After a few minutes Sean asked, "Hey, Clay?"
"Hmmm?"
"What does that thing mean?"
"Hmmm?"
"That poster of John Wayne saying 'Buy a dachshund.' What the fuck does it mean?"
"It's a cowboy saying 'Buy a dachshund,'" Clayton muttered.
"I know that. But what is it supposed to mean?"
"Buy a dachshund," he slurred dreamily. "Get a long little doggie."
Sean considered this. "That's really stupid, Clay." Clayton did not respond, and a moment later he began to snore.
Soon thereafter Sean began to snore also. Artie's guitar ceased its melody as he and Deirdre lay sleeping, chastely clothed, in each other's arms. And Dorcas lay in the darkness, weeping softly, her head throbbing and her heart racing as a hangover began to exacerbate her misery and her shame.
Chapter Fourteen
January 11, 1969
"The time has come," Clayton said, "to talk of other things. . . ."
"Of goblin ghosts and haunted woods," Rebecca continued, "and bats with furry wings."
It was all very, very camp.
Timothy Leary, the self-proclaimed high priest of lysergic acid, once noted that the setting of an acid trip was the prime factor in determining whether the trip would be a good one or a bad one. He recommended surroundings with soft, muted colors, music pleasing to the tastes of the tripper, an atmosphere of security, and the company of close, trusted friends and lovers. As the two dozen young people walked through the woods toward the old Sweet house in the early dusk of January 11, 1969, Peter Geerson wondered what Dr. Leary would make of this rather bizarre beginning to the night's acid trip; and he was also very, very worried about the effect the drug might have upon Dorcas Ostlich.
The revelers had made it back to Clayton's trailer soon after the bars had shut down at four o'clock that morning. They were without exception dog tired and dead drunk, and the winter sun's brilliant afternoon rays brought them both unwelcome wakefulness and throbbing headaches. The breakfast of six warmed-over pepperoni pizzas added heartburn to their physical woes, and the afternoon barbecue of chili dogs and onion burgers did not serve to improve their conditions.
Of course, indigestion that would put a fifty-year-old in the hospital or an eighty-year-old in the grave was but an inconvenience to people whose ages ranged from nineteen to twenty-two. It did not, however, serve to engender a general mood of high spirits. Only Artie Winston and Deirdre Duell seemed generally content on that cold winter morning, for their previous evening had ended early, undramatically, and with a minimum of self-sedation. Dorcas Ostlich was severely hung over, and her usually melancholy personality had been rendered even more morose and withdrawn for reasons to which most of the others were not privy. Her sister Lydia was tired and still angry at Clayton, and Russell and Peter each felt as if a week of rest would be welcome. Most of the others were no better. Buzzy and Gary, Nancy and Suzie, Danny and Eric and the others were, in the parlance of the age, wiped out.
But not Clayton, who the previous evening had, as it were, exercised and then retired early. And not Rebecca, with her incredible capacity for merrymaking. And the destination of the straggling band as they stumbled wearily through the woods was itself not conducive to a good trip. Here, known to them all, was the forest where the body of Sarah Ostlich had been found a month before; here was where Dorcas had twice been confronted by Grogo the Goblin (or was I? she wondered); here was where Clayton had witnessed the lynching and the arson that had bound so many of the townspeople in a conspiracy of criminal silence; here were the woods bounding the river to whose protection Peter Geerson had dedicated himself, the woods which, unknown to any of them, Clayton Saunders had agreed to sell to the town two days earlier.
For various reasons known to all, the old house of Grogo the Goblin was not the ideal site for a communal acid trip; and it was to this old house that they were making their way as the sun began to set behind the Catskills.
"Come on, stragglers," Clayton called out to those behind him. "Don't get lost, or Grogo'll getcha!"
It was twenty minutes after five as they drew nigh the old Sweet house. Almost everyone had dropped acid at 4:30, figuring that they would be safe in allowing an hour and a half for the drug to take effect. Peter, the victim of numerous recent bad trips, had not taken any LSD; neither had Danny Douglas, who had gallantly volunteered to remain straight so that he could ferry others about in his van. Peter would drive Russell's car, and Clayton would manage his jeep as best he could. He had a good deal of experience driving while under the influence of intoxicants and hallucinogens, and he was confident that he would be able to drive adequately, as long as the road remained free of dinosaurs.
