The first
small excursion with LSD was a lot of fun. It left me with a renewed sense of
gratitude for the many blessings I have in this life. For the next couple of
weeks I was clear headed, optimistic, looking forward to retiring from my job
at the end of the month.
And I have to confess: I got a hell of a kick out of
feeling like an old outlaw. You know- a wild and krazy guy, and all that
stuff. Especially at work around the
twenty and thirty-something year old teachers at the elementary school. I
showed up Monday with the broom and dustmop:
“Hey, JWM,
how was your weekend. Do anything fun?”
But I’m
getting sidetracked, here. Whatever afterglow I had from the day soon vanished
under the weight of a bad case of influenza. I was scary sick for over a month,
lost most of my hearing and developed a knot in my left shoulder that would
leave me in pain for months to follow.
After the
flu had passed I parceled out the rest of the first dose in three rather
unremarkable, and not especially enjoyable turns with the blotter acid. The
days had some enjoyable moments, but all in all were neither great fun, nor
unduly unpleasant. Nonetheless, acid is very predictable, and the neutral trips
taught me exactly what to expect from the LSD, and about when to expect
it. I had recovered most of my former
stamina by the end of March. By April I was ready to go again.
It would
prove to be a strange, but overall neutral event.
Something was disturbing my sleep. I sat up in
the middle of the night. A woman stood in the bedroom doorway. She wore pink.
She had red hair, fair skin, and she
seemed to shine with a light that came from nowhere. I was startled, but not
frightened. Before I could speak the woman vanished. I snapped awake. Lucid
Dream. I hadn’t had one in years.
Two hours
later it was still dark out, and I sat in the den coaxing my brain awake with
my first cup of coffee. I jumped up in a charge of adrenaline when my wife
screamed in the living room. I heard her throw the sliding glass door open as I
bolted down the hall.
Mary stood on the porch. “I saw Buddy the Cat
all arched up,” she said. “There was a coyote stalking in the yard. I opened
the door, and it jumped over the wall.”
All three of my cats were there in the yard.
It was nothing short of a miracle that Mary scared the coyote off before it
took one of the cats. Now, all of us were out there scared, and agitated as
hell. Ol’ Buddy, Skinny, and Littlecat hovered close around me, but just out of
reach. I couldn’t get them back into the
house, so I had my coffee on the step huddled up in the dark with a flashlight in
the cold morning.
I finally coaxed the cats indoors, and shut them in the
house. The sun was coming up. Now I could get a start on Bicycle Day.
The South
Bay is the stretch of So Cal beaches that runs from Redondo up to Venice and
Santa Monica. The South Bay beaches are thirty miles west of me, through the some of the worst traffic in LA.
That’s why I seldom go there. But I had
my 1961 classic Schwinn, and my trusty Dyno cruiser in the back of the
truck. I was taking the old Schwinn to
Jack, a bike wizard in El Segundo. You don’t trust a machine that old with just
anyone.
It was actually 4/20, the day after Bicycle
Day, but it was a stoners’ holiday no matter. I was ready to party with a
couple grams of some Private Reserve Gorilla Glue, a couple of grams of some high
octane Jack Herrer, and a little bit o’ LSD. The 105 freeway was clear in the
late morning, and the parking gods had my back. I dropped off the Schwinn, and pulled
into the nearly empty lot at El Segundo Beach.
11:30 in the
morning. This is the fifth time I’ve dropped acid after not having done it for
over forty years. Now I’m upping the game a little and taking a generous third
of a tab. I fish the little bag out of my pocket. I’m getting adrenaline just looking at the
tiny chip of blotter.
You can
back out!
My heart
pounds a little as I take it out of the plastic bag.
Not today. Maybe some other time…
I ignore the
voice in my head. The blotter is on my tongue.
Spit it
out.
Too late. Crunch.
Crunch again. Swallow. I’m committed.
The little wave of anxiety passes with a
deep breath, and I hop on the bike. The morning is cool, the sky is clear and
the air is slightly hazy. The plan is simple: trip out, and cruise. I’ll ride
north past Santa Monica- see some of the bike path I’ve never seen, be back
here in the late afternoon, cruise down toward Hermosa for food, and head home
after the traffic clears.
