tonytohono wrote:Names have been changed
About Last Night
After spending several hours hallucinating abduction by extraterrestrials, one has a tendency to reevaluate his priorities. Somewhere between the cavity searches and the mind probes, I realized it was probably time to quit experimenting with the mind altering drugs. When I finally came back down to earth, I swore my days of dropping acid were a part of the past.
The fateful event had taken place during the 20th anniversary of the Summer of Love. It was a big deal here in the city; after all, back in 1967, San Francisco was where it all began. I’d like to say my experiments were a direct result of the celebrations taking place that summer, but they had actually began several years earlier. I was never a fiend, only a casual user, but after the encounter with aliens, my experience with psychedelics was to be limited strictly to past tense. I guess I should have told Cary.
Cary’s apartment was located above a bar called the Eagle’s Nest, a seedy dive with blacked out windows and a recessed doorway. The men who oozed from within often made my skin crawl. A more appropriate name for the bar may have been the Chicken Hawk’s Roost or the Trouser Snake’s Lair. It was a gay bar, located on Market near the corner of Laguna.
At the time, I barely gave it a second thought, but it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable neighborhood for a young heterosexual male who had certain leanings toward an androgynous appearance. Hell, I was a musician with long hair. Even in the straight neighborhoods I was often mistaken for a woman. I did my best to ignore the cat calls no matter where I was at.
Cary, who wore his blonde hair shorter than mine, was not only the singer in my band, he was my best friend. He had found the apartment after he had ground out his welcome at his former residence, my place. Incidentally, it wasn’t my decision that he’d move; I had never objected to his outrageous behavior. On the other hand, my girlfriend, and our two roommates did. I constantly begged him to mellow out, but he had stubborn convictions. I guess it was a little annoying to wake up to him belting Led Zeppelin songs at three in the morning, dropping empty beer bottles on the hardwood floor.
After a few fruitless weeks of apartment hunting he turned up a place. A place that, as it turned out, was surrounded by fruits. It was a studio that was barely big enough for futon, and whose only window was blocked by a wall. I wasn’t impressed, but I was proud of him for having found his own crib, and one day it would make for a good story of our humble beginnings. I saw visions of interviews on MTV, of our stoic expressions. “Hell yeah it was tough, but we were dedicated to our music.”
The room was so small that we usually split immediately after my arrival, or sometimes, we would skip it altogether and meet at one of the local bars, the ones where the rock and rollers hung out, the Drunk Tank, or the Firehouse. Then there was the time I showed up and he was not home.
“Where the hell were you last night?” I asked.
“I was there—should have rang Sandy’s.”
Sandy was the manager of the building. If my friend’s apartment was a shoebox, Sandy’s place was the general store. Sandy was as bright a flame as you ever would meet. At first I was a little put off by his often flamboyant behavior, but his sincerity and affability soon won me over, just as it had Cary. Sandy also had a huge television with cable hook up. We often did our favorite thing there—critiquing our peers on MTV.
One night, in the midst of a major video bashing of some idiotic hair band from Los Angeles, I asked my friend for a sip from his forty ounce beer. “Sure,” he said with an all-too-enthusiastic smile, a smile I should have realized was influenced by something stronger than six percent alcohol. After a few passes I took yet another sip, and then coughed, nearly choking as something foreign went down my throat.
I coughed again, and then handed it back.
“Something in that beer,” I said.
“Yeah, there is,” he said, with a nasty smirk.
I didn’t need to hear another word to know I had just been dosed. I felt like punching him. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“You dosed me…” I took a deep breath. “You’re an asshole man.”
“It was only one four way.” He belted out one of his patented screams.
The emphasis, at least in my mind, laid on was. “Only?!”
“Calm down bro, you’ll be fine.”
At that moment I felt the four way surf over a foamy wave in my stomach. I knew it was only a matter of time before I experienced a major melt down. Considering I had my first sip of the tainted beer some ten minutes before; I figured the rush was about to run me down like a diesel truck at any moment. I tried filling my mind with delusions, It’s possible the shit’s bunk, but I knew the chances Cary would cop bunk L was highly unlikely. Good drugs had a way of finding their way to him. He was a magnet.
