaded boy with a freckled face, the one with the gaps between his teeth and the unpredictable ways, the one who once lived up the street.

"I dunno," I answered.

He grabbed a plastic bag from the passenger door and tried to count the contents. He got to four. He started over. He got to three. He started over. I turned back to stare into the sinking sun. We might sit here forever if I didn't close my eyes.

The black room glowed blue. My back seemed strapped to a headboard. Floyd filled my ears with the jingle jangle of loose change as a magical white man began to dance before my eyes. Was he a raindrop or a glowing gas flame? Was he a leaf or was he the embodiment of psychic energy? He danced with a passion I'd never known before, floating, twisting, unfurling in a wind that never was.

A clammy blue hand reached from the shadows, its fingers digging into my arm.

"I'm not going in there," said a familiar female voice. "He wants me to go in there, but I won't!"

I wanted to ask who she was and who he was and where they weren't going to go, but my lips refused to move. The blue fingers dug deeper into my skin.

"I can't go in there with him," she said. "The forest is so black, so dark, just like him…just like his soul."

With those words, she jumped to her feet. My once tense arm now lay limp at my side. The darkness she spoke of crept closer, enveloping me in a dismal fog that stuck to my lungs.

The sun looked staged when I came to. It must've died with my soul the night before when the darkness had taken all I had left. I stumbled toward the door on imposter legs, toward the pseudo light, toward anything but the stagnant air. I put a Marlboro to my lips and set my gaze across the street where a faded American flag flapped proudly in the wind.

The credits rolled. The lights came on. We stood. We filed out the doors and across the street. When someone mentioned the movie's lack of plot and wealth of chaos, I smirked. Standing in a silent state of awe, I could help but wonder. How did Thompson manage to remember so much?