The wide South Bay beaches are all the same-
200 yards of empty yellow sand, shapeless gray surf crashing near the shore, jetties
every so often. North in the haze is Marina Del Rey, the Venice boardwalk, Santa
Monica, the carnival rides on the pier, the Malibu mountains, and long empty
stretches of paved bike path. I’m going
to meet Mike, a buddy of mine, somewhere along the route. He’ll be coming south
from Venice. I have the feeling he won’t hang for long, but it’ll be good to
touch bases.
The late morning is cool in the diffuse spring sun, and I’m riding under a
pale sky almost straight into a light breeze. I dressed for cold. I’m old,
tall, and skinny, and I chill easily, especially on acid. Being a little too
warm is a little uncomfortable; being too cold is misery. I wore my denim club
vest, my “cut” as the kids say, but I had it more for the pockets than the
image.
I reach Dockweiler,
then Playa Del Rey where the jets from
LAX thunder and whine overheard. I run into Mike a mile or so later. We chat a
bit as we bike along. Mike founded the bicycle club with me a little over five
years ago, but now he has pretty much given up pedal power for E-biking.
The speakers
on his bike are linked to a radio station playing from his phone. It’s supposed
to be a 4/20 themed day, but whatever they were playing is just getting
irritating as hell. Besides, I can’t hear for shit. I can either talk or listen
to that crappy radio. The music sucks and the commercials are annoying. I want
to tell the guy on the radio to shut the
fuck up I…
Then I
realize I’m starting to twangle a little already. The acid always starts this
way, with some little thing becoming very urgent and demanding all my attention.
It’s just been forty five minutes since I dropped.
I ask Mike to turn it down so we can talk. He’s
cool with that. And I’m glad he’s here because it’s been a few years since I
took this route, and getting through the loop around Marina Del Rey, and then
back down to Venice is tricky.
By the time we reach the boardwalk at Venice
Beach I’m coming on pretty strong. I’ve got electricity in my head, and energy
in my shoulders, and this just seems so totally appropriate! Where else do you come on to your acid on 4/20
in LA except for the entrance to Venice Boardwalk?
Everything is psychedelic murals, head shops,
sunglasses, and T-shirts, mixed with art, street life, urban campers, even
hippies. I’m excited. I have that little pressure in the head, and more nervous energy than I need, but nothing
intimidating, or scary. We stop at a shop on the boardwalk to chat with one of
Mike’s pals, a guy who does E-bike tours through Venice. I can feel myself grinning, and everything
I’m looking at is suddenly a very interesting feature of this very Venice
placeandpeople…. I’m getting that ‘I’m cool’ feeling that acid seems to give
me. Mike introduces me to his pal, “Hey, Eddie, this is my friend, John. He’s
down here tripping on acid.”
Eddie kind
of shakes his head- “Glad to meet you. Acid, huh? I haven’t done that shit in
fifty years”.
I read that tone. It’s a
thing I’ve noticed before when I tell people that I do acid, or mushrooms. Some
think it’s pretty cool that a guy my age is still up for that stuff. Others
sort of shake their head. Good thing I’m not hooked on the approval of others.
Mike and I
burn a couple bowls of the Jack Herrer. It’s my favorite strain, a sharp, edgy
sativa that throws my mind into overdrive. This is my wake n’ bake, the first tweet of
the day. The energy from the Jack hits the acid, and starts cranking up the
voltage. Now I’m really feeling it. I’m
more than a little surprised at how high I’m getting. Everything is taking on
the quality of a dreamy well-orchestrated scene. I’ve got electricity in my
head, like a gently buzzing transformer, a little giddiness in the solar plexus.
I feel like I want to move, and not stop.
We saddle
up, and start down the bike path, and I’m glad that we’re moving again. That
grin keeps returning, but I’m feeling a sense of urgency, and more nervous
energy than I’m comfortable with. I find myself hunching my shoulders, and
reminding myself to relax. I try to explain to Mike what’s going on. Mike isn’t
particularly interested. I tell him about the dream I’d had last night, and the
episode with the coyote. How everything seems all of a piece, how it fits in,
and how it all is…
Mike cuts in, “It was probably a ghost. After
all, didn’t your Mom die in that house?”
Leave it to Mike to come up with
exactly what NOT to say to someone who’s tripping. It doesn’t bother me though.
A few minutes later he decides his E-bike isn’t working right and he heads back home.
