Buying Acid In Berkely

Robby, Phil, and beautiful Rachel were my traveling companions. The sky was blue, the air was cool and clean. We were driving 80 West with all the windows open and the music blasting, The Violent Femmes taking turns with The Accused as we made our way toward the ocean, toward Berkley, towards People’s Park where would hopefully score a sheet of acid for less than two hundred bucks.

I rode in the back with Phil. It was the rule that the girl gets the front seat, especially when Robby, the driver had an enormous crush on her and it seemed quite conceivable that the feelings were mutual. We sang along with the song, cracked jokes and celebrated the fact that we were heading towards a good trip. We were sixteen years old.

People Park was like visiting another planet. The lawlessness was inspiring. There was music playing, punks, hippies and a variety pack of hobos drank from brown paper bags, barbequed and sold drugs openly. We were offered ecstasy, crank and weed before we found someone moving what we’d come for. It was an especially interesting time to be in the park as the university, owners and overlords of the property it sat on had decided to put in volley ball courts, a surreal and violently protested idea. So there we were with society’s rejects and drop outs along side muscled, tan college students drinking wine coolers and competing passionately in the sand.

You had to be careful buying drugs even in a clearing house like People’s Park. The more out-there looking someone was we figured the less chance that they were a nark, but the greater the chance that they were selling you some printed sheets of paper free of hallucinogenic chemicals. The guy that ended up selling us the acid was a regular at the park, obvious by the fact that three different people had referred us to him by name and he was cooking up a storm at the most populated of the barbeques when we found him. Jay sold us a sheet and we kicked a hit back to him; a tip. Then Robby and Phil each put a dose on their tongue. What the fuck?

“Robbie, what are you doing? You and Pill are the two with driver’s licenses. You have to drive us home.”

“I’m not leaving Berkley until we know the shits good. Besides, I drive fine high, you know that.”

The truth was I preferred Robby be at least stoned when he drove other wise he was way too aggressive. But being a little high and trippin’ on acid where not comparable in the slightest. It was too late. The drugs were soaking into their tongue already. Rachel didn’t seem to mind and dropped a dose herself. Oh well. I had to accept that which I could not change I figured and I placed a tab in my own mouth. We walked around the park as our stomach muscles began to tighten and our skin became sensitive. The muscles on my neck tingled, tightened and enjoyed moving my head about. I began to really appreciate just what an odd scene this park was. The community here was as structured and real as any other if less stable. The acid was definitely good.

We piled back into the car and attempted to find the freeway. Instead we found ourselves in a very black neighborhood. The residents of this neighborhood may have all been staring at us in an unwelcoming manner or we may have been projecting, but it was an unusual feeling for us white kids to be so solidly in the minority and we were anxious to find our way to the freeway but too chickenshit to roll down the window and ask directions.

Somehow we did end up on the freeway. To get back to Sacramento from Berkley is not a complicated endeavor. Interstate 80 East bound takes you all the way. It is truly remarkable that we managed to get as lost as we did. We were tripping something awful and Robby was certain we were heading in the wrong direction. He pulled the car off the freeway at an offramp that seemed to lead to nowhere and we made our way down a dark road that grew ever narrower. The road then ended at a trailer. This single mobile home sat smack at the dead end of a road with it’s own freeway offramp. It was too big to be a hallucination and it was being shared by all four of us. My brain did the math and decided this was real. I got out of the car. We all had the most faith in my mouth when it came to dealing with adults and authority figures. I knocked on the door. Nothing. I knocked again.

“Hello. Is there anyone here.” I called out.

I was about to give up when the blinds in the little window to the left of the door parted. “Who are you? What the fuck do you want?”

“Sorry to disturb you. My friends and I are lost. We’re trying to get back to Sacramento.”

“Get the fuck out of here. I have a gun.” I heard noises that I imagined to be the loading of said shotgun and I ran back to the car.

“Get the fuck out of here, he has a gun. He’s loading his gun, drive!” Robbie slammed it into reverse and backed up a good mile before daring to turn the car around. We drove for some time but the freeway that had been there before failed to materialize. Phil was tripping hard and starting to act pretty nuts.

“What the fuck Keith. You got us fucking lost. You dumb asshole. That guy didn’t have a fucking gun.”

