Labor Day 1994

We were driving from Conway to Pensacola, early on Sunday morning. It was me and Sonya and Tim and Jodi, our friends who lived downstairs from us.

We didn't leave until ten or so on Saturday night, because Jodi was in the UCA band and had to play at a foolball game that night. Then, if I recall correctly, Jodi had to stop and pee every twenty minutes. Jodi and Sonya eventually went to sleep in the back seat.

"Now we can make some time," Tim said. He gave the old car more gas and off we went.

So it was around three o'clock in the morning, somewhere in the middle of Mississippi and close to nowhere. We were drinking coffee and smoking, talking shit and surfing the radio to find stay-awake music. We finally settled on some reggae coming from a nearby college.

And then we drove through the set of a horror movie.

Imagine, if you will, if you took a large animal...a cow, maybe. Or no, a hippopotamus. Or perhaps an elephant. Something made of lots and lots of meat, anyway. And say you stuffed a good bit of dynamine up this animal's ass. And somehow fired the resulting exploding mess out of a huge cannon and down the length of a dark and deserted country road.

That's what we ran into. We were driving along, headlights cutting through the night, and we came upon this abattoir, nothing but blood and guts and bone for fifty feet or so.

"Aaaaahhhh!" I yelled.

"What the fuck is that?" Tim demanded.

And then we were past it. The road unspooled ahead of us without a hint of of the blood-drenched terror we'd just been through, and we made it to Florida without incident.