This was
exactly what I had predicted would happen. Actually, I am glad to be on my own.
I’m past the come-on, and climbing that slow arc toward the peak. I stop and
take a couple more tweets. Weed and LSD go together like a cigarette and
coffee. The added buzz throws it all into motion, and I pick up my pace a
little.
Bicycling is
hypnotic, and I become the rhythm and the pace, and the wind is the sound and
the sound is the wind, and I breathe, and pedal, and I flow though all of it
and I’m at the still center of things with the wind slowly pushing the world
past me. Thought bubbles float up from the deep to be observed, entertained, or
dismissed as dangerous.
Far to my
right, now, the Venice Boardwalk gives way to beach front apartments in Santa
Monica. I’m watching the slowmotion roller coaster pier. The beach seems
strangely empty for a holiday. Then I remember that it’s Friday. You don’t get
a day off for 4/20.
The bike path tunnels under the huge pier for
what seems like hundreds of yards, and there are fireworks in the darkness. I
burst out into the sunlight all dazzled. The parking lot and the last of the
beach attractions slide past, and soon I’m farther north than I’ve ever ridden
on this path.
I have the whole world to myself. I pulse
along in a fast hypnotic dream and it all becomes still. Wide yellow beach on
either side of me, city brown cliffs far to the right and the pale slate ocean
far to the left and the pedal and pulse of the afternoon windblast is picking
up cold roaring in my ears making it hard to push, and the hazy spring sun in
the pale washed sky, the sea a pale slate, the light sand all of a piece, a
moving watercolor in cool pastels…
Where am I now, and what do I feel out
here? Suddenly there is no point of reference. This
electrical buzz, the urgency, energy driving me. There is this overall sense of
“enscenement” (“en scene ment”), that is, everything takes on the quality of a
perfectly staged scene, a masterfully painted landscape, with all harmonious
elements merged into a living singularity with the wind and sun, and the
hypnotic pulse of riding riding riding.
But I can’t
tell how buzzed I am. Or how fast I’m going. Or how far I’ve ridden. Or what
time it might be.
How long
ago did I pass Annenberg House? There is no point of reference. No one
around for miles. How alone out here!
What did you set out to do this day? Take my bike to Jack, and drop acid
at the beach for 4/20.
What did
you expect? A party? A love-in? Free music, and hippies dancing in the sand?
None of that, really, but it felt like it should be here, and so I came.
And what did you find? I find myself alone on my bike.
Riding Way alone. Riding Way out here. Riding
Like always. Like a million times before. Riding
Like on the Harley. Riding Like in
the car. Like Interstate 40, like Interstate 64, 70, 90… Like I... Riding
Alone on the road. How many times across the continent? Riding Twelve? Fourteen?
Riding Alone on the road, alone on the bike
path. Riding See a
pattern here? It’s who you are, John.
What about the dream? Mary said it was a guardian angel.
You believe that? Of course, and not
just because I’m tripping. Riding Guardian
angels look out for us, and looking out for those Riding we love is looking out us. And my cats- I love those silly cats. If anything had
happened to Ol’ Buddy…
Don’t go here.
Change the subject. The
angel was a blessing. Riding Don’t tell
yourself scary stories. And so the
subject is changed, and the brain slides into neutral.
Riding
So
what is this? What do I feel here? This is an acid trip. I’ve been on lots
of them, but that was all so very long ago.
It
wasn’t like this, then. Or was it? The December trip was filled with a sense of amazement. Wonder. Elation. Delight.
I remember my head lit up with a million ideas.
Riding riding riding Hallucinations? Tracers? Colors? Not since the
70’s…
This isn’t like that; it just- it just -is. I mean, I’m not feeling elation, or
euphoria. Neither am I feeling great sadness, anxiety, or fear. The experience
is Riding not unpleasant, but it isn’t a lot of fun
either. It just is.
Or maybe it’s being way out here alone on the cold empty
beach that isn’t much fun.
Hard to
tell.
Maybe this is why I quit doing this so many years ago. It’s just a place
to be. It’s everyday life, only with all the dials cranked up, and teasing the
edges of discomfort.
Where am I now? How
long have I been out here? Ridingridingriding how long riding…
Stop. Stop for a rest.
