Chapter Nineteen: Unprepared
I rubbed my hands together as I circled Collin’s field and tread up the weary cement path up to the quad. The bristles of folly combed out my path.
On the front stairs to the Cerrone Building, freshman clutched together, cramming until the last second. The first set of tests ended and the bell of the chapel tolled with dense echoes sweeping across the campus.
A guy with a top hat that said 1000% cleared through the main entrance at the top of the stairs and scattered his notes to the wind as another guy with checkered flannel drifted behind him. The flannel guy took the stairs with stiff knees and reached down for the last step. He sat with his hand over his head and began to rock and sob. I climbed the wide stairs as the rest of the herd was set free and a kid I had seen at parties, smelling of peppermint schnapps, ripped off his shirt and vaulted the length of the stair. The exams might not have been hard, but the ground was.
I killed my exams.
The prime hurdle was cleared and I had free time to release the tensions. Good news came that I had a ride home and the rest of my anxiety left me like vapor lifting off a warm pond.
George’s sister had space and was going to give me a lift up North. I was going to stay at his house for a night and vegetate. Tim came to me about the investment he talked about but wouldn’t tell me until I got to his room. His stare emitted radiation as he bounced on the balls of his feet. We got into his room and he unzipped his pants and unbuckled his belt.
“Woah buddy,” I said.
“Dude, no, I wouldn’t fuck you anyway,” he said and turned away. A square of aluminum foil spread the fine light as it lifted high into the air. Tim zipped up lefty with a hop. I was relieved but unsure what was going on.
“Man, we got the perfect day for this. Sunny, warm and lots of people have left so the field won’t be crowded,” he said as he giggled.
I suspected what was in the foil.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned to me with a clown smile and said, “Triple-dipped blotter with a high mike count, more than double the dose of doses. You’re in for a treat.”
Mushrooms were fun in the past, even if I puked because I didn’t eat, but LSD was in another league. It was major and I never touched it.
“Cool, have not dropped that in a while,” I said.
“Then I won’t have to baby sit you, nice. I can take off for a romp in the woods,” he said and began bouncing on his feet again.
He reminded me of Erin before her first Meth date. They had been spending a lot of time together.
“Go ahead do what you want, but do not tell anybody we did this. Some people would act like assholes if they knew,” I said.
“I won’t tell anyone, but you gotta learn that it doesn’t matter what other people think. It’s all about you. If they say shit, fuck em,” he said with one eyebrow raised. He unfolded the foil.
Tim motioned me to come closer and said, “Put it in your mouth for five minutes or so.”
A metallic taste seeped out of the paper tab and it began to dissolve on my tongue. I wasn’t sure if this treat would turn into one hell of a trick. Tim dropped and we reclined on his couch, smoked a few smokes and waited for it to take hold as the TV went on. After awhile, I began to doubt anything would happen.
I couldn’t say how it hit Tim, but a wave of heat crashed below my feet. In a blast of fracturing light, scarlet orbs appeared and glistened on the walls. They shook and flattened into small red dots that spread across every corner of the room. Tim began waving his arms around a few minutes later and said, “Great, this shit is great.”
My fingertips went numb as I reached to the side table to grab a smoke out of the pack and two ghostly images of my arm followed behind only to be absorbed by my arm. I heard about “trailing” before from friends and a visual trip just got its traveling papers. The smoke jumped to my lips without much resistance.
Needed to get my lighter from my pocket but I didn’t want to look so I slipped in my hand and rolled the lighter out with my fingertips. The taps of my fingertips sounded like a stampede of horses for a second. I had no idea how I was going to light it as my clothes became tinny, hard with sharp edges.
After squirming in my seat, tacked down by some strange force, I felt like I had to do something or combust. My eyes closed and as they opened battalions of bug eyed aliens crawled from under my skin, stuck their tiny tongues out and marched up my arms right under my shirt. I felt them wriggle as they funneled into my bellybutton. My flesh became hot coals.
Tim rubbed his hands together and said, “This shit is quick man, you can really feel it turning now. I have a good idea let’s go out on the field and toss the Frisbee. Those’ll be killer trails like a jet’s vapor-trail.”
I stood and his room pressurized like the cabin of an airplane but instead of air, gelatin was pumped in through the vents
“All right, that is a wonderful idea. I will meet you out there but I must do something first,” I said in a British accent.