It had been assumed that Dorcas would adhere to her resolve never to take LSD again, not after that one very bad trip a year ago had landed her in a psychiatric hospital; but to the surprise of all and to the concern of Lydia and Peter, she took half a tablet. Lydia had been worried about the marked changes in Dorcas's behavior in recent days, the heavy drinking, the peculiar comments, and the dull, emotionless cast of her face and voice. She knew about her sister's recent hallucinations and generally unstable personality, and as they approached the Sweet house she said, "Just remember, Dork, you only did a half a tab, so it won't be like a real heavy trip." Lydia gasped softly as she saw a tree shift from brown to orange.
"I know, Lyd," Dorcas said impassively.
"I still don't know why you wanted to take even that much," Lydia went on, and then added quickly, "I mean, nothing's gonna go wrong, you know? Everything's cool. But still . . ."
"It's an experiment," Dorcas said softly.
"An experiment. What are you talking about? What kind of experiment?"
Dorcas did not answer immediately. She was looking at the gently shifting waves of soft color that were drifting over the forest floor, a sure sign that the drug was beginning to take effect, that she was, as it was said, "getting off" on the LSD. At last she said, "What is reality, Lydia?"
"Huh?"
"Do we really exist? Can we be like really sure that anything exists?" She stopped walking and took her sister's hand earnestly. "Think about it, Lydia. What if all that stuff Mr. Patanjali told me that time is true? What if you and I don't exist?"
"Dork, you gotta cut this shit out. This is. . . " Lydia paused. She had almost said, "This is nuts," but then thought the better of it in light of her sister's psychiatric past. "You've been talking about stuff like this too much lately."
Dorcas released her hand as they resumed walking. "I thought I saw some pretty strange stuff, and for the life of me I don't know if I really saw it. And it seems like I've been . . . well, doing things I don't remember doing." Her mind flashed back to the previous night, and she shuddered. "What I mean is that I don't know if stuff is happening that I can't explain or if I'm just going nuts."
"So you took some acid to make sure you are?" Peter asked as he came up beside her, his worry on her behalf masked by the acerbic tone of his voice.
"Come on, Pete"—she sighed—"don't, please. I just know that taking acid brings out all your, I don't know, your inner thoughts, makes you like see them. If I start hallucinating Vernon, then I'll know that it was all in my mind all along, that I never saw him or Mr. Patanjali in that cave."
"Great, just great," he said. "And I suppose that if you don't hallucinate Grogo, that'll mean that you really saw him and he really killed that old man and ate his brain and all that shit? For Christ's sake, Dorcas!"
Dorcas did not wish to argue with him, so she quickened her pace to pull ahead of them as her sister jabbed Peter hard in the side. "Peter, cut it out," Lydia said quietly. "What's done is done. She dropped the acid and she's gonna trip. You know as well as I do that we have to make her feel as good as we can, not give her a hard time about it."
"I know, I know," he muttered. "But it was a damn stupid thing for her to do."
"Wasn't as stupid as what you did last summe
r, dropping acid and then sitting around watching Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on TV while you waited to get off. Real smart, real smart. A movie about a guy who takes a drug that turns him into a monster."
Peter laughed softly at the memory of his own foolish bravado and the subsequent bad trip. "Yeah, I guess that wasn't well advised."
"I guess not," Lydia snapped. "And look at what Buzzy did, dropping acid and then spraining his ankle before he even started to get off."
"Oh, come on," he said. "He didn't sprain his ankle on purpose!"
"That's not the point. Dork already did the drug, so we have to keep her in a good mood, that's all. She sure as hell doesn't need you hassling her about it."
A few yards ahead of them, Sean Brenner was grinning as he waved his hand back and forth in front of his face, watching as successive transparent images of his hands were left briefly in the wake of the motion. "Gettin' off," he said, and then tripped over a root and fell on his face.
"Yeah, I guess so." Rebecca laughed as she helped him to his feet. "This is great acid. It doesn't give you that jumpy feeling, like that shitty acid Artie copped from Rod Silverio last summer."
