by Kahn, Denise
We decided that the day after tomorrow would be a much better night to trip out. There was a teachers’ meeting at school and we had the following day off. I loved the anticipation. I couldn’t wait.
WASHINGTON, D.C., NOVEMBER 1999
On November 2nd of 1999 my life changed drastically, and I hadn’t even realized that it was the Festival of the Dead (maybe it was a sign of the things to come). When the greatly anticipated night finally came Jason came to my house. Jimmy was waiting for us at his. I remember pulling the cellophane out of the freezer. Supposedly the cold keeps the acid fresh and it doesn’t lose its effect. I took out my grandmother’s cutting board and placed the acid on it. I became so paranoid every time I heard the smallest of noises. I used a razor blade and cut the paper into the most even pieces I could. We were undecided if we should wait for Jimmy or not. We decided to just head down to his house to give him his piece. We put the acid on our tongues and felt that familiar texture of a little square of paper loaded with enough chemicals to take control of a human’s mind, body and soul. Little did I know at that moment how true that would be, and in only a few hours. I put Jimmy’s shit in my pocket and washed the cutting board. I would never forgive myself (even though it was nearly impossible) to have my grandmother cut something on that board, eat it, and start tripping. I put the cutting board back exactly the way I found it and flushed the razor blade down the toilet. Everything was good. All we needed to do was give Jimmy his dose and the night would be started.
“Did you bring it?” Jimmy asked me.
“Yeah, man. Hold on. What if your Mom’s looking at us or something?”
“She’s not here, Dude. Why are you always so paranoid?”
I was. I would always be the one looking around. I was the one who worried most about cops, or parents. It got to the point where sometimes I felt like no matter what I was doing, which nine times out of ten was something wrong, people were watching, even if I was completely alone. I gave Jimmy his hit and he gobbled it up.
“You guys already take yours?” We stuck our tongues out showing Jimmy that it had been just a little while ago, even though it was now mush on our tongues. We all lit up a smoke and sat in silence while our minds played tricks on us, well Jason and mine, at least. It had only been about twenty minutes since we’d taken it. Under normal circumstances acid usually took forty-five minutes to an hour. We flicked our cigarettes and went to Jimmy’s living room to watch TV. Every five fucking minutes Jason would ask us it we were feeling it yet. By the fifth time he asked us I was getting pretty bored with the question. We all just sat, Jimmy flipping through the channels, I was fidgeting with something I felt underneath the arm of the seat and Jason was twirling his hat on his finger. When the next five minutes came I expected Jason to ask again but he didn’t. I looked over at him with anticipation of the question but he just seemed to really be into his hat. And then I realized how much I was into whatever the fuck I was fidgeting with. This time it was my turn to ask: “Jason, you feelin’ anything?” “I don’t know, but my hat’s pretty fucking cool right now.” This statement was followed by so much laughter it made my stomach hurt. I felt my breaths getting cleaner and deeper.
Jason and I were tripping and Jimmy was following right behind. We realized Jimmy was tripping when we noticed him watching some documentary on the learning channel with intense interest. I asked Jimmy kind of jokingly. “You feeling it man?” He turned to look at me, his eyes as round as a half dollar. He had a funny look. I asked him what was up and he said he had a surprise. “I got some from my brother this morning. You guys wanna smoke?” What a perfect start to a perfect night, I thought. We ran up to Jimmy’s room and took our usual seats. Most of the pot I had smoked in those years was in that room, and our designated seats were even named. I had the seat by the window—‘Max’s window seat.’
