H: Chapter Twenty

We were in the Vermont boondocks, heading North-East through miles of snow-covered hills. There was nothing but the moon shining down on us in all of it’s glory, and the barren road ahead. No man was around, not at that time of night.

If you spend enough time driving, you’ll start seeing things. It starts with seeing shadows running across the side of the road. Could it be caused by smoking mass-amounts of weed? Yeah, probably. Sleep-deprivation too? Oh yeah. Then the trees start bending weird, like they’re reaching out to grab you. It’s like focusing on the same point for so long, that everything becomes staticy, like the walls are breathing. Then the road starts kind of distorting and turning. Then once you know it’s going to be dangerous to drive for any longer, you have to stop and take a break. You gotta step out of the car and take a few deep breaths, just to ground yourself back in this reality. You’d be fine dying in a car crash were it not for the fear of being paralyzed. Being in a wheel-chair would be a special kind of hell. Then, once you get your bearings, you step back inside your chosen vehicle, and the cycle repeats yet again.

Travis and I sat in the front-seats across from each other. Jack and Thomas were sitting in the first row of seats, dazed and fucked-up out of their minds. Crumbled rolling papers, glass one-hitters, wrappers, and porno-mags were strewn across the floor next to them. As the van moved across the road, the glass one-hitters rolled and clinked against the walls.

Jack looked up at Thomas, who was holding a syringe in his grimy hands. “Do it.” He muttered without any inflection.

Thomas flicked the needle of the syringe and a drop of H squirted out, falling onto the seats. He tilted the syringe and jammed it in between Jack’s fingers. Once the needle was fully in there, Jack fell backwards and giggled. A warm, and dumb-looking, smile crossed his face and he sighed. Jack shuddered and said softly, “Now it’s your turn.”

Thomas smiled and reached for a sheet of tinfoil. “You ain’t gonna inject it?” Asked Jack. His eyes were relaxed and heavy.

Thomas shook his head, “Nope, I prefer it that way.” What Thomas didn’t want to say, was that a red sore had appeared on his arm just a few days ago. He figured that just injecting more H into the fucking thing would make it feel better, but it only caused the wart to grow bigger, and more painful too. By now it was as wide as a soda-can and had a purplish tinge to it. It had used to look like a base-ball, but anti-fungal cream had made the swelling go down. So there was hope of Thomas recovering, but his worries still weren’t eased.

Thomas brought a Bic lighter to the glob of sand on the tinfoil and heated it up. Once the smoke started to rise, Thomas held a straw in the air and sucked the smoke through it. After just a few puffs he fell back, giggling and laughing.

Both Thomas and Jack laid on the seats, caked in their own sweat and grime, laughing and talking in hushed whispers. Their finger-nails were as black as the night and their faces had a multitude of warts, boils, scratches, and dirt on them. The hair on their heads was greasy, untrimmed, and unwashed. Such is the case with extreme indulgence.

Since we started on this journey, every morning would be the same: We would wake up and reach for the needle. Then we’d drop a tab of acid and roll a joint. Once we were pacified enough. we would start driving. Then we would do anything we had in the van. Poppers, xanax, pain-meds, and a few joints here and there.

The longer the cycle went on, the more everything became grating. The driving, the communicating, everything seemed completely and totally, meaningless. After all, when you’ve experienced joy that could rival anything else on this god-forsaken planet, you only want to feel that, over and over again. Even if it kills you. It was a vicious cycle of high highs, and extremely low lows.

Travis was sitting in the passenger seat, next to me, with the rolling tray in his lap. Two small sprinklings of coke sat on the tray. Travis pulled a playing card from the deck, and formed little piles of coke into two thin lines. He looked up at me for a second, and back down to the tray. “How many days do we have left til’ we get to Maine?”

I shrugged, “It’s only a few states away. Three days, a week, maybe a month?”

Travis tilted his head down and inhaled the line of coke. He lifted his head up and squeaked, then laughed. He passed the tray to me and I did a line as well.

“A year, maybe…” Said Travis.

“Two.”

“Three.”

“Five.”

“Twenty.”

“Thirty.”

“I’m not growing old with you man, you’re a piece of shit. A stupid piece of shit.”

“Neither am I, Travis. You’re a narcissistic asshole.”

“And you are too.”

Travis sniffled, sending snot down into his mouth. He swallowed and said, “Can I drive?”

“That depends. Do you remember what I’ve taught you? What your king has demanded of you?” “You’re a fucking psycho, and yeah, I do dipshit.”

I nodded and pulled over to the side of the road. I got out and Travis and I stood at the front of the van. The cold air sent tingles down our spines and up our skin. The wind howled and thrashed the trees. “Before you drive, Payte must have you do something, as his servant.” I said.