A few minutes later I knew there was absolutely no chance for me when Sandy’s gayness glowed about five hundred watts brighter, in an enthusiastic sing along with some trendy boy-techno band’s video. I felt like I had been locked in a cage with tinker bell and a karaoke machine. I wrestled between leaving and staying. Finally, I stood up and said, “I’m out of here—see you guys later.”
Without waiting for a response I left. I wanted to catch a bus before I got any higher, before I was so far gone that I forgot which direction my house was. I lived in the Richmond and said bus ride was going to require at least one transfer.
I’m high now, there’s no getting around it. I’d like to believe I’m close to peaking, but I’ve done enough acid to know that there’s little chance of that. Most likely the ride is only going to get rougher. Every step I take makes me feel like I’m falling apart and an eternity passes in the time it takes to walk two blocks.
At Fillmore and Haight I watch the bus roll to a stop on the adjacent corner; light cascades from the opening door. I could run, but the site of that brilliant light and the thought of walking down that aisle facing two dozen pairs of scrutiny, scares the living shit out of me. Besides, my legs have each gained forty pounds and running is out of the question. I turn and lumber up the street—I need to pull myself together some before I can reconsider climbing on another bus. I remind myself that if I walk over to Geary I can reach my neighborhood without transferring.
I stick to the back streets, the ones with fewer streetlights, doing my best to avoid each gauzy halo that infringes upon my path. I constantly check, because although I’m walking on concrete I’m fledging through snow. Flares of pain ignite my joints and coil around my muscles. My body has long since forgotten the meaning of comfort. I feel as awkward as a scarecrow on stilts. Soon I have compressed my existence within the confines of my mind. I sit in a tower and watch through two windows as the world wanders passed.
At first, thoughts fall like sprinkles of soft rain, and then they begin to fall harder. Soon I am drenched with them, blown sideways in their angry wind. They come at me from every direction, faster than I can think, coming at the speed of sound. Some veer past, others slam into me with a sonic collision, and then pass through me, chipping away, piece by piece, leaving a little mystery in their place. Speaking to me, commanding me, making demands of me, enveloping me within reason, making absolutely no sense at all. They’re words, they’re thoughts, they’re filled with meaning, and then I am washed with the revelation. I stop cold. I’m in the street, I’m on the sidewalk, this side and that side at each end of the block, I’m everywhere and I’m no place at all, I’m an image outside your window, I’m the person you didn’t notice, the person you can’t see and when you do realize I’m there, you just wish I would leave.
And at this instant I realize from where the swarms of thoughts are coming. They’re the thoughts, the conversations, the feelings, the arguments, the very essence of the people inside of every room, of every house, on every block around me, I can look at one house or another, hear everything that passes between those walls, I can sort through each room, through each mind, through each passage.
I hear the woman measure the ingredients for the dinner she’s preparing, for the man who knows nothing other than the hunger he feels deep inside. I hear the bachelor contemplating which date he will take, and how getting laid will be the only influence in his decision. I hear the lovers while they are at it, they’re straight, no they’re gay—no, they’re just plain kinky! In their imagination, what they both want they refuse to admit, all the while it’s what they both want and they don’t know it because they’re too insecure to risk taking a chance. I hear the kids fighting over who gets the toy when in reality neither of them wants it; they just don’t want the other one to have it. I hear the student hard at study, while the conflict tosses through his mind, how much easier it would be to cheat on this goddamn exam—after all, the shit will be long forgotten the day after tomorrow anyway. I hear a woman debating whether or not she should tell her boyfriend, or just go ahead with the abortion. I hear the roommates discuss the neighbor in whispers, while the neighbor explores his intimacy with loneliness. I feel the sadness of a jilted lover and the anguish of someone who has been diagnosed with something even he cannot admit to himself he has contracted.
I hear the simple and the mundane, the hope, the jeers, the warmth, the worries, the fears, the laughter, the tears, the happiness and the enthusiasm, the orgasm, the excitement of the money shot when it comes… I hear it all.
I’m walking again, adrift in a world all my own. My laughter ricochets across Ashbury. Eventually, I pause on Geary. I find comfort as I leave 1st Avenue behind. Less than forty-one blocks to go. The accordion buses come along every few minutes now, and at each stop I debate whether or not I will wait. I’ve checked my change and I have more than enough to ride. The neon lights in the windows of the bars captivate me, and I find a certain irony that this all started with a beer that is commonly advertised among them.
