by Laurel Brett
We called this the Diana Project. The class was split into groups and each group was going to be responsible for exploring a different personality and the life events that might precipitate it. I had never used such an innovative teaching approach before.
I outlined the rest of the class for them too: “We are going to talk about perception and the nature of perception, especially the experience of transcendence. We cover abnormal and social psychology in the second half of the course next semester.”
By Friday I had a new course outline with Schrödinger, Jung, Leary, Alpert, Maslow, Fromm, and Laing, along with the more historical sections of the text. I put articles on reserve in the library for them to read because not all this new material was in their textbooks. I brought fifty copies of one article I had mimeographed, but they weren’t nearly enough. It was still the add/drop period, and my class had doubled to seventy-five. We needed a new classroom.
I had designated Fridays as my day to trip over the summer, and some wicked impulse led me to drop a tiny dose of mescaline before my Friday lecture. I brought the psychology department record player with me, managing its bulky mass across the parking lot. I also carried Magical Mystery Tour to play to my class. The Magical Mystery Tour is coming to take you away, coming to take you away.
I knew I was skating on thin ice. Any hint that I was doing drugs or advocating drugs would probably have resulted in my immediate dismissal, but I made an ingenious argument. The rationale stated on my syllabus was this: Course Objectives: 1) To understand the history of psychology. 2) To explore the New Age psychedelic experience without the aid of drugs, to understand consciousness expansion, and to explore human potential.
I’d carefully disavowed the use of drugs right on this first handout. I hoped that would be enough to protect me from reprimands from the department chair, or worse. After we listened to one side of the album I explained the ways in which the music expanded consciousness. The small mescaline dose helped my insight, though I was so nervous that I vowed never to trip in class again. What had I been thinking?
Back at the psychology department office I returned the record player to its cubby. When I checked my mailbox there was an urgent message from the chair to stop by his office as soon as I got the note. Things were sleepy on Fridays so he would be available.
Alex Dyer’s office was at the other end of the hall from mine, and I could hear my shoes squeak on the highly polished linoleum as I traversed the distance between them. Mescaline usually created a very mellow space, but I was feeling paranoid. I felt transparent and afraid I had blown my entire career out of boredom and out of delight in Daphne and in drugs. The institutional sickly green walls had never appeared less aesthetic, even with the traces of tripping paisley that adorned them. I had proverbial butterflies in my stomach again, but my facile brain saw the butterflies actually flying before me, their beautiful orange-gold and black wings the markings of a flight of monarchs.
My mouth felt dry as I entered the room, and time stretched out like taffy as Dr. Dyer, disheveled as ever, slowly turned toward me after I arrived to find him staring out the window. Forever seemed to pass before I could gauge the expression on his face. Had he found out about the mescaline? Was I fired?
“Garrett!” he exclaimed. “Come in. Come in.” He seemed to be smiling, yet I didn’t know if I could trust my own perceptions. “I heard about your lectures,” he began, “and I looked over the syllabus you dropped off with the secretary this morning. We have had to cut off enrollment . . .” That sounds ominous. Maybe the class is being pulled. Maybe I’m going to be relieved of my duties. “. . . because the enrollment has reached a hundred, and that’s the absolute legal limit for classes in this building. Congratulations, Garrett. Well done. From thirty-seven to one hundred? That’s the stuff! And the best thing is most of these kids aren’t transferring in from other psych sections; they’re coming from religion, anthropology, and sociology classes. If we can get them in our intro course maybe we can grow our department and even add a line. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”
My palpitations stopped immediately although I didn’t trust myself to appear normal. “You don’t mind my not doing my behavioral section?”
“You have your advanced seminar for that.”
“You know I don’t have training in this area. I’m sort of making it up as I go.”
“No, but you’re a trained psychologist, and no one really has any training here. You could get some,” he suggested.
“A colleague is at Esalen. A good friend, actually. Perhaps I could take a course there.”
“Sure. Good idea.”
“How about using the word psychedelic? You’re okay with that?”
“As long as you don’t discuss actual drugs in class or make them a part of the curriculum in any way, I think it’s ingenious. We don’t have to lose the explorers to drugs. I support your syllabus.”
“You know that consciousness experiments often come from drugs, right? Indians and peyote, for example.”
“Of course. And medieval mysticism often came from ergot poisoning, but we’re not going to throw out St. Francis and St. Teresa because of it.”
He surprised me. He had always seemed like a stodgy social psychologist, but lately I’d been learning that he’d been a Marxist when he was young and still carried some of his fervor. And now he was surprisingly open-minded and even insightful. Maybe I didn’t give other people enough credit.
“One more thing,” he added. “I like your hypothetical Diana. I heard the kids were really excited about it.” He must have read my mind because he said, “I haven’t been giving you enough credit as a teacher. The Diana Project. It really has a good ring to it. I suggest you start keeping notes. It sounds like something you can publish as a unique pedagogical approach.”
I could never, ever let on that Diana was really Daphne and that Daphne was real.
