I wake and find myself in a mood befitting of the rain outside. Breakfast is set on the table, candles are lit, and my family is singing “happy birthday” in a rushed, self-conscious way. A loud clap of thunder sounds, and I know it’s time to leave. I have a long drive back to Los Angeles, and the rain came earlier than forecasted.

I kiss Ash, and hug my mom. “Drive safe,” she says, “and no speeding—it’s raining too hard for that.”

“Of course not,” I reply, and turn toward the door. I grab my bags, throw a hood over my head and run to the car.

My brother, Tony, starts driving, and decides to take the coastal highway. We’re both surfers, so we watch waves the way some people stare into movie screens. Although the drive will be much longer this way, we both agree that it will be more enjoyable.

Trying to read, I quickly become dizzy with the twists and turns.

“I know it’s about the journey,” I say, “but this one is making me car sick.”

“But check that break,” he says, and he’s right—it’s a stunning sight. The Pacific Ocean dances outward into storm clouds, huge waves crashing at the rocks below us; I crack the window and breathe deeply. Tony decides then and there that he wants to get high.

“Do we have a lighter?” he asks.

“No, it’s dead.”

“Damn…” A pause, then, “I’ll pull off up here and you can drive.”

He turns into a small roadside shop and walks inside. Before I have a chance to open my door, somebody is outside waiting for me. He is tall and heavyset with glasses, a hat and an unattractive, discontented face. Beyond that, his appearance eludes me because I’m immediately distracted by his smell and the sound of his voice.

“Glendon?” he asks.

“Excuse me?”

“Glendon? Sharp Rock? San Louis Obispo?”

This last name I recognize to be a place I’ve been– a place farther down the road, so I respond with a name of my own.

“Los Angeles.”

“Even better,” he exclaims, and I begin to understand what’s happening. “You’ve got room back there?” he asks, and I look towards the car. It’s packed full, and I’m relieved to see that I don’t really have any room for him.

“I’m not sure,” I tell him, “we’re pretty loaded down.”

His smell is making me feel sick, and I know that Tony had hoped to get high and enjoy a relaxing ride down the coast. Nothing about this guy appeals to me, his energy is imbalanced, his odor appalling, and the thought of re-packing the car in the rain doesn’t do much to win me over. Still, for whatever reason, I pop the trunk and start shifting boxes.

“I’ve got some weed,” he offers, and I smile at the coincidence. “If I can find it, we can smoke. I hide it,” he says, “I get paranoid. I just hide the stuff so well—hide it, and then I can’t find it myself.” He laughs quickly, and falls into a fit of violent, wet-sounding coughs. I laugh a bit to try and ease him with a smile.

“Cigarettes,” he groans, “I’m on a nicotine comedown. I know I need to stop smoking cigarettes. It’s going to kill me. Worst drug known to man, cigarettes. No, not cigarettes, not nicotine, but crack– angel dust, crank, speed, meth– that’s the worst. I’ve been up for three weeks. No. Did I say crack? Shut up, Jeff.”

He looks frightened for a moment, and spins a full circle with both hands on his head, “shut up,” he says again and again, “just stop talking. Shut up.” I just laugh, trying my best to ease his nerves.

Tony walks out from the shop as I finish making room. He smiles, but I know he’s not happy. Jeff gets into the back seat, Tony in the front, and I drive.

Immediately, the car is filled with the foul stench of cigarettes, alcohol, body odor, tooth decay, and something I can’t pin down which must be meth-related. I roll my window all the way down, and Tony does the same. It’s cold, but the smell has me spinning and I need fresh air.

For the first ten minutes of our drive, Jeff’s incessant ranting, the winding road, and his overbearing odor send me into a panic attack. I convince myself that he’s poisoning me—that something in his scent is toxic—maybe he keeps an open bottle of inhalant on his person, I think. Maybe his energy is consuming mine.

I do my best to interject with thoughtful commentary, encouraging his conviction that death will meet him soon should he continue to use.

“Jesus used to talk to me,” he says, “whispers of love, God sent me, but he doesn’t do that anymore.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Jesus used to talk to me everyday, but not now. Now, I’ve got a pipe that talks to me. Yeah, a talking pipe! Shut up, pipe!”

“God still talks to you,” I assure him, “and he wants you to clean up.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

“That’s not just me talking, Jeff, that’s God. And you know it is, because you can hear it, too.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

I don’t really believe this, at least not in the way he seems to, but I do know that fate put us together for a reason, so I play my part.

“My daughters are crack whores, too” he confesses. “Got two crack whore daughters. I had a heroin junkie father.”

“That’s tragic, but you can break the cycle,” I assure him.

“I did,” he says, “I was clean for ten years; had two daughters; got married–and then my friend shot himself and I fell off; he shot up, and then shot himself. And I shouldn’t have gone to that fucking wake. I looked at him and it fucked me up. I didn’t want to see him dead. Just laying there, dead as a fucking pile of shit.” A pause, then a final thought, “Speed kills.”

