After my journalism career ended, I went back to the temp agency to get more work. It was perfect for me. I only had to work a couple of days at a time. Long-term jobs meant “three weeks” instead of “three years.” I didn’t care for commitment. And whenever I didn’t like a job, I would just ask to be reassigned.
One day, I got assigned to work in a factory. I have always been intrigued by the inner workings of factories; it was one of the reasons I’d been happy to work at the window-selling place in Florida. But there I was removed from the action; I’d been a lowly secretary. I was going to work in a doll factory – and would be right there on the factory floor with the other factory workers!
I was going to make dolls! This felt meaningful.
Unfortunately when I arrived at the doll factory, I was somehow assigned to create tile boards, meaning I would be sticking little pieces of tile onto a piece of hard wood. Four pieces of tile per board. White in the upper left corner, cream in the upper right corner, reddish brown bottom left, dark brown bottom right.
I was bored to tears after making six boards. But the worst part was my co-worker, who seemed to think that board making was challenging and productive. Our conversation fell flat after two minutes.
We were all allowed to have a smoke break after two hours of work; I thought it had been six hours and we’d only been working for 12 minutes.
I asked the temp agency if I could make dolls the next day, but it they couldn’t guarantee that.
I begged: no more factory work, please. One day in a factory was enough.
Instead, I surveyed people at the mall. I worked for home security, a credit union, and the buyer’s division for J.C. Penney I worked in a trailer for a construction company, in an apartment complex, in a senior center and – one of my favorites – at PAT transit, where I spent my day in the break room talking to bus drivers.
Sometimes I took smoke breaks every half hour. Sometimes I worked very, very hard doing data entry and making sure my charts were 100% perfect. Sometimes I played video games all day. I was a good worker, when I had work to do. And I showed up on time.
One of my favorite data entry jobs was evening shift, 4-12. We chit-chatted through our evenings, so I made a few friends. One night we all went to lunch together, at my request, at a bar in downtown Pittsburgh.
We ate burgers and drank a few beers and then, when it was time to go back to work, I convinced everyone to stay with me at the bar.
“We’ll just go back tomorrow!” I said. “They’ll never even notice!”
Only one person went back to work that night. The rest of us stayed and got plastered.
I had sex with one of my coworkers and woke up in Northside, nowhere near where I lived. I had no idea how to get home. I left the guy still asleep, took a bus into downtown, then took the bus from downtown back to my apartment.
I never went back to that job, nor did the guy. I loved that job, but one liquid lunch was too many.
I had another job within a week.
I kept drinking, kept paying the rent, and thought nothing of my behavior.
I liked working night shift, so I quickly got a job selling hot dogs at The Original Hot Dog Shop – otherwise known as “The O” in Oakland, Pennsylvania, home to Pitt and The Electric Banana. I’d often eaten there after a long night of drinking and couldn’t imagine a more fun place to work.
I was mistaken. I slipped and slid on floor grease for three long nights, and then I simply disappeared. Night shift wasn’t as fun at The O as it had been at The Pennysaver.
So I bought a Sunday paper and typed dozens of cover letters and envelopes. My degree in communications (with no internship) was useless, but I typed 90+ accurate words per minute which, before computers, was a highly marketable skill.
I was hired by a local temp agency. I could choose which jobs I did, each lasting only a few days.
But I wanted to write, and the only way I knew how to get paid to write was to become a journalist. So I sent my resume to The Gazette, a local newspaper, and was thrilled when they called.
My interview with the Gazette editor was very exciting. I showed up and did my best to convince her that I’d eventually become a star reporter if only she’d give me a chance.
“What sentence would you write about a group of people at a courthouse rally if there were 20,014 attendees?” she asked. “Say you wanted to let readers know how many people were there without giving an exact figure.”
I considered the odd question. “I would say, ‘More than 20,000 attendees rallied at the courthouse.'”
“Oh good,” she said. “Too many people use the word ‘over’ instead of ‘more than.’ It’s just not right.”
