Where Are The Tickets?
I fell in love with LSD immediately. It was the answer. I didn’t need AA; I just needed LSD! I wanted to do it every day for the rest of my life, thereby fixing whatever was wrong in my brain and making me whole.
LSD had no hangover, no side effects, and it cost a whopping $3 for a high that lasted somewhere between 12 and 24 hours. Acid was the greatest drug of all time!
LSD also made drinking, smoking pot, and every other drug irrelevant. I didn’t need alcohol or other drugs as long as I had acid.
So on Sunday after my first drug trip, I asked Bonnie if she wanted to do it again. “Fuck yeah!” she said. “But it doesn’t work the next day.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t work the next day?”
She shrugged. “It just doesn’t do anything.”
“Guess we’re just drinking then!”
Bonnie and I ordered pizza, got drunk, and had a wonderful Sunday.
The only downer was when I called Larry, drunk, to extol the virtues of LSD. He was living with Terri, his soon-to-be wife, in Florida.
“Be careful with that shit,” he growled. “It’ll fuckin’ kill you.”
I never called Larry again.
Then on Monday, skipping my weekly AA meeting, Bonnie, Gregg and I took the bus to Three Rivers Stadium to see Pink Floyd. Bonnie and I were nearly exploding with excitement during the ride.
“Okay!” I said to Gregg when we arrived. “Where are the tickets?”
“I’m getting them here,” Gregg said.
My stomach lurched. “You don’t have tickets?”
Maybe he should have mentioned that.
“I’m getting them from Dale,” he said. He was looking around, wild-eyed, as though trying to find this guy named Dale.
I looked where Gregg was looking. Thousands of people streamed toward the stadium wearing their Pink Floyd merch, but I didn’t see anyone heading our way.
“So where is Dale?”
“I don’t know,” Gregg said. Suddenly he pointed. “He said to meet me by this statue!”
We all raced over to the statue, then stood there waiting for Dale.
“What’s this guy look like?” I asked Gregg.
“He’s got brown hair,” he said. “Big guy.”
I looked around. There were hundreds of big guys with brown hair walking past us.
I pointed. “Is that Dale?”
“No.”
Bonnie and I made a game of it. “Is that Dale? Is that Dale?”
It was never Dale.
Half an hour ticked by, the slowest half-hour ever recorded.
“Let’s just buy tickets at the window,” I suggested. “Where’s the money?”
“I already paid Dale,” Gregg said. “I don’t have enough money left.”
I looked at Bonnie. “Do you still have your mom’s credit card?” Bonnie’s mom’s card had paid for everything extra during college.
“Nope.”
The sun lowered in the sky.
I started to believe Dale had given those tickets to someone else.
After more than an hour Gregg said, “Maybe it was a different statue.”
I started to panic. “A different statue?” Bonnie and I wandered around looking for statues, then came back and waited.
And waited. And waited. The music started inside. People kept streaming past.
We waited for three-and-a-half hours for Dale, but Dale never came.
We didn’t see Pink Floyd that day.
We took the bus back to my house, sullen. At my request, Gregg left.
“It’s okay,” Bonnie said. “We’ll see them another time.” Then Bonnie drove back to Ohio.
Gregg showed up on my doorstep on Friday evening. He had pot and cocaine, so I let him in. I didn’t ask about Dale or tickets.
Gregg stayed.
Again.