The night begins to set, and the waves below fade into the darkness. A fog settles down, and the bends in the road twist and coil like a ribbon in the wind. I do my best to drive well, to listen well, and to keep calm. Visions flash before me like lights reflected on the glass. The rain is heavy, and still my window is open. Lightening flashes, briefly illuminating the rocky sea-cliff, and thunder rolls through our car like a wave.

“I’ve seen the devil,” Jeff says, “I’ve been to Hell, and it’s right here on Earth. Not here, now. Just now, I’m in Heaven. Being here with you, this is Heaven, but I’ve seen Hell, too. And I met the Devil.”

I hear something outside, a cry, or a creaking tree in the wind; maybe something else, entirely. Still, all around, rain falls. Jeff clears his throat, and coughs a few times before going on.

“The devil’s a crack whore,” he tells me, “and she’s got no teeth.”

Jeff keeps ranting, but I think about that last bit for a minute. I heard once that in Freudian analysis, a toothless dream is a manifestation of powerlessness. It indicates that something we’ve always depended upon, something that we considered to be fundamental, is failing us.

Then I think about classic images of the devil, with rows of teeth and horns and claws, too. Seeing the fear in Jeff’s eye as I met it in the mirror, there is no question in my mind over which devil is to be feared most.

By the time we reach his town, Jeff’s decided to attend the seven o’ clock Alcoholic’s Anonymous meeting. We drop him off at the town hall building, and shaking my hand, he assures me that I’ve been blessed with mountains of good karma. “You’re a good person,” he says. I smile and thank him for his company.

Once we’re back on the highway, Tony sparks up his joint, and I roll the windows up. Jeff’s smell is lingering heavily in the car, and I want to mask it in any way possible. Though I don’t smoke weed anymore, I still like the way it smells, so I encourage Tony to fill the car with his smoke.

Just as he takes his last puff, I see red and blue lights flashing in the distance, and realize that we’re being pulled over. The car smells like alcohol, cigarettes, meth, and weed. I let all the windows down, and the rain pours in. Hurriedly, I rehearse my story with Tony,

“We met a guy in a restaurant, gave him a ride, and he smelled horrible. We found this bag of weed on the back seat after he got out. That’s all.”

“Whatever,” he says, “you do all the talking. I’m crazy high right now. I can’t handle this.”

The cop walks up to our car and flashes his light in my eyes. “I’m stopping you for speed,” he says.

“Speed kills,” I mumble.

“License and registration, please.”

I produce both, and include proof of insurance as a show of good will. The officer walks off to write the ticket. Either he didn’t smell the weed, or he doesn’t care. That much is a relief.

“On my fucking birthday…” I groan to Tony.

“His face was changing shapes…” Tony says, vigorously rubbing his bloodshot eyes, “Dude, I’m way too high for this.”

The officer returns and hands me a ticket pad to sign. This is my third speeding offence in less than a year, and I know it means that my license will be pulled.

“Oh! A ticket!” I sing, “Just what I wanted for my birthday! How did you know?”

“The law is 55 on California highways,” he replies.

“I don’t think I’ll have to worry about that for a while,” I say, “this just suspended my license.”

“Well, speed kills,” he recites, “Remember it, and have a good night.”

“A great night,” I respond, mocking the disgusting smile he has his face twisted in.

I drive 55 all the way to L.A. and try to fit the pieces together. I believe in fate, and see my life in terms of symbols and signs. So, I have to know why I was apparently being punished for a good deed… I know that with enough thought, I can go back over the day and fit it together in some meaningful, poetically punctuated way. So, I do.

It was a day from which I anticipated good things. We’re taught from the beginning that our birthday is a blessed occurrence; we’re made to believe that the universe aligns in celebration of our life. And for the first couple decades, we rush the days towards this turning of age.

Another year older, we say triumphantly… Another year wiser! And to celebrate, society grants us another previously forbidden privilege: the right to drive, to smoke, or to drink. It’s almost as if we’re being sheltered from a grand secret, and little by little it’s being unwrapped. We imagine that we’re moving towards something, but it’s not really clear what. An ocean of potential lays undiscovered, and we’re just beginning to paddle out.

Then, somewhere along the way, we begin to realize that in reality, we’re just dying. The right to drive, to smoke, and to drink? Society is giving up the ghost, and allowing us access to the highways of destruction. Go too quickly, and they might suspend your license, but even if you walk or sit perfectly still, you’re going to get there eventually.

From the moment of birth, we are all dying, and eventually we’ll be dead as a piece of shit, as Jeff said. Or is that really so?

We certainly die, but most of us will be lucky enough to die with a bit more dignity than a lump of shit. True enough, some lives are accidentally stumbled upon and dragged inside like a smelly turd. But other lives inspire, and that’s the only real difference we can make.

So, if I am reminded of anything today, it’s this: slow down, and stay righteous. Everything kills, but speed will leave you toothless long before you get there.

If I told you that I spent the last three years of my life taking drugs and wandering around the globe, that I held no woman, no job, and that but for the occasional melody hummed, I wrote no songs; if in fact I told you that I’d lived without a sense of purpose or direction, that I had stumbled and failed and lost, and had indeed become lost; if I told you all of this and much worse, you might think that I’ve wasted my days… And you might be right, if not for the simple fact that it brought me here.