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The rest of the day was a slog. Having a concept of time was something you had to sacrifice if you were going to drop acid. The actual hours you spent tripping felt much longer, and while you never really forgot anything that happened during the trip, each moment and each feeling was always swallowed up by the moment and feeling that came next. Moods changed as often as songs flowed from verses to choruses. Each trip always offered a different buffet of feelings, and no two plates were piled with the same amalgamation of flavors. The rest of the day was a neutered dog. It took insurmountable energy to remember where the day fit in with the whole week, or how the week fit in with the year, or how any of it fit in with a lifetime of experiences. The trip was its own world. To go there, you had to give up the confidence that there was a world waiting for you when you finally came down from ecstasy. The rest of the day was a waiting room fish tank. David found that the best way to crawl back into the headspace of reality was to log onto social media to see what his sober friends, family, and idols had been doing that day. As he waited for his phone to turn on, he tried to catch himself up: Bernie isn’t running for president anymore. Protesters are taking to the streets in some parts of the country to get us back to work. My check still hasn’t come in . . . that whole stimulus thing was probably a fucking scam. Though he was still feeling the afterglow effects of the acid, he could pinpoint the major things that had happened in his life. But he knew he was missing something big, something tragic. He opened Twitter to see if he could anchor that last part of his memory and finally come down from the trip that had lasted eight hours so far. He needed that splash of reality. But he found none online. “Guys,” he said. His own voice stiffened the hair on his neck—it was the first time anyone had spoken in almost an hour. Or maybe he was more chilled by the Twitter feed he was scrolling past. He wanted to see something that made sense, but so far, none of the posts did. They all sounded like words spoken in a fever dream, syllables pumped out of an exhausted five-year-old. I’m having a stroke. “Did you see what Amy Klobuchar tweeted?” Tom stared him down menacingly. “Are you good to drive yet?” David wondered how long he had been looking at him. “I’m serious,” he said. Though he wanted Tom to forget about what he had done that day, he really wasn’t trying to use the Twitter feed to distract from that. “She said . . . Hold on.” The tweet was too unintelligible to read aloud. It said, “America! We boy can really !from the love of my l ife. Forgood.” David rose to show Tom, but Tom refused to look. “Look, MacKenzie,” said David. She was sitting far away from Tom with her mask back on. She looked away. “Even the promoted tweets . . . There’s one from the Hellmann’s corporate account: ‘I can feel my fingerprint maps tapping on the glass, it’s the little fingerprint trails and they can feel it all’ . . . What does that mean?” Garret was the first one to bite. He took out his phone and started scrolling. David watched Garret as his brow furrowed. “It’s all of them,” said David. “None of them make sense, right? Are you seeing that?” “Show Mitch,” said Garret. David looked around, but Mitch wasn’t in the room. “When you leave,” explained Garret. “Tell him he should come back inside.” David was petrified. All three people here, sitting in sullen silence, wanted him to leave, and as painful as it was for David to accept it, he knew he had overstayed his welcome. “Damn,” he said. “Nothing?” He directed the question at MacKenzie, but she didn’t say anything. His head hurt. “Fine,” said David. “I’ll be the bigger man.” He took his time slipping on his shoes. He restrained himself from asking for Advil, briefly distracting himself from the headache by opening Facebook and comparing the posts there. It was the same: his feed was full of fragmented thoughts, exactly like the thoughts he himself had had throughout his trip. It was uncanny. How could he climb out of this state of mind if he didn’t feel like there was a world to climb back into? Eventually, he closed the app. The bright screen just made his head hurt worse. He put his phone away and left the apartment. As he walked away, he heard the door lock behind him. He almost turned back around to yell at them. Don’t make it worse . . . The headache was a true son of a whore. He didn’t remember the come-down being this bad in either of the two times he had tripped before. David had always mentioned that acid was the perfect drug because it was cheap, it lasted for a long time, and it made you