FirstTrip-ate myself

This was my very first trip on anything. My best friend and stoner buddy, Dave had heard alot about tripping and how much better it is than getting stoned. Having an interest in things shamanic and things psychadelic, I coulden't wait to trip for the first time. It was all a matter of time until some acid or some shrooms started circulating. When it rains it pours, suddenly there was both plenty of acid and plenty of shrooms. I bought an oz of shrooms and me and Dave bought a sheet of acid.

The day it actually happened, I was chillin up the street with my friend Collin. We were just sitting there on the corner bullshiting. He had a Barqs rootbeer in his hand and a cop stopped to ask him what he was drinking. He said it looked like a can of beer, and after he smelled it, he went away. If you look at cops outside the role of "cops" and just as individual people, they often seem to be tripping but in a really bad way.

About 20 minutes later the bus stops about a block away and here comes Dave, his girfriend, and her fat freind Mindy that had a crush on me. The crew ambled up and after some greetings all around, Dave said, "Got the shrooms?"
"Yep." The plan was for me to score the shrooms and the bunch of us go to the caves by the river to trip. We already had the acid and both me and Dave were holding a quarter oz of bud apeice. By all apearences, it looked to be a fine night in the making.

The only crimp was Mindy. She was dressed like a whore and altogether looked pathetic. Giganticly fat legs sticking out from a leather skirt that was cut way to high, hair puffed out worse than any 80's glam rocker, and those awfull lee press-on nails. Mindy had a decent personality and was fun to talk to, I would have liked her as a freind if she didn't have a crush on me. Looking at her as a chick which I was forced to, made her revolting.

I reflected on her contrived appearence for a minute and then something pinged between that reflection and the cop who smelled my friends rootbeer. There was an impression of how the night would go, and it didn't seem altogether good or as good as I wanted.

I asked Colin if he wanted to trip with us, and he outright refused, almost fearfully. Dave has a reputation for fucking with people. Not hurting or intimidating them. Just fucking with them. Like you'll be all stoned walking down the street and Dave will jump on your back for a piggy back ride. Thats all well and good if he wasn't 6'5 and weigh over 300 pounds. Dave also likes to do stuff like throw up for fun, or pull stuff out of a public garbage can and eat it just to make everyone sick. One time we were all drinking and Dave came out of the bathroom with a turd in his hand and chased this one dude around with it for about 10 minutes straight. It was sick and rude but one of the damned funniest things I'd ever seen. It was for good reason that Colin woulden't trip with Dave. The only reason I did ws because I could control Daves head enough to not fuck with me beyond the point where being fucked with is enjoyable.

Anyways, we walked the mile or so down to caves. The Caves are a place where alot of people go to get stoned. The main street is at the top of a hill and at the very end of that street there is only a few houses and some cliffs overlooking the Ohio River. The Caves are just a large crevice in the side of the hill at the top of the cliff- there is enough room inside them for about 15 people to stand comfortably. You get to them by walking behind the houses and through the woods out to a natural outcropping of the hill. Its like a natural platform of dirt and grass. From the outcropping you can either climb a short path across the hillside to the caves or take a path down to the river. Many drunk imbeciles have fallen while climbing across and have gotten badly hurt. So it was always an adventure.

We arrived at the outcropping and Dave started packing his bowl. After about five bowls we decided it was time to trip. We each ate two hits of acid and about 2 grams of shrooms. When we didn't seem anything other than stoned after about 10 minutes, we each ate another 2 hits and another 2 grams of shrooms.

We had no idea how much of this stuff we should take. People told us not to take more than a couple hits of cid or a couple grams of shrooms for the first trip, but we assumed it was like pot or beer and if you were "tough" you could handle it. How wrong we were.

Dave started packing more bowls and considering that the other shit haden't been put away yet we said fuck it and everyone ate another 2 hits of acid and another gram of shrooms. We climbed from the outcropping over and into the caves.

We smoked and smoked and Dave kept packing bowls. How many bowls did we smoke? About 10 altogether? I'll never know because as we sat there making faces and noises trying to trip each other out, something happened.

Dave kept trying to pack bowls but for some reason it wasn't working. There were buds all over the place and his hands didn't work right. Most of the weed was on the ground or in the bushes by the time Dave was able to pack a bowl. I don't even know if it was buds in that bowl at this point, or just some shit that was on the ground that he put in there. No one could tell the difference so Dave just put the damn thing in his pocket and stretched out.

