From: pez@manhattan.com (Gizmo) Subject: The Adventures Of Smacks Past (Part 19) Through The Eyes Of A Child Date: 1996/09/30 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard,alt.drugs,alt.drugs.usenet THE ADVENTURES OF SMACKS PAST (PART 19) THROUGH THE EYES OF CHILD Okay, here's another one that was not a heroin story, but it's all part of the drug experience, and it's a pretty odd one at that. I don't want to say too much up front or I'll give it all away, so I'll let the story tell itself. The year was 1973 I believe. I had finally detoxed off methadone about six months to a year earlier and for this time and the next year or so to come, I remained "hard drug" free. I was in the marijuana business at that time. Doing a brisk trade in kilo's, pounds, half pounds etc. It was a great business to be in then. I was also living with someone whom I'd been involved with for the past two years. She was not a hard drug user, but we both smoked pot and did LSD quite a bit. This was a post late 60's period for me. I was hitting the metaphysical books, doing LSD, expanding my consciousness, or so it seemed. I've known a lot of people who took LSD back in the 60's and early 70's. Most of them seemed to like the high, but never seemed to touch on some of the more "interesting states" that LSD could produce in certain people. Like Tim Leary, Richard Alpert, etc., I seemed to be geared to have the more "mystical" type of experiences with this drug. For me, the high was almost always one of seemingly expanded awareness. The jury is out on whether these "states" were simply a drug triggered effect of so called "higher consciousness" or whether they were they were simply drug produced "hallucinations." Having had similar non-drug induced expansions, my vote is that the drug is simply triggering something within the human potential experience. Kind of like a drug like LSD, can ignite higher regions of the brain that are generally not active in any great measure for any given day and time, but that will gradually become more or less permanent features of the human experience in the future. Anyway back to the story. I was living with this woman, whom I had fallen out of a relationship with these past six months. She was fucking someone else, and although we should have taken this as our que for one of us to have split, neither of us did this. She had a kid and felt like it would be easier for me to go. I was being stubborn and decided I wasn't ready to leave yet either. So there I stayed. It's important to also note that me and my ex-girlfriend did not have an easy time of it since we stopped being "in a relationship." In fact, we fought constantly from all the hatred and jealousy. Sometimes physically. It was very hostile and very abusive. It was the one time in my life that I physically struck someone I was in a relationship with. These past six months had their fair share of hell in the fights and arguments we had. In the meantime I started dating a woman named Mandy. Mandy was another product of the 60's generation, and while also not ever having done any "hard drugs," she had more than her fair share of experience doing pot and psychedelics. We hit it off pretty well and spent a good deal of time together, tripping and smoking pot and fucking. Germane to the story is the child of my ex-girlfriend. This child, at the time, around four years of age, was present when pot and LSD were being consumed by us and friends. What an upbringing, right? An aside is that later on I found out that the child, now in his late 20's turned into a hard drug abuser and has already spent a number of years in jail. Anyway, there was one night a year or so before we broke up, when me and my ex-girlfriend had done some LSD. We were both flying pretty high, totally in one of the aforementioned "higher states" of bliss that LSD can impart, when I had the bright idea to go and get her son and bring him into the bedroom and delight and play with him. This we did, but were totally unprepared for what happened next. I can absolutely attest that this child had not had any LSD or any drug for that matter ever. But what happened is that he started acting extremely weird, as though he were tripping!! We could not believe it, but there it was. He started to get hysterical and "out of control." It seemed that he was freaking out from the "contact high." I've seen cases of contact highs, both in myself and with others, but nothing this extreme. For the rest of the pre-dawn hours and into the next afternoon, we spend all our energy trying to calm him down. We finally had to call a psychologist to visit us. Whew. That in itself was weird trying to explain to the shrink that we had done some LSD but that none was given to the child. Eventually as we came back down, so did the child and all was "well." But back to the meat of the story. So in the summer of that year, we had gotten a supply of magic mushrooms. Me and Mandy had done them a few times and they were great. I remember that one night, a Thursday I believe, I took some of them and started tripping again. I was flying high and enjoying it. I remember putting on my headphones and listening to YES while taking a nice hot bath with candles burning in the bathroom. All was well in psychedelic land. I was "there." About 5 AM in