feel good. But most importantly, the come-down was so unpleasant that your brain ended up attributing no good feelings to putting that tab of paper on your tongue. It kept you from getting addicted, which was the greatest blessing of all. LSD fucked up your brain chemistry hard. David had to be grateful for the headache that kept him from using it excessively. Starting the car was shaky business, but after he finally pulled out onto the road he maneuvered his way safely to his own apartment. For a moment, he was anxious that he would have to be extra alert in his still-muggy state of mind to avoid running his bumper into another car’s side, but as soon as he got onto the road he could see that it wasn’t necessary. There were still no cars on the roads. None at all. As for people, only one was out walking on the bridge near the apartment . . . except this man wasn’t really walking. He was standing on the edge, arms stretched forward, as though expecting a hug. David thought horribly, briefly, jump, before scolding himself and sending out a silent prayer to who-knew-which-god that the dude would keep his feet on the concrete. This headache really is a full-fledged son of a full-fucked bitch. David winced at himself. He didn’t want to think about full-fucked bitches. I really did that . . . He swore and fished through his glove box for his Tylenol. He dry-swallowed four pills. They didn’t help. He grimaced through the pain as he ducked out of the car. He had to hunch as he walked, as though the diluted light alone was pushing him into the loose gravel around the front door of the apartment building. An hour ago, David would have wanted nothing more than to just crawl into bed and let the last remaining glow of the acid take him into an intense, weird, 10-hour night’s sleep. But now the headache had spread to his neck—he didn’t think that was even possible, but apparently it was. He couldn’t think of anything. Except that he really needed to piss again. He passed Jackson on the way to the bathroom. He kept the lights off this time as he emptied his bladder. In the dark, he sat breathing heavily through a mixture of empty-bladder euphoria and the persistent, cancerous, head-splitting migraine. Jackson knocked heavily on the bathroom door. David shouted, “I’m in here!” “I need to pee!” Jackson called back. David washed his hands and only just escaped before Jackson squeezed in. David quickly wound back around. “We don’t have any Advil, do we?” “I took it all,” said Jackson. David gawked. “Took it all?” “I took it all today,” said Jackson. “Why?” The toilet flushed. Jackson came out without washing his hands. “Have you ever done acid?” David froze. “Have you?” he asked. But out of the corner of his eye, David saw the answer sitting on the counter: an open plastic baggie full of blotter sheets. Jackson pushed in front of David and took the baggie into his protective and greedy hands. David was frozen. Jackson must have taken his look for one of unfamiliarity, because he started to explain himself. David cut him off. “Why the fuck do you have those?” asked David. “I got em from my bud guy,” said Jackson. “He got in touch with another guy. Want to try some?” “I just did!” David shook his head, still processing it. “I just dropped at Tom’s.” “Tom does acid?” asked Jackson. “That’s insane! We should’ve all done it together.” “How long have you been doing it?” “Since this morning.” Jackson scrunched his face up, thinking hard. He checked the digital clock on the stove. “Geez. Eight hours, I guess?” “You’re not even an acid guy.” “What? Everyone’s been doing it, man! My friend Shayla took some today in Miami. All her friends do it, too.” “Don’t sound so laid back about it! This is a huge fucking deal, and you’re treating it like it’s fucking nothing!” “It is effing nothing.” Jackson was never fazed by David’s fury. He had a counter-argument for everything. “Dude, I feel great. I had a headache for a while, but when this stuff starts up in my system again, it’s amazing. I can’t feel squat. This pen?” Jackson picked a pen up from the table and snapped it in half. “I didn’t even feel that! You think I can feel pain if I can’t even feel a pen breaking in my hand? I feel great because . . . here, the headache meds weren’t working, so I just took another one of these—” Jackson picked up a blotter sheet— “and now I’m bumpin’ and thumpin’ again, man. I’m up all the way! Fuck, I feel—Frick, I mean frick. No, fuck that! Fuck! Fuck! I fucking feel it coming up again!” Jackson put the sheet back on the table and hopped up to touch the ceiling. When he came down, a tremor made a lamp in the living room shake. He bolted into his bedroom. “You took another one of those?” asked David. “How long ago?” “I don’t know,” said Jackson, zooming back out. “An hour, maybe?” David stared at the tabs on the table. Jackson took laps around the room and landed on the couch in exhaustion. “And you feel good again?” asked David. Jackson nodded. “Good as new.” David took the blotter sheet in his hands. “Mind if I have one?”