“And what will Payte have me do?” Travis asked.

“I want you to do three more bumps. That’s the only way I’m letting you drive Bessie. She won’t let anyone drive her if they’re not zoinked-out-of-their-god-damn-minds. Got it?”

Travis nodded rapidly, like some kind of Pez dispenser. “Yeah, I get it man. I understand.”

We walked out of each other’s way and got into the van. I sat in the passenger’s seat with my feet propped up on the dashboard. I doled out three lines of coke, and passed the tray to Travis. The guy was like a coke-snorting machine. He didn’t stop for one second or lift his head up. He just snorted line after line. This was it, Travis had officially gone insane.

Travis put the key in the ignition but Bessie wouldn’t start. He tried it again, but the engine made this horrible groaning sound, and still didn’t start,

Travis snorted and wiped his hands down his face. Sweat poured from his forehead. “W-what the fuck’s goin’ on man? Why won’t it start?”

“It’s cuz’ your not high enough, and Bessie knows it. She has the soul of a dead hippie that can read our thoughts. I can hear her breathing, man, I can hear her howls. She’s telling us to smoke another joint.”

“Another one? Really, man?” Travis asked in a heavy breath.

“Yes. Another.” I reached behind the seat and grabbed the bag of pot. There was barely an ounce left. Soon we would run out of supply, and then have to repeat the cycle over and over again. It was a hell, but a comfortable hell.

“Here.” I said, handing the rolling tray and weed to Travis. “Roll it. Bessie wants us to smoke it while we drive.”

Travis smacked himself across the face and sat in the front-seat, twitching maniacally. “I’ve only driven once, and never on weed. Or, anything for that matter, you know. What if we, uh, what if we crash? Or die?”

“Who the fuck cares, man?” I yelled. My voice was enough to make Jack jump, but he didn’t wake up. “Roll another joint, and smoke it. Do it.”

“I-I don’t wanna, man. I don’t want too. I don’t need no more.”

I clenched my teeth, exhaling through my stained biters. I looked down at my feet and saw that a pink pistol had suddenly formed. I grabbed it, and pointed it in Travis’s face. “When I tell you to roll another joint. What do you do?”

“W-what?” Travis asked. I remember his eyes being so bloodshot, that they looked like blood. His pupils were as wide as the moon, they looked almost inhuman.

“What do you do, when I tell you, to roll another fucking joint? Are you really gonna disrespect Bessie like that? Are you, motherfucker?”

“N-no man, not at all. Y-you got the wrong idea!”

“Then do what I say! Do what I fucking say!”

“Okay, you c-crazy motherfucker!” Travis took the rolling tray out of my hands and quickly rolled another joint. His hands were moving so fast, I was having trouble keeping watch of him. It came out looking crumbled and ended up canoeing, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was getting the damn thing rolled and lit. Travis brought the joint to his lips and lit it. He took a puff, and passed it to me. And this time, the van actually started.

Travis took off the road, and into the night. We were cruising down a dirt road at a hundred-miles-per-hour. We both had no idea where we were. All that we knew was that we were heading somewhere North-East, in the direction of Maine. Hell, we were so messed up at that time, I don’t think it was possible to tell where we were.

During the drive, I stepped out of the passenger’s seat to grab Thomas’s bag of poppers. I knew that he’d be pissed if he found out. I mean, who wouldn’t? I just had to hope he either wouldn’t notice, or be too messed-up off the H to care.

As I inhaled one popper after another, Travis said, “W-we’re just little, uh, little pieces of shit floating on a ball of shit in a bigger ball of shit. No purpose no meaning no, uh, no anything. Just complete and t-total absence, man. Absence. Nothing, man. Nothing.”

My face contorted into a salad-bowl of emotion as I laughed. My laughter sounded more like cries and screams than laughter, but that was besides the point

. “Since when did you become so god-damn philosophical?” I asked.

“T-that’s, the uh, thing. I’m not, I’m not a philosopher. I just speak the truth that these pussy-dipshit-motherfuckers—“ Travis balled his hands into fists and punched the steering wheel, “that these motherfuckers are too scared to say. I’m a God man, I’m a god. I speak the truth.”

I nodded and finished off the poppers. “You know what we should do, Travis? Do you know?”

“What? What is it, man? What is it? Tell me. Tell me right now. Right, fucking, now.”

“We should die.” I said blankly. “Death is the ultimate freedom, and it’s also the ultimate challenge. Therefore we should all die. We’re all God, so we’d just create a new life to live after our death. Since that’s the case, does this life even matter? If it’s just an infinite cycle?”

