Madagascar

by Steven Schwartz

  “What’s it like?” I had asked him.

  “It has to be experienced,” he said. “You can’t explain an acid trip in words.”

  Which didn’t sit well with me, since words had become an obsessive pursuit and I’d already filled four steno pads full of new vocabulary. The longer the better. If it had five syllables, a Latin derivation, and could be dragged from one’s mouth like a wall of computers, I would work it into a conversation with Maida. “Your father longed to be a symposiarch,” or “What tremendous vox angelica!” (about the final note on Sgt. Pepper’s). I suppose Maida tolerated this as best she could. I thought I was speaking with clarity and precision and that my words would bring forth substance and color from an otherwise dull mind—my secret fear about myself then.

  “Why can’t you talk in simple language and let your ideas stand on their own?” Maida would ask.

  “Form is ideation. And language is the form overarching all other modes of human perception—mathematics, art, prayer. If there’s no experimentation with language, there’s no evolution in our awareness and the culture of ideas ceases to grow. And besides that, it’s just fun.”

  “It’s not very much fun for me. I have to keep a dictionary in my hand if I want to understand you.”

  “No need,” I retorted. “I shall promulge a translation at your request.”

  (Where does arrogance like this come from? And how does anyone get away with it?)

  Maida agreed to take LSD with me near the end of the summer. I had finally said to her (in the most simple language possible), “It would mean everything to me if you did,” implying that what “it” would mean is that if she truly loved me she would agree to do this, despite her fears. “It” had become something else, not the usual male plea for sex, but a new pressure. Maida’s inner life. If I had this, I’d never lose her.

  •

  I asked Lester if he wanted to join us. And once I had extended the invitation, we were stuck with his acceptance.

  Maida was speechless.

  “I never expected him to say yes,” I said.

  “Why did you ask him then?”

  I shrugged. I had an answer but I was embarrassed to tell her. We’d stopped halfway up the path to the recreation hall. Jeff was back there setting up, whatever that meant. “I thought he might feel more included.”

  “In this? Of all things, Ivan. Couldn’t we just have gone to a movie with him if you were feeling guilty? Did you have to invite him on an acid trip with us?”

  “I thought it would make him more…open.”

  “To what?”

  “Maida, I’m trying to explain. You’re not giving me a chance.”

  “You could have asked me first.”

  “I thought you would agree with me.”

  “About what?”

  “That it might help him. Soften him up some.” I turned away, embarrassed at what I wanted to say. “Help him love.”

  Maida sniffed my clothes. “God, Ivan, you reek of pot.”

  “I don’t believe we can be at peace in the world until we find our enemy in here.” I tapped my heart. “And until we stop hating one another. It seemed a good opportunity to practice that philosophy in my own backyard—with Lester.”

  “I’m getting sick.”

  “Look, you don’t have to agree with me to respect an opinion.”

  “No, I’m really getting sick.” Maida stepped to the side of the path and bent over. I held her hand while she took some deep breaths and recovered. With the handkerchief from my waiter’s jacket I wiped the sweat from her face. “I feel better,” she said. “It’s going to be so crazy anyway, what’s it matter? I’m really nervous about this, Ivan. Just don’t leave me.”

  Wearing a blue satin robe, sandals, and a leather choker, Jeff greeted us at the door. “Peace and welcome,” he said. He led us into his bedroom. There, in a corner, with sandals also, sat Lester. He saluted us.

  “Hi,” I said. “Getting comfortable?”

  Lester nodded. “Just going along for the ride. I don’t expect anything can happen to me. Not if I don’t let it. It’s good training to resist brainwashing, in case I ever get shot down.”

  Jeff handed me sandals. “Passengers will please remove their shoes.” I could see he was making an effort to ignore Lester. Only after I’d convinced him that Lester would be less trouble if he was with us instead of marching up and down in his room playing John Philip Sousa marches or threatening to call the cops did he agree to get an extra pill for him.

