The Blacklight Shuffle
In 1996 I rode my motorcycle across the country, from Maine to California. The route went down the East coast Across the bottom of the country and then up the coast of California. I was planning to move to California and had a girlfriend who had moved out ahead while I was riding. My buddy Hans and I decided that it would be a last hoorah before he took a Fulbright scholarship and I finished my degree in Biology at Humboldt State University. We were having a great time.
While we were going through Louisiana I met some scorpions. Late one night we were looking desperately for a place to sleep. At about 11:00PM we found a state park and we relieved because we could go no further. As we came into the park I noticed the there was a public phone lit by a black light near the entrance of the park. I had not called my girlfriend in a while and was pleased that there was a phone, and even more pleased that the park lit it up so I could see it in the dark. After we set up camp I staggered, exhausted over to the phone. The light made my white tee shirt glow in the dark. I dialed the number and slumped on the ground to talk to the woman who had left Maine to be with me in California. We talked for a while. I was tired and very engaged with my conversation when I noticed something glowing by my hand on the ground. I assumed it was a gum wrapper and ignored it. A few seconds later I noticed another glowing object near my foot. Seconds later another near my leg. The one near my leg MOVED.
There is a moment in every trauma where the reality of a situation fails to register. It is as if the world around really is not connected to anything. Like television. The moment I noticed that there were nearly twenty scorpions crawling all around me and ALL OVER me, my mind could not really take it in. There are no scorpions in Maine. Certainly no scorpions ON ME in Maine. Then I realized: I am not in Maine, Maine is very far away, and apparently, where ever I am there ARE scorpions and there ARE scorpions on me.
The next few moments were hard to recall accurately. My girlfriend later (through fits of laughter) recalled that she thought that I may have been goosed. There was a great deal of profanity and thrashing about. She did hear my jacket hit the ground (although she did not know what it was) and she did hear me desperately trying to pick it up and shake it off. You see, there were scorpions on my jacket. When I jumped up to get away I threw my leather jacket on the ground. I threw it on the ground with MORE SCORPIONS and had to retrieve it. Through all this jacket business I was dancing – stomping my feet and jumping up and down – I was concerned that there may be scorpions on me that I could not see. I was hoping to shake them off. My glowing white shirt was not helping. To a bystander it must have amusing: A Yankee, on the phone, dancing madly to an unknown rhythm throwing his jacket to the ground and gingerly trying to pick it up as if it were on fire. Like a phone interview for a tragic Star Search dance act.
I was not amused.
Funnier still was that I did not just let go of the phone. I was still trying to talk. I kept dancing and twisting and shaking all the while holding onto the phone as though I were chained to it. Occasionally I would shout some curse and stomp and generally carry on like a madman. Finally, I told her that I had to go and that I thought there may be a scorpion in my pants. She thought that I was making some sexual reference. Through the ruckus, I never told her what was going on, and she did not ask until my next phone call. She just assumed I was being funny or frustrated that we were so far apart.
That is how I almost died from scorpions.
Just a note if you don’t know. Scorpions glow under black light. That is why the light was on near the phone, so people would see the scorpions. I thought it was low impact lighting for the phone, not a safety feature. You lean something new every day.
Cracking the Walnut 