Authors: Denise Kahn
By the time the game finished I was tripping so hard I was completely incoherent to the world. I just became a tag-along making sure not to be left behind. I do recall walking out of the stadium though. Jason reminded me about the weed in the jacket I had hid for Jimmy. I yelled: “Dude, pick me up at Jimmy’s in then minutes, I gotta grab something!” and just like that I was off in a full sprint. Jimmy lived about ten minutes away and halfway to his house I thought it would have been a lot smarter to jut hop in a car instead of running to his house. But running at full speed just felt so right at that moment. As I was running my hallucination became incredible. I saw peacock feathers flashing on and off in the road. Parked cars, although I knew they were parked, were racing with me. How could I be running this fast and not be able to beat a parked car? Am I running fast I asked myself, or am I running slow? I have to be running fast, I thought. I felt my heart pounding through my chest and sweat was running down my back, actually my clothes were soaked. I was pissed about this. How could I go to a party all sweaty? I didn’t stop running until I got to Jimmy’s driveway. I was so close with Jimmy and his family that just walking into his house when no one was there was not an odd thing for me to do
I looked at myself in the mirror at the top of Jimmy’s stairs. To my surprise there wasn’t one drop of sweat on me and my heart wasn’t racing at all. Had I even been running? What the fuck was going on? There is no way in hell I could have walked from the game, but my body showed no signs of physical stress. My face wasn’t even red. The only thing out of the ordinary in that mirror image was the wall paper making a whirlpool behind me. I had to get the fuck out of Jimmy’s house. I busted into his room and reached into his jacket pocket. The bag was still there. I put it in my sock and turned around. Down on his little table right by my window seat was the cover of the Doors album. Jim was staring at me with crazy fucking eyes. His eyes told me to go and make sure to get in the car. Safety would find me there. At this point I was scared shitless. I flew the fuck out of Jimmy’s house and didn’t look back.
The whole ride consisted of me getting higher than I ever needed to be, as they kept passing King Kong around. I was contemplating whether I was talking out loud or just thinking to myself. “JASON!” I yelled, really loud.
“What man?” I was so relieved when he answered.
“Nothing, just making sure I was talking and not thinking.” Everyone in the car started laughing.
“Dude, you’re tripping hard.” He told me this was by far the best acid he had ever taken and I couldn’t deny it myself.
At the house where the party was I went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. Charlie and Terry were there. They were two of the guys from the little band we were just forming and I layed down the beat with the drums. I was real happy to see them because earlier that day I had a great idea for a song. We started to bullshit, don’t even know about what, and as the thoughts about the song came to me I was sure I was brilliant. A million things raced into my mind on basically music, the band and what we could do to improve to make it big. We definitely had talent. And that was no exaggeration. But as I was thinking about this I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t express myself. I tried so hard to speak to them, but all that came out of my mouth was gibberish. I was finally able to say after a couple of minutes of mumbling that if I could explain what I was thinking things would be good. Charlie and Terry gave me a look that I will never forget, and I was totally embarrassed. It was the ‘Max is too fucked up for his own good look’, and there was nothing I could do about it. I left to go talk to Jimmy. He looked like a mad scientist, aka his famous fucked up face. I decided I would talk to him later. The next couple of hours were pretty dull. I smoked lots of cigarettes and made small talk. On the last time I went to the kitchen to grab a beer I looked at the clock. I had now been tripping for nine hours off of one hit of acid and I wasn’t coming down. Nine hours was a long time to trip and I didn’t want to do it anymore. Sometimes when you’re on a hallucination you come to a point when you just want it to end but it doesn’t. I was now worried. And then I heard someone from the living room say something that hit me so hard the acid in my body stayed with me for one year. Now when I say this I don’t mean the hallucinations and the gibberish and the crazy thoughts, but side effects came really hard. “My friend’s dad took a hit of acid and tripped for a month,” was what I heard. There is no description for how hard this hit me. I get the jitters even now while writing about it, just thinking of that moment in time. I could see myself as if looking in a mirror. Scared. God came down and took my soul from my chest and told me I would be tripping forever. This was it I told myself. I was going to be like all those vegetables that did too much LSD and were on a life trip. I thought my life was over. I saw my friends through the years, when they would talk about me, and would say: “Oh, yeah, I remember Max. He went crazy off of some acid he took one night. Too bad though, he was pretty cool.” I saw it all. My parents coming to visit me in the institution, my mother crying and my father disgusted he raised a son who had now become a statistic. ‘Another teen lost to drugs’. This one statement changed my life. My heart began to beat so fast I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I could no longer hear voices at the party, only mouths opening with silence coming out of them. I had stepped over the line. I was on a life trip. I spoke to no one for the rest of the night. I went up to a room and tried to fall asleep. This was absurd. The drug would not let me do it, neither would my thoughts. I was living in a nightmare and I honestly began to contemplate suicide. The thought lingered for a while, but I always associated suicide with cowardice and my warped mind at that time knew better. I told myself I was stronger than that. I was.