“Oh, I can’t stand that,” I said.
We bonded over the misuse of “over” and I was hired as a news reporter for The Gazette.
I couldn’t believe my good fortune. All I had to do was show up in the newsroom, check the wire, and write. I would use older articles from my drawer as “background” for my story, and usually only had to draft a couple of paragraphs to create a full “new” story.
The news was dreadfully dull. I went to council meetings to cover city budgets and building renovations. Sometimes I’d unearth community outrage, and sometimes I interviewed people about their jobs for “feature” articles.
Features were my favorites. I could barely stay awake for the council meetings, but I sure did have fun being a reporter.
It was a bit challenging to get used to the schedule. Unless I’d scheduled a morning interview, I was at The Gazette from 9:00 to 5:00. Every day! Sometimes I would pretend I had an interview so I could sleep late and show up as though writing a feature.
No one caught on.
After three months of this incredibly fun job, I slept too late and didn’t get to work until noon.
When I arrived, the office was abuzz with excitement.
I headed for my desk but the editor directed me into her office.
“Where were you?”
Uh-oh. “I was interviewing someone but they never showed up.”
“For three hours?”
“I was supposed to meet him at 11….” I said, trailing off.
“Then you should have been here at 9,” she said. “There was a bank robbery this morning in your territory. It was your story.”
“Oh!” I said. “I’ll go right now and….”
“Someone else covered it,” she said. “You’re fired.”
The following week, I was back at the temp agency begging for work.
After losing my job at The Pennysaver, I was despondent. I couldn’t understand why, after my abhorrent behavior for two years, they’d suddenly decided to fire me. I’d thought my colleagues were my friends. My job was fun. My boss let me get away with everything … until suddenly, he didn’t.
So I was alone. I had no money.
“Can you pay the rent this month?” I asked Gregg, “just until I find another job?”
“Of course!” Gregg said.
Fortunately I had two weeks’ worth of pay coming in, so I could afford to keep drinking and drugging.
It was summer and the construction industry was booming. I was glad I’d been fired at a convenient time for Gregg to take over payments.
Gregg would wake up early, pull on his dirty jeans, and head out. I would roll over and go back to sleep until noon. Or 2 o’clock. Or 4 o’clock.
And eventually, Gregg would come back. His jeans and shoes would be splattered with drywall or paint or mud, and he’d leave his shoes outside the door on the porch. Whatever he was doing made him utterly filthy every day.
But he didn’t bring a change of clothes, so he didn’t bother showering. We just went right to the bar whenever he got home.
One day I called him at work. “Is Gregg there?”
“Gregg who?” said the female who’d answered the phone.
I gave his last name.
“He doesn’t work here anymore,” she said.
“He doesn’t work there?” I asked incredulous. “Are you sure?”
“Quite sure,” she said. “He got fired about eight months ago.”
I hadn’t even known Gregg for eight months. And I was very sure this was the only company he’d ever mentioned. Every day, he’d gone off to work and ….
“But he comes home dirty every day,” I told the woman. “Is it possible you just haven’t seen him?”
“I do the payroll,” she said. “He hasn’t worked here in eight months.”
“Thanks,” I said, hanging up the phone.
Then I waited approximately four hours for Gregg to come home “from work.”
I met him on the porch, and gaped at his newly splattered jeans.
“How was work today?” I asked.
“Good,” he said. He leaned in to kiss me. I turned my head away.
“I called you,” I said.
“Oh I don’t work there anymore,” he said, before I’d told him who I called.
“Right,” I said. “So where do you work? And are you making enough to pay the rent?”
“I still work construction, just a different company,” he said – again, without knowing who I’d called. “Somebody my brother knows.”
He had five brothers. I considered asking him which of his brothers, but decided not to follow him down this rabbit hole.
“You don’t have a job, do you?” I asked.
Suddenly Gregg hung his head in shame. It was the same reaction he’d had when I’d realized that he’d stolen my life savings from the underwear drawer.
