a wild night

i can't exactly blame it on Little Nemo, although i wish i could. in the pantheon of american newspaper comics, there are a few great comics. Krazy Kat, Calvin and Hobbes, Pogo, Little Nemo, and Peanuts. (Peanuts star is fading, but if Lou Gehrig belongs in the Hall, Peanuts belongs on the list.) i discovered Little Nemo in new york, at the Strand bookstore. the Strand is a dusty labyrinth of books, two or three stories, near Union Square. i used to haunt it looking for frazettas. the Little Nemo books are large, maybe 12" x 18" or bigger. in the old days, each comic was a full newspaper page, and to reduce this stuff down small would be to destroy it.

Little Nemo was probably the first mature american comic, from the very early 1900s. pretty much each episode tells the story of a dream that Little Nemo had in his quest to meet King Morpheus, usually interrupted by Nemo falling out of bed or waking up frustratingly prematurely, just as he was about to--

the draughtsmanship (and that's what it is -- spelled that way) is rich, accurate, and crisp, but confined to the necessities of telling the story. the stories usually involve drastic changes of size, or shape of the characters, or upside-down worlds, chasing elephants and clowns, giant seals, floating people, time dilation, or... do yourself a favor sometime and check it out.

i think he drew with a very fine crow-quill pen, a steel nib, and then he would come back with a slightly heavier, stiffer pen, with a rounder nib and emphasize the outlines. his hand was loose and free, but very controlled; you won't find many 'happy accidents' in his work -- he put what he wanted where he wanted it. his drawings have a wonderful graphic quality, they read both as portrayals of the comic scene, and also in the abstract, purely as graphic compositions. the jokes were predictable, but consistent. and he was tapped into enough of the deep corners of his psyche (whether he knew it or not) that his work stays interesting, as he developed it, as he explored his limits, as he filled out his territory.

so i'm in the middle of this intense fascination with Little Nemo, i remember actually being sad that Windsor McKay, the guy who drew it, was dead, because i would never have a chance to meet him, and he would never get to draw another episode.

it was third year of school, or fourth, it was in the beginning of the year, we were doing urban design. i might have this wrong, but i'm pretty sure my friend rob (not his real name) (but pretty close) detested the professor who ran that course. whatever the reason, he took an exchange year in buffalo. so drew gets this call, rob said, "come on up for the halloween party, it's going to be sensational, we scored some acid at the dead concert with the bignaturals."

acid is serious. acid isn't mushrooms. acid is pharmaceutical. you hear stories about acid. acid is the stuff the guy took who went running naked on the highway in the movie in high school. the one where he got hit by the--

now the only car that was available to me at the time was my grandfathers blue lincoln continental, the car i learned to drive in. (how to drive a lincoln: the lincoln has a kind of cross-hair hood ornament in the center of the hood -- you aim it at the place where the road meets the horizon and push the gas pedal with your right foot.) so i borrow the car and we go. it was very comfortable for a road trip, it had power everything, all the options. i tell myself that i am not sure whether i am in on the acid part of the trip or not, but i must have been lying, because i brought my Little Nemo collection with me.

my memories of the party aren't real specific, except for two things. i remember looking into the living room and seeing they were doing the hokey pokey or something, only with the halloween costumes they were wearing they looked like a giant caterpillar twisting and swaying, with a hundred eyes all looking around. and i remember sitting in the kitchen in a vinyl chair with chrome tubular legs, looking at the comic books and being so, so sad. it was nothing but ink. black ink. and paper. flat. lifeless. laying there, the paper reflecting the light back to my eyes, the ink soaking it up. there was no revelation, no deeper world there, Nemo didn't start moving, or dancing and singing. he didn't step off the page, and i couldn't join him on the page. he was no more then a two-dimensional contrivance. so, so utterly sad. the ink was so black like midnight in china. the deeper truth was that there was no deeper truth.

the next morning we had a delicious breakfast of toasted bagels with sour cream and sliced tomatoes. it was kind of a misty rainy day and we had nothing to do. somebody said, "hey, let's go to niagra falls." so we jumped in the lincoln and tooled up the highway. we got there and somebody said, "i wonder what the falls looks like from the other side." so we jumped back in the lincoln and drove over to canada. they wave you in to canada. they stand aside and they just wave you in.

the falls looked pretty much the same as they did from the other side, black water, white mist. they sounded the same too. then drew bought some indian cigarettes, and we jumped back in the lincoln and headed back to the land of the free and the home of the brave, the three of us college boys in a nice blue metallic lincoln continental. with all the options.

they have like a toll plaza set up there at the border, and i am driving towards the middle lane when this cop up ahead blows his whistle and directs me over to the far right lane, pointing hard where nobody is going. in fact he's sending me to a red light lane. what the--? i pull up and there are four cops standing there, they wave me through and over, and the big one, the one in the smokey the bear hat, leans over to my window and says, "get out of the car."

i say "what's the problem, officer?"

he says, "get out of the car and stand over there with your hands on your heads."

me and drew start walking, we decided to take him seriously. rob, who was in the back seat kind of gets out of the car brushing off his pants or pulling his hands out of his pockets, and begins walking toward us, but as he does, something small falls on the ground at his feet. it makes the faintest little clik-ka sound, scratching on the pavement. and somehow that tiny little noise drew the attention of all of us, me, drew, the four border police. twelve eyes were looking at it, but rob kept walking.

it was a piece of aluminum foil, folded up square, smaller then a dime, lying there on the wet gray pavement.

"Wait a minute, what's that?" one of the cops said.

then rob said six little words that you never want to hear when you're standing in the rain with your hands on your head next to your grandfather's lincoln continental, looking up into the shades of the border patrol officer wearing the smokey the bear hat. and if you do hear them at such a time as that, they are six little words that you will never forget.

"that's five hits of LSD, officer."

---

coda

all the way home, drew kept on asking him, "why didn't you just eat them man?"

rob would say, "do you think i'm crazy?"

and i just pointed the cross-hair at the horizon and pushed on the pedal with my right foot.