Sleep finally took over my body and when I woke up the next morning the very first thing I did was run my hand across my face to see if I was still tripping. I saw many hands, the acid was still there. My body didn’t still feel the high from the drug, but when I looked around colors were more vivid, and I would always seem to catch things out of the corner of my eye. The drug had done its damage and I at that moment fell into a depression that would last a year.
I called my mother to pick me up. Something I had never done after a party in my life. But this time I didn’t care if she smelled the booze on my breath. I was going to come clean with everything I had ever done. And that’s exactly what happened. I told her about the drinking, the marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine and the past night I had just experienced with the acid. Although it had not been my first time on the drug I told her. I was sure it was going to stay with me forever. I waited for my mother to cut my balls off, instead her reaction surprised me. She is a strong woman, and always an optimist. She was calm and understanding and offered me words of comfort. “Do you need to go to the hospital?” She asked me. “To get the drug out, maybe that would help?” I told her I wasn’t going to a hospital. I didn’t want people to know about this, not to mention what this would do to her career. I told her I would deal with it. I just needed her to be here for me. I started to cry. She pulled the car over and held me. “You’ll be all right,” she said. “I know you’re strong. You can make it through this. No drugs will bring my son down. I have faith. If you think negative thoughts then there will be negative outcomes. I am here for you, but only your own mind and body can get you through this. Just know I love you and no matter what I will be your mother and best friend.” I stopped crying. I thought back to the previous night. Your mind is so fragile on acid. A negative thought or a comment can affect the person on the drug so hard that they could deal with worse consequences than I was feeling at that point in my life. I knew I could get out of it. I would do it, but right then the fear was fresh in my mind.
For the next twelve months I quit everything except for smoking (cigarettes). I was so afraid that any drug would trigger the LSD again I wouldn’t risk it. I didn’t even drink. As a matter of fact I wouldn’t take any medicine either. Not even an aspirin. I had sunk so deep into depression I would force myself to go out with my friends or my girlfriend at the time. I had everyone fooled. They really didn’t know what was going on. Well I think I did tell Jimmy. I couldn’t fall asleep at night unless the TV was on. I refused to be left alone with my own thoughts. I needed to hear another voice. It made me feel like someone was there. It gave me comfort. I would always consult with my mother throughout that year of my life, and every day she stood strong by my side. I will always hold my mother closer for that time when she was my savior. When I had no one, I had someone! Thanks Mom, I love you.
One morning, approximately one year later, I woke up and felt normal! It had left me and I woke my mother up to tell her. She told me it was the first time she had seen me smile, really smile, in a long time. I gave her a hug. I had overcome. I had adapted. The chemical didn’t own my body any more. I owned the chemical. I was free. It was a great feeling.