3.
Jackson was right about not being able to feel anything. David had felt his pain receptors numb before, but at the peak of his trip that day, he understood the extent of his sense of touch. He held a cracker in his hand, looked away for one second, and turned back to find only crumby residue on his thumb and pointer finger. Two halves of the cracker had fallen to the carpet. David had demolished the thing without feeling it, and unclenching his fingers was like squeezing open a clamp. On the other hand, sensations of a different kind were amplified. They came through the music. Silence was unbearable; you needed to have a tune to grasp onto. Your emotions depended on it. Without music or a soundscape of some kind, your mind was blanched. You were never in control of how you felt or what you did, The couch was so soft especially not three tabs in. that gravity was gaining power over the material inside the musty cushion, “I want to live like this forever,” allowing David to said David. sink into it further every second. He smiled with ease, “Me too,” the likes of which he’d never felt before. said Jackson. “What?” asked David. “I have banana pudding in the fridge, motherfucker!” He hopped up, “Holy moly, that was close!” said Jackson. and ran to the David picked up a Ziploc bag full of Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses and unwrapped one. “That was close,” agreed David, not knowing what he was agreeing to. He ate “You almost stomped on my crotch!” five Kisses and flicked the wrappers at “Oh, shit. My bad.” Jackson. The doorknob jiggled. Jiggled. Jiggled. Jiggled. Both Jackson and David sprung up, full of alarm. They glanced at each other, then back at The door opened. the door. “We locked that,” said David to no one in Jackson gasped with his whole throat. particular. Jackson smiled. Jackson ran to the man who David still didn’t register completely until “Jackson,” said the man with a warm smile. “I’m so proud of you, man.” he took off his jacket hood. “Hey man,” said Jackson, swooping in to give the guest a hug. Before he could completely follow through, “Look at you,” the man said. Jackson swerved away from him, as though embarrassed that he had almost “You look so much better than you did this morning.” embraced him. “How so?” asked Jackson, truly perplexed. Suddenly, his smile slipped. He crossed his arms. “I feel great. Always do. I don’t need your stuff.” The man laughed and “Who’s this?” asked David, already realizing this must be Jackson’s guy. patted him on the shoulder. Jackson stepped out of the man’s reach. “Luke,” said Jackson, laughing as he said it. His smile was back and stayed on even as Jackson asked “No, sir.” the tentative question, “Did you want more money or . . . ? Oh, good.” David’s head was spinning as he tried to keep up with Luke and Jackson’s rapid David’s feet were freezing cold. He grabbed his socks and put them back on. back-and-forth half-conversation, half-argument. David asked Luke, “Do you have any more of that stuff?” He pointed at the table. The tabs were gone. “Where are the tabs?” asked David. Jackson lifted up the sheet and, smiling, ripped off two more “No, dude!” tabs and taunted David by “Don’t! No, no, no!” holding it over his mouth. “Why not?” asked Jackson. “You just said you want to be like this forever.” Luke snickered to himself. “I’m not taking any more,” vowed David. “He didn’t say anything about you,” said Luke. “I didn’t say anything about you,” said Jackson. He “I’m serious.” folded the two tabs together and dropped them on his tongue. “Jackson!” “Jackson!” “Jackson!” A boy giggled—either it was Jackson or David. Luke didn’t giggle; he “Jackson!” guffawed. “So do you still want some of this stuff?” asked Luke, “Jackson!” pulling out blotter sheets as bounteous as a bingo caller’s collection “Jackson!” of cards. “Yes,” said David. “Hell yes. How much?” “Are you stupid?” David checked for his wallet, but it was gone. He must have “Are you stupid?” left it somewhere. On the counter, maybe. David took a “Are you stupid?” lap around the kitchen. When he came back to his spot empty- “Are you stupid?” handed, he saw that Luke was holding his money. “Not much,” “Are you stupid?” said Luke. “I’ll let you take this sheet for twenty bucks.” Luke was already holding the twenty dollar bill out for David to see. David gingerly took his wallet away from Luke, along with the blotter sheet. His heart “Nice, dude.” didn’t stop pounding as he carried all (six times six is) 36 tabs into his “Nice, dude.” David checked his wallet to make sure nothing else was missing. “Wait, man!” He cried out in surprise when he saw that there were several more “Wait, man!” tabs stuffed in the lining of the wallet. David went back into the “Wait, man!” kitchen, only to find that Luke was gone. Jackson gleefully popped “Wait, man!” tab after tab into his mouth. David shoved his toes into his Converse and threw himself out of the apartment. He looked up and down the hallway, but he couldn’t find Luke. A boy and a girl who were both half his height ran past him. They hit the door at the end of the hall, then ran past him again. The boy had yellow sauce in his hair and the girl had drenched her pants with pee. They were both crying. David locked the apartment door behind him and ran out of the hallway before either of the kids could run into him during their manic rampage. One of the doors opened to a 30-year-old woman in pajama pants, holding a saucepan gunked with mac-n-cheese residue. A couple noodles fell on the hallway carpet. “Cassidy! Buck!” she yelled at them to come inside. David didn’t realize he was watching them until the woman looked back in his direction with a vehement and primal look of fear. Her terrible stare drew him in like a tractor beam. “It was an accident!” she yelled at him. “Prove it! Mind your business! It never happened.” She slammed the door, even though the kids never answered her call. They remained outside, in tears, running back and forth to satisfy the demands of their mania. David pinned himself to the wall and watched them for just a second longer. They paid him almost no attention, except in slight glances every now and then as they passed by. In those glances, David felt something he’d recognized whenever he dropped acid with his friends. He recognized unity. He didn’t know the science behind it (there was always the possibility that it wasn’t science at all), but when he and a group of people dropped acid at the same time, it was like all of their emotions were in sync. He could anticipate others’ changes in mood simply by thinking about the changes. He could tell when someone was having a hot flash or a cold spell because he himself felt it at the same time. Even for the brief time he was in his own apartment with Jackson, he never had to question what Jackson was feeling because their minds mingled in the air that they shared. These two kids, who could not have been older than 10, looked at him with the same knowing glance. In fact, he could see it in their mother’s eyes, too. Unity. They were each experiencing the same thing. David coursed down the stairwell. In the torturous absence of music, the echoes of his feet were music to his ears. He didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts, because those thoughts often developed into anxieties and fears. And right now, there was one thought, one anxiety, one fear that bugged him. He didn’t want it to be true. He reminded himself he had taken three tabs of acid, and with such a chemical influence, there was the definite possibility that he was misunderstanding the world around him, or misinterpreting reality, or just missing information. There was no way this one fear could be true. David stopped on the first floor hallway before leaving. He ran halfway down the hall and stopped at a door number he didn’t recognize. He knocked. David waited for so long that he almost reversed his intentions and left without testing his idea, but eventually the door opened. A bearded man opened the door just wide enough for David to catch half of his face, along with a full view of who he assumed was his girlfriend on the couch behind him. She was naked. David almost forgot what he was doing there. “What’s up, bro?” the man asked. “Look, can I—?” David stepped inside in spite of the man’s protests. The woman covered herself with a pillow. “What the hell!” barked the man. David searched all over the countertops and tables. He took a quick tour of the living room and looked for any tiny scrap of paper that might look like an acid tab. David didn’t get far before the man grabbed his arm, nearly yanking it out of the socket, hurtling David toward the wall. “Stop!” said David. “I just wanted to know . . .” “Get the fuck out of here, dude!” The man tried pushing David out. “You buy acid today?” asked David. He stopped pushing David. He glanced at his girlfriend. David gasped. “What’s it to you?” asked the man. But it was already clear to David. He ran out and went straight for the street. There were finally other people driving on the roads now. David thought, horrified, of all the people who were driving while tripping