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Show RTVER especially if he's chosen the states of Arkansas,. Louisiana, and Mississippi as the scene of his crime. I understood none of this. If I was not altogether serious about farming reefer (though I did have visions of sweat streaming off my brow as I hacked my way through a forest of marijuana stalks beneath a sweltering August sun, my machete black with resin, my eyes bloodshot, my hands lacerated from stripping plants and filling towsack after towsack with the herb), the idea of drifting down the river in an open boat in the springtime flood acquired great power and became very serious. I had caught another raging case of river fever. It looked to be a way out of the maze in which I'd trapped myself: not only did it hold the promise of fortune and adventure, but it looked like the answer to my artistic dilemma. Certainly the ideal place to write a book about the Mississippi River was on the Mississippi River. Soon I was broke again and crazier than ever. Desperate and depressed, I was seized by compulsions to smash bottles and eat beer cans. A failure, a burnt-out case at twenty-one, I hadn't even had a chance to vote yet. There I was, living in a palatial shack on top of a holy mountain and all I could think about was sex and money and death. The loneliness of Lonestar Peak prayed on my head and the end was not in sight. It left me depressed and suicidal. One cold, clear winter morning I woke up and watched the sun rise over the ridge on Empire Grade. I could have stayed in bed all day: I didn't have anything else to do, but my mind drifted back to the Mississippi River. It occurred to me that the river was still there and the real book I wanted to write about the river was as yet unwritten. I had run into a dead end in California and had a feeling -138- |