“Fuck, man, are you reading my thoughts right now? Cuz’ that’s exactly what I’m thinking. I should just crash Bessie. We’d all be dead within a second. Just fucking hammer the car into a wall, or something.”

“Do it.” I said. “Do it. DO IT!”

“What are you guys talking about?” Thomas said, leaning forward to look at us. Travis and I both paused and looked at Thomas. It seemed that our brain had temporarily stopped working. We were so suddenly knocked out of our drug-induced trance that we had no idea what to do.

“We were just… talking about food.” I said, stuttering and stumbling over my words. “Where would you want to go to eat?” As I spoke, I stared at Travis, silently telling him to follow along.

Thomas paused for a second, biting his lip and looking down. “Burritos sound good.” He said.

Travis nodded and winked at me. “Burritos it is then.”

* * *

Ordering food at a restaurant, at three-in-the-morning, while you’re wacked out on several substances at once should be an Olympic sport. My heart beat at an astounding rate, sweat poured from my face and gathered in my arm-pits, and my eyes maintained the same manic glare. The type of eyes where you’re not really in this reality, you’re really just off in hyperspace dicking around. Sure, you’re keeping conversation with the cashier, but the dialogue is short and stunted. While your brain is in auto-pilot, the wall has suddenly turned into a flesh-eating snake that is actually a metaphor for the cyclical nature of time, and the floor has turned to quicksand.

We went through the motions of ordering food and watched as the over-worked, under-paid, and sleep-deprived cook made our burritos. While doing this, I soon realized that being high on anything while going about your daily business will make you reflect on how absolutely absurd the world is. We literally decide what is right, and what is wrong with no other basis. We elect people that are just as flawed as us, to rule our countries, and we expect something as absurd as that, to work out properly. We work ourselves to death, just so we can get another paycheck, only to repeat the cycle until we’re retired. And even when you do retire, you die within a couple years. Why do people put up with this? Why have we decided that shit like this okay? But even then, as I have these thoughts, I suddenly realize that what I think is right, and what is wrong, is merely just my brain picking and choosing. Nothing is right. Nothing is wrong. And nothing is real. Jesus, I want to light up a blunt and smoke it as I write this.

Our food was done, and we sat at our table. Then the cooks went in the back, doing what I can only assume, is smoking weed and talking trash about customers. The burritos turned out to be subpar at the least, and overly-chewy at the worst.

As we ate, Travis suddenly reached into his pockets and places eight individual tabs of acid on the table. “Anyone wanna get fucked up with me?” He asked sheepishly. After what he said, I began to question his own sanity. Hell, even mine as well. What had we become? Just chasing high after high, after high.

“I’ll do it.” Jack said. He was sitting at the table with his boots propped up on the table, and his hands behind his head. No matter what drug you threw at the kid, he was able to act completely sober. His facade was skillful, that’s for sure, but we all secretly knew he was fucked up beyond belief.

But before Jack could take the tabs, I did something that I would regret shortly. I grabbed every single tab in my hand, and stuffed them into my mouth. Travis and the others looked at me in horror. “Payte, what the hell?” Travis called out. “That was all we had left!”

I shrugged, “So?”

“That was ten hits of acid, man.”

I felt a sinking pit in my chest. Feelings of anxiety and regret fluttered in my chest. But I shoved them down with a cool, and playful, smile. “Sounds… fun.”

* * *

I’m somewhere in the restaurant. The booths and tables are all there, but they don’t look like they used too. Everything is kind of swarming. Swelling up and then popping, suffocating. They’re breathing. The walls have a consciousness of some sort. Not the human-type consciousness, a more whole-consciousness. There’s no unsightly bits to their minds. There’s no eyes, or any of the usual human features, but they can see and feel. Is this what trees have? Are they alive like the walls are?

Many flashing colors, all swirling and dancing, enter my field of vision. I might go blind if I stare at them for too long, but they won’t go away. Many faces emerge from the spinning, omnicolored, fractals. They judge me. My past is too sinful to go into. No. No. I won’t. I won’t. I don’t want to remember, I don’t want to think, I don’t even want to feel. And don’t make me fucking do it.

A vortex appears, consuming me. I’m being dragged by an infinite amount of fingers and hands, all prying and stabbing and poking at me. They’re dragging me down. They’re dragging me down. THEY’RE DRAGGING ME DOWN. THEY’RE DRAGGING ME. THEY’RE DRAGGING. ME.

The vortex eats me completely, stuffing me down inside it’s belly. Fleshy appendages appear on the walls of tendons, bones, and blood. They are beating me. They are raping me. The are stabbing me. They are killing me.