“I can’t find a job,” he said. “I go out every day and look! But there’s no work right now!”
Having just been fired, I suddenly felt bad for Gregg. I hugged him from where I sat on my stool.
He nuzzled his head into my shoulder. “I didn’t know what to tell you,” he choked. “I don’t know if I can pay the rent.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
It was so not okay.
But someone had to pay the rent. “Keep looking,” I said.
“Okay,” Gregg said.
“I’ll get a job.” I said.
And I did.
I was still working at The Pennysaver after almost two years. Once I arrived I was an amazing employee, but I still showed up late every day. In fact, I’d gotten progressively later as time went by.
At age 29 my supervisor, Dave, was way older than the rest of us. And he’d promoted me to shift supervisor shortly after my European trip and (brief) sobriety.
But I was still just playing a version of Concentration for my job; I didn’t really supervise anyone. I was still riding around getting high at lunchtime with my colleagues. I loved my job so much, I stole two of the Pennysaver stools from work so I could also sit on them at home. (I still have them in my kitchen; they are quite solid as counter seats.)
I guess Dave was still doing all the supervisory work. Even though he didn’t do LSD at my Memorial Day extravaganza or get high at lunchtime, I considered him my party buddy. Sometimes he had a few beers with us, so I figured we were pals.
But one day Dave pulled me aside and said, “You weren’t here at 5:00. You’re a supervisor now, so you need to be here on time.”
“Okay,” I said.
He hadn’t explicitly said this before.
I guess Dave expected something more from me. He didn’t seem to realize that I was drinking again and mistakenly assumed I would continue to be responsible and helpful at work.
Two weeks went by, and I showed up at around 5:45, or 6:30, whenever. I was drinking after work, sleeping much later than I expected. Plus nobody really seemed to care.
Dave pulled me aside again, this time as I was walking into work. It was 7:15. He waved me over to where he was leaning on a wall. As I got closer I noticed that his face was all wrinkled up; it wasn’t his usual serene countenance.
“We needed you here at 5:00,” he said. Dave looked like he might vomit.
“Oh sorry, Dave,” I said. He started chewing the inside of his left cheek. He was gnawing it so hard, I thought he might tear a hole in the side of his face.
“What happened?” he asked, as if genuinely concerned.
“Well I slept in I guess,” I chuckled. “And then I had to get gas in the Volkswagen and there’s only one place that sells the kind of gas I need.” I started to ramble. “I have to use the premium stuff or I guess the car won’t run. Do you know anything about VW Bugs?”
The gnawing continued. Dave’s face was contorted into a shape that was almost not a face anymore.
“No,” he said. “There was no other reason?”
“Not really,” I giggled.
The gnawing stopped. “I have to let you go,” Dave said.
“Let me go where?”
“I have to fire you,” he said. “You’re a supervisor and you haven’t shown up on time even once in two weeks. We can’t count on you to be here on time, so I’m letting you go.”
My stomach lurched and fell to the floor.
“I’m fired?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He rattled on about the expectations of his supervisors and blah blah blah. I heard nothing.
I hadn’t even started my shift. “So I should just go now?”
“Yeah,” he said. He bit his cheek again.
I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to my friends.
Sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with other people. I have noticed that not everyone has trouble stopping. For me, though, if something is good, I inhale it, then live and breathe it, until it simply runs out.
In my lifetime, I have been addicted to – and given up – alcohol, drugs (a wide variety), cigarettes and caffeine. But I am addicted to non-consumable things, too. My general rule is: if it’s good, I can’t get enough.
Music, to me, is a kind of addiction. A lot of people love and appreciate music, but not everyone has a problem with this.
For example, a friend of mine posted on Facebook about his top three favorite songs by The Beatles. Afterward, every day, he posted his three favorite songs by different artists, and friends would post their favorite songs, too.
This happened early during the pandemic, so it had an added benefit for me: nothing else in the world was happening. I got addicted to these posts. I would wake up, brush my teeth, then run to check Facebook to see which artist’s songs I would be considering for the day.