"That shit was cut with speed," Clayton said over his shoulder from in front of them. "Made the hallucinations real good, but it kept me awake for two days."
"No speed in this stuff," Sean said. "It's pure. It's even on a Vitamin C pill, so it's actually good for you to take it."
"Yeah, you're such a health freak," Rebecca said.
Clayton moved out of the woods and into the clearing. "Here we are, boys and girls," he called out. "Welcome to the home of Grogo the Goblin."
The clearing had never before looked as it did at that moment, for it had never been viewed through the crystal spectacles of LSD. The charred ruins of the barn were alive with amorphous creepy-crawlies that swirled about slowly upon the blackened wood. A long, thick beam that had somehow escaped total immolation was now writhing rhythmically upon the ground, and an old willow that stood nearby was reaching out toward the ruins as if to embrace them.
The house itself, at most times a plain and rather ramshackle structure, now loomed over the young peo-ple as they drew closer. The house had grown consider-ably since the time they had dropped the acid, and its growth continued as they approached it. "Must be a thousand feet high," Sean muttered.
"Huh?" Lydia asked distractedly. She was staring up at the moon, wondering why it had begun to sizzle and steam.
"The house," he said. "Thousand feet."
She looked down at the house and said, "Wow" softly, for the house did indeed have a thousand feet. The house wiggled it toes.
"It was the long walk," Clayton said breathlessly. He turned to the others, who were walking unsteadily toward him in groups of twos and threes. "We're getting off like really strong 'cause of the walk. I mean, I'm like getting off, you know? Everybody else getting off?" A few people nodded their heads. Most of them just stared at him. "Yeah, right. All the exercise. I mean, all the exercise, you know? Like the blood pumping and shit, you know?" He seemed to believe that he had communicated his thoughts adequately, so he turned and walked up the steps to the door. The wood was soft and squooshy beneath his feet, and he worried briefly that he would sink down into it before he could grab hold of the doorknob. It was close, but he managed to jump over the final quicksand step and fall against the door before the wood sucked him down into its depths. He grinned at his sister. "C-close call," he stammered.
"Huh? Yeah. Huh?"
Clayton took hold of the knob and then hesitated. He turned and called out, "Hey, Peter, Danny. C'mere."
The only two people present who had not taken any of the drug came up to him, and Peter asked, "What's the matter, Clay?"
"You, ah, go first. You go go in first." He began laughing. "You grogo in first. Fou yogo in girst."
Peter laughed. "You're in great shape."
"This is like dynamite shit, you know?"
"Yeah, it looks it. Why do you want me to go in first?"
Rebecca was nearby, staring at him through grossly dilated pupils, and Clayton pulled Peter and Danny aside to whisper conspiratorially, "It's the house. I don't think it likes acid heads."
Peter and Danny Douglas exchanged amused looks. "The house doesn't like acid heads?" Danny asked.
"No," Clayton replied seriously. "It just tried to eat me. The steps did, I mean. They like tried to eat me."
"I don't know what you're worried about," Peter observed. "One taste and it would have spit you out anyway."
"Huh?"
"Nothing, nothing." Pete laughed. "Okay, we'll go in first." He pushed open the unlocked door and felt around on the wall for the light switch. "I hope you've been paying the electric bill."
"Huh?"
"Nothing." He knew that Clayton had attended to the essentials, for the bare 40-watt bulb in the ceiling fixture glowed as he flipped the switch. The dim light was barely able to illuminate the large room.
"My God, I'm blind!" Sean screamed, throwing his hands over his eyes.
"Sean, you're still out on the porch," Peter pointed out, "and that bulb isn't bright enough to blind a mole."
"I can't see," Sean wept. "I can't see."
Lydia stumbled up the steps, followed by Russell, Dorcas, and Buzzy. "What's the matter?" she asked.
"I'm blind, I'm blind!"
"Sean's blind!" Deirdre shouted to the others.
"Yeah?" Artie responded. "Wow. Just like Mr. Spock was when McCoy put him in that light chamber."
"Wh-what?" Sean blubbered.
"Yeah, Spock was blind for a while. But he like got his sight back, you know?"
"Yeah?" Sean took his hands from his eyes and looked at Artie. "He really did?"
