03/17/2017
Work in progress...there's profanity and drug references...part of a larger pending work. So kindly read, and throw darts of critique back:)
Musical Chairs
Chapter 4
Keel Dragging in the Desert
4.1
Toe Rings Federales and a Mexican Stripper
4.2
Fake T**s and Lust on Red Slate
4.3
The Medicine Man Cometh
4.4
Running at 30,000 Feet
4.5
P***s Fly Trap
4.6
A Crescent Line in the Sand
Note to self: still under development, but a recent conversation turned up wick on 4.3. No time like the present
4.3
The Medicine Man Cometh
When I finished a decade of active duty time with the USMC, I elected to experiment with a few things I never touched in my youth. I hadn’t met Hunter S. Thompson yet, and in retrospect, I guess it was a good thing. Adding fuel to already doused logs would be an accurate summary if our paths had already crossed, but I digress.
I got some sage advice from a guru and he told me what NOT to do. "Don’t mix and match. Make sure that you’re in a positive state of mind. If and when you choose to experiment, make sure that you are among friends and in a positive state of mind".
He was a LURPER (Long Range Recon Army Ranger Type Vietnam Vet) and he rarely took his sunglasses off. The few times that I had the balls to look into his eyes, they were shark-like, coal black; no hint of a pupil. Being Native American, and ZERO wish to be in “society,” he ran an Indian Smoke Shop in Cochise country, just South East of Tucson, Arizona in a town called Dragoon. Beautiful natural rock formations, I suggest you check it out sometime. Look up the Triangle T Dude Ranch; he is (or was) right down the road.
Well me being me, I said, “F**k that I'm gonna push the envelope.” He suggested I not. After a few more stories, a few more draws from the bowl. I packed and drove back up North West to Chandler. As the miles ticked by in the dusty air, I again concluded that the best defense was a good offense. If something is better than nothing, then everything is probably best.
I had to work the following week, dressing daily in a “bunny suit” and repairing the machines in the FAB (Fabrication Facility) at Intel. “I’m a machine, fixing a machine, that makes things that think for machines, that think for us.” Needless to say I was looking forward to taking some time off and mapped out my pending vacation from my own reality.
At the time, I was living with a prior Navy Corpsman named Tim. Both of us worked the same shift and both of us were still working on our undergraduate degrees; so it was a good fit. I gave him a 10,000 foot overview of what I was planning. He too thought that my plan of attack was ill advised, but offered to be there for “medical support” as long as I threw him some coke. Safety in numbers, right?
Come Monday, I was off work for a bit. Given proper motivation and capital, a person can accomplish a ton of s**t in a few days. I only needed one to get my ass in gear.
Drugs - Check
Media Content - Check
Set the Environment - Check
I had failed before But this time, I was going to gain understanding, understanding of me, of you, of IT, of all the reasons I was me, and all the things I could not be. Perhaps it was a lofty goal; but, Monday was a day of work. I spent the day building what is best described as a “circle of mirrors.” I raided Tim’s room and bathroom, took down both of the mirrors that were in the foyer and the one in my hallway. Using these and a variety of found parts, mostly chairs and a such, I built a white trash reflective Stone Hinge. The center piece, vacant, just a couple of pillows thrown in for pending comfort. Connected to a Zenith TV a DVD player; shoved it its mouth A Brief History of Time. Below the DVD hardware, the CD player, Pink Floyd-The Wall in queue. A healthy supply of natural and pharmacy training aides close by. That night I went to sleep looking forward to Tuesday morning.
What follows next is compressed, as I really can’t explain it fully. To be honest, looking in retrospect and with age, I’m not too sure that I was even there myself. But we have come this far; pushing forward takes less effort than turning back I guess.
So I smoke out, drink some Scotch, chew a mouth full of mushrooms and drop a few tabs of L*D; sounds stupid enough right? No not even close; it’s now time to fire up the entertainment and sit my happy ass down right in the middle of the “vortex” and stand the f**k by. Hours into the journey im like RIGHT THERE, on the verge of understanding EVERY THING. But the universe catches me, and I s**t you not I implode from the sheer mass of it all. I’m sure that you’ve watched the drain in the bathtub or even when you flush the toilet and marvel at the swirl. Well I was right there, flushed down the drain, of what, I’m still not sure. Then I have this schizoid break with myself and I keep replicating into the future but the "real" me keeps getting shoved farther and farther into the past. Even in this f**ked up state of existence, I think that my basic fight or flight instinct kicked in and I got up on unsteady legs and stumbled toward the bathroom. I needed water. It was a big mistake.
If you’ve never tripped before (and I’m not recommending it) it’s a general rule that you don’t look directly into mirrors. I was already flirting with this danger I deliberately created earlier, but in the bathroom, after grabbing a splash of wet reprieve, I looked up. I didn’t recognize who was staring back at me and the real mind f**k in this specific equation, is that there was another mirror (behind me) on the opposite wall. This guillotine of time and space (or whatever it was) then comes down and starts slicing the image of myself into thinner and thinner segments until nothing but nothingness remains. Now floating in fragments of who I was, am, will be, I left the room in mass.
I don’t know how long that I was gone, but do I know that I won’t be back, at least not as the same person. Many people may think and say that Hell is full of never ending fire, you know, all the typical Dante’s Inferno and pick the appropriate Chapter and Verse from the Bible, kind of thing. I, however, don’t believe that it is a one size fits all, “Welcome to the Burning Gates” experience and this is why.
The bits of “me,” disjointed but still in touch with one another, were gently but firmly sucked into an ever deepening and ever expanding void that was completely full. If you’ve ever been diving and felt the atmospheres of pressure building around you and the darkness shrouding you, then you just might get the sensation. I don’t remember breathing, my had heart stopped pumping long before this point. It wasn’t so much what I saw, it was what I heard and sensed.
Soft wailing, in individual and collective agony, reverberated from the greenish grey subterranean cavern walls. Pulled ever deeper, I began to feel a slight tingling, then a more intense pin prick of discomfort, washing over every my pore, culminating in a Man-o-War of stinging and stickiness that completely consumed me. The never ending cries from those unseen continued to grow in chorus. Perhaps it lasted for an eternity, but it could have been only a few fleeting seconds. Then the sensation of movement stopped.
It’s all still a bit hazy, monochromatic, with that green moonlit haze that a Night Vision Scope produces in failing light. But I saw enough. I’m sure that Freud and company would have a field day with this, but why try to spin the event so serve myself? Sitting high atop a crumbling throne, surrounded by the other women I had known, perhaps some that I was yet to know, of all f**king things, my first wife, no longer pristine but more of a grotesque failing facsimile of how I last saw her. We then locked eyes, and for lifetimes neither of us spoke. It must have been the shrooms kicking in but at this point a single tear begins to roll down her face. In it’s wake her face peels open like a fly being unzipped. She only said five words, “I hope you’re happy now.”
With that, I know that I screamed for a lifetime more. But it must have only been in my head, Tim never knocked on my door. Pink was still playing when I regained enough of myself to be lucid. I turned off the soundtrack and the TV, smoked a bit more pot and buried my thoughts once more. Hell is cold and empty; of this I am sure.
CW2031617
