I’ma just let it flow out… Seems like the only way right now…
I was 13 the first time I did acid. It was with these two older cats that I hung out with, Tommy and John. They were 16 and, at the time, had better connections than I was privy to. They had the ‘in’ with the town drunk, Danny Sonic, who would pretty much get you whatever you wanted, as long as his 12 pack of Bud cans was covered. They were also in high school and could get drugs. I smoked with them my first time; weed and cigarettes. I had quite a few firsts hanging out with them cats, come to think of it…
I’ll let that one just hang out there… That tangent might be for another post entirely…
The hits were called Jesus Christ’s. You see, If you’re not real hip to these type of thangs, acid is a liquid. It historically gets named from what the print is on the blotter, or the paper, that the liquid is applied to. These particular ones were printed on a picture of Jesus Christ. This was a typical ‘strain’, if you will, of the day. There were a whole slew of different names, and at this point in time my mind draws a blank as to almost all of them. Except my favorite of all time: Pink Sunshine’s. I loved those things, despite the fact that they caused me to melt into a baseball back stop and roll up Dentyne cinnamon gum into a joint like it was weed. Oh, what a night…
It was around 9 or 10 am on a Saturday during the school year, maybe September or October. It was cold enough to have jackets on, that much I remember. We met up at Tommy’s house. His parent’s kinda hated him, but glancing backwards, they had every right. We were all shit heads, through and through; he was no exception to that rule. I recall him being giddy about scoring the LSD. John seemed trepidatious. They both agreed that it could be totally fake. I had NO clue what to think, but in typical Perry fashion, I did a sailor dive right into the untested waters. It couldn’t have been more than 20 minutes after we walked into Tommy’s than when we dropped. We all acknowledged what we were getting into, but he first line of thought was that it was fake. That kind of made us all forget about taking it.
At approximately 12 pm on a Saturday in 1990, I turned into an alien…
Rewind, Selector… We leave Tommy’s crib and head to Charlie’s Deli for some snacks. Of all the things we got, we all had jaw breakers. Wandering around the neighborhood aimlessly, we end up at McMahon’s Park. The light headed feeling just snuck up on me, really. It was long and drawn out, like a whisper that turned to a dull roar over the course of a half hour. I was quietly lulled into a sleepy feeling, but, oh, what a sneaky feeling it was. I had a yellow jaw breaker in my mouth and I spit in the grass. I’ll never forget how vivid the yellow looked against the green grass. John had a purple one and he hocked a loogy on the bike path and it was like someone shot it out of a paintball gun; the blue of Tommy’s spit put it all over the edge for me. John was the first to suggest that it was possible that we had been aliens our whole lives. Profound. That thought floored us for a good 7 minutes, solid. As I was on the tail end of pondering this thought, I snapped out of it to see Tommy shooting an imaginary gun at John. John was rolling on the ground, rolling, as if he was spinning from each hit of Tommy’s imaginary ‘ray’ gun. I was hysterically laughing and in full awareness that there was nothing going on to make me guffaw this loud and long. We were all in agreeance that we were aliens. But not like we just all of a sudden TURNED into aliens; we had been aliens all our lives. I mean, it was CLEAR from the way our saliva had suddenly changed color when combined with the LSD. With every shot from Tommy’s ray gun, John was clearly bleeding purple. There was no other logical explanation, other than the fact that we were some kind of breed of Predator with a human skin exterior instead of the invisibility cloaking device…
It was at this point that I realized that I was the last to realize that the acid was A.) Real and B.) Kicking in.
I had no previous personal recollection of tripping (they allegedly had one previous encounter each, but looking back I have my suspicions), but I did have this moment where I was aware that I was in complete control and completely out of control simultaneously. It was comfortable and maddening all at once. I had enough sense to keep myself at ease and not freak out at the sudden rush of everything; emotions, feelings, thoughts, ideas… How? I couldn’t possibly tell you. I was comfortable with the company I chose to ‘drop’ with, so that was an important factor. Other than that, it was sheer luck that I didn’t fall into a ‘bad trip’.