After posting every day for a full month, my friend stopped posting. When I messaged him in a panic, with no reason left to live, he said that he thought 30 days was enough. And for everyone else, I’m pretty sure it was enough. But for me? Nothing is ever enough.
I spent the rest of the day making a list of every artist whose songs I had liked in the past 50 years. The list went on and on … page after page … and when I was done, I had a list that included every artist I’d known in every genre for my entire life.
Then, randomly (using a computer-generated number), I selected one of those artists. And I made a list of my top five favorite songs by that artist. (I found five to be even better than three, since sometimes three was insufficient, and sometimes I still had to list Honorable Mentions.)
The next day, I brushed my teeth, then randomly selected another artist. I did this every day for another seven months. This list kept me going until really, there were no other artists to consider.
Similarly, when I started reading Stephen King decades ago, I started with The Stand, which I couldn’t put down, and then I refused to read anything by any other author until I’d read all the Stephen King books I could read.
This lasted for about two years, since I’d read zero Stephen King books previously. There were so, so many Stephen King books to read! Then I read Thinner, which was a huge waste of my time, and I stopped reading Stephen King books altogether for decades.
I do it at 1,000% or I don’t do it at all.
This may not be typical of every addict, but it is how I am. And I am much worse with foods than books or music.
One fine summer day, I force-fed my husband a half-ear of corn. My husband said, “Why would I eat that if I don’t want it?”
I said, “Because it’s August and it’s corn! And it’s grilled!”
I couldn’t imagine anything more devastating than discarding a freshly grilled half-ear of corn on the cob.
My husband ate the corn, but he didn’t want it. And I guess that’s the part I don’t understand: the not wanting it.
When something is good, I want it.
I don’t know if that’s because I’m a very good addict, or if that’s just me.
To my knowledge, Gregg had two friends, both of whom were drug dealers.
Steve was a rail-thin wrinkly guy who looked like he’d been dragged out from behind a dumpster. He had filthy blond hair, two rows of top teeth and very few teeth on the bottom of his mouth. Steve occasionally showed up at my apartment with marijuana and sat there for hours while we passed joints around.
Steve’s brain appeared to have rotted from all the drugs. He had nothing interesting to say, ever, and he provided nothing – other than the marijuana – to add to my day. Steve laughed at things that weren’t even there. He did not take a hint when I wanted him to leave my house. He’d drink the last beer, then sit there saying nothing, smoking cigarettes and staring into space, too high to move.
“I’ve got to get more beer,” I’d say, but nothing would happen. Nobody would leave. And I wasn’t leaving Gregg and Steve alone in my apartment. Nor would I send Gregg and sit with Steve. We’d all just be high. We did nothing. Eventually Steve would roll another joint and we’d sink further into the muck.
I wanted Steve to leave and never come back. I think Gregg begged Steve for pot – but Gregg likely owed Steve a whole bunch of money. Steve’s awful presence was Gregg’s way of providing the marijuana for some of our evenings.
Pot was good for a hangover, but as an evening of entertainment I found it more than slightly lacking. And now that I was drinking and doing LSD, I didn’t need it.
And the LSD was newly awesome, which is how Gregg’s other “friend” emerged. Al lived in an attic room in his parents’ house and had a consistent supply of LSD available.
Al often traveled with us during our all-night walks in the woods, laughing when I bumped into a big rock, or demanding I keep moving, even after a raccoon came screaming down the trunk of a tree, whooping and screeching and making such a fuss that I was unable to take another step forward.
The three of us walked hundreds of miles, tripping our brains out, consuming the night as though it were a giant bowl of pudding. We’d start in the suburbs and walk miles into the city on park trails, feeling like warriors and explorers and creatures of the night.
On cold nights, we’d sometimes trip inside Al’s attic and listen to Frank Zappa until I thought my head would explode. I’d run down the dark stairs and out into the streets of Wilkinsburg, Al’s neighborhood, where I thought I was safer than I’d been in the attic.