I quit pedaling, and roll slowly to a stop. Hop off, and straddle the bike. It seems
strange to be still. The hypnosis breaks. Where
am I now? Wasn’t I supposed to be riding? Check the phone. It’s twenty to
three. More than four hours in.
I realize what’s wrong. I’m thirsty and tired.
I’ve been cranking hard into the wind, and I haven’t stopped for hours. Take
the lid off the water bottle, and slowly drink it all. Take a breather. Damn.
Water is really good.
That wind in
my ears! I have a sense that I’m very stoned, but it’s oddly hard to tell just
how stoned. I can feel the water soaking through my stomach and small
intestine. I feel my body cool, my head clear. A girl floats by on the bike
path, and merges with the scenery. Time to turn around.
Suddenly the wind‘s at my back, and the sun is
behind me. Everything flashes from windblown hazy cold pale spring to Southland
lit up for summer. The scene turns from watercolor to bright circus tempera. The
water is flushing into my limbs, and it feels good. I can feel this thing peaking,
like reaching the crest of a hill.
Odd that I should be so much more buzzed than
I was on the ¼ hits. This is a strong one. I can feel the nervousness still, so
I break out the Gorilla Glue. This stuff is ridiculously strong, and it does a
great job of stuffing a pillow over the voices in your head. I’m thinking of
the Country Joe, and the Fish song…
“Heyyy, partner- Won’t you pass that
reefer around? My world is spinning yeah. Just got to sloooow it down…”
The indica
based smoke is sweet as maple syrup, and the body rush eases the tension in my
shoulders. Now I’m feeling good; let’s get high! I knock back three more tokes,
and hit the path. Now the wind is at my back. I’ve gone from pushing against
the cold, to floating effortless, nice warm an’ easy. The sunlight has gone
from silver to gold. The world from pale to bright. The weed starts glowing up
in my head, and I’m sliding into the familiar dreamy euphoria. Yes, four tokes
was too much, and I am very stoned, and it feels good.
I start back toward Santa Monica. Dang it’s a
long ways away, but the colors are in bloom. I’m floating on weightless pedals
with the wind at my back. The air around my ears is still and quiet. The pier,
and then the carnival rides on the pier slowly grow closer and more distinct. How pokey slow the rollercoaster. Before
I know it, I’m charging through the dark stretch under the pier again, now
breaking triumphantly into the light.
I’m flying along through Santa Monica, passing
the slower bikes, feeling one with the wind, and my trusty cruiser. I notice a
group of young guys- college age kids sitting on the block wall. One of them
smiles and waves, “Happy 4/20”, he calls out. I can’t let that slide.
I back pedal, skid the tire around, and ride
back up to the guys on the wall. (Keep in mind, I’m 65 damn years old, and not
a youthful 65 at that. I look like a crusty ass wannabe outlaw in my club vest
and patch.)
I smile at the kid, “You, sir, are the first
person today to wish me a happy 4/20. I believe that calls for a toke. Indica
or Sativa?” His buddies chuckle.
“Sativa”, he says.
“A man after
mine own heart. I am a sativa fan myself.” I pack a really fat bowl of the Jack
Herrer, and hand him my old school brass pipe. He tries to light with a Bic. It
won’t work in the wind.
“I need…”
“You need a
torch.” I hand him my torch, and his
buddies crack up.
“Watch out for the metal pipe. It can bite you.” He gets a
monster toke, and headrushes so bad he has to hang on to the wall..
“Thanks”, he
coughs. “Oh fuck!” “So what are you
doing out here today?”
“Just out
celebrating 4/20 and bicycle day.”
“Bicycle
day?”
“UH, yeah. You know. 4/19… Albert Hoffman… 1943…”
Blank look.
They don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m grinning like an idiot. “It’s the
day to go trippin’. Look it up on your phone. Hey, you guys take care.”
I ride off
laughing a little. Figure I gave them a story to tell—“We saw this old guy on a
cruiser bike…”
Before I know
it I‘m back in Venice. I can see the boardwalk, crowded in the mid afternoon.
It’s a combination freak show, skid row, carnival midway, and hippie swap meet.
It’s a ways off the bike path. I look over there, and really don’t feel much
like merging into a big crazy crowd. But
Venice is also where the bike path makes a detour of several miles inland on Washington
Boulevard to get around Marina Del Rey, and over Ballona Creek.
