(From the archives, Scotland, 1992…)
Weekend off. I eat a big dinner, and have some Santa Claus beer, get drunk, but in control. All in preparation for my first acid trip. At 10 I met Jen and Juanita. Juanita’s nickname is WahWah, but that isn’t really important. We take our Super Mario tabs. Juanita has one, Jenny three (she’s a regular user) and I sensibly take a half. Just to be safe. After an hour nothing has happened, except for a slight tingling sensation, a bit like E. So Jen convinces me to take an extra whole one. Once it had dissolved, she told me that they were double-dipped, meaning I had taken the equivalent of three tabs. So I braced myself. Ga-ga Land arrived, and stayed with me until 5 in full effect.
I sat at a table of women, all strangers except for J and J. And Juanita didn’t stay long, she went around the corner to bug the barman. The tripping took a long time to begin, but when it did, there was no mistaking it. My entire body throbbed, tingled and disassociated itself, moved a few inches sideways. My pulse speeds up, slows down. I start to grin and can’t pull my lips back together. I get paranoid that people will think I’m laughing at them, or that I’ve gone crazy, but the paranoia fades. I start to explore other aspects of the drug. I can’t move my head smoothly, everything jerks, and fills my attention. I can’t look between people, just at each girl, with full on attention. I am fascinated by two of them, and I’ll make up their names. Marna is of Indian descent, is wearing too much make-up, and has a long crooked nose, like a theatrical witch. Sometimes when I look at her, I can see pure evil, she is the devil, I’m not scared. I watch Jackie. She is wearing a beret, and looks like a jazz singer. I am at her command. She knows it, but leaves me be. And then I turn to Jen.
“Are you in?”
“No, it’s just stopped”, and my brain is clear and with it, suddenly straight. I think, oh-oh,
“No, I’m in, it’s starting again”
“Me too, here we go!”, and she grabbed my hand, and we closed our eyes, and sailed over hills and rivers, beautiful countryside. And arced, and dove, she was holding my hand, flying beside me. And then I opened my eyes, and the room started to swirl. I looked deep into Jen’s eyes, the flying movie playing on her pupils. I asked her
“Did we?”
“Of course, you were with me, we flew. It was beautiful.”
And after that, I couldn’t talk anymore. I just sat and let the girls entertain me. They were having conversations, but there was no order in what they said. I rapidly shifted my attention around the table, picking up one word from each girl. These words flowed and matched, made sense and rhymed. A stunning poem formed, the most beautiful I had ever heard, from unconnected dialogues. My mind was juxtaposing time and words, and creating.
That kept me amused for a while. Then I noticed the walls around me. On one was a poster of Frank Zappa. I don’t know his music, but I recognised his face. He was talking to me, telling me that everything was ok, he would guide me thru. He is “somebody”, and I can trust him. He held a finger to his lips, and whispered “shhh”, and I reciprocated. Despite his soothing calm, I began to feel paranoid again. Marna looked as if she was about to bite me. And I really wanted to get to know Jackie better, but my whole body was frozen, it took all my strength just to turn my head. Where was Juanita, she is the only one I can trust. When is this all going to end? I’ve experienced enough. The sights my eyes received were ebbing and flowing, ripples of images, distorted and dressed in lurid colours. I needed Juanita to stop it, and I couldn’t see her. Maybe she had succumbed as well. Jen wouldn’t help me, just ignored me, as if she couldn’t see my distress. Closing my eyes just made it worse, I was trapped, had to endure, but it will never end. I want my old world back. Please, help. Jen was now watching me, but I suspected that she was controlling it all. I struggled to find my feet, where were they? I couldn’t look down, all but my eyes were numb. Trapped.
So I endured, and endured. Then I had a sudden urge to visit the toilet. I had to move, or I’d piss my pants, and there is no way that is going to happen!! I left the table, bypassed my lack of feeling, and just did it. Went to the urinal, but not much came out. Hmmmm. Then I went back to the table, Jen had left, and just sat with all these women who I didn’t know. They had earlier been rather intrigued by me, but now ignored me. I was all alone in the world, family and friends all dead? Endured some more, crying internally. Juanita looked around the corner from the bar, and waved to me. I wanted to cry out, but couldn’t. So I tried telepathy. Please, Juanita, help me. No good, this LSD isn’t as marvellous as I had thought. My pulse began to race too fast, faster than ever before, pushing my heart to the limit, to death. Desperate again, I propelled myself to the bar, and shyly tugged on Juanita’s sleeve.
“Please help me”, I whispered.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be ok”, and she returned her attention to the barman, George.
“I need to go home”, whispering a little louder, I tried commanding her.