If I’d known how bad Phil could get I’d have been more diplomatic. “Fuck you Phil. How did I get us lost. I aint driving. If you’d talked that dude we’d all be dead right now you fuckin’ nut bag.”

“What you want to fight? I’ll kick your ass Jensen.”

“Fuck off Phil. Let’s get home okay. Then we can fight all we want.”

“No, I’ll fight you now fucker.”
“Hey you guys what’s that?” Robby asked, thankfully derailing Phil’s train of thought. Looming before us was a huge building, with large welcoming glass doors and a big empty parking lot. We pulled up the doors and found them unlocked.

We were in a lobby of some kind of fitness club, and a nice one at that with marble floors, and impossibly high ceilings? Who the hell belonged to such a club? The guy in the mobile home? There was nobody at the front counter so I helped myself to the small office where I found an intercom system. I hit the button on the base of the microphone and heard my voice echo around me.

“Can we get assistance at the front counter please?”

Phil heard this and came running. “Goddammit Keith, what are you doing? I’m gonna beat you like a red headed nigger?”

As Phil said this there appeared behind him the only real live red headed black man I’d ever witnessed in person.

“Uh, Phil, turn around.” He could here the panic in my voice and did as he was told.

“Holy fuck!”

Luckily the man who had answered my page was calm and rational. “Hey you guys need to go.” He said in a Caribbean accent.

“Oh, yeah mon, we’re leaving.” Phil answered in the lamest fakin’ Jamaican I’d ever heard. He ran to the car and hid.

I found Robby and Rachel and corralled them toward the car. I got directions from the security guard or sole member of the largest health club I’d ever seen and he advised me as I left. “Your friends are pretty messed up. I hope you are driving.”

“Uh, yeah. I’m driving. Thanks man.” And I headed back to the car. I put all my attention into making sure Robby followed the directions I’d been given to a t. This was especially difficult as Phil was back on track looking for a fight. What is it with insane people and their amazing ability to carry on a dozen obsessions at once?

We found the freeway onramp. It even said Sacramento on the sign. We stopped at a gas station that didn’t exist at the ramp we’d exited form. I wondered just how far we’d traveled and just how much time had passed. I wished I had never ingested that acid. Phil was driving me crazy and I was considering smashing his skull in with a frozen bottle of Gatorade we’d brought with us that had failed to defrost. Instead I went into the bathroom of the gas station and started in the mirror, always a bad idea when trippin’. I was disgusted and saddened with myself for being in this situation. I would not trust Robby to drive me again. I punched the mirror and went back to the car.

“Hey Robby, I’m gonna ride up front or I’m going kill Phil.”

“Alright, that’s fine.” I was the hero of the moment for having gotten us back to the freeway. Rachel climbed in the back with Phil. We got on the road and Phil started hitting on Rachel aggressively. Robbie was pathetic, not saying a word. I was aware of how volatile Phil was and I though about how to approach this. That’s when Robbie started puking out the window, while driving.

“PULL OVER ROBBY! PULL THE FUCK OVER!” Robby got the car onto the shoulder. Phil couldn’t drive, obviously and Rachel had never driven in her life. I was up.
We all stepped out of the car to catch a breath and work out a new seating arrangement. I approached Phil.

“Hey Phil how ya doin’ man.”

“Fuck man, I’m cool.”

“Cool. Listen let’s just drop the shit and be cool with each other okay. It’ll make this a hell of a lot more fun, and we know we’re friends, so fuck it right?”

“Yeah man, it’s cool. No problem.”

“Alright man, awesome. Hey another thing, you know Robby kinda likes Rachel yeah?”

“Yeah dude. She’s hot. We all like her.”

“Well yeah, but I think her and Robby might kind of be on the way to having a thing going you know? So I thought, for Robby’s sake, that you and I would hold back. Is that cool?”

“Oh I get you. Yeah man that’s alright.”

I was a fuckin’ genius. If I could diffuse Phil than I could certainly drive a car. I climbed behind the wheel and got on the road. I heard Phil talking to Rachel in the back seat but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I was mostly focusing on keeping the car on the road as it felt ridiculously light and ready to slide about like we were driving on a large bar of soap.

“What the fuck Jensen? Rachel aint with Robby. You’re full of shit.”

