Acid

Acid. I’ve written about it before— that I had taken my fair share of it over the years. I took my first hit of mescaline “mesc” when I was about 15. I was also smoking pot and sometimes stealing cups of booze from my dad’s bottles behind the bar (and replacing it with water— man, was I smart. Duh). I was in High School. I’ve also written about the complexity of my psyche, its fragility, in those years after I moved from Watertown to Randolph. Anyway, now sometimes I look at older pictures of my brother— older pictures of us in general— me, friends and family and I remember certain things at certain moments. Lately I’ve been thinking about acid. Acid trip moments—the mind altering madness and surreality; the slowing down of time and the uncontrollable laughter from the smallest trivial occurrence. If it was a good trip, you didn’t want it to end; if it was bad it would never end. There was no escape.

The infamous Rhode Island night with Dano— I actually posted that journal here before— but basically we got lost and picked up a hitch-hiking prostitute by mistake. There were the times tripping at the fort— myself, Rich, Dave and whoever else may have been with us— Kevin and Glen maybe or Dano but, all of us sitting by a campfire at night in a park frequented by cops, as our laughter shot across the quiet summer night. Once, camping in The Blue Hills tripping all through the night, hiking and following a red light on the horizon because we had no idea where we were going or where we were and afraid that we were going to get jumped by angry raccoons. There was that time when me, Rich, Dano, Dave, Wabrek and Slabs dropped mescaline at the Dylan and Dead show at Sullivan Stadium— myself standing in a sea of Deadheads as they danced and floated along to long Dead jams and I’m just observing in amazement, struck by the unification of it all— like everyone had drank the same cool aid; then I realize I’m probably just like them floating around in my own strange orbit. That time tripping at my parents, twice actually— once when my parents were out— a Saturday night and me and Rich are “tripping our socks off” and we had put on The Wall video cassette to watch it on my parent’s big TV and we get so fucked up, we drift off in different directions—I made my way upstairs into my room and laid down and all the while I can hear Pink Floyd playing on the TV and I’m seeing the most surreal images in my head— dancing women who bend over and piss in my eye, like holograms in my head, all kinds of shapes and colors and the music pulses through my body and it’s dark in my room and I have no idea where anyone is and I close my eyes and watch the fireworks of acid pop off in the darkness of my mind. Another time with Dave and Rich, huddled in Dave’s small room as we played Atari on the small TV, in particular Joust and listened to George Carlin records and at one point the record got stuck and kept playing, “the cock crowed 3 times” over and over;  none us could get up to fix it— it just kept playing and we laughed at it until suddenly we heard my mother’s voice calling us from down stairs and her voice became part of the record and it was an insane symphony that gripped our minds. There was that time at Rich’s mom’s house in Holbrook—me, Rich and Dave— outside watching the sky— they are both tripping, having dropped before me and mine hasn’t kicked in; as they stand there looking at the sky they keep asking, “Did you see that? look its moving! Its following us. Ssh… it’s a ship or something”— I’m looking and telling them, “guys you are just tripping, there’s nothing there” and I’m laughing at them; but suddenly mine kicks in and by golly they are right— there is a light that follows us as we walk through the Grove and it’s all so weird and funny. And my last trip, around 1999 I guess when me and Dano and Doug went hiking for the weekend, climbing Mt Greylock and on the second night we dropped acid; right afterwards, a couple of hikers pass by our tents and warn us to keep an eye out for a bear and her two cubs they saw just down the road— oh great… and when my trip kicks in, it’s a night of paranoia and confusion so great that I can’t hang out and talk with anyone—Dano, Doug and a couple of fellow hikers we met; but I crawl into the safety of my tent and spend the rest of the night listening to them talk and often laughing at loud at some of their jokes (this was when I decided my days of tripping were over— I had given up pot years before as well due to paranoia as well) and I can only imagine the jokes at my expense as they heard my laughter coming out of the tent and knowing I was on a bad trip.

Anyway, I just wanted to get these memories off my chest.