The great quest toward evening

After eating an overabundance of food at the barbecue, we departed
from Eltingville in his moms '68 Toyota Corolla deluxe coupe in search of someone selling mescaline. John would have taken his car had it not broke down again. First it was the starter, then it was the alternator, now it's the catalyst converter! I turned the radio up as a song began to play. It was "Something in the air" by Thunderclap Newman and at that moment, it was the best song in the entire world! As the wind blasted through our hair, it circulated within the car ruffling up scraps of paper and sucking out very thin pieces of clear plastic, which could be found as a casing around cigarette packs. We ended up in Great Kills, but they had only weed.
In Bay Terrace, they were all high and had nothing to sell, so we drove
to Oakwood train station where they told us to come back tomorrow.
We then headed into New Dorp, to find it was a ghost town. By this time, The Merry-Go-Round came on and were singing their hit song, "Live."

John turned off the engine and sparked up a bone, where we sat parked by the St. George Malankara orthodox church of India. I made the sign of the
cross before taking in a nice slow hit of mother nature. In a disturbing
kind of way, I felt as if the herb was purifying my soul as it expanded
my consciousness, thus bringing me that much closer to the higher
power. I then thought, if I died now, would I go to the Indian section?

That thought made me smile, and it wasn't long
before I began to reflect upon a certain day.

❖ It was somewhere in the fall of 1980. A conflict between John and Paul that would nearly end a lifelong friendship. I will admit, I don't remember the day, but to the best of my knowledge this is what happened. John and I were hanging out, getting high in his room with Pete, his brother Tom and Richie Cakes. We were passing around an emerald green bong, partially filled with lemonade. Anyway, about ten minutes after we finished smoking, the doorbell rang and John went downstairs. Paul came inside and so we all went down. Paul was furious that John had smoked the weed without him, rather than wait until four as agreed upon. "Getting a little fat there flabby, aint'cha?" said Paul to John as we laughed. "Look at him,
in a few more years he'll be the size of Mount Rushmore!" Paul then
began lumbering around the room like a comical version of The Thing, while grunting heavily. The entire house was now engulfed in laughter!
"I smoked, now I gotta eat the refrigerator and the stove! You really are
a fucking piece of work, let me tell ya. You say one thing, and then you
go ahead and do another!" As Paul began patting John on the shoulder,
he turned into Jimmy Boils from across the street!

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Jimmy looked like one of them trees I'd seen near my old school. The one covered in fissures and knots to look so obscene that many a young girl hath darted from him in inexplicable terror! "You had to smoke it all without me, didn't 'cha Johnny. Couldn't wait that extra second for me now, could 'ya Johnny. Ahhh, but your livin' well now, aint'cha Johnny!" Paul was now cocking his head, and bearing both his upper and lower teeth. This action made his eyes appear to be wincing, like the Boil Man! We were now laughing so hard, we were in stitches, rolling on the floor!!! Then Paul started laughing even more hearty and John just snapped!

He bolts up the stairs, saying that he has something to show me. After
five minutes, he still hadn't come down yet. "What are ya doin' up there Morris, eatin' all them vittles?" Roaring laughter could be heard coming from that house more than a mile away! Soon, John comes down from the attic holding a rather large picture completely covered in dust! "What have we here?" asks Paul rather inquisitively. "Is it, a Picture perhaps?" Sit down, you don't need to see this. "Sit down, what am I a dog? Sit down, now roll over! What are you a jerk off?" Just be a good guy and sit down. "Don't talk to me like I'm a three year old!" Look Paul, you don't-need to see this picture! "Bullshit, I don't need to see it! Show it to me or I'll pull it out of your hands and smash it against the wall!" Alright, you wanna see the picture, here. Just then, John proceeded to blow a century's worth of dust straight up Paul's nostrils, and he went totally ballistic, vehemently throwing his arms around and about his face, like he was standing in a giant beehive! He then threw two punches at John's upper arm! "You're
a fucking asshole! You know I'm allergic to dust!!! This ain't over, pal!" Paul then storms out of the house. Who's laughing now? asks John calmly as he slams the front door hard! He thinks he's a clown! He comes over; he disrespects me in my own house!

After a few weeks, John and Paul were hanging out again like nothing
had ever happened. I can recall it being a Thursday when I rang Pete's doorbell. What's going on, Pete? "Not too much. Paul and John are at it again." What happened this time? "I think it'd be better if John told you himself." I could see Pete trying not to laugh, and so I went over to John's house to find out what in hell was going on! What's up, Johnny? I yelled happily, through the open screen in the old living room window. "Come in! Paul is fucking dead! Take a look at this. I'm showing everyone what a mental case this guy is!" As he opened the cabinet door, I could not stop laughing! Paul must have been really mad to do something like that, I said. "Him mad? My mother came in last night and saw it sitting on top of the television!" "Him - Mad?" Was she upset? "She was screaming up a storm!!! My sister was with her and her jaw dropped! Like a stupid
jerk she says, look ma, you can even see all the little lines in it!!!