How much time went by? I have no idea. Everything seemed to be in alternating shades of red-ornage-yellow. As if everything was bathed in that fucking ugly light that comes out of those orange street lights.

I felt my presence there, sitting on the rock floor of the cave, but I felt it from the persepctive of eveything else. This is hard to explain. Instead of I, myself, feeling the air, hearing the sound of the river below, and smelling that dead-fish smell comeing up from the Ohio, all of these things perceived me. I was aware of myself THROUGH them.

My skull felt like it was swelling and my head was growing bigger and bigger. Everything became extremely distinct and "bracketed". That is, every sound, every site, ever sensation and thought, seperated its self from everything else and existed in its own context. I felt multiple layers of worlds rising up from beneath each and every distinct sensation. Each sensation rapidly became its own abyss and in order to make any sense of them, my mind had to plummet to the bottom of each abyss and touch where it ended. That was a problem, for every time I found a bottom, that bottom would immediately explode away from me into an infinite number of refletions or versions of its self- the bottom of each abyss being an abyss in its self. This was very visual, and as I struggled through the experience I could see that every object folded out from its self in multifold, multicolored, transparent layers.

One event no longer followed after another. I tried to keep track of the order of things, and then I realized that my experience was not linear or even cyclical, but rather spiral. I felt my presence everywhere, and by paying attention to any given thing, I sucked that presence in and swallowed it.

We must have managed to climb across to the outcropping again and from it, down into the wooded hillside on a path to the river, because suddenly now I was standing by myself
on a concrete platform half way down. Steps lead the rest of the way down and my three companions were way ahead of me and almost to the bottom.

Red-orange-yellow lights flashed everwhere. Now a blue light was also flashing. "Oh shit, its the fucking cops!" I said, looking at all of the lights strobbing against the wall. Now, somehow, the three of them were on the platform with me. At first they were like, "Theres no cops you crazy bastard, come on down to the river with us" . Then they were like, "Oh shit, its the cops, you'd better run man". Well I was indeed tripping balls, but I was still intact enough to know they were fucking with me. Seeing as how I wasn't in a police car yet, and not about to make an ass of myself running away from cops (real or not), I decided to go the rest of the way down the hill.

Needless to say I was feeling very paranoid about cops. I thought about this on my way down, and then it struck me.
Somehow I was ashamed to be tripping. I was more in touch with myself than ever before, and yet I felt ashamed. Then I realized that I must be ashamed of myself. THAT was a shitty feeling, and I decided my new realization was best filed in my head and brought out again for analysis when I was sober.

At the bottom of the hill was three sets of railroad tracks that ran parallel to the river. You had to cross the tracks from the hill to get to the river. The though came to me that we would be fucked if a train came by because maybe we woulden't notice it, tripping. Boy was I wrong about that last part.

We snuck across the tracks as if trains were some gigantic cats and we were little mice trying to avoid them.

Across the tracks was another little slope and then a portion of riverbank aout the size of one acre that jutted out into the water. We went out onto the bank and stumbled around looking at dead fish and stones, and peices of cut fishing line in absolute awe. I noticed that everyone was tripping out on there own thing. At this point there was nothing that resembled communication. Everyone focused on there own thing and though they talked out loud about it, words didn't make enough sense to listen to. The only thing I remember anyone saying is Mindy, "I think my teeth are comeing out"

The ground was alive beneath me. It didn't move in any way that would displace where I was standing, rather I felt something stirr and moan deep inside it. It was like walking on living shit, and being so fascinated by the fact that it was actually alive that it didn't matter that it was shit.

The trip was intensifying and my perceptions spun out of my reach and into an area where they just spun around and shifted all on their own accord. I saw something on the ground that looked out of place. Something shiny. I reached down to pick it up and upon touching it, a kind of electric shock blew through me and I can't honestly say that what happened afterwards made enough sense to be typed out here.

To this day I don't know exactly what happened on that river bank, but I know when we walked off of it back onto the train tracks, I was very dirty, had a few bruises, and all the shit in my pockets was wrong. My pack of cigarettes was shoved into my front jean pocket upside down and they were almost all broken. The contents of my pockets were pretty much a knotted tangle of dirt, crumpled up money, wood chips, broken cigarettes, buds, shrooms, twisted up plastic bags and small legnths of cut fishing line. I know none of the other three jumped me. All of my money could be accounted for later and Dave was my very best friend.