  “Sit down,” Jeff said. He’d brought all the pillows in from the other rooms and spread them around the floor. On a foot-high shelf was a bowl of marbles and a prism. “To look at later,” Jeff said. The stereo speakers stood at either end of the shelf and on the speakers incense burned in brass holders.

  Maida said, “Can’t I just take off my sneakers? Do I have to put sandals on?”

  “Please,” said Jeff. “We must be wearing the same materials on our feet for our energy to connect.”

  “Those are flipflops,” Maida said. “They’re from Woolworth’s.”

  “They are holy launching pads. Just put the goddamn things on.” Jeff smiled, politely. He’d been planning our trip for a week now and didn’t like his script being ruined. He gave us each a stick of incense to hold. Lester sniffed his. Jeff coaxed us into a circle in the middle of the floor and told us to join hands. Lester reluctantly put his hand in mine but squeezed it extra hard once he did, so he wouldn’t be accused of having a limp grip, I guess. I could barely restrain a yell. Jeff said, “Brothers and sisters, let freedom ring.” Then he went over to his dresser, opened a drawer, and took out a plate covered with a linen napkin. It was a plate from the kitchen. He carried it over to us carefully, as though it were filled with water. When he set it down in front of us, there were four of the tiniest blue pills I’d ever seen.

  “I don’t want to go first,” Maida said.

  “I will,” Lester volunteered. Jeff brought the plate over to him and he picked up the little pill—it looked harmless, almost cute—between his big thumb and forefinger, sniffed this, too, then, placing it on the tip of his tongue so we all could see, rolled it down his throat. He held his hands out. See? Nothing to it.

  “It takes about an hour to get off,” Jeff said.

  “Sure, tell me when we get there.” Lester leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes, and snored. I avoided looking at Maida.

  “Next?” Jeff said.

  “Could I have a glass of water? I can’t take a pill without water.” I couldn’t. Even the smallest tablet could make me choke.

  Maida said she’d get me one, then came back with a cup of water from the bathroom and sat down next to me. She put her hand on my leg. “I want to take mine with Ivan.”

  So we did, swallowed them together, then kissed. Lester yawned audibly, followed by a snort. He was reading a car magazine.

  I tapped Maida’s shoulder, pointed out the window. “Isn’t that Mrs. Fischel?”

  “Where!”

  “Coming toward us—in the hoop skirt and Living Bra.”

  Maida punched me.

  “And there’s Mr. Rifkin. I can read his lips. Acid Schmacid.”

  “Don’t you dare do this once we’re off, Ivan. I’m not kidding.”

  “I promise. It’s going to be fun.”

  Lester had his size twelve feet up on the wall and was turning pages as though he were ripping them out. Jeff danced around the room waving sticks of strawberry incense. He’d wrapped an Indian sari over his shoulders and was making wa-wa noises. I checked my watch: 2:00 exactly. I felt great.

  2:10: Maida gets up to use the bathroom. Jeff comes over to sit beside me. He sings in my ear, “You’ve got to admit it’s getting better, it’s getting better all the time…”

  2:25: Lester is really sleeping. Or pretending so hard that he’s convinced us all. He’s curled in the fetal position, snoring, his big body beached in the corner with his hands pressed betwe
en his knees. The hair on his chest sprouts from the collar of a green Army T-shirt. I feel chilly and ask Jeff if this is a sign of getting off. He says not necessarily, but brings me a blanket from his bed. Maida asks me if I want some grape juice.

  “Sure,” I say. “Do we have any?”

  She looks at me, confused by her own remark. “No. Why did I think we did?” she says, and we both break up laughing.

  2:36: I have to go to the bathroom. Ordinarily I’d just get up and go, but I feel stuck. I’m suddenly worried I can’t move and that this is the wrong thing to be doing. Maida is searching through her big straw bag for a pen. I’ve asked her for a better pen than the one I have, which is leaking all over my hand, stubby black ink dots. I have to continue making notes. She’s taking all the things out of her bag and lining them up in neat soldier rows in front of her: keys, sunglasses, comb, brush, tampons, eye drops, nail clippers, chapstick, postcards, matches, checkbook, photo booth pictures of us…

  “I’ll be right back,” I say.