One night I did LSD and watched Platoon, which was a bit too realistic for my state of mind. I left Al’s house convinced that I was actually being hunted. Every noise sounded like a gun shot, every random shout a war cry. In the middle of the night, I raced down the sidewalks, sidling up to houses, diving behind bushes, crawling on my stomach on the sidewalk, terrified the whole way home that I was going to be shot. I wholly believed that I was being chased by fictional soldiers.
I didn’t even realize at the time that Wilkinsburg has one of the highest crime rates in the country, with violent gun crimes always on the rise.
I didn’t particularly like Al or Steve. And I remember thinking that Gregg needed some new friends.
It never occurred to me that they were the only people I knew, too.
I had a couple of friends from high school who reappeared in my life, usually when Gregg wasn’t around.
One was Cherie, with whom I’d roamed the streets of Oakland in our younger days. But Cherie had gotten married, didn’t do drugs, and didn’t go out much anymore.
Our high school friend, Matt, however, had nothing better to do with his life than hang out with me. Matt would come over with one beer in his hand, knock on the door, and come inside. He’d drink the one beer and wait until we found a way to get more beer – usually, me buying a 12-pack or a case, or walking to a bar together where I would buy the beer. He would offer to drive but I would decline.
Matt had a crotch-rocket motorcycle on which we rode only once together. He went a hundred miles per hour on the highway and almost as fast in my brick-street neighborhood. We screamed up and down those Pennsylvania hills, flying up into the air whenever we hit a bump. I spent the entire ride begging him to take me home while Matt laughed and screamed, “Just hang on!” There was no backrest. I was sure I was going to die.
But it was him showing up with only one beer that bugged me. It wasn’t a gift, either. Matt drank it.
Matt brought George over once, another friend from high school, who carried in a whole 12-pack. George knew how to arrive at someone’s house! Also George was exceptionally hot. He’d had a girlfriend in high school so George had not paid much attention to me then.
We all got obliterated and then, after Matt left to continue drinking somewhere else, George and I had sex. He stayed at my place for the night, then showed up the following week at The Pennysaver with Chinese food. For the first time in my life, I was being courted by a hot young guy.
George and I actually dated for a few weeks – meaning, we went out to places to do things. We went to movies and out to dinner. We watched the sunset from atop a mountain in his car. He showed up at my place with flowers and beer and took me spontaneously to a concert. George was the man of my dreams.
Then George just disappeared. He didn’t call or appear for two weeks.
But Matt did. Matt came over with one beer and knocked on my door and we got drunk on my dime and I said, “What did I do wrong?” Because I knew it had to be me.
Matt and George were good friends, so Matt knew.
After I had agonized long enough, or after Matt had gotten drunk enough, Matt finally said, “I think George’s problem is Cindy.”
“Huh? Who’s Cindy?”
“Cindy’s been his girlfriend for two years,” said Matt.
My gut lurched and fell. My first romantic relationship in years and I had been … the other woman.
I didn’t see George again.
Shortly thereafter, Matt showed up with one beer and we ended up getting plowed at a nearby bar where I railed on him for showing up with one beer.
“Who does that?!” I screamed. “Bring a 12-pack or don’t show up!”
Matt’s face fell, then he screamed back at me. “Well if you weren’t such a lush you wouldn’t give a shit about how much beer I brought!”
I stormed out of the bar and never saw Matt again, either.
The last of my high school friends disappeared, leaving me alone again.
My grandmother gave me her 1972 Volkswagen Beetle.
When I was a little girl, I’d bounced around in the cargo area behind the backseat on our way to church. As an adult, I saw this area of the car as sacred and adorable. It was barely big enough to hold my snow scraper, but I’d been transported in there as a child.
This made the car even more special to me. I loved my Bug.
And the fact that my grandmother had driven it to the grocery store and to church once a week before I owned it made it even more valuable, because it only had a few thousand miles on it.
I plastered my car with peace-and-love bumper stickers, making it my very own. And I tooled around town in my VW Bug whenever I wasn’t walking – although I was often walking, since I was often drinking and I really did try not to drink and drive too often.
