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3. Gar and Loathing in Texahoma
- University of Arkansas Press
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3 Gar and Loathing in Texahoma SINCE HIPPY AND I had Gar Fever, we were totally psyched for sevenfooters . We had hired the world-famous gator-gar guide Captain Kirk, so were bombing down through Oklahoma to get ourselves a gar. The plan was to meet up with the legendary Rex Rose in Texas, fish for a day with the captain, then go out the next day on our own. It was early May, Hippy was driving, and my stripy yellow-green canoe was strapped on top of the station wagon. “Man, we are going to get some monster gar,” I said, “then swim with them and skitch a ride to Mexico!” “Yeah,” he replied, “they’re going down!” “We Gotta Bomb It!” I yelled. “We Gotta Make It! It’s On!” “Yeeehaw!” Hippy howled, and kicked it up to sixty-two. “Come on, Granny!” I shouted at him. “This here’s the Interstate! You call this Bombing it!? We got gar to catch!” Hippy got it up to sixty-six, which was still too slow for me. I had Gar Fever to the max! For the last five years, I’d been studying gar, researching gar, writing gar, dreaming gar, and trying to catch them to no avail. I had Gar OCD! I had Gar Megalomania! And so did Hippy! We were going Gonzo for Gar! Sweating gar, seeing gar, totally focused on some distant gar-point nine hundred miles away and shooting down to Huntsville with fishing licenses and everything to get some massive world-class gar! “Watch out for the Feds!” I said, eyeing the speedometer. “They’re everywhere! And they’ll only slow us down!” “Feds!” Hippy howled, taking his foot off the gas. “No!” I screamed. “It’s the only way to ditch them. They can’t see you when you’re booking! It’s like when the Flash vibrates all his molecules— he becomes invisible!” “Okay,” Hippy said, and punched it up to sixty-eight. 27 Hippy was my student—or, rather, used to be my grad student. When I came to Missouri four years ago, we immediately clicked and took off fishing . Caught tons of bass and channel cats. Plus, we were big on bullfrogs croaking at night while taking pulls from a whiskey flask. “C’mon!” I yowled. “Where’s that speed!? Where’s that passion!?” “But the Feds,” Hippy said, “they’ve got radars!” “If you vibrate fast enough, there’s no way they can pick you up!” I replied, owing no allegiance whatsoever to the idea of being a role model —or anything responsible. Nope, not when there were gar to catch! “Garrrr!” Hippy pirated back, and kicked it up to sixty-nine. He was tall and blond and crazy-haired and dressed in his typical overalls with that big old bushy beard and a pair of stinking sandals— which stunk because his feet stunk. Hippy was living a pungent lifestyle. Not washing had become a political statement among the anarchists he lived with. But to me, his feet just reeked with a funky, stanky noxiousness that came smoking off his fetid toes and went smoldering up into my nose so sweet and thick I could taste it with every breath. And it wasn’t getting any better as the day got hotter and hotter. So the moment we crossed into Texas, I spotted a sign for a public launch and ordered him to take the exit. He did, and we followed a winding road to the lake, passing some truck guys going the other way. We waved at them and they waved back, and then we came to the gate and drove on down to the launch. “Get out and wash your feet,” I told Hippy when we stopped, and handed him some dishwashing soap. He got out all apologetic, while I opened the doors to air the car out. “And scrub off all that rot and fungus!” I called to Hippy, down at the lake. “And hurry up! Time’s a-wastin’!” Hippy came grinning back to the car, his feet smelling lemony fresh. There was a payphone there, so I dialed up the legendary Rex Rose. “Hey,” I told him, “we’re bombing it!” “Well, you better make it by ten o’clock,” he told me, “because that’s when they close the state park. I’m in the campground now, setting up camp.” “Okay,” I said, “see you soon” and hung up, hopped in, gunned the...