In the distance I can see the traffic flying back and forth on the four lanes of Park Presidio Avenue. The mere thought of crossing unnerves me. I contemplate my options at the bus stop one block before the intersection. Yet another eternity passes before I finally see the number 38 rolling toward me. I avoid looking again until I know it is about to arrive. I glance up just in time to read EXPRESS, as the bus zooms past. Looking up, I realize I am not beneath an express sign; for a moment I swear the sign says afflicted. Just across Park Presidio the bus stops.
It’s not my night. I hug myself a little tighter and try to stave off the cold. Further down Geary the fog tumbles toward me. It’s not real dense tonight, just enough to bath my world in mystery, to make me apprehensive. I turn around to search for another bus. The street is empty back to a red light a few blocks away. No buses. The sidewalk is a different story. A man walks a large dog halfway down the block. From a hydrant the dog looks up and sniffs the breeze between us. Summarily, he has sensed my condition and will now make a concerted effort to convey his objection. If convenient, he may even bite me. I can feel it.
Behind me the traffic crossing Park Presidio looks far less offensive.
I’m on the move. As I approach the intersection the four lanes are now four football fields wide. Behind me the dog has lost all interest in everything, except for me. He is making a beeline for me, dragging his master like a bouquet of balloons. The light is red and the cars zoom from the darkness like monsters. The dog is close enough that I hear him snarling. I turn around and whether or not the light is red I will run… Ollie ollie oxen free—it’s green! I am running. I do not care what I look like, I do not care about the monsters and their bright shiny chrome-plated teeth, crouched down on all fours, or what they might think, I do not care about anything, because now I am free.
From the corner I give a quick glance back. It seems the dog is now acting like he was in a hurry to reach the grassy strip that runs parallel to the expressway, pretending I no longer exist, now that I am safely insulated by a wall of speeding traffic. In my mind I am flipping him off shouting, “Ha! Try chewing on that bone canine.”
My sprint has refreshed me with a violent rush and standing stationary is no longer an option. If I stop now I am sure the world will steadily progress toward that massive meltdown; so I keep moving. There is enough activity ahead that I consider moving over to one of the backstreets, but I am still flirting with a bus ride. I am still twenty-eight blocks away from my home and it is only getting later. My girlfriend must be worried, or more likely upset, assuming I am out carousing with Cary.
Between 17th and 18th is a well illuminated anthill. People are swarming in and out of Walgreens and a video rental store. It’s busy enough that I manage to sneak past without drawing attention. I cross 18th and pass a young man who is rummaging through a garbage can. He glances up at me and for an instant we lock eyes. I wonder why, when most teenagers are at home getting ready for bed, he is up to his elbows in garbage. I am overwhelmed by sadness. Now I am up to my waist in snow; forced to a stop. I cannot shake his image. When I turn around he is still there, still digging. I want to ask him why, but what difference will any answer make? I want to do something for him—anything. I walk back and as I approach he stands up straight and for a long moment we both stare. In this instant I know this young man, I know that he is battered and torn, know that he has never known a family who loved him, or known a place to call his home. In this instant I see that even though his life has been fraught with disappointment I know that he is still innocent, and amazingly, still full of hope. In this instant I see him striving to, and achieving a better life, no matter how far in the future this may lie. In this instant what is mine becomes his. I reach in my pocket and dig out all of my change, all my crumpled bills, and lay them into his empty hands. It does not matter how much it is, because if I only had more it too would be his. In our simple exchange not a single word passes, but I find more than enough thanks in the tears welling in his eyes.
In a flood I again hear all of those voices from earlier on my walk, all of the thinking, the feeling, and the selfishness, and I realize that not a single one of those minds was as grateful for everything they had, as this young man is for what little he now holds. I will never feel as complete, or as high in all of my years of living, as I do at this moment. And for the remainder of my walk home I will wave at every bus that passes, and I will smile because I found purpose tonight, a purpose I didn’t know I possessed. And tomorrow I will see things from a new perspective, and when someone asks me what I am thinking, I will tell them, “About last night.”