A couple weeks after that morning, I smoked pot. Now I know this sounds bad after the negative experience I had just gone through with drugs, but what this meant was I was sure enough in my own mind. I was strong enough to handle it. And smoking pot was just how I had left it. I would never again mess with acid or any other drug. As I write about this moment of clarity I hope I will be able to overcome the ongoing struggle I might always have with drugs. I think I can do it. I hope I can do it. I don’t want to make my parents go to my funeral
. I
don’t even want to be at my funeral, well, until it’s my time, and only the Big Guy upstairs knows when that is. So I decided if I wanted to stay alive and get rid of my addictions I was going to enlist.
Max was on a bus, full of young men like himself, in the middle of the night, somewhere near their destination. It was just as dark in the bus as it was outside. And there was complete silence. No one spoke. They were all lost in their own world, in their own thoughts.
They were sleepy, slipping in and out of their dreams, thinking about their young lives and possibly what lay ahead for them. Some were boys just out of high school, others came from farms, and some had never been any further than their county. A few of them always dreamed about being a Marine and wanted to become leaders in the military community. A few joined up to get help with an education or wanted to see the world on the military’s dime. Some were missing a number of teeth, possibly from gang related activities, and the military possibly provided them with an honorable career and life, instead of a penal or even death sentence on the violent streets. Yet another little group like Max were addicted to drugs, alcohol, or both, came from a myriad of backgrounds, some wealthy, some not, and figured the military was their last resort.
They pulled into Parris Island. One of the first things they noticed was a gigantic and beautiful Eagle, Globe and Anchor, the Marine Corps’ insignia, on what looked like two massive stainless steel doors. They were all immediately awake. The ‘tss’ from the air brakes sent a shiver down their spine—this was it—they had arrived at their destination.
So Max went through ‘detox’ the hard way, the really hard way. His welcome, along with the other young men, greeted them in the shape of a Sergeant, wearing green pants, a tan shirt and a Smokey Bear hat. Even in the darkness the men could tell that Smokey didn’t have a single wrinkle on his uniform and they were absolutely positive that under it his body was just as faultless—his height, weight and dimensions seemed scripted to his job. Every muscle appeared effortlessly tuned, his face flawlessly shaven, and his stance impeccable. The Sergeant looked like a poster for the Marines. The young men were getting their first dose of the Corps—anything less than perfect was unacceptable.
Smokey jumped on the bus screaming at the top of his lungs. “GET OFF MY FUCKING BUS! YOU BELONG TO ME NOW! FALL IN!” The men scrambled into formation, and not very efficiently. “ON THE YELLOW FOOTPRINTS, AND IN AN ORDERLY FASHION!” He watched the boys for a moment and started up again. I WANT YOUR FEET AT A FORTY-FIVE DEGREE ANGLE! KEEP YOUR FUCKING CHINS UP! YOU ARE ON RECRUIT DEPOT PARRIS ISLAND. MANY HAVE STOOD WHERE YOU ARE NOW STANDING, MARINES WHO FOUGHT AND DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY, RECIPIENTS OF THE HIGHEST COMMENDATIONS IN THE MILITARY, THAT’S WHO!”
Max wondered if Smokey only had one octave. It seemed his voice knew one particular decibel—extremely loud. The sergeant went on and on, and the new recruits understood that this was the beginning of the end of life as they had known it so far. Every single man who had been on the bus believed they were mentally tough and could handle anything the Corps would throw at them. That thought was quickly dissipating.
By the time the sergeant came up for a breath the new recruits had subconsciously learned enormous amounts of Marine Corps history.
“This is definitely not the City of Lights!” Max whispered through his teeth to no one in particular, thinking that one of his favorite cities in the world—the other Paris—had absolutely nothing in common with this island.
“You’ve been to Paris?” The man with a southern drawl standing next to him whispered back. Max looked at him from the side of his eye, thought this was possibly the biggest black guy he had ever seen, and that he should be a linebacker for some professional football team. He was also concerned that the big man was one of those gentle giants, quiet and polite, until someone really pissed him off. Smokey, with enough ribbons on his tan shirt to decorate Christmas packages, and who kept screaming at the top of his lungs, would probably get him to that point.