Booked Passage

by J.S. Holland

Only a couple of you kids have gotten the full report on this yet - and I'll be disclosing more in the days ahead - but soon I'm going to be on the road like Jack Kerouac, and on the road again like Willie Nelson. I'll chase my fortune round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Antares Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give it up, but ultimately, you're looking at a man who's bound for Interzone. Yes, Interzone, land of enchantment, where the beer in the canteloupe lay. Where Jerry Lee Lewis is waiting, at the end of the road.


I've never been to me, but I have been to Interzone a few times before, and lemme tell ya, friends, the food there is exquisite. Any kind of cuisine you're lookin' for, they have it there, provided you like it spicy and with spices of the like you ain't et yet. Why, I bet they even have monkey-picked tea and weasel-chewed coffee. And Petula Clark wasn't just frontin' when she said the lights are much brighter there.


Son, I've seen water towers that look like martians, palm trees that looked like mummies, mummies that looked like Colonels, women who talk like zithers, and zithers the size of vampires. I've drunk shamanic cocktails with hillbilly secret agents in Croatian blacksmith shops, waiting on the Robert E. Lee. I've danced the Hades Ballet with the ghost of Ruth Etting and had our pitcher taken in wallet sized glossies.


I've seen saloon fights fought entirely with guitars, cathouse curtains made of the hides of Johns who didn't pay up, Karaoke bars where all the songs are solely from planets nobody really believes exist, pig races with jockeys, bullfights held in bathrooms, and mind-over-matter billiards matches with entire nations as the stakes. Good times.


I'll send you a postcard. I'll also send you a copy of the report.