* * *
My dose of mescaline had been so small that I stopped tripping within an hour or two of my meeting with Dyer. I still couldn’t believe my good luck. I’d spent all those years never stepping a toe out of line, and now, here I was transgressing boundaries and risking my reputation and being rewarded for it. I’d had no idea the world worked like this. I wished someone had told me sooner. If playing the bad boy was really rewarded, I decided to press my luck further. Coming off the enormous high of having enrolled one hundred students into my Intro to Psych class, I decided to take my daring into my personal life.
I had no idea where things stood between Caroline and Tom, but I felt that it was bullshit to have been edged out of her life like that. I loved her, and I wanted her back. Something as small as my Daphne obsession shouldn’t have to separate us forever. Caroline was just being silly. Besides, much to my great sadness, my last meetings with each girl felt like goodbyes. I didn’t expect that I’d be seeing any of them soon. The only Schrödinger girl I longed for and was really waiting to see was Ur-Daphne, whom I hadn’t seen in almost a year. I worried that I would never see her again. She and I had not said goodbye.
I knew I would miss the others, but I was getting used to loss, and they seemed to be going about their lives without much need of me. I’d seen the Daphnes so many times on my weekly acid trips that she had become part of me, the memories as vibrant as my memories of my father, and the improbable meetings I’d had with them just as challenging to understanding reality. I still had conviction of their truth, and now this conviction had sent my career soaring! The gifts she’d brought me were boundless.
Each Schrödinger girl resembled a refracted ray of light, part of the entire light spectrum. Ur-Daphne represented a beam of white light, the combined potential of the other Schrödinger girls, the way white light contains all frequencies of light. My acid explorations had allowed me to remember her with such vividness that sometimes it felt as if she had actually appeared—but I was still waiting for her.
I had two small tabs of mescaline to take with me to see C
aroline. I decided not to call her. If she was with Tom when I knocked on her door unexpectedly, so be it. We’d all be embarrassed and that would be that. The early-September light along the Hudson was the most beautiful of any time of year, especially in the late afternoon several hours before sunset. An azure-gold miasma seemed to rise from the river.
After Friday-evening congestion on the George Washington Bridge, I was finally in Manhattan and cruising down the West Side Highway to Caroline’s apartment. I think I must have been a little manic because I should have been nervous, but I wasn’t. I should probably have also realized that I was being boorish by disrespecting her very clearly communicated desire for distance between us, but my success at school had filled me with dreams of glory.
Soon enough I found myself knocking on her door. When she answered, as beautiful and collected as ever, her smart black dress still on from her workday, her hair twisted into a casual bun that enhanced her cheekbones, I knew I still wanted her. When she registered that it was me, conflicting emotions flitted across her face, and I could see her struggle to master them. She was surprised, annoyed, elated, and confused. I watched her compose her features, and she used a composed voice to match.
“To what do I owe this honor?”
“To my love for you and my extreme desire to see you.”
“Garrett,” she sighed wearily, “I thought we went over all this. Things just don’t work between us. We want different things.”
“Maybe, but I miss you terribly. Do you miss me?”
“I’m not sure I want to talk about that.”
“Can I come in?”
“It’s hot. And you know how small the place is.”
“Have you eaten?” She shook her head. “How about we share a pizza?”
“Oh, all right,” she said, giving in.
* * *
We sat at a red plastic booth drinking beer at a table covered with a red-and-white-check paper tablecloth. After the server put a slice of pizza on each plate we began to eat and felt freer to converse.
“How do things stand between you and Tom?” I plunged in.
Her answer was direct: “We’re not seeing each other anymore.”
“Why not?”
“He was just too normal. I couldn’t bear it. I thought I wanted the picket fence and all that, and he’s an actor, for god’s sake—flighty, right? But no, he’s so steady and mundane I thought I’d scream. And you’re too crazy. Clearly I’m a girl who can’t be pleased. And now I’m thirty-five so it’s all over for me anyway. No babies. No marriage. Just art.”
“Hm. Maybe you’re being just a little melodramatic?”
“Fuck you, Garrett.”
“Quite so,” I said. “I apologize.”
After a longish silence, I took a deep breath and said, “How about we put all that aside for tonight. No mention of touchy topics. How about we have an old-fashioned date? Just fun. Holding hands. Getting lucky at the end of the night. We can sort the rest out later.”
“You’re different. Where did this nonchalant confidence come from?”
“It’s a long story that breaks the rules of date night. All I can say is that I had a big win at school, and I’m still high on that. But no more for tonight.”
“Okay,” she agreed, though I subtly registered some reluctance in the droop of her shoulders and her quizzical raised brow.
Back at her place, I asked her if she wanted to drop the last two tabs of mescaline. Yes, my usage was getting excessive, but I’d had such a tiny dose that morning that I didn’t see the harm in doing a little bit more. I had discovered a world of spiritual fulfillment and aesthetic excitement. I thought a new point of view might help Caroline now.
“I know all about your acid experience. Tom told me.”
“He was great to me, by the way.”
“Yeah. He’s a great guy. Don’t remind me. I must be crazy to have sent him packing.”
“Remember when you said you weren’t looking for Prince Charming anymore? That perfection? That’s Prince Charming.”
“I see what you mean.”