on LSD. He jumped at the roar of a truck swerving past him, straight through a red light, but that wasn’t necessarily a telling sign. David had run a few red lights this morning. At the intersection outside his apartment building, David was within walking distance of other residential areas, a McDonald’s, and a Taco Bell. David chose the Taco Bell. The doors were locked, though. They shouldn’t be closed, but they were. While trying the ice-cold handle, David realized he had forgotten to grab his jacket, and instantly the temperature inside his body dropped the charade that it was the inside of a Taco Bell taco looks so disgusting but it tastes so good warm at all. David bolted across the street to McDonald's. Luckily, they were David knocked on the open. “Hello!” David said. “Oh, shit! I’m shouting!” He rapped his knuckles on “Holy hell!” said a woman sitting on the ground in the kitchen. counter over and over again until someone responded. She walked up to the counter, bowed her head, She looked so ashamed. and touched the screen to wake it up. pacing back and forth and holding her head in her hands. David wanted bacon bacon anything bacon fucking slaps all the fucking time to ask her what was wrong, but Do I have my wallet with me? Shit. Where the fuck did that go? as he continued to think about it, he already understood the answer. She didn’t look “I gotta go,” said David. like the kind of person David wanted to have a heart to heart with at the moment. She looked like she had really been Where the fuck did my wallet go? going through emotional hell today. David left the building and felt colder than before. The McDonald’s girl wasn’t the only one going through Oh, it’s right here in my fucking hand. emotional hell right now. David had really messed up. He didn’t want to think about it, but he really had fucked things up this time with Tom. Was it okay to leave it in the past? No. David knew he was going to climb out of this trip eventually, and when he did, guilt would hit pretty fast. At that point, David would need to apologize for what he’d Where the fuck did Luke go? David ran to his apartment building. He found his car and slid into the driver’s seat. He was hot again, as hot as a sausage ready to burst. Where did that fucker go? Before long, while the world warped and glistened with frightening acceleration, David realized his car was being followed. No, not followed—accompanied. Beside him, on the two-way road, was a man in a shitty green car, keeping perfectly even with David’s 40-mile-per-hour pace. When he looked over to catch the guy’s face, he saw that the man was maintaining mesmerizing eye contact with him, Unity not looking at the road at all as they rumbled onto the bridge that stretched over the river. David tried to slow down so that the man could pass safely, but his road companion decelerated at his pace. The shitty tires beneath the shitty green car threatened to cross over the yellow dotted line onto David’s side. David quickly accelerated to try to get in front of the man instead, but he sped up too fast and nearly lost control of his car. He clipped the sidewalk hugging the bridge railing and overcompensated, crushing his left side mirror on his neighbor’s car body. The man didn’t let up. He stayed at an even pace with David. At that moment, a car entered the road on the other side of the bridge. David honked. David Dude! honked eight times in a row. He rolled down his window and Stop, dude! gestured frantically to the incoming traveler ahead of them. The man Stop, dude! could see the car but wouldn’t let up. “What do you want me to do?” asked Stop, dude! David, wailing through the rippling wind. He lost Holy shit control of his vehicle for a second time and slammed his foot on the Holy shit brakes. The man in the shitty green car did the same. He took Holy one last could help at all at this point final action, as though it David didn’t know what to do Shit! desperate but just sit there Hey! hail the incoming driver while the man in the shitty green car Holy shit! like a cab like a cop No! finally screamed Dead Holy shit! There was no way both drivers weren’t dead Collided The shitty green car folded Flipped over the edge of the bridge The incoming car Dark blue Took the shortcut route Through The concrete railing Rebar twanging, flopping out of the posts Looking more like iron marrow in stone bones. David tried to get out of his car to see for himself, but his car door stopped on a chunk of shitty green bumper. He took it as a sign Dead that he should just get out of there as fast as he could. His tires screamed, temporarily frozen in panic, before giddily squealing and speeding away. David parked outside Okay, where are you? Tom’s apartment.