I begin to slide down the stomach and into the intestinal tubes of the gestalt vortex. Klansmen in red hoods transform into man-sized spiders, tearing the flesh off my bones and replacing it with webs.

However, there is a light. It pierces through the vortex and shreds it open. I am pulled out of harm’s way. The light is my own, and yet I am separate from it. I rise to the sky inside the womb of light. My karma is undone. Qi energy flows through me. I am a beacon of light, but I have been lost through the illusion of separation from the one. The all-father, and the all-mother. This is merely a micro-second in the entirety of the universe. Nothing is permanent. Everything will be lost, yet re-birthed in the end. Over and over and over.

A voice of infinite voices, inflections, and emotions call out to me. “You must let go, or you will be dragged by your feet.”

* * *

My head shot up and I yelled those mostly insincere words, “Take me back!”

When I woke up, I first noticed the cold breeze coming from where the door used to be. Dried and withered leaves sped past as we zoomed across the asphalt. Red and scratched trucks slid by, creating groans from their engines.

I looked around and saw Thomas sitting beside me, his nose buried into a book: Ernest Hemingway’s, The Sun Also Rises. Travis was sitting in the passenger seat, chatting to Jack, who sat across from him, half-way through a wrinkled joint. Jack took two puffs then passed it to Travis. He snatched the joint from Jack’s hands and brought it to his mouth.

A sudden feeling of uncleanliness washed over me. I raised my arm and took a sniff of my own arm-pits. After that, I had decided that I once I stopped traveling, I was going to take the longest shower ever.

Thomas turned a page and glanced down at me for a second before returning to the pages of his novel, hallucinating vividly. “What’s the matter with you? Still messed up from last night?”

I paused, trying to gather together any memories from the night before. But there was none. Everything was white, a blank sheet of paper, something that had no form. “Last night? Weren’t we just driving to the gas station?”

Thomas giggled and said, “You took ten hits of acid, about a thousand-micro-grams. I don’t think a single person in the world would remember that.” Thomas placed his book in his lap and paused. “Actually, I suppose that a few people would, anyway. Nothing is exactly concrete.”

“Uhuh.” I mumbled. I sat up and stretched my arms out, letting out a low yawn. I got up and moved to the first row of seats. I said good morning to Travis and he said, “Oh man, you should’ve seen what you did in that restaurant.”

A subtle fear grew in my stomach. My eyes widened and my eyebrows raised. It was an evolutionary response. “What do you mean?” I asked with a cold voice, slightly chuckling.

Travis took a puff of the joint and tapped Jack who was driving. “Tell em’ what happened.”

Jack sighed and adjusted the rear-view mirror. “Once the acid hit you stood up, and then took off all your clothes.” Jack paused and smile crept across his face. He prepared to speak but was interrupted by fits of laughter. “The faces the cashier made was crazy. I think—“

“He was laughing his ass off.” Travis interjected.

“Yeah, and then he just straight-up walked out—“

“He was like, ‘Yeah, fuck this.” Travis bellied over laughing.

As I watched them laugh at me, a black hole formed in my chest, and coldness spread through my veins. The whites of my eyes drew back and my gaze become dead. Like that of a predator in the wild, something that is only capable of eating, fucking, and killing. An evolutionary response to what the brain perceives as danger.

I had no control over my body at that second. The monkey part of my brain took over. I reached my hands to where Jack was sitting and gripped his throat with all of my might. My nails dug into his skin and I leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “What you’re going to do…” Jack struggled and swiped at my hands. I shushed him and gripped even harder. “Don’t fight this, alright?” I gazed over at Travis who was staring with a stark look of fear. “You’re going to take back laughing at me, and then you’re going to pull over to the side of the road, and let me drive? Okay? That way you don’t get hurt. Do you understand?”

Jack coughed as spasms shot through his body. I relaxed my grip, but still kept my nails in his skin. “I-I get it, okay? Please…”

“Please what?” I said. “Let you go? No, no, no. First, you’re going to apologize for laughing at me? Alright? Got it, motherfucker?”

Jack nodded as tears formed in his eyes. “I-I’m sorry for… for laughing at you?”

“Sorry for what? I couldn’t hear you, speak up a little louder.”

“I’m sorry for laughing at you, Payte! J-just let me go.”

I took a deep breath and let go of Jack’s neck. Blood dripped down from the cuts caused by my nails. Blue and deep bruises formed along his neck as tears flowed from his eyes. I leaned back in my seat and shot a glance at Travis, and then back to Jack. They must’ve recognized my anger, because their faces were frozen in perfect horror and shock.

Soon, Jack would pull over and give me the seat. We would then stop by the beach, and hang out around the docks.