“It’s your choice. Too straight or too crazy. You get to choose.”
“Um, too crazy?” She laughed.
“Good answer. I’m sitting right here.”
“Why should I take this mescaline? It scares me. I don’t even smoke pot.”
“I don’t either.”
“You don’t?”
“Once. It’s really good if you want to eat a whole plate of brownies. Otherwise, it’s not really my thing.”
“But mescaline and acid?”
“You see things, Caroline. I’ll tell you what. I won’t take the mescaline. I’ll guide you, like Tom did for me.”
“No. I don’t want that. I don’t want a straight person watching me.”
“I won’t think anything.”
“It’s creepy.”
In the end we both took the drug. I loved watching Caroline become excited by her visions. She devoured each piece of art hanging on her walls. “I never knew the colors were soooooooo vibrant,” she said. “I mean, red is really red. Everything is like van Gogh painted it.”
“If you say so, my darling art historian.”
We crammed into her tiny shower together for the first time. It had always seemed silly to me to fold ourselves into such a miniscule space, but now it felt just right. The hot water surrounded us like a curtain. Her streaming black hair struck me as primordial, and her laughter came from deep within her flattened belly. The nipples on her breasts were fragrant roses I couldn’t get enough of. I entered her while we were both standing in the water, each thrust turning the world rose gold. Caroline exclaimed, “So golden!” so she was there too, in the mist of gold, like in a Klimt, like in the Daphne Klimt. Golden water surrounded us, and we came forever.
When we’d used up all the hot water, we edged ourselves out of that tiny space and toweled each other off. Caroline was lovely, every curve of her body expressive. I had buried myself inside her as deep as I could go, and I felt her accepting me. We watched the stars through the skylight, flaming constellations that no one but us had ever seen before.
* * *
The next morning we didn’t say much to each other. We didn’t want to ruin the afterglow. “I’ll be in contact in November,” she said. “Forester is sending me back to San Francisco for a while. I’ll mail you the keys in case you want to use the apartment while I’m gone.”
She’d never offered that before. Something had changed.
“I think you should be careful,” she added. “About the acid, I mean. It could get to be a habit. That was beautiful, but I don’t think I’d want to trip again. I’ll just keep that experience in my treasure box.”
“Remember I told you things were going well at school? I’m teaching a course on having psychedelic experiences without drugs. I’ve got to practice that myself. Blake, Swedenborg, Rimbaud . . .”
“Bosch,” she chimed in.
“Sure. And Blake’s illustrations. And the amazing shafts of light in Vermeer.”
We embraced again, and parted. Daphne hadn’t been mentioned. All the ends were being wrapped up in the Schrödinger girls’ lives, and they were off on their own adventures.
But where was Ur-Daphne?
Chapter Twenty-Six
* * *
Two months later I still hadn’t heard from Ur-Daphne. I reconciled myself to the possibility that she was never coming back. I had stopped my acid trips, staying true to the vision of my course. I still spent time with the time line and listened to all the music she’d given me. I could hear her laughter when I conjured her in my mind. I broke down and called Daphne’s house as I had in the past, but just like then, I never reached her that way. The first time, her father answered the phone and I panicked and hung up immediately. The next time, it was her mother who kindly told me that Daphne wasn’t home. I could tell that she thought I was just a teenage friend. Her voice was casual and helpful. “Sure,
I’ll tell her you called,” she said. “Do you want to leave a number?” I assured her that Daphne knew how to reach me, but she never called.
But happily, Caroline, true to her word, called me in the middle of November. I was in the doldrums from Nixon’s election.
“I have a big favor,” she began.
“Shoot,” I said.
“I want you to spend Thanksgiving with me. Just us.”
That wasn’t so much a favor as a blessing. This year I had planned on going to Florida to my mom’s, but the flights were expensive and very crowded. I had been waiting until the last minute to book my flight, hoping for some deliverance, and now it had come. “I can do that,” I said.
“I’m still away, so you make the arrangements.”
I booked dinner in one of New York’s fanciest eateries. I chose the three o’clock sitting. I’ve always been in favor of an afternoon Thanksgiving meal, and the parade would be over by then, so traffic would not be a problem, although it would cost a month’s salary—only a bit of an exaggeration. The restaurant was housed in a brownstone on the Upper East Side. Although I usually eschewed fancy New York City venues, I had read that this restaurant was filled with flowers, and I wanted to celebrate the occasion of Caroline and my Thanksgiving together. I felt true gratitude. Jerry had once raved about the food. I had hoped he’d come home to spend Thanksgiving with his parents so we could get together, but they were having a big hippie Thanksgiving in California, and he wanted to be there.
I may have given up tripping, but I’d kept my beard. Thanksgiving morning, I groomed it carefully and wore my best shirt and the gray pinstripe suit. Caroline and I decided to meet up at the restaurant, and she was already seated when I arrived. She seemed different, softer. And a small smile played about her mouth.
“Hello, kid,” she said, sounding like Jerry. Why not? She knew him too. She wore a fitted dress in mauve, if I’m thinking of the right color. The tone suited her black hair, and it was a treat to see her out of black.