  Maida looks up from her bag, her hand buried deep in the bottom. “What?”

  “I said I’m just going to the bathroom for a minute.”

  “’kay,” she says in a little girl’s voice and goes back to rooting through her bag.

  2:50: When I come back Maida is sitting crosslegged on the floor and the articles have multiplied into four rows.

  “Did you find one?” I ask.

  “One what?”

  “A pen.”

  Maida rocks forward until her head touches the floor. She turns her cheek and looks up at me, smiling. “Ivan.”

  “What?”

  “Ivan, come down here.”

  I sit down. Maida’s rear is in the air and she’s kneeling on the floor, her face in her hands. Her cheeks are red and her eyes are pushed back so she looks Chinese, or maybe Japanese. Or Austrian. Who knows. Jeff and Lester (who has “woken up”) have gone to the hotel kitchen to get some food in case we get hungry later. I estimate and make a note that they have left “in tandem at 2:48.”

  Maida tugs on my arm while I write. “Stop, Ivan. Come down here and play.”

  “I have to write, Maida.”

  “Write what?”

  “Everything. I need to keep a log. For instance, if you were to look directly overhead”—Maida drops her head back—“and could see through the roof of this building, you’d notice that the sun is directly above us and forms an exact perpendicular angle with the plane of your legs. This is called the angle of incidence. If we are on a hillside now…imagine that we are on a sand dune in the Sahara—”

  “We’re eating guava fruit.”

  “Right. And as we sit on this dune, its angle very slowly increases in steepness, growing more precipitous, until the moment we begin to slide down—that’s the angle of repose.”

  “Angle of repose,” Maida repeats, her eyes still closed. “I see lazy people with fat stomachs. They’ve wrapped themselves in cool white sheets and are stuffing guava fruit in their mouths. What is guava fruit, anyway?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It tastes delicious, though,” Maida says.

  “What’s it taste like?”

  “Green.”

  “Sounds slimy.”

  “Not that kind of green, Ivan. The color of twilight. You stopped writing.”

  “Yes.” I was turning my hand over, looking at the back and front, watching the veins.

  “Want to make love?”

  “Jeff and Lester will be back soon. Where?”

  “In your room. We can lock the door.”

  “I’d feel funny with them out here.”

  Maida pulls at her T-shirt. “God, I really want to take off my clothes. Do you want to go swimming in the lake?”

  I pick up my pen. The fact that it’s leaked all over my hand no longer bothers me; it interests me. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, under the circumstances.”

  “I just feel so hyper. I want to do something physical. Is this what’s supposed to happen? All this antsiness?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should ask Jeff.”

  Who had walked through the door at the moment. Lester and he were carrying cheese, bread, fruit. I had no appetite.

  Jeff brought a bottle of Welch’s grape juice over to Maida.

  “Is this what you wanted?”

  “Where’d you get it!”

  “Never you mind, my princess.” With a courtly bow he took a wine glass from his back pocket, unscrewed the bottle’s top, poured a little grape juice in the glass and handed it to Maida. She sipped the juice, smacked her lips prettily.

  “Does it meet with your approval?”

  “Exquisite.”

  “And you?”

  “What about me?” I said.

  “Are you going to sit there until the cement dries around your butt?”

  “I’m very comfortable.” I picked up my notepad.

  “He’s keeping a log,” Maida said.

  “I see.”

  “Aren’t you hot?” Maida said to Jeff.

  “Yes.”

  “Want to swim?”

  “Sounds great,” Jeff said. He came over to me, walked around. I was sitting on my knees, my spine straight. Now that I was in this position even the slightest movement seemed extravagant. I was more interested in thinking about moving than actually moving. The body was an antiquated organism, primitive and unevolved. While thoughts could travel instantaneously, bodily parts followed behind like slow beetles.

  Jeff lit a cigarette. He waved it in front of me. “See anything?”

  “Your cigarette,” I said. “What should I see?”

  He made a wand of the burning ash and created loops, figure eights, fancy bows and spinning corkscrews.

  “Wow,” Maida said.