I was first crossing the tracks, and Dave, his Girl and Mindy were just getting to the middle. They looked like one single knotted up thing with arms and legs and mindless giggling chatter projecting out everywhere.

Then it happened. The rails I had just crossed started buzzing and a single bright light popped up on the horizon directly down the rail-line. The Hunter was here. It had spotted us and was now ripping through the living mist at enormous speed, bearing down on my friends crossing the tracks. "TRAAAAIIIIIINNNNN!!!!! GET OFF THE FUCKING TRACKS GET THE FUCK OFF THE TRACKS!!!!!!!!!!" I screamed.

The train shreiked back in a peircing whistle I felt would make my head explode. The trio on the tracks looked up..."Oh FUCK!"...Daves Girl and Mindy hopped gingerly off the tracks. The train was still some distance away but it was closing in fast. I scrambled up the hillside to the concrete platform where I had stood before. I turned and looked down. I could hear the Beast rumbling now, getting closer, jetting down the tracks twords us.

Daves Girl and Mindy were now safe on the side of the tracks. Where was Dave? I almost coulden't see him. Dave was standing dead in the middle of the tracks laughing and screaming...challenging the train. "Come on you FUCKERRR!!!". I thought, "oh shit". Everyone was imploring, "Dave get off the tracks...comeon man, Dave, Dave get the fuck away from there!".

The train was much closer and I considered bum rushing Dave to knock him off the tracks. But Dave is huge and heavy and quite determined to stay where he is.

Then Daves Girl jumps on the tracks to try to wrestle him off. Dave was going nowhere. So she stayed, screaming, "If you die motherfucker, I am going to die with you!!!". Now Mandy is on the tracks wrestling with Daves Girl saying, "Your my best friends, if you two go, I go to..". I just stood there and gawked in amazmement.

The train got louder and louder as it came, the three of them once again a single knot of arms and legs and thrashing and screams. When the train hit it exploded into existence, a roar like nothing I've ever heard before. It litteraly sounded like and explosion, but one that lasted and did not die down. My attention so focused on the one train, I didn't see the other one until it they were parralel each other. Two trains going opposite directions. My friends were certainly dead.

I stood there thinking, "Three of my freinds are dead now. I can't deal with this at the present moment because I am FUCKING TRIPPING MY ASSS OFF." I scanned the ground around the tracks for body parts and blood as the train continued to roar past. I coulden't make out any details, anything smaller than the train its self was totaly obscured by the constant melting in and out of everything in my vision. "What do I do? Go tell the cops right now? Nooooo, I am tripping, I can't go to talk to cops. Do I wait until later and then get charged with something? Shit."

The last of the giant train flew past and there were the three idiots still screaming and thrashing around on the tracks. Did it fucking go THROUGH them? They are all still alive. They started walking twords me. Then it hit me, there are THREE sets of tracks. One train was on the far track, the other train was on the near track and my three lunatic freinds were on the middle track.

Dave came up to me with the most inspired look on his face, he was some deranged god standing there before me. "Duuuude, that was the most fucking amazing trippy thing...." His voice was high pitched and intensly euphoric, "Man, lets wait until another one comes by and then me and you can stand down there".

I started walking up the hill twords the caves again. Dave followed begging me to go back down to the tracks with him. Mind you, I am still tripping my brains out at this point and trying to figure out the difference between where my body/being ends and where the woods and stuff around me begins as I navigate my way up the hill. I just ignored him totaly. I had to admit later that I could not imagine a more intense expeience than tripping balls while two trains pass at over 50mph one to either side and going in opposite directions. If one of them would have staggered a few feet to either side, that would have been it and I would probably be in an institution right now.

We made our way to the outcropping near the cave and Dave sat down and started laughing hystericaly. He puked as he laughed and I looked away. The sound and smell of it was fascinating to me though. He kept puking and puking and laughing away. I had to look. His dinner having been ejected with the first few spews, a bright yellow substance now shot out of Daves mouth and ran across the rock. It was a river of neon gold flowing across deep red rock, and I coulden't help but to be hypnotized by it. It was actually beautifull and Dave was straining to puke more because he was enthralled by it as well. Then he put his hands in it and looked up at me. His face was bright red and he wasn't laughing any more. Instead he had an absolutely mindless, dumbfounded expression, the same expression he would have had if he had just delivered a living baby from his mouth and was now holding it up in amazement. It was religious awe I saw on his face. I said, "Thats stomach bile man, why the fuck are your hands in it?" He started laughing again, and everyone got to talking about it.

