Being in the city had an advantage for me. City cops are jaded. There’s constant action in a city. A car cruising at four in the morning doesn’t raise an eyebrow. Try doing this in the lily-white suburbs sometime and see how far you get. There’s very little traffic so the roads are easy to navigate. If you’re floating on a raft of euphoria and marijuana, as I was, this can be very ooch rabazibby. And it’s very otherworldly. Large, well-lit boulevards are deserted, as though a neutron bomb had been dropped and killed the people but left the buildings standing. Everything looks cleaner, clearer, more perfectly defined. It was just me and the cabs. The cabs, the cops, the hookers, the homeless, the dealers, the debris. It’s a whole other world out there at night, a world of odds and ends, odds and unevens. Of things and people that don’t fit nicely into proper categories. And I was snaking through it in the comfort of my mini-limo, high, warm, shimmying to the funky rhythms on the radio, pumped up on the power I exerted over my growing litter of kittens. I was bad. Bad enough to make it in the big time. Bad enough to rip the cover off.

And now a little secret. A tale told out of school. Something I share with everyone else who has my illness. I loved it. It felt great. I mean really great. Why else would so many Manics refuse to get treatment? They get hooked on their highs. Can you remember the moment in your life when you felt the very best? Was it the day you got married? The day your first child was born? The day you scored the winning touchdown for your high school football team? Remember how you felt. Now double it. Keep going until the settings are turned up all the way to ten and your nervous system is buzzing like high voltage wires. Every pleasure center you have is glowing, you could burst into flames at any moment. Now add a few more elements. You’re incredibly strong, incredibly smart, and your energy is limitless. It gets better. You’re totally without fear. That tiresome little voice, the nagging conscience, is dead. You don’t care who you step on on the way up because you’re not coming down. There’s a separate set of rules for you, you’re a Greek god, lightning explodes from your fingertips.

Back at home with a brain that boiled like a cauldron of Louisiana gumbo. What to, what to, what to do? Zelda bubbled up to the surface. Used to work together at an agency, still spoke now and again. Liked to feed me freelance. Didn’t see her much, used the phone. Had always been a chemistry between us which I’d been very careful to discourage. Married chicks had always been off limits, police barricade, don’t cross. And if that were not sufficiently sufficient, and it were, she was moody, spoiled, and unpredictable. Cheese not squarely on the cracker. But to quote the redoubtable Lord Buckley, “If you get to it, and you cannot do it, there you jolly well are, aren’t you?” Which is another way of saying, I was looking at all career options, full-time freelance, free time full-lance, ad copywriting was a favorite. Half a dozen thoroughbred accounts in the barn and I could be completely independent. Fuck the corporate world and how they did me, wouldn’t treat a stepchild like that, but like they always say, he who laughs last, laughs flaff flaff flaff flaff flaff. With projects pouring in from Zelda, and all the other angels I would meet, prosperity was unavoidable.

A Manic episode can elevate instantly. One night I was washing the china, the next night I was China. For months after I was desperately racing. Going nowhere. Going off. My mind glowed like a rocket, wildly churning out ideas. The ideas were totally unconnected, or, at best, hinged on a sliver of wordplay. At first this made me feel powerful, it’s unbelievably entertaining. After a while, it was like having a demented television set in my brain that I couldn’t turn off.

Okay. Ready? Good. Let’s get to it. Time to drop the needle in the tracks and separate the soul from the wax. Decided on a trip to D.C. do you see? Hang around with friends, formulate a plan, check in with two kittens I was grooming. Made calls, set dates, packed my papers up, blueprints for the life I was designing, rocket Metroliner down the northeast corridor to the bacon of industrial democracy. Straight to the tail of the train for a joint, watched the rails whip away, like a pair of shiny serpents parallel. Over, I thought, it was over, and overrated by me, the life I wasn’t living was over, glossy Metroliner, limos would be next. Everything awaited my arrival. Sat alone, train mostly empty, or partly full, depending on perspective, as is the case with everything, gazed through glass at the green scenic smear, felt the electricity percolate my blood, girl came by, said it was her seat, said she’d only gone to get a soda. Automatic gentleman apologies. Second thoughts, minute thoughts, of hours spent together in secluded, romantic b and b’s. Kiss, don’t telephone, don’t television. Asked her could I stay and she said, wood eye? Struck dumb stunned and amazed. Beauty so exquisite that it pained me, looks that were the fortune of a noble family, inherited like chairs by Duncan Phyfe. Blonde hair, blue eyes, strong cheekbones, thin nose, pouty lips, something almost tough in her persona. The body couldn’t ever be as perfect as her face, but it was, especially the legs. Probably in her thirties, but dressed for an exclusive boarding school, crisp white blouse, suspenders, culottes, black watch plaid. Central casting fantasy, magic realized. How could I survive a life where dreaming made it so? The mettle I was made of was tested by her legs, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them.

Everything is, the way it is, for a reason. Or, it isn’t. Or both. Or neither. It’s so hard to tell. But I can tell you. I can tell you a mile away. I can tell you’re a mile away by the Luke in your eyes. Matthew. Mark. John upstairs on your left. A marvelous hat was timed by all. All’s well that’s oiled well. If you think the party is dull, circulate, if you think it’s fun, circle seven. Every won played Counts. Except those who played Contessas. The Count’s divorce was uncontessad. At the auction she was chomping at the bid. The subway in London is the fellow peon tube. Tube B or not Tube B? I once met a Jewish gangster exiled in the islands, his name was Bermuda Schwartz. European? No, it’s just ice in my pocket. Don’t step in the poodles. She was only a stableman’s daughter, but all the horsemen knew her. Then there was the performance artist who said, “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I’m like.” Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts Albert Finney. Remember that bastard Lester Maddox? He was a racist, and a brutal hatemonger. He was the Lester of two evils. Stop, I’m killing me! Want a drink? No thanks, I’m not drinking any more. Of course, I’m not drinking any less, either.

These are glory days for Invisible Driving. I’ve discovered the core position, The Empty Car. While performing The Empty Car I’m in the driver’s seat with feet on pedals in the normal arrangement but all of me above waist level is bent over, resting on the passenger’s seat. I have the mirrors set so that I can still see perfectly well but to all observers the car is unoccupied. It’s incredibly funny. We’re talking radnopolis funny. Impossible for me to pull this maneuver without cracking up into a squizzling, snerchified hysterical laughter. I laugh with a nervous, giddy delight at the sheer absurdity of it. I laugh with a childish delight at the outrageousness of it. I laugh with an anxious excitement, agitated by the risk. But I laugh most uncontrollably as I imagine the reactions of the passengers in the cars who see this apparition. The ghost car.