“You told him I was with Robby?” Rachel shouted. “What the fuck.”

“He said you wanted me to stay away from you.” Phil was digging deeper.

“I did not. I just told him that Robby liked you and to lay off. I was just trying to get him to stop hitting on you.”

“You’re such an asshole.” Rachel couldn’t fight back against Phil so she turned on me. And now Robby joined in.

“God damn Keith, why can’t your own business?”

I wasn’t about to fight everyone in the car while trying to keep from floating up off the road. I just gripped the wheel and kept my mouth shut. Then Phil threw his shoe out the window.

“Ha ha, bye bye shoe.”

“What are you doing man?” Robby yelled.

“Relax man, it’s just a fuckin’ shoe.”

I laughed and kept driving, for what felt like a good five minutes. Then Phil decided he needed his shoe back. I told him it was too late his shoe was gone, but Phil wasn’t hearing it. He started to go apeshit. I looked in the rearview mirror to see if the lane next to me was clear. By the time I hauled my heavy eyes over I was already in the lane, which was indeed clear, luckily. I shot my eyes back forward, making sure it was clear in both directions. I had no idea how fast or slow I was going. Looking at the speedometer was out of the question. I had one more lane to go before I could grab the shoulder. Again, my eyes made the amazing journey from straight ahead to looking at the mirror and again, I was already over a lane by the time my eyes reached their destination. It was time for me not to drive.

I parked on the shoulder. I stepped out of the car. I decided I was done. I would not speak to anyone. I would not drive. If I got home, great, if not, well, the acid would wear off eventually and I’d deal with the small matter of traveling a few miles then. Every effort I made backfired on me. I would make no effort and I would be completely divested in whatever happened. I took a seat back in the car. Robby climbed back behind the wheel and backed up a good four or five miles. I wondered how much time we’d waste searching for Phils shoe, which we’d certainly never find.

“There it is. There it is!” Phil hollered, opening his door and jumping out of the car before Robby’d had a chance to touch his brakes. I stepped out and looked, and sure as could be, there was that damn white sneaker. A diesel passed and the shoe seemed to dance around, up on it’s toe, as if worn by a ballerina. Phil ran out to it, and made it back to the car safely.

I wondered if I really was the source of all our problems. Once I dropped out all was peaceful. We road home, trippin’ our brains out in silence. I got to my house and made my way to bed, praying to any deity available at such a late hour on a weekend to spare me from having to deal with parents. My prayer granted, I slipped into bed and played the classic game of separating what really happened from what couldn’t have really happened. I could not for the life of me figure out where the hell we were when we got lost or why that trailer and that fitness center were sitting in isolation in the middle of nowhere. I fell asleep eventually.

I woke up early feeling great. I made a list of rules for future experiences with acid. No relying on Robby for transportation, no having to be home, no Phil. I felt great; alive, healthy, peppy even. I walked to Robby’s house and found him up as well, washing his car and also in high spirits. We drove to Rachel’s and spent the day swimming and watching concert films while eating her parent’s food.

Acid

Pot was nothing like I could've imagined. I found I really enjoyed listening to music stoned, or riding my bike. I started reading everything I could find about pot, pro and con. Reefer madness became a favorite.

I came across a-lot of literature dealigng with other drugs as well and I discovered the drug subculture. So many writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, comedians, all doing drugs and many of them not going crazy and killing themselves or becoming brain dead morons. It even seemed many of them were getting older and still using drugs. Oliver Stone, Hunter S. Thompson, Timothy Leary. I decided drugs were like driving or drinking or anything else. Some folks would over do it. Robbie was surely one of those who would over do it. I was confident in myself that I could use moderately and I decided I wanted to try everything.

I was questioning my Christian upbriniging, starting with Herman Hesse's Sidhartha. It was depressing to have the security blanket of religion taken from me. Life seemed meaningless. But I felt like I'd seen more of life by smoking pot, and some of these drugs I'd read about seemed to provide a view beyond this world. I wanted to know the secrets of the universe. Mostly I wanted to have every experience this life had to offer, since this life was, as far as I knew for sure, all I got.

