Hello All:
Is speed (methamphetamine) even a thing anymore? With the ever-growing chill culture of society, you can't help but wonder if speed is still big like it used to be in the 1970s. It is, but the culture has shifted significantly. In the 70s, speed was largely associated with rock and roll stars, writers, and a certain bohemian/intellectual elite who used it to stay awake and creative for days. It was also big in disco and gay club scenes. Speed made a massive comeback in the late 90s and early 2000s rave scene. While that faded somewhat, it still persists in electronic dance music (EDM) circles, though MDMA (Ecstasy/Molly) is now more dominant there.
There’s a growing trend of veterans and blue-collar workers using prescription stimulants to cope with pain, fatigue, or PTSD, similar to how people used amphetamines in WWII. You won’t see as many writers staying up for three days straight on speed in Manhattan cafes as you did in 1975. But people are still taking it, just in different contexts, often mixed with or replaced by prescription ADHD meds, and in different social groups.
Oh, but then we still have the main character in today's new short story who has found new levels of energy, power and overall being from a nice bottle of speed.
The Rhinestone Cowboy’s Last Ride
Mac adjusted his mirrored aviators in the rearview mirror of the school bus, the neon lights he’d strung along the ceiling casting prismatic reflections across the dashboard. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a habit he’d picked up from old Westerns—and gave himself a wink.
"Damn. Just damn."
He’d never felt so alive. Not since he was a kid, anyway. Back then, he’d dreamed of being a star, a cowboy, a man who could ride into town and leave everyone breathless just by walking in. But life had a way of grinding dreams down to dust...until now.
His friend, Eddie, had handed him that little orange bottle of speed a week ago. "Try it," Eddie had said, grinning like a man who’d already seen the future. "You’ll see things different."
And he had.
At first, it was just energy, real energy, the kind that didn’t leave him slumped in his recliner at 8 PM, staring at the same rerun of Bonanza for the hundredth time. Then came the clarity and the power. He realized, with a slow and creeping certainty that the world responded to him differently when he looked like he belonged in it. And so, he’d spent a few thousand dollars on a wardrobe that would make even the most jaded Vegas lounge singer blush.
Rhinestone jackets... silver-threaded shirts... pair of boots so polished they could’ve been made of liquid mercury. He changed outfits every day, like a man shedding skins, each one more dazzling than the last. His coworkers laughed at first in good-natured ribbing, he’d told himself. But lately, the laughter had taken on a different edge. Like they were humoring him. Like they "knew" something he didn’t.
Mac adjusted his hat, a wide-brimmed Stetson with enough sequins to blind a man at twenty paces, and keyed the radio.
"This is the Rhinestone Cowboy, heading out!" he announced, voice booming with the kind of confidence he’d never known before.
A pause. Then, dry as dust: "Mac, it’s dispatch. You need to identify with your official name and bus number."
Mac’s grip tightened on the wheel. "Again."
"Come on, now," he muttered. "You know who I am."
He didn’t dose up before work. Safety first. But the bottle of speed in his bag was a promise; a guarantee that when the workday ended, the real Mac would rise, the one who could do things and be things.
The radio crackled again. "Mac, traffic’s a mess downtown. Accidents, construction. You might wanna take the bypass."
Mac’s pulse quickened. "No. No, no, no."
He popped two pills from the bottle, dry-swallowing them as he turned onto the final stretch of his route. The kids chattered in the back, oblivious, their backpacks slung over shoulders, their laughter filling the bus like the sound of a thousand tiny bells.
"Almost there."
Then he heard it—the unmistakable wail of sirens.
Mac’s stomach dropped. He glanced in the mirror. A cop car, lights flashing, was tailing him.
"What the heck?"
He hadn’t been speeding. Hadn’t run a light. Hadn’t done anything. He may have gone through a yellow light, but that's not a crime. Unless...
His blood turned to ice.
Unless "they" knew.
Unless the Devil had sent his minions to stop him.
Mac’s foot pressed the accelerator harder. The bus lurched forward, the kids in the back shrieking with delight.
"Whoa! What’s going on, Mr. Mac?" little Timmy asked from the third row.
"Just a little detour, Timmy," Mac said, voice steady despite the storm inside him. "The Rhinestone Cowboy’s got places to be."
The cop car stayed with him, siren wailing, lights strobing like a warning from hell itself.
Mac’s mind raced. He knew the town’s roads better than anyone. He could lose them. He "had" to lose them.
He took a sharp turn onto the freeway on-ramp, the bus groaning under the strain. The cop car followed, siren screaming.
"No. No, you don’t get to do this."
Mac floored it.
The speedometer needle climbed—70, 80, 90. The bus shuddered, the kids in the back now screaming for real. Mac didn’t care. He was beyond caring. He was beyond fear.
The cop car stayed with him... then another... and another.
Mac’s breath came in ragged gasps. His heart hammered against his ribs like a drumbeat of doom. He sweat profusely. He risked a glance in the mirror. And there it was: The Devil, not in the car behind him. No, the Devil didn’t need a car. The Devil was in the "faces" of the officers, in the way their eyes gleamed with something "other". And it was in the way the radio crackled with a voice that wasn’t a voice at all, but a whisper from the pit of hell itself.
""Mac,"" the voice hissed, ""you don’t have to do this.""
But Mac did have to do this. He had to prove he was more than the sum of his parts, more than the bus driver and more than the man who’d spent forty years invisible. He was the Rhinestone Cowboy! And the Rhinestone Cowboy did not stop!
He hit 110... 120.
The bus rattled like it might shake apart at the seams. The kids were crying now, their small voices lost in the roar of the engine and the wind screaming through the broken window where Mac had, in a moment of inspiration, shot out the glass with his .38.
"That’s right! I’m armed! I’m dangerous! I’m the Rhinestone Cowboy!"
The Devil’s voice slithered through the radio again. ""You’re making a mistake, Mac.""
Mac grinned. "Not a mistake. A "statement"."
He swerved onto the shoulder, kicking up a storm of gravel. The cops followed, their cars fishtailing in his wake.
But what was this? Spikes! A roadblock!
Mac’s stomach lurched as the bus’s tires blew out one by one. The vehicle slewed sideways, metal screaming against asphalt, before finally grinding to a halt.
For a moment, there was silence. Then the doors burst open. Cops poured in with guns drawn and voices barking orders.
Mac didn’t resist. Not at first.
He let them haul him out, his sequined jacket tearing under their rough hands, his hat flying off to reveal his sweat-soaked hair.
"Sir, why were you outrunning us?" one of the officers demanded, shoving him against the hood of a cruiser.
Mac’s breath came in ragged gasps. His vision swam. "I—I thought you were the Devil," he panted.
The officers exchanged glances.
Then one of them—a burly man with a face like a bulldog—snorted. "The "what"?"
Mac’s shoulders slumped. The illusion shattered. The Rhinestone Cowboy was just a man in a torn-up suit, his dreams of grandeur reduced to a pile of glitter on the asphalt.
The officers cuffed him, reading him his rights in voices that were suddenly, blessedly "human".
As they led him to the cruiser, Mac caught one last glimpse of the bus, his bus, sitting crookedly in the middle of the road, its neon lights flickering like dying stars.
He’d failed.
The Devil had won.
Or had he?
Mac’s lips curled into a smile as they shoved him into the backseat.
"Maybe not."
Because even now, as the cruiser’s engine roared to life, Mac could feel it—the faintest whisper of that old energy returning. The promise of the pills in his bag, waiting for him in the evidence locker.
The Rhinestone Cowboy wasn’t done yet.
Not by a long shot.