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Don't laugh, because when I catch him, I'm gonna damn punch his head off!" "That fuckin' piece of shit! Do me a favor, don't even mention his name in my presence again, cause, I'm ready to throw my spare tire through his front window! That's how mad I am right now with this fuck!" The following week, I was going over to call for Paul, and I hear them yelling at one another. Paul was upstairs yelling out his bedroom window, while John was downstairs, screaming obscenities  up to him from the driveway. "I'll catch you, don't worry about it!" Oh, I'm not worried about it, pal! I'll lay you out on the sidewalk with one shot. "Let's go then! Put your money where your mouth is asshole!" Paul then started to sing "In the wilderness" at the top of his lungs! Mu-sic, all I hear is mu---sic!!!
That really burned John's ass! I turned around and walked back home.

What Paul did to infuriate John is almost too funny for words! John had this strange looking curio called a reproboard that is comprised of pins. You can push your hand or your face into it and the impression will remain. Paul told me that when John went up to take a shower, he used
the downstairs bathroom to leave a 3-D impression of his hardened penis in the reproboard for John's sister to see! It had to be one of the most hysterical things I had ever seen before in my life!!! Because of this practical joke, I had to hang out with them separately as the two
refused to speak to one another for almost five whole months! ❖

As The Syndicate of Sound came on to sing Little girl, we drove to the back roads of Midland beach, till we saw some activity. John gave me his six dollars, and so I left the vehicle to make the transaction. I presented myself to the apothecary in a fleeting fashion, as would a first time buyer or an undercover police officer looking to make a bust. I asked the dealer (an English chap) for my drug of choice, and he said very politely "sure thing, that'll be twelve dollars." *Dough-lers, I like that!* The pecuniary amount was handed over in exchange for 4 spherical dots of orange sunshine mesc. In that minuscule vial, I saw what might have been
close to a thousand microdots, if not more! Wow I thought, that's
enough to take a whole generation to the moon!

✺ Years later, I did some research into the matter and found that true mescaline is found in the button of the peyote cactus which when harvested, is left to dry in the desert sun. The standard dose for oral mescaline falls within ranges of 200 to 500 milligrams per dose. An infinitesimal dose for a barely noticeable reaction can be felt at 100 milligrams and for that amount alone to be effective one would
need to enlarge the microdot by at least 10!!!

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I'm not saying take 10, I'm saying bi-----g-----g-----er! Acid (or) LSD, on the other hand, is measured solely in micrograms. (one millionth of a gram) and is the most powerful hallucinogenic substance known to man. Even the smallest speck, barely visible to the naked eye would be enough to evoke a noticeable response in a human being, and this amount would be exactly 25 micrograms! If one drop of pure LSD is enough to get 500 people high, and one quart sized bottle enough to inoculate the entire island of Manhattan, then I assume it was not mescaline at all that we
were getting. Of course, I didn't know it then! In truth, LSD is no more dangerous than a loaded gun. If no one picks it up and plays with it,
then no one will get hurt. ✺

We went back to Eltingville with the microdots and took two each at approximately 8:30 PM. I was quite nervous about taking them, thinking the whole time, they may be laced with some very bad LSD. John reassured me by saying that "if it was acid, it couldn't be sold as mescaline, period. Everyone has to adhere to a code of ethics, and
these guys are no different. These guys, especially! Just think of what
I'm saying. Someone goes out to buy cocaine and comes back with speed, what do you think is gonna happen? The dealer is either going to lose all his clientele, or someone is going to come back and shoot him!" John was the kind of guy, who could sell you a penny for a nickel. Indeed, he was an incredible bullshit artist, the best! I guess he was right in a way, and the more I thought about it, the better I felt until it was out of my head completely.

Ten minutes or so went by when I began to notice a change. Car headlights had more of a shine to them than they normally would if I were straight, and lampposts had a calming glow. Pete comes over and appears to be in a jovial mood. Then John spills the beans about the mescaline, and he quickly becomes enraged! "Charles was gonna lay out the money for you, but I told him not to." You said what? "Pete, the last time I bought the hits you didn't want them!" You knew I had to go away that weekend! I specifically told you I couldn't hang out, but you tried to lure me back in, and it didn't work so don't start that shit with me now! And Charles listens like a mindless puppet... While Pete spoke to John, his eyes were filled with venom and upon me, like the bullies in the schoolroom cafeteria. They talk to their friends about whose head they're going to smash in while they look straight at you. I don't care how strong you are, no one in their right mind would deliberately pick a fight with peter. He had muscles on top of muscles, and even though he wasn't taller than me, it wouldn't surprise anyone to see him lift up the corner of someone's house in a heated rage! Intimidated, I turned away and Peter began directing his anger at John. What the fuck, he yelled adamantly! God-Damn-it!!! What the hell am I supposed to do now? It was normal for Peter to display a modicum of irrationally in his behavior whenever something went awry, but this far exceeded the normal limit he imposed on an all-around scale of anger. It was a typical teenage screw up and nothing to get hung about, but Peter was not going to forgive and forget that easy. So, for the rest of the evening he would treat us like a long shadow, keeping his distance.
Little did we know how churlish he would actually become. I was
now pondering the estate of my own mind, and the decision to
be made concerning the fate of the evening was at hand.

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