  I restrained myself. I, too, saw the orange plumes from this tiny comet, but why should I cooperate? My thoughts were what interested me. Not these jokes for the eyes.

  “I don’t think we should leave this guy,” Jeff said. “We can swim later. What do people want to listen to? Lester, how about you?”

  Lester stepped out of the doorway and let his arms fly up. “Whooosh!”

  “Do you want to hear anything?”

  “Supremes,” Lester said. He went back to the doorway and pressed his hands against the frame, Samson at the pillars. Maida was suddenly next to me. She had put her arms around my neck and was hugging me, whispering my name. I felt annoyed by the disturbance. I’d just had another thought and lost it when she interrupted.

  She rubbed her hand over the back of my shirt. It was my white shirt—I hadn’t changed from work—and I wondered what sustained the whiteness, how did the particles of energy hold their whiteness in place? Or was it my mind that thought it white, and the color white was actually a prolonged thought of whiteness?

  “Ivan, talk to me, please.”

  “Why?” I said. My voice sounded far away to me, as though I were speaking through a pipe or into a coffee urn.

  “You’re so distant.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I said.

  “I’m not okay. I need you to be more with me.”

  Jeff came over wearing lipstick and a turban, or maybe his lips just looked red from eating strawberries. But he had wrapped a towel around his head and taken off his shirt. He’d drawn dark circles around his nipples with my leaky pen. I remembered now he’d opened my hand and taken the pen from me, and I’d watched my fingers spread out like the speeded-up film of a rose blooming. I looked at my watch. Both hands had stuck together over the two—but that was impossible. We’d already gone past 2:10, unless my watch had stopped, but how could it go backward and stop?

  “Sure,” Maida said and stood up to dance with Jeff. I’d have to make a note of that: Maida stood up to dance with Jeff as if he’d asked her…She put her head on his shoulder. Stop, I thought, and shook my watch. Stop. Stop. Stop. But I meant the opposite. The opposite of that opposite.

 
Then the room flattened out and I was above it looking down and watching Maida and Jeff kiss. I heard a sound like Moragggh, as if the record player had suddenly been unplugged in the middle of a song. But the record was still spinning and Jeff was rubbing Maida’s sides, her breasts, and she was squeezing her eyes shut and holding his hips against her, and then I saw myself sitting there watching them and I plunged.

  Maida and Jeff were next to me. “What’s wrong?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You screamed.”

  “I went up,” I said. “I saw you from up there.” I pointed to the corner. “I was above you.”

  Maida rubbed my hands. Jeff put his arm around me. “It’s all right,” he said. “Take it easy. Think grounded thoughts. Hold onto this.” He gave me his toothbrush.

  “I don’t want to hold your toothbrush! I was up there. Don’t you believe me?”

  “Ivan,” Maida said. “Don’t freak out.”

  “I’m not freaking out.” Jeff had gone somewhere. I turned my head and he was gone. “My mind unplugged—my senses, that is. It sounded like the record stopping.” I made the sound—Moragggh. “But it was my other body slipping out of my physical body. I was up there watching you.”

  Jeff came back with a glass of water. “Drink this slowly,” he said. I dipped my finger in the water and stirred. The water’s molecules jumped away from my finger. I held the glass up for Maida. “Do you see that?”

  “He’s really freaking out,” Maida said.

  They were talking about me in the third person now, so I did too.

  “He wants to know something,” I said.

  “Don’t do this, Ivan. You’re scaring me.”

  “Do you love each other? He wants to know.”

  Maida looked pained.

  I pointed to their eyes. “Do your two you’s love your one another’s?” The room was starting to spin again, like before, flatten out and be sucked onto the record disc. I could feel a tear, a rip starting in my vision. “I’m going up,” I said.

  “Let’s go outside, all right, buddy?” Jeff said.

  “Can he see her breasts?”

  “Just take it easy.”

  “If he can see her breasts he won’t go up.”

  I lifted Maida’s shirt. She started to cry, but I had to touch her nipples. They felt warm, thoughtless, safe, pink, quiet, and down. The tear closed up.