The car was a stick shift, which I did not know how to drive.
I’d once borrowed my cousin’s manual Triumph TR7 – with her knowledge, I swear. I’d driven it to my high school, about a mile away from my house. When I got to a stop sign on a hill, I could stop but I couldn’t get the car to go again. Every time I tried to shift gears, the Triumph would stall out. In the TR7, I drifted backwards until I found a place wide enough to whip the car around in the middle of the street, and the gears caught going downhill – which was just enough to get me back home.
So learning to drive the Beetle took awhile. But after awhile I not only learned to drive it, I mastered it. I could drive on all those Pennsylvania hills with a beer between my knees and a cigarette in one hand. When the engine revved unexpectedly at a stoplight, I would hop out and open the engine hatch in the back of the car. Then I’d flick a little metal switch that needed to be flicked, and the engine would rev properly again.
I have no idea what I’d fixed, but I figured it out and fixed it all on my own, so I felt proud. And I “fixed” it 6,000 times, so I believed I was as good as any mechanic, as long as I was fixing my own VW Bug.
I loved peeling into the parking lot at work. All of my Pennysaver friends came out and admired my new car, implying that the rusty old racing-striped Camaro was actually a hunk of junk.
I gave my VW the special premium gas every time I filled up, even though I had no idea why – or even if – it was required. I paid substantially more for the premium gas and I was poor, but I thought it deserved it.
One time I let Gregg drive the car and he got a flat tire at a stoplight. He left the car – literally, got out of my Bug and walked away – leaving my beloved car in the middle of a major intersection. He walked a mile away to his dad’s house and called me to let me know the car was there.
I didn’t wonder then if Gregg even had a driver’s license, but I do wonder now. Gregg and I broke up “for good” (at least a month) that time.
Gregg didn’t drive my car again; nobody did. I treasured it completely.
My grandmother’s car was the most amazingly wonderful vehicle I ever owned.
One night I got a phone call at work.
“Hello?”
“You … fuckin’ … BITCH!” said a slurring voice I vaguely recognized. It was a low voice, gravelly….
“Larry?”
“Of course it’s Larry you fuckin’ SLUT! You fuckin’ WHORE!”
I was beyond confused. Why was he screaming at me? I hadn’t talked to Larry since he’d told me to stay off the LSD. And I hadn’t seen him since the day of the box exchange, when we’d kissed like forever lovers.
Now he was spewing violent venom into my ear.
“You fuckin’ SLUT! You FUCKIN’ CHEATED ON ME!” he howled.
Larry was so loud that I had to hold the phone away from my ear. All of my Pennysaver colleagues could hear him, too. They stared at me then tried to look away, but there was no hiding the conversation.
“What are you talking about?” He probably thought I was denying cheating, but what I actually meant was: Which time?
I’d cheated on Larry constantly, the entire time we were together; I thought he’d always known.
This phone call made it rather obvious that he had not always known.
“I’m talkin’ about you fuckin’ cheatin’ on me you fuckin’ WHORE! You fuckin’ slut!” He just kept screaming, his words mashed into a loud, indecipherable jumble. “Fuckinslutwhorecheatfuckinfuckyoufuckinslutyafuckinwhorefuckyou!”
“You fuckin’ CUNT!” he spat finally. Larry knew this was my least favorite insult. Even over the phone, I knew he was proud of himself for remembering this fact. “You don’t deserve that fuckin’ car!”
“The car?” I was stunned. “What do you mean?” What I meant: What does my cheating have to do with the Camaro?
“You won’t even fuckin’ deny it!” he shouted. “I’m TAKING that fuckin’ car and you can fuckin’ WALK for the rest of your fuckin’ slut life!” My Pennysaver colleagues stood incredulous and still nearby. “You’ll never fuckin’ know what’s comin’ you fuckin’ WHORE!”
He slammed down the phone so hard, my eardrum throbbed.