Tim laughed and said, “Where the hell did that come from? You must really be off, but let me warn you if you haven’t had a strong trip before taking a piss might scare you a little so just take it in stride.”
I was confused.
“What do you mean take a piss? I am just going to change my clothes,” I stated in the accent again.
Tim busted out into a roar and fell to the ground. He looked up and said, “Achtung, never mindt de piss thing, you will vined that out soon enough, but why are you changing your clothes?”
He tried to say in a German accent but it came out like a Dieter, from Saturday Night Live on Special K.
In a bad French accents I said, “I am itchy and think I did not get all of the soap out of these clothes the last time I washed them. Just go up there and I will be there in a minute.”
I changed my shirt four times and my pants twice. My outfit didn’t match but the fabric was loose. The oversized gray oxford shirt buttoned without regret but the pair of sweat pants decided they wanted to go on backwards. They fought me off but gave up and went on the right.
My shoes went from cross-trainers to black boots. After I changed, I had to relieve myself but thought it would be in my best interest to hold it. I made my way down the vibrating stairs with a clumsy trot.
After two failed attempts, I opened the exit. The outside was a preheated oven. I drudged with heavy steps held down by thousands of tiny arms up the inclined sidewalk between the dorms up to the field. The grassy slope never seemed so sharp.
The heat was pressure. The walk was a strain on my hamstrings. My heart broke rhythm as I rose to the flat land above. The world straightened out at the bend of the hill and on Collin’s field Tim was throwing the disc straight up in the air and tracking it as it fell to the soil not attempting to catch it. Each time, I saw two spectral images give chase to the Frisbee and be absorbed by the disc spinning on the compacted soil. He saw me, pointed and laughed.
I knew I looked ridiculous. I passed through the chain link gate while Tim continued to throw the disc in the air and as sure as the sun also rises, trails followed behind.
“Sure, you’re really beginning to flow away aren’t ya,” he said.
“I guess. Feels like the sun is holding me down,” I said.
I flopped down onto ground to watch the clouds race by and transmute into fat faces. Tim’s eyes then caught my attention. They were completely black like a demon in the movies. He was a cartoonish demon throwing a Frisbee straight up in the air.
I rolled to my feet and bumbled to the other end of the field for some space near the soccer goal. The sun kept pushing down and all I could think about were his eyes. They were dolls’ eyes. They were black holes pulling light in from the space around them.
“Yo Walk! Heads up,” Tim yelled as he wound up and threw the disc to me.
I was a spindle.
I couldn’t think about anything else but his dem
on eyes and let the disc whiz by my face. It left a streak of shadows. Just as I was about to throw it back, Tim started spinning in place like a child with his arms outstretched and his face to the sky. He fell to the ground, flopped and flipped like a fish and laughed. I hadn’t noticed all of the people around until that moment and paranoid thoughts ambushed me.
They all must know what was happening since Tim was freaking out. They were going to tell campus security. Tim got up in slow motion and in a flash he was next to me and asked, “You want to go explore the trail? It leads to the river. There’s some cool shit along the banks.”
“No, I am thirsty and need another smoke so I am going inside for a while and bug by myself. You just go and find me later,” I said as my eyelids blinked out of control.
I wanted to go but I thought that the people at the field would follow us. It was imperative that I had to go somewhere else and look normal for a while. Tim suddenly twisted his body and said, “Okay.” In a few fast forward flashes he gone but I could still see his eyes.
I made my way to my room and lit some incense and put on Axis, Bold as Love by Jimi Hendrix. The little red dots reappeared and danced across the walls and floor. Everything began to shift. Solid objects melted to the floor and just as the molten mess spread they would reform. I struggled to my bed. It was hot as piss.
The incense no longer gave a scent. A daydream of me as an alchemist transforming elements with a forge and glass beakers materialized in front of me like a movie on a movie screen. The hallucinations seemed most under my control.
A higher reality was entwined with the fabric of my mind. A playful light glowed form my closet. There was no fear. I wanted to walk above death with God on the seam between the planes of existence. Perception was cleansed. Being wrapped in this fabric I was safe, but then it ripped, a spirit choked back into flesh.
A flash sparked and I caught a glimpse of the clock. Three hours had passed in minutes. The atmosphere condensed and the pressure increased. I was pressed down on my back again, but the sun’s hand had no grip. Lithe little fingers of light stretched through the blinds to illuminate the room. Breathing became forced and shallow. Was I going to suffocate from Acid?