We decided it would be a good idea to walk up to the main road and go get something to eat. I wasn't hungry but the concept of food seemed attractive to me. The trip was still very very strong, but the mutterings and gibberish comeing from other people made more sense.

Objects still unfolded themselves in transparent multicolor, outward expaning reflections and I was enjoiyng our journey back up to the surface. Emerging from the enclosure of the woods into the open street where there were non-tripping people with short hair and sober minds was a feeling of power.

We walked crookedly down the main street (a two lane highway with a 45 mph speed limit) and twords the cluster of fast food restaurants about a half mile away. I was animated, waving my arms all over the place as I lectured on the nature of reality that was opening its self up in front of me. I went from pantheism to existencialism to animism to the collective unconscious and on and on, and no one really gave a shit. A couple of times Dave staggered over to pull me out of the street, "Your in the fucking street man, your gonna get hit" Traffic buzzed by, horns blaring, and we made our way into the cluster.

Some old drunk guy came wavering out of a bar with some old hoe. The guys appearence was unremarkable, but the old whore looked like a nightmare vision. She wore dirty furs, a big cartoony wig, and her old wrinkled up face was severely painted with all kinds of make up. She was authenticaly scary and as she cooed and giggled at her companion her round little red mouth would open and close, chew on its self and gyrate like a painted rectum. They saw us there tripping out on them and the guy started some kind of sing-song crazy sounding shit. I realized that those two and three of us were both inebriated in ways that weren't really compatable. We moved on ignoring them both.

Traffic increased and when we made it to macdonalds, it was rush hour. Macdonalds was packed and we were all still tripping hard. We went in as a group but my friends were immediately absorbed by the crowd. I stood in line for some reason trying to make sense out of the chaotic scene around me when suddenly there is no one in front of me and the guy across the counter goes, "How can I help you?"

I thought, "What the fuck is this guy talking about?" Then it hit me that I was in macdonalds and was supposed to be ordering food. I got noided out real bad and when I looked up at the menu all I saw was gibberish and bullshit that didn't make any sense. Under duress and figuring that this was macdonalds and macdonalds sells hamburgers I said, "Can I have a hamburger". The guy said, "No, this is breakfast." Now what the fuck do I do? I thought pretty hard about it for a minute and I said, "Give me a coffe". The guy slid this steaming hot cup of black liquid across the counter at me and said something like, "one oh nine". I reached into my pocket and what I gave him must have been money because he reached into the register and gave me some shit back.

The crowd was intensly weird. I slid between and through the seething mass, hoping not to be noticed and sat down with my friends. Once again, no one was paying attention to anyone but what they were attempting to eat. Somehow I had a sausage muffin thing in my hands and it occured to me to eat it. I didn't know where it came from, and hoped that I didn't take it off of someones table.

The noise of the crowd was fucking me up. It was this non-sense murmuring with a really weird sound randomly breaking away from the murmer. It sounded almost identical to what Charlie Browns teacher sounded like. You know, "mwahh mwahh mwahhh. waawwwk mwaaawm waaaaw". For all of the other shit that happened that night it was funny that that sound was the one thing I coulden't handle. I knew that if I had to sit there for more than a few minutes I would absolutely lose it.

I tried to eat the thing in my hands but when I put it in my mouth it had the texture, taste and consistency of foam rubber. Was I eating a peice of garbage or maybe my coffee cup? What happneed to my coffee? I problably left the damn thing on the counter. What good is "coffee" anyways? What does coffee mean? (Things were still "bracketed" to me) No way was I going back. I looked over at Daves Girl and for some reason she was spitting her food into a styrafoam cup. I looked accross at Mindy and somehow she still had the presence of mind to be looking at me with adoring eyes. We got up and left.

I went home that morning and put in Wagners "The Ring Cycle". It was amazing. Sleep came easy, as my stomach and back hurt bad, and though a part of me didn't want to succumb to sleep, the rest of me was absolutely exausted.

That was my first trip.