*If you’ve never done acid and had a bad experience, well… Let’s just say that it’s the equivalent of going COMPLETELY insane for a few hours, if you’re lucky. Never a fun time and hard to nail down exactly what insinuates said badness, you’re best bet is to surround yourself with people who you are completely relaxed and comfortable with. And your location should fall under this same guideline as well. Familiarity fairs well with psychedelics*
So, we continued to be a bit nutty in McMahon Park, doing random, nonsensical things that, fortunately, weren’t terribly destructive. Had we been? Arrests and explanations would’ve been such a tall order to fill to my Mother, and I’m glad it never came to that, for my own sake. Being such a small, neighborhood park, it’s a small miracle that no reports got back to my Chucci, aka Aunt Carol —- Long story short, she’ll forever be Chucci to me because when I was little I couldn’t pronounce Aunt Carol. Now, what felt like an hour was, in fact, six. We hadn’t realized that we ‘peaked’ and were now coming down. A decision was made to go to this girl Mary’s house. Mary was best friends with my cousin Alicia.
*Alicia is the oldest daughter of my Chucci, my Mom’s sister, who is married to my Uncle Van. There’s also my cousin Kristen (middle child) and my cousin William (youngest). I was raised primarily by my Mother and Chucci, with tiny bits from my Father and his parents, My Lula and Papa. Alicia, Kristen and William are, subsequently, my sisters and brother, respectively. Though we’re not nearly as close as we were when we were being raised, it’s still like that. End familial lineage explanation here*
Going to Mary’s house was an idea vehemently argued against by me. It was across the street from Chucci and Van’s house, for one, and, for two, I didn’t fuckin’ want my cousin’s to have the slightest clue of what we were up to, chemically speaking. Not that it would ever turn into a ‘ratting’ issue, because, by that age, we had pretty much put away the pettiness of telling on one another for personal gain. And we had only come to this decision because it was true. We would gain nothing from ratting on each other for petty shit; we actually got in trouble MORE for being rats. But, something like drugs is obviously a serious offense. It’s also a bargaining chip amongst siblings. A way to gain some wiggle room. It was always little things, like TV control or buying snacks. But it was the control you could wield over the other.
Twisted? Yes. Normal? Yes. I believe, at least.
Being too close to them was no bueno for The Kid. I couldn’t haves it, yo.
So, we’re at Mary’s, right…
And we’re being wild. What we thought was a come down turned into a rally, of sorts. It was almost like the change of location gave us a boost of giddiness. Now, Mary’s mother was a nurse’s aide and she did shift work. My Mother’s been a nurse my whole life and it’s the same thing. One week it’s 7-3, next it’s 11-7 for 3 days and 3-11 for the other 4. This particular week, Mary’s mother was on the 3-11 shift, which meant we had free reign. She smoked pot and we knew it. Mary had actually hipped John to it a year prior.
You see, Mary was what you would call a ‘good time girl’. It was a shame because she was a really sweet girl. Such a big heart. A giver, obviously. But it was clear that John had passed her on to Tommy (before this story took place), without her actually realizing it. Their twisted fucking minds had devised the plot and they played it out like a couple of sick and fucking demented puppeteers. They ruined this poor girl mentally; maybe even a little physically, too. I even had my turn with her and treated her the way it should be done, but she was already damaged goods at that point. It was a shame, and she was so young, too. She was my age, 13. I have no idea where this tangent came from, but that’s what you get when you just type it out, I s’pose…
We broke out her mom’s weed and rolled a few pinner joints, so as not to make it appear like we took anything. I must again point out that time was an irrelevant variable in our equations that day. Having that said, it was already 8 pm and I hadn’t really checked in with Chucci, so I decided to break out for a second. I made an easy negotiation of it. I impressed myself with how well, actually. Smoothed it out, had my dinner plated up for reheat at my convenience and kept it movin’, son…
Upon returning to Mary’s, I discovered that Hell had broken half way loose. Mary’s little brother, Mike, had come home early from a sleep over and did not like what he walked into. Who could argue with the poor kid? Let me paint the portrait for you… John had, apparently, been obsessing about smoking one of the joints. Tommy and Mary kept telling him to wait at least 15 minutes to give me a chance to get back for it. *Note to reader: I was gone for a total of 30-45 minutes at the most* He wouldn’t hear of it. He got combative after about 5 minutes, grabbed a joint and went to the backyard. They decided to leave him be and start messin’ around in the living room. Now, the typical point of entry to her house was really the back door. Her mom was fairly old school and had the mentality that so many of my friends mom’s of the day had: the front room was the nice room and you shouldn’t have everyone walk through that way. It was also the house design of, pretty much, the whole entire town. Kitchen in the back of the house with a door, bedrooms attached back by the kitchen and in the middle of the house and the living room/tv room in the front. So, the front room was actually the best place to do dirt because it was the farthest place to get to upon entering the house.