So, I asked Robbie if he could get us some acid. Sure he could. My parents were to be gone most of the day. Robbie and I met under an old tree that grew by itself in one of the few empty fields left in our rapidly growing suburb. We dropped the acid, which came in the form of little paper tabs. Mine had an eye on it. Apparently we were dropping Black Eschers, featuring the M.C. Escher print of unravelling heads. The eye was rumored to be an extra strong dose. Robbie and I put the tabs on our tongue and sat beneath the tree waiting for it to hit. I rambled on about God and the meaning of life and Robbie nodded and waited to see what the hell I'd be like high.

The acid hit the belly first. My stomach hurt a bit and then began to tighten up. My throat and tongue felt it too. My extremeties started to get in on the act, feeling extra sensitive, slightly ticklish even. I opened and closed my jaw and it was tight but it felt great. I was touching my arms and my jaw and I felt alive and wonderful in my own skin. I forgot about god and fell in love with where I was at that moment. We found these amazing little wooden balls that the tree must have produced. I'd never seen such a thing though they were apparently laying on the ground around us all this time. I put one in my pocket so I could be sure it was amazing later when the drugs had worn off.

Robbie had arranged to be my co-pilot, something he'd assured me was very important when tripping for the first time. I didn't feel like being limited so I paid no attention to Robbie as I took of on my bike. I didn't intend to lose him, but I didn't intend not to. I rode my bike into an area where new homes were being built. Nobody was working so this neighborhood to be just sat there, weird and empty. It felt like a non-place. I rode my bike in circles enjoying the speed and trippin' on the strange surroundings. I looked at the sky and felt my size, how absolute tiny I was on such a big planet. A planet I'd seen so little of. Never mind an afterlife, I needed to get more out of this one. There was so much to see, and I'd missed so many cool things that were right here in front of me.

I headed out of the kuldesac I'd been doing circles in. There was Robbie. "Where were you dude?" he asked feeling a little put out.

I sped past him. I was the first timer here and I felt okay being a bit selfish. If I was ever with someone else durring their first trip I'd return the favor. I went back to the tree and Robbie joined me.

I had fallen in love with the world, with my body and now I fell in love with Robbie. I talked to him and I listened to him without being judgemental. I loved him for feeling and wanting and sharing, for being human. For once I didn't fixate on Robbie being a bit damaged and a bit simple. I instead appreciated Robbie's openness and his cheerful spirit. I was also well aware of the enigmatic abuse he had endured all his life. His father was insane and his mother was passive and a bit slow. Robbie and I talked for hours, trading our life stories and our wants for the future.

Now comes what I would determine in time was the bad part of every acid trip. The trip is done, I've learned all I have room for, I want to be done, but the trip just goes on. Eight hours or more, way too much for such intensity. And always there's the fear that you might just never come down. Robbie told me in advance of this phenomenon and that helped me dismiss or at least cope with the fears, but he also told me stories of people who indeed stayed "on" for the rest of their lives. I did my best to stay calm and ride it out, grinding my teeth, and being more aware of my sweat and spit and guts than at any other time in my life.

Finally the sun headed down and Robbie and I headed to our respective homes. My head and body were settling down. At it's peak the trip was very physical and my mind was reeling but things were never particularly visual. I didn't halucinate, but I did seem to see more vividl, catching something new in anything and everything I looked at. Colors were particluarly vivid. I always knew sunsets were pretty, but now I saw each and every detail, where colors bumped up against each other, made new colors, and how it changed right before your eyes, so subtle, but within minutes the entire images was changed, the sun moving faster and faster as it sped downward, to hide behind the horizon.

I got home late and went to my room, managing to avoid my parents. After putting the strange wooden ball that the tree had birthed on my night stand I closed my eyes and enjoyed a psychadelic show on the back of my eyelids. I saw wild echoing cartoon characters zooming about in space. I turned on the light and did some drawing trying to capture the pictures in my head. And then I went to bed.

That little wooden ball was still pretty amazing come morning. There were things right in front of me that I wasn't seeing. I would make an effort to open my eyes.

Weed

"Choose your friends. Don't let your friends choose you. "

I'd moved from Southern California, where I'd lived all my life in the same house, to Sacramento. My three older brothers all stayed in southern california. I had no friends and I had a horrible time making any. A year had passed and I still had very few people I could hang out with. The one friend I could call up, a transplant himself from Texas, was a bully named Jake.