As it began, it ceased, and I took in a full choppy breath. Before when I puked at in the cafeteria’s bathroom, I thought not having control of your body was the most horrible thing that could happen. I was wrong.
The trip scattered my sight in a thin sheet but at least I could breathe and figured a smoke would relax me. I went to grab a smoke and realized I couldn’t feel my hands as my head was filled with helium. The sound of the pressurized gas escaping from a nozzle hissed in my ears. I located my pack and lit a match. The flame did a hula. It was alive, it was breathing, and trying to talk to me but it was too tiny to hear.
I had to destroy the little being because he couldn’t be allowed to watch what I was doing. He extinguished.
The CD then tracked to another and began playing Carmina Burana. This was on the sound track from the Door’s movie. I listened for a moment but it was too chaotic and they were screaming at me in a code. As I crawled on my knees and elbows, the sound of sandpaper on dry wall scratched up from the ground. I pushed up through the dense atmosphere and put on Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic from The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Everything got heavier than before so I just let gravity take me down and watched the ceiling spin and twist into faces. The glaring cold faces would bubble down to me and when I blinked they were absorbed back into the ceiling.
Every cell in my body screamed.
After clawing my way up to my bed, I told the sheets and blankets what a nice job they did at night and silence fell. My heart beat hung and hit and I realized somehow I had a cigarette in my mouth. The entire length of ash dropped to the floor from my cigarette. The butt was out. With every tilt or movement of my head, the room shifted. One wall would bulge and the other would lunge away. They mocked me with muffled laughter. In the empty space in the middle of the room collapsed in on itself creating distortions that bent the light around it. Gravity was folding space-time over and over.
In a gulp, the distortion enveloped me and crashed down dense as water. Everything fell a way, sight, sound, smell and touch phased out of existence.
I was relieved to feel a prickly pain tearing through my side as my senses returned. I went flat on my back in the middle of the room and heard people knock on my door. Time was no more.
I had to pee. Thank God I had to pee. With what reserves were left, I sprang to my feet. A few people paced the halls with zombie faces, but I didn’t look at them. The stall was stable, unmoving, and I unzipped my pants. Terror struck again. My penis was gone.
My pants dropped to the floor and I saw that it had just gone into hiding. The fear broke as I heard a froggy throated woman laugh. I had to get back to my room but my feet were stuck. The toilet became a face, my father’s face, as everything took on a vibrant yellow hue.
I said, “Fuck you.” and my feet were free.
I blinked and was back in my room glued down to my chair. My hand rose up without me wanting it to and in the wake of the trail a small road was built brick by brick reaching out across the room. My hand twisted, detached and went off on its own all the while giving me the finger. With a blink, my hand was back in place but down the road I saw a micro-man, a tiny imp, made of flame and smoke walking towards me.
He walked up my arm and I tried to shake him off but he clung fast as he crawled into my head through my ear. My chest wouldn’t expand. I couldn’t breath.
I was insane.
The only sedative around was booze and George had some.
George answered his door and said, “Man, I knew you guys were fucked up but I did not know you guys were tripping. Tim just came buy and mumbled incoherently and then said, ‘acid’’ and left.”
“Man, I need something to come down. I am not having a good time. Can I have your beers?” I pleaded.
“Sure, come in. I got something better,” he said and I went in and sat like a skinned cat.
“You shouldn’t screw with Acid man. Shroomz and X are all right but Acid can fuck you up permanently,” he said and went through a black toiletry bag.
“Here take a Valium. Stole it from Ma. Should help. It’s weird man, I never saw anyone have a bum trip until I came here. Now, you’re the second,” he said, handed it to me and sat down next to me.
I popped the pill.
“George, thanks. Can I have the rest of those beers?” I asked.
George said something but I could not make it out. I think he was mouthing words trying to mess with me.
“Go ahead, there are only five left but with that Prince you should go to sleep in an hour,” he said.
The beer burned my gullet as I chugged. It was warm and I couldn’t taste a drip. I drifted into a cold sleep.
At first the sleep was sound and undisturbed, but after five hours I would wake up intermittently covered in sweat. The odd dreams woke me and the thought of going back to sleep was scary. The purple room and the eggs were always there. The delta waves of REM sleep broke on the shore of my sandy mind and I got up with the sun. Reality was different now and wasn’t sure if I could hold on to my sanity.