A short while later, staff from downstairs announced that some guy had banged on the door and asked for me, then said “fuck you” to the poor person who refused to let him in.
The guy had driven off in the Camaro, with its awful red racing stripes, leaving me without a vehicle.
I’d thought Larry was living in Florida. Was he back for a visit? Maybe his brother nabbed the car for him? I would never know, since Larry and I never spoke again.
After work, a colleague drove me home. Thankfully, this happened on my last day of the work week.
I slept, then called my parents the next day. “Larry took the car back,” I said.
“What? You need a car for work,” said my mom.
“I know,” I said. “I can’t take a bus.” What did people do if they couldn’t take a bus and didn’t have a car?
“Let me call you back,” my mom said.
We hung up.
I smoked a cigarette and waited.
A short while later, Mom called me back. “Do you want Grandma’s car?” she asked.
“The Volkswagen?” I asked, excited. “I would love that!”
“It’s Grandma’s wishes that you have it then,” my mom said.
My grandmother had recently suffered a stroke and no longer spoke. Her daughters talked about “Grandma’s wishes” for many years, as possessions were doled out to the many family members who dearly loved her.
And Grandma’s wishes were for me to have her car, so I could get to work.
I couldn’t have been more grateful. I maybe even thanked God.
LSD was my new favorite drug. I couldn’t believe I had the option to do it whenever I wanted to do it, even though it was highly illegal and had terrified me for most of my life. I was thrilled to have a new way of life, a new meaning for my life. Being on LSD gave me purpose.
It didn’t matter terribly that my “purpose” was nothing more than introspection that couldn’t be usefully harnessed or turned into knowledge. I thought that when I was tripping, I was actually experiencing reality. It didn’t matter that “reality” came with colors and trails and the inability to function in what was, actually, the real world.
So, in the summer (fall and winter) of 1988, I did LSD as frequently as I possibly could. Gregg and I spent the rest of the week drinking and smoking pot, then we’d spend 24 hours or so on acid. These were the 24 hours of the week I loved best.
It was impossible to just sit around and listen to music when acid was pumping through my veins. I had to get up, get out, explore, see the world! This might be how the word “trip” evolved; I always wanted to go somewhere.
Mostly, I wanted to go outside and be in nature, especially at night. Gregg and I would walk down the paths of Schenley Park from the time the sun set until it came back up, breathing the air and listening to the water ripple and staring at leaves on the trees as though they were infused with magic.
Once I swore I saw a spaceship landing in an old polo field. (It was a plane, no polo played there.)
I was bear emerging from hibernation. I had no desire to do things I normally wanted to do. I didn’t want to smoke cigarettes, for example. It seemed wrong to pollute such fresh, clear air, right there in the park.
One night on acid I was walking through the woods and, as I’d done since the age of 10, put my fingers in my mouth to gnaw on what was left of a fingernail.
“Oh my God!” I said, alarmed. “I’m tearing off pieces of myself! I am destroying my own body!” I stopped biting my nails immediately, and that nasty habit ended permanently.
I also didn’t want to drink alcohol. The thought made me nauseous. Sometimes we would come out of Schenley Park and go into a bar to sit down, where I would order a beer and just stare at it. I had no interest whatsoever in feeding my alcoholism.
“It’s like I’m putting poison inside me,” I said to Gregg. “It’s like drinking gasoline!” I tried to take a sip, but I gagged violently. But when I bought a beer, the bartender was also happy to bring me a glass of water, which I downed with great zeal.
“Nobody should drink anything but water,” I explained, sipping and tasting its coolness, my tongue tapping the ice cubes. “This is the best drink ever and it’s free!” I couldn’t get over the simplicity of what was provided to us, straight from God’s green earth.
I drank glass after glass of water not because I was thirsty, but because it was astounding to me how fabulous it tasted, how beautiful the experience of “water.” It foreshadowed my future in ways I could never have imagined.
When it occurred to me that we could also use water to bathe and shower, my mind was nearly blown.
LSD taught me things.