I was in summer school and Robbie, the kid who sat in front of me in the Hawaiian shirt complimented me on my David Bowie t-shirt. I thanked him and we didn't exchange much converstaion after that but he always laughed when I clowned in class.

The last day of school came and I decided I would seize this opportunity to make a friend. I had become so neurotic socialy that I had butterflies in my stomach as I contimplated asking him if he wanted to hang out.

"Hey dude, you said you liked David Bowie."

"Yeah?"

"Well Labrynth is on HBO tonight, you want to come watch it?"

"Yeah that sounds cool."

I gave him my address and it turned out he didn't live too far from me. Mere minutes by bicycle. We swam and watched Labrynth. He ended up staying the night and my mom, so glad to see me hanging out with such a nice kid took us to rent a whole pile of horror films.

Robbie offered me some weed. Dammit all. I just wanted a friend. I wasn't going to let the weed keep me from being friends with Robbie. After all I attended continuation school with lots of stoners and they were nice enough. I told him I didn't smoke and I sat with him on the roof outside my window while he loaded his pipe and toked away.

I was friends with Robbie and his stoner buddies all that summer, skateboarding and watching movies, Brazil, Monty Python, The Wall, every horror film ever made. Everyone was amazed that I had never smoked pot but after awhile it was just my little quirk. Brook didn't like pizza, Robbie had really weird parents and Keith didn't smoke pot.

Then, one day, I sat watching some porno films from Robbie's parents collection while the rest of the gang was in the garage getting loaded. Robbie came in, poured what was left of a two litre bottle of Coke into my glass and started cutting the bottom off. Then he got a pictcher and filled it with water.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked him.

"I'm making a gravity bong." I followed him into the smoke filled garage, curious about this contraption. I was amazed as they showed me how it worked and I loudly expained it back to them.

"You've created a simple artificial lung. As you lift the bottle out of the water the water flows out of it expanding the capacity of the lung. Nature abhors a vaccumme so air has to get in to fill the space. The air naturally enter where it finds the least resistence, through the spout, through the weed, which you light, and the bong actually takes the hit. The smoke cools in this lung instead of yours and then you get a nice cool hit. Wow!"

Four stoners sat staring at me. Brook was the first to respond to my science lesson. "You want a hit?"

Yeah. I did. I took a hit. It was science. I took a big cool hit from the artificial lung. I didn't feel anything.

"You got to give it time." Brook said as he took a big rip of his own.

After everyone had smoked their share we hopped on our bikes and headed to the flea market.

"I still don't feel anything. Maybe I won't. You know I used to take ritalin and it didn't do much to me because I'm hyper, but if you took it'd be like speed. Maybe hyper kids don't get high either."

We got to the flea market and as I stepped off my bike, I felt it. I felt it in my foot hitting the ground. I felt it in the skin of my face as it tightened in the warm sun. The sky was blue, it was a gorgeous day. "Guys, I'm stoned."

My four friends raised a cheer and we went into the flea market. This place was just made for stoned kids. Mini donuts and lots of blinking lights and trippy things you might miss without that special marijuana brand concentration. Elaborate would carvings that boggled the mind with their tiny, intricate details.

I found a t-shirt booth and had to buy three; Pluto, as in Micky Mouse's dog shaking between to fire hydrants with "Decisions, decisions" written above him, Spuds McKinsey, the Budweiser dog, splattered across the road by a passing Coors truck and the prize winnner, a caterpillar, in glasses, giving some love to a crinkle cut french fry as the french fry proclaims, "Get off of me you asshole! I'm a french fry." It was, I was sure, the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

It felt great to get back on our bikes and enjoy the awesome weather. This was weed? I'd been drunk, once and it was mostly headaches and dizzyness, not so different from too much sugar or hyperventilating, but this. This was amazing. Damn I was hungry.

We got back to Robbie's and invaded the kitchen. Frozen pizzas, sodas, french fries, ha ha "I'm a french fry!". Robbie's dad was a survivalist and kept the house amazingly well stocked in food with an extra couple of freezers in the garage. Robbie's dad worked 24 hour shift at the fire house so we had it made. I called my folks, and managed to act normal as I asked to stay late at Robbies. I didn't want to go home until this wore off.