Jimmy sat on his futon and reached behind it to reveal a bag of weed and a one foot orange bong he made. We called it ‘King Kong’. We had so many memories with this bong that next to our pictures in the senior yearbook the words ‘King Kong’ were etched in. As I watched Jimmy pack the bong I realized that the effect of the acid had really taken over me. I had such an incredibly strong body high and I was so much more in tune with my thoughts. I looked at the futon Jimmy sat on and wondered how long it would take to make one, and did the owner of the factory where it was made liked to eat chocolate ice cream. Bu then I knew he couldn’t have because the owner of the factory was phony. Everyone who wasn’t with the three of us (in our state of mind) was phony. No, I thought, I bet he eats vanilla. And, as a hallucination goes, I was absolutely correct and I knew this was a brilliant thought. It was so brilliant I had to share it with the other two in the room.
“Hey,” I said. They both looked up at me. “Do you think the owner of the factory where Jimmy’s futon was made likes chocolate or vanilla ice cream?” Before they could answer I thought how brilliant I was for asking such an in depth question related to so many things in our lives and the lives of others at that time.
“Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?” They asked laughing. “You’re fucked up Max.”
I snapped back into reality for a second. “That was a stupid question.” I told them. “But do you think he’s phony?”
“Alright, man, I’ve never thought about the owner of the factory where this futon was made, or if he liked strawberry ice cream or whatever the fuck you said,” Jimmy replied. We all laughed some more, and I realized just how good the acid was. We’d already been in Jimmy’s room for twenty minutes and still hadn’t smoked.
“Light that shit,” Jason said, and the night really began. I couldn’t even feel the smoke going down. I knew I was smoking it because it came out, but did it go in? That’s what President Clinton truly meant when he said ‘I didn’t inhale.’
After a couple of hits the LSD intensified. My mind was racing more now but my body had calmed down from the pre-trip jitters. I always felt like I had butterflies in my stomach for the first hour of a trip. We chilled out and smoked cigarettes. Jimmy tossed me his CD case and told me to pick one out.. I grabbed a Doors CD. I put on Rider in the Storm. Jim Morrison began talking to me and I listened with the closest attention. I closed my eyes and listened. Even when I’m straight it’s hard for me to listen to good music with them open.
“Jim Morrison is a fucking genius,” I said out loud.
“That I will agree with you on,” Jimmy replied. “But what do you think he means by that line?” No one could answer. It was Jim’s own drug induced thoughts that made sense to no one but him. I respected him for that.
As the song became more intense Jason yelled: “The soccer game!” from a complete calm atmosphere. The biggest confusion arose. I stood up trying to find my hat. Jimmy threw me his bag of weed and told me to hide it. I couldn’t find a place to put it. The room was spinning and the music from the stereo was grabbing me. Jason was looking in wonder at himself in the mirror and Jimmy was scurrying to hide his bong. Everything became loud and polluted like we were in the city. Jimmy was screaming at us and I knew we had to get out of the room. I hid the bag of weed in the breast pocket of one of Jimmy’s suits in his closet, grabbed my hat and got the fuck out of Dodge. Ran downstairs and put my jacket on. When I got outside I realized Jimmy and Jack weren’t with me. Should I go back to get them? I had to. I couldn’t leave them in there alone. When I turned around to walk back in the house they were right there. We all went outside.
I remember asking Jimmy on the walk to the game if I looked proportioned to him. I couldn’t get comfortable. My mind was starting to fuck with me. “You look fine, man.” As soon as he said it I got comfortable. When entering a high school event fucked up I always got paranoid. The stadium was always loaded with cops during the games, and there were teachers, especially the ones of the classes you had just skipped that day. Luckily this time we had no problems getting in and the cops weren’t that bad. I loved the feeling of being at a game. I
t was a place where all your friends would meet up and talk about parties that were going on, or looking at girls you thought were looking at you. Just being a teenager at a high school game was the true essence of that time in my life, and I rarely appreciated it as much then as I do now. We proceeded to watch the soccer game. I can’t remember too much from that game at all. The acid had taken its full effect and everything became a blur. I do remember asking Jason why there were five soccer balls on the field. I don’t think he took me seriously because he didn’t answer. Or maybe he was pondering the same question. In any event our next stop was a party.
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.