the morning I heard some noise coming out of the child's bedroom. I decided to go have a look. I figured he most have just woke up and I thought I would go and play with him. Cautiously I thought to myself. I walked into the bedroom and indeed, he was awake. "Good morning," I said. And the two of us spent time by the bedroom window playing with his toys and laughing up a storm. It was great. We both sat by the window and watched the dawn overtake the night. This was a very magical time. We sat there smiling, laughing and having a great time when all of sudden, the child looked me dead in the eye and uttered words that sent a chill through my whole body. He said, "It's all burned up. It's all burned down.!!!" "What!!!!," I said? He repeated his words with the same chilling effect. Then in a moment the chill was gone and all was like it was a moment before. It was like a very brief crack in the time stream. But we went back to having fun, joy, laughter etc. I made a mental note and gradually forgot about it. The morning light flooded the bedroom and I went and got dressed for the day. Later that morning before I went to sleep I called Mandy and she agreed to come over that night, to do some mushrooms with me. After that I finally laid down and fell into a blissful sleep until about four in the afternoon. When I woke up, I readied myself for my "date." Mandy came over around 7 PM. We took out some mushrooms and ingested them. In about thirty or forty minutes they were taking effect. We spent the time in my tapestried, candle light, psychedelic bedroom and smoked a little grass. It felt like it was going to be another great trip. At around 9:30 PM I asked Mandy if she wanted to go for a walk around the block? She agreed and off we went. My ex-girlfrend, her son and our five cats were all home at the time. Leaving to go for the walk, we started leisurely strolling around the block. The night was beautiful, the high was great and we could do not wrong! About halfway around the block I thought I heard someone call my name. "Did you hear that?" I asked. Mandy said she didn't hear anything, but a few seconds later I heard it again. I told Mandy, "Hey, that's my ex-girlfriend, she's calling my name." This time Mandy heard it too. We hurried around the block and by the time we got to the corner, we couldn't believe our eyes. There, midway in the block, right were my house was, was a crowd of people!! It was all my neighbors staring at my home!!! I could not believe my eyes, and wondered for moment if I was hallucinating. This thought was quickly dispelled by the reality of the smoke and fire which was pouring out of my bedroom window as we got closer!!! "Holy shit, that's my house. It can't be." My ex-girlfriend was outside screaming at the top of her lungs. I stood there for a moment and tried to make sense out of the speed at which all this happened. I wasn't gone more than ten minutes! How could this happen this quickly?? Convinced that it couldn't be that bad, I had a brainstorm. I decided that I could run into the house,. Go to the bathroom on the top floor and fill a bucket with water and easily put out the fire which couldn't possibly have been this bad in such a short time. I tried to do this and couldn't get halfway up the stairs, so intense was that heat. It was like putting my head into an oven. Oh well, scratch that idea. A few minutes later the fire department got there and they started fighting the fire. My ex-girlfriend, her son and all but one of our cats had gotten out okay. Thank god. But me and Mandy stood there, stoned out of our skull, watching the house go up in smoke. "Smoke!!!, The Pot, the mushrooms!!!, holy shit. What if the fire department or the police find them?" That was a real concern, not the least of which was because the house we were renting was owned by a police officer!!! I was real sure, this was going to end up with me going to jail again. But the gods were with us. By the time the fire was out and the last cop and firemen were out of there, I started to breath a sigh of relief. "Can I go upstairs," I asked the fire chief. "My clothes, money and guitars are up there." I was really concerned to get the pot and mushrooms out of the freezer. The fire chief smiled at me, told us that it was not safe to go up there now, but he said, "Hey, the stuff in the freezer is okay!!" He knew. They found it and left it alone!!! What luck. As the crowed thinned out, we realized what happened. A candle left burning in my bedroom had set fire to one of the many tapestries that hung on my wall. We both stood there wondering where to go and what to do next. Mandy suggested we go up to a friends house in Connecticut. It sounded like a good idea to me too. "But what about the clothes I'm wearing," I said. They were filled with the smell of smoke. Mandy said, "Well, I'll just tell my friend that you're really burned out and need a place to crash!" Some joke. We both laughed for minute. But walking to our car, it hit me like a ton of bricks. My ex-girlfriends son's words of that very morning. "It's all burned out. It's all burned down." What in the fuck? I mean, then and now, what can you make of that? What? I leave it up to you. Copyright 1996 Gizmo PS. The next day we got the pot and mushrooms safely out of the burned out freezer.