But, every now and then, someone would come through the front door. It was rare and usually because it somehow got unlocked. This particular time, that was the case.
And in walks the 9 year old brother when his 13 year old sister is damn near butt ass naked with her legs up in the air like she slipped on a wet floor…
The kid had every right to lose his monkey shit. And lose his monkey shit he did…
And… Action! In walks Perry (through the kitchen, after chiefing down half that j with John out back) and Tommy’s bleeding. Bad, too. Mike walked in and was in pure shock, complete with his mouth open and eyes wide. Much, much later, Mary had revealed to me that his face looked just like the Scream mask. He must’ve been almost spellbound. So, after Tommy berates him something fierce, he snaps out of the shock. Mind you, the whole time (less than a minute) Tommy is still inside Mary. Before he can get out and make sense of what is happening, Mike grabs an ashtray off the coffee table and cracks Tommy in the lower back. I walked in the kitchen seconds after this happened, judging by when the scream started. Mary jumped up to run to her room, but Mike caught her with a hard slap that put her to the ground. I was amazed at this 9 year old kid’s strength, and reaction speed, too; it was kinda creepy. Tommy was getting up, but Mike had that factored in and kicked him in the neck/shoulder area. Mary was now screaming at the top of her lungs, or close to it. *Take note that Tommy and Mary are naked as jay bird’s* Tommy was now full on pissed off and shaking off the pain quick. Though cut fairly deep in the back, he sprung up for Mike like a crocodile at it’s prey. Mike had a step or two on him, and I gave him an assist on escaping, knocking myself into Tommy. I made it seem like a dumb mistake to avoid angering him further; I couldn’t see the kid get his ass beat, even though he did put a hurtin’ on my boy. In the midst of all this chaos, my cousin Alicia came running over, with Chucci keeping a close eye from the stoop. Unbeknownst to me, of course.
It was the most sobering 5 minute experience in my life. Real talk.
By some stroke of absolute luck, Alicia was more concerned about helping her friend than getting my retarded ass in trouble, so she shot into damage control mode. Mike had already bolted out the back door and hopped two fences to get to the next street over and he was Audi 5,000. Poof… Alicia went back to the house with the story that Mike had snuck back to the house and raised havoc, hence the screaming and carrying on. Lucky enough, back then neighborhood Mom’s always kept in touch with each other. They knew each other’s schedules and looked after one another’s kids, so she knew Mike was supposed to be at a sleepover. It all made sense and the wrath wouldn’t have to be unleashed. Alicia and I got Tommy and John out of there and helped get the house back in order. Tommy ended up needing stitches. Alicia even ended up sleeping over, waited for Mike to eventually come back, smoothed it out with him and he never once ratted on any of us. Although, Alicia now had a lil’ puppy love that she would never be able to shake, at least not until they ended up moving away a few years later. For my part, I had to ‘cosmetically’ cut ties with Tommy and John. Cosmetically meaning: I had to sneak around and hang out with them, which I did. Once caught by Alicia, I was promptly ratted on for drinking 40’s in the woods with Tommy and John…
I couldn’t tell you why I can so easily sit and recollect this so effortlessly. Obviously, some particulars are missing here. Some due to the fact that I don’t remember, some because I choose not to tell…
But, regardless, there you go. The only edits I made were spelling or grammatical ones, none for content after the fact…
What is writing, but a little regurgitation of the soul?