I discovered then that weed did indeed hit me a bit different than the other kids. For one, it made them lethargic but it made me talkaltive and more hyper than usual. It also lasted for hours. I assumed this was just a first time thing and that I would develope a tolerance but I was wrong. I would always be a hyper stoner.

Drugs?

Sugar

Probably my first drug, and ultimately the hardest to kick was sugar. We poured it on bleached white wonder bread and had sugar sandwiches. We overdosed on it at Christmas, Halloween and especially easter when we recieved a giant basket full of chocolate bunnies, marshmallow peeps, jelly beans and gooey Cadbury Eggs. We'd go through a few gallons of milk, my four brothers and I as it was the only thing that could take the edge off. I remember the shaking and sweating of a sugar over dose. And I remember that when a big glass of milk and some dinner I couldn't wait to load in some more sweet stuff.

Hyperventilation
Another childhood high was lack of oxygen, hyperventilation, auto-affixiation. Spinning in circles to get dizzy had lost it's former charm and a friend introduced me to the wonder of hyperventilating. We'd take fast deep breaths for as long as we could, until we felt dizzy and then we'd breath out as deeply as possible and hold it as long as we could, wrapping our own hands around our throats or having a friend help in that regard. This would cause us to pass out.

It was so strange to be under, seeming to go right into REM sleep, there were definately dreams, and then you'd open your eyes and wonder why you weren't waking up in you bedroom. Why were you waking up in the gym with all the other kids staring at you, your lips tingling. They'd all start speculating and weather or not you were faking and who would go next while you tried to get back in touch with reality. The first question of your lips would be "How long was I out." and the amazing answers was "Thirty seconds." That thirty seconds changed the rythm of the rest of your day. If I had parents knew what we were up to they might not have been so afraid of the dreaded marijuana. Hell, we'd have been better off sparking up a joint.

Ritalin

If I'd put my mind to it I might have been able to enjoy this one. I resisted it. I did not want to take it. The few times I was duped into actually swallowing the little pill I was a zombie. I'd sat at my desk and drool and the teacher was thrilled. I wasn't doing any better at focusing but I wasn't being a distraction. She gave my parents glowing reports of my improved behavior. The other kids were to be told that I was going to the nurse to treat my asthma. When the teacher broke our agreement, yelling, "Why are you so unruly? Did you take your pill today?" I chucked a chair at her head. I hadn't in fact taken my pill.

I took the Ritalin once more, in Junior High. I spent the day freaked out, writing pages and pages about the phonomenon of not knowing if you're awake or dreaming. I waited all day for dream like things to happen and it made me neurotic. My mom found the writings and I went to see a shrink, not the first time, or the last. The shrink didn't think it had anything to do with the ritalin and in hind sight I'm not so sure it did except for the placebo effect of knowing I was on something, something I wanted to not be on. My parents never pressured me to take ritalin again.

My poor mother. She figured my absolute refusal to take ritalin for fear that it would alter who I was, meant that I wouldn't go near the illegal drugs. I'm pretty sure she believe this to be true to this day.

Positive Drug Role Model

I did drugs. I don't do drugs now.

From this you should be able to fill in the rest of the story. It's been told enough times. It starts inncocently enough with a few tokes off a joint, peaks with lots of glamourous sex and cocain a-plenty and bottoms out with sucking dick for crack. Redemption follows soon after and then the book is written. The tale is a cautionary one, hopefully warning you away from the mistakes the author made. Of course, without these "mistakes" he wouldn't have a book would he? Leading a life worthy of a book, hell that's better than most of us do. And the sex and glamour, would the author really trade it in to have lived life as an insurance salesmen or a data entry person? Unlikely.

I'm not writing that story. I did drugs. I enjoyed them. I learned a few things from them. I don't regret doing them. I had only bad authors like the ones described above as role models so it's only natural that I made some dumb mistakes in how and where and when I did drugs. I hope to be a positive role model. I hope to write a truly cautionary tale. I'll not warn you off drugs. Hell drugs are the modern right of passage. But hopefully after reading my stories you'll know a bit more regarding which drugs to save until you're in a safe place away from the city and away from cars. You'll know which personality types NOT to do acid with. You'll know that even when doing things that feel excessive by their very nature moderation is the key to enjoyment. Or maybe you'll just enjoy reading about the adventures and misadventures I had as I "experimented" with drugs.