What was the landmark for Washington
Boulevard? I can’t remember. I’ve done this a zillion times, but suddenly
I’m disoriented, and not sure if Washington is ahead of me, or if I passed it.
I stop the bike. My head is buzzing,
everything around is floating, I’m unsure of where I am, and I am peaking
surprisingly hard for such a small dose. What
to do? Gotta’ ask directions. That means going on the boardwalk. So. We go.
Into the parade of madness.
Bums. Skaters. Chicks. Tourists. Negroes.
Hippies. Rasta looking dudes. College lookin’ kids. Foreigners. They’re all stereotypes- perfectly
exaggerated caricatures of some sort even if I’m not sure what sort. Who looks like they know where they are? Nobody!
It’s getting very chaotic. Before I know it I’m completely lost in the crowd,
and I don’t know where I’m going, or which way is north or south. But I remember
not to panic. It’s just the “L” as we used to say. Eventually I walk up to a
guy in a sunglasses stand. He is a human version of Jabba the Hut. “Could you
tell me, where’s Washington Blvd?” I ask. The guy points down the boardwalk,
and speaks in a mystery accent. “Righ’ there a’ the pier.”
Not fifty yards away.
Oh. Yeah. The Pier. I knew that.
I lock up
the bike and go to piss. I walk in out
of the sunlight, and the whole restroom is swimming in colors. The stainless
steel urinal becomes the horrible maw of some alien beast, as I’m peeing down
its throat. I remember this kind of stuff from high school. Not bad. I smile.
It’s a tense
and sketchy ride going up Washington. Traffic everywhere. Rough pavement. Cars.
Trucks. Busses. Noise. The annoying sense of being lost. Are we there yet? And finally the entrance to the bike path. Down
the bike maze, pass the marina. And *finally* there’s the bridge over Ballona
Creek.
I stop for a drink of water. I feel like I’ve
escaped from something. About a mile further down the path I feel the peak
begin to break. Relief. I can take a
deep breath. That sense of urgency that has haunted the day is relaxing into a
soft melancholy. We’re coming down.
Actually,
I’m kind of glad. As I start the last leg of the cruise it occurs to me that this
may well be my last dance with Lucy. I probably won’t do this again. But I said
that the last time. Or was it the time
before? It’s part of it, too… Like
starting out by getting all nervous over some silly thing… Ends by thinking you won’t come back here…
Just part of it. Still…
There was nothing really unpleasant about the
day, but like I said earlier, the experience was just oddly neutral. On the fun
scale the day was just a flat five out of ten. But all I did was ride and ride
and ride.
Too much solitude? Yeah. Too much alone- no one to remind you to
stop and take a break.
Too far
from home? Yeah, all that…
What
about the rest of your stash? The rest of the acid? The shrooms? The sage? Nothing
sounds like fun just now. I don’t know. Maybe you’re just too old for this shit.
I don’t know…
Maybe I’m just tired out. Odd, but only now I
begin to realize how stoned I’ve been all day. It’s almost five when I roll up
to the truck. And I realize I’ve been on that bike for almost six hours. I need
food. I’m beat.
And I
realized again for the millionth time, and the first ever that I had wildly
overestimated my stamina. It was so very typical. I had watched me do this kind
of thing for decades, and here I was doing it again. The plan was to get to
this point, and roll down to Hermosa, have dinner, and hang around until
traffic clears. No fucking way did I have the energy to ride to Hermosa. I’m
still wired from the acid, and I don’t want to eat. This is Friday afternoon. Between me and home
is thirty miles of bumper to bumper traffic (in a stick shift truck).
Strangely
enough, one of the benefits of taking LSD is that it keeps me very patient, and
very attentive when I drive. Good thing
too, because for the next seventy five minutes I would not make it out of
second gear. I felt like a total hero for making it home. It was after seven. Fourteen
miles per hour average. Life in So Cal. Don’t think about it. I’m just numb.
A shower,
food, and coffee brought me back to life. I flopped in the living room, played
with the cats, and knocked back a bowl of the Jack Herrer. It’s good weed.
Another bowl, and the room is floating in lights, and for ten or fifteen minutes it let me revisit
the peak from the comfort of my favorite chair. Last dance with Lucy? Ah, maybe
not, maybe not.