“Ok, I’ll see you later”
“No, I need your help, I’m really scared”
She finally realised what was up, took me by the hand, and led me home. I could now talk freely, and when I told her how much I had taken, she understood how I was. We left the alley, and stepped out onto the Mile. It was all black and white!! Like an old movie. Except for the phonebox, which was bright red. I was now viewing a pop video!
“Hey Juanita, look, the phone box is red!”
“Wow, Hack, so it is!”, she looked at me incredulously
And as we walked down our hostel street, still black and white, no, it’s sepia, I saw a mob of angry men, wielding baseball bats, charging up hill towards us, mutely yelling. I paid them no attention, and we entered our home. Hostellers were in our way, legs outstretched, chairs out of position. We just walked straight through them. Hmmm.
“Let’s get you to bed”, said she.
“Thanks, Juanita, you really saved me”. I gave her a big hug, and found myself forcing her into a kiss, she pushed me away. She led me to my dorm, and pushed the door open.
“Goodnight.”
“No, wait. I can’t make it, not alone. You’ll have to walk me to my bed.”
“No fucking way, you can’t fool me, uh-ah.”
“I’m serious. Don’t you trust me, just walk me in, that’s all, then you can go”
“No way.”, and she tried to outstare my sincerity. I was sincere. I was very very scared.
“Ok then, can you help me get to the couch?”, and she led me downstairs.
Sarah was playing pool and offered me a game. I felt fine now, and Juanita left me in Sarah’s hands. “I’m tripping”, I told her, and we both grinned. I broke, and sunk two balls, then missed. My next shot, I chose to just smash the cueball in a random direction. As I did, a large hole opened up in the centre of the table, and three balls fell thru it. I shook my head, and looked at Sarah.
“Good shot, Hack. Helluva fluke though.”
“How many did I sink?”
“Three. All yours too, you lucky bastard.” I checked the little window at the bottom of the table, and sure enough, those balls were there. I can accept hallucinations, no problem. But when they fit into the real world as factual, it’s spooky. I didn’t want to play any more games, so we just sat and chatted. Kathi joined us, and Sarah, after checking that I’d be ok, left us. I then just sat quietly, and forgot how to talk again. Kathi fell asleep on the couch. I was sitting on a hard dining room chair, in the centre of the room. And I just sat there, waiting for the the trip to wear off. Time slowed painfully. Kathi merged into the couch, they oozed into each other, became one, joined at the hip and shoulder. Eeuugghh. I looked at the mural on the wall, and let the hallucinations happen, but they were very boring. There was nothing else to look at, just the wall, and a distorted Kathi. Why was that, the rest of the room was normal, but Kathi had melted. Why? I wish there was a clock. I tried to count minutes, based on my now regular pulse. And as I concentrated, that urge for the toilet returned. I was very desperate, the urine had reached the very end of my penis, and was about to spurt out, I couldn’t hold that muscle taut any longer. If only someone would walk thru the room, I could ask for help. I wasn’ t too proud.
But no-one came. After a forever torture session, I recalled that I should just move, and quit pondering on how. So I just moved, stretched, stood, and moon-stepped to the cubicle. Stood in front, fumbled with my fly. Men know what that feels like, it’s an urgent piss, about to burst, and can’t get your fly open. Well, my hands were completely numb. It was tough. And when I did piss, the flow wouldn’t stop. The tinkle stopped, I could no longer see my urine, but the sensation remained. I was still pissing. I grabbed some toilet paper, and dropped it into the bowl. It didn’t get wet. I wasn’t really pissing. I zipped up, but it felt very wrong.
My world had returned to normal, except that I walked funny, and my body felt spongy, soaked. And Kathi was still melted, like a Dali painting. I looked at her from all angles, the picture remained constant. Too scared to wake her, or wait for her to wake (as a monster?), I went upstairs to reception. And sat solemnly. For hours, lost in a numb state of confusion. Shock maybe. Friends passed, and laughed, I must be play-acting. Mark sat with me.
“Hey Hack, it’s 10:30, time to do sheets. Are you alright?”. I just frowned, with pleading eyes, I couldn’t talk, I was desperately sad and alone.
“So what’s the story, are you going to work?”
“Do you want me to fire you?”. I still couldn’t reply. Shit, my life is disintegrating.
Mark returned to the reception desk, in a bad mood. It took me 10 minutes to snap into it, and I grabbed the list of beds to change, still unable to talk, and went to work.
“Hey Hack, cheer up! And don’t be so rude, ok?”, Mark called out after me. So I did sheets, and then washrooms, incredibly morose, time dragged. There’s no way I’m ever doing acid again, well at least not such a large dose. All day I was rushing to the toilet, only to find that it was a false alarm. This side-effect actually lasted many days, almost two weeks, of thinking that I was pissing my pants, and feeling my jeans to check. Of all the side-effects…..why that one?
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