"Yeah. Can you see me? I mean, you're like looking at me."
Sean's face erupted into a glow of ecstasy. "I can see! I can see!" He paused. "But everything is paisley!"
"Another crisis surmounted," Peter muttered as he sat down against the wall. "Danny, remind me never to stay straight when everybody else trips, okay?"
"You and me both," was the reply.
The others meandered into the large room in a long straggling line and eventually seated themselves in a tightly huddled circle in the center of the room. Russell sighed. "This is great. This is like wonderful."
"We haven't done anything yet," Rebecca said, smiling at the dozens of tiny human beings who were plowing minuscule fields on the floor at her feet. "We gotta have a seance."
"Yeah, yeah, right right right," Eric muttered. "What?"
"A seance," Rebecca repeated. "Remember? We're gonna like have like, you know, I mean like we're gonna . . . I mean . . . " She frowned, having forgotten what she was saying.
"Where's the volume control?" Sean asked. "I can't hear nothing."
"The what?" Clayton responded. "Where's the what?"
"The volume control for the TV," Sean said, staring at the wall. "The Wizard of Oz is on, but I can't hear nothing."
Peter and Danny started laughing softly. "You, ah, you watching television there, Sean?"
"Yeah," he breathed, his eyes glued to the wall.
"That's real nice." Danny chuckled. "The Wizard of Oz, eh?"
"Yeah . . ."
"What scene are you watching?"
"Dorothy's just meeting all the uh, the, uh, the Munchkins." He sniffed as if he were about to weep. "But I can't hear nothing."
Peter repressed his laughter and he and Danny began singing one of the songs from the movie.
"Oh, wow." Sean smiled. "This is great, this is great. Here comes the lollipop guild!"
Danny glanced at his watch and then turned to Peter. "They're getting off at 5:30. How long you figure before they start to come down?"
Peter shrugged. "It's supposed to be good acid."
"Did he cop it from Steve?"
Yeah."
Danny sighed. "Shit. That means it is good acid."
"Six hours, probably, for the hallucinati
ons to die down. They won't really be straight until the morning."
"So we gotta hang around here and baby-sit until probably midnight."
"Yeah, or until Clay decides to leave. He's the Pied Piper, not us."
"Ah, well." Danny sighed. "I wish I'd taken some acid."
"Thanks." Peter laughed. "You'd want me to be the only straight person here?"
Danny laughed also. "Hey, then it would've been your problem, and I would've been having a good time." Peter blew into his cupped hands. "Jesus, it's cold in here. Hey, Clayton. Did you pay the coal bill, too?"
"Huh?"
"Is there a furnace or anything in this place?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind." Peter sighed as he went to the fireplace and squinted up the chimney. "This looks usable. Danny, see if there's any firewood outside, like maybe alongside the house." Danny returned a few minutes later with wood and kindling, and Peter searched through the house until he found a pile of old newspapers. Soon thereafter a blazing fire was providing some warmth in the cold room, though Sean complained that it was interfering with television reception.
The hours passed with all memories of the planned séance forgotten. Sean watched The Wizard of Oz twice on the wall, and then, at about eight o'clock, he and Rebecca had sex in the middle of the room. No one other than Peter and Danny seemed to notice, and they watched with amused and envious interest.
At 9:30 Gary Mercier, who was in the middle of his senior year at college, solemnly informed Peter that he intended to drop out of school and do acid for the rest of his life. Gary also corrected Russell, who exclaimed that the colors were very intense. "No," Gary said. "It's heavy, but there aren't any colors."
At a quarter after ten Buzzy Van Der Donk went into the kitchen adjoining the large central room to try to find some beer, which was, of course, not to be found; but he noticed that the light from the central room streamed through the kitchen doorway and created a starkly delineated shadow on the kitchen floor. It's like on the moon, he thought. Freezing cold in the shade and blistering heat in the light. He was standing in the light, and felt himself suddenly beginning to broil. He jumped desperately into the shadow, and began to freeze. He hopped back and forth from light to shade, and then began to spin around on the border between them, trying to maintain a stable body temperature. Then he forgot what he was doing and why he was doing it, and wandered back to the others, all notions of beer and the moon forgotten.
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