The incredible expedition


I then proceeded to strip down to my underwear and crawled into bed. Rich began to laugh while sputtering lines of inaudible nonsense.
His hands were covering his head and from what I could distinguish,
his face looked like a whoopie cushion, about to explode. Unsteadily,
he attempted to raise himself to his feet but could not muster the energy, and so he slumped against the wall and slid back down to his heels. I gave a quizzical look to this strange fellow whom I called 'friend' and tried to understand what part of the drug was causing such infuriating laughter!
I then wondered to myself, verbally in my head, the consequence of what will arise should this drug decide to attack the pain section in his brain. "What would I do if he starts running around the house screaming
like I was throwing scalding water on him? Then, we are going
to be in a pickle indeed."

My friend was now punching the floor. "What are you doing,"
he exclaimed loudly? I'm going to bed, I replied. This incited more
laughter! "Going to bed!!!" I then thought, how can I go somewhere
I already am? Shouldn't I have said, I'm going to sleep? Actually,
I am not going anywhere if I'm laying my head down in one spot. . .
(((What the fuck am I doing?))) The more I continued to dwell on this,
the more distant everything became, till I was in the middle of a cosmic storm waiting for my head to spin off. How perplexing is this maddening void, I colicked!

Opening my mouth to speak, I said nothing,
and we laughed unrestrained like buffoons on fire!

I then put my pants back on and insisted we go outside. We'll get lost
out there said my friend, still unable to catch his breath. I then realized it
was an insane thought for we could be easily gobbled up by the night.
As I walked over to look out my sister's window, I barely recognized the avenue I grew up on. So mysterious now, were the tree demons (staghorn sumacs) ever watching us from across the street as I looked out to the Calabrese house. They appeared to be more like giant animals now than plants, and I toyed with the notion of growing one in my room. How wicked that old house looked in the wind and the rain and the snow,
but now, there was fire and brimstone in its hearth.
An organ playing haunting melodies!

I then placed a cassette in my Sanyo tape player, and we listened to an array of John Lennon songs. As we got down to "watching the wheels"
it became quite apparent that it was indeed a psychedelic song John wrote while on an acid trip! My interpretation was that upon evaluating his life, it seems he was watching the wheels as they went round and round through the cassette window! The whole entire song was one big hidden message! It's a cryptic improverb, I shouted at Rich! Do you have any idea what this means?

I've opened the sarcophagus!!!

For me, it felt like I had just unlocked the secret of the entire universe.
This was all I ever needed to know!!! Everything else was absolutely meaningless!

It was me!
I found it!
I did it!!!

God, It couldn't have been that easy!!! Do I tell Richie about this?
Never! Only a fool gives away top secret information and besides,
it was an astonishing fact that only I, would come to realize! I would
play it relentlessly, to the tune of rapturous laughter and pounding
of fists on the floor.

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After some time, the song had begun to wear thin in its repetitiveness.
It was then, that I thought up a joke. Hey Rich, what do you say to the queen of England after she eats a tab of acid? "I don't know," says Rich straining. Hello, your HIGH-ness! Rich then flips over onto his back knocking over my plastic hamper. It came crashing to the floor, spilling its contents into the crawl space that separated my room from an adjoining walkway leading up into the attic. Without end, his abderian laughter filled every cavity of my room and poured out through the vent shafts leading down into my Aunt Gloria's apartment, which were aligned directly below the crawl space. Like a narcotic, I thought, it should be hitting her about now!

I then started to think of this bond of friendship we have in life and came to the conclusion that most of my friends are like looters. At the first sign of trouble they run, leaving you holding the bag. But when you're in the realm of the shadow dwellers, it's best to know who your friends are.
We leave the general camp as one troop, and we watch each other's back. Here there are no deserters! Taking life to the next level is only half the battle. Surviving on the field and coming home intact, and in one piece is all that can be reckoned for. If one goes down, we all go down and Poor Richard the Clown was not going down on my watch! When the drug wears off, then he can go about his merry way but for the time being,
I am responsible for his well being, whether he likes it or not. I got him into this mess, so it is my duty, and obligation as a friend to see him
safely through it, lest I be judged for my remissness.

After a spell, we listened to songs like "Scream thy last scream" by Pink Floyd, with Alvin and the Chipmunks on acid and "Point me at the sky!" We then listened to various songs from the trippy and far-out, Madcap Laughs LP! Songs like "Terrapin," "Octopus," "Long gone," and "She took a long cold look." After this we went downstairs to see how life
had changed in the cellar.

I found the garage to be in a shambles and there was paper strewn
about everywhere. We walked down the desecrated concrete staircase
and opened the steel door to a dimly lit basement. This was the original basement to my Grandmother's house, which had been dishonored by time and innumerable solvents. We then walked past the ancient tools which hung on display that my father had collected throughout the years. Many of them sharp and abiding. Rich points to the 'dead squirrel' disfigured in death, dangling beside a sickle. What's that doing here, he asks most timidly? Just hangin' I said. Not knowing I had just come out with the most inventive one liner of all times! Death, I thought. To know you're going to die within mere seconds. What a bleak end.

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Just think old chap, I said in a low devil-may-care voice, if dear old dad decided to toss off into the spinning bowl, rather than plan on making you that fateful night, you might very well be a fish right now swimming down the East River. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, he blurted out, unable
to catch his breath once more! Why did I even speak? Shortly after this episode he calmed down, but still appeared to look rather dazed.

I then began to tell him the tale of the Rosemary Theater, where I had worked with my father and crazy Antinouche. We were young and life
was just beginning, but in the winter of '78 with a North West wind coming in off the ocean, it was far beyond that of what should be deemed brutal. No heaters in the newly erected structure meant no heat, and no heat meant no warmth. How we didn't freeze to death, I'll never know. Some days it was so cold, your lips, nose and face were completely numb. Back then my father would balk at the weather as we braved to stand by the window and work. What window? Hell it was non existent! There was nothing but a massive housing of solid concrete and steel surrounded by an ocean of bone numbing agony. So terrible was it, it could have been used as a form of medieval torture. Underneath two pairs of heavy duty insulated gloves were ten waxy fingers feeling like they were beginning to crack, and if
they did crack, I am sure the blood would have immediately froze!

"Jesus Christ," said my father, "this is worse than being in Hell."
In the middle of the main floor was a blackened fifty gallon drum filled
to capacity with excess pieces of wood burning inside it. Anything that flared and kindled, with the exception of plywood or pressure treated, was tossed in to emit some form of heat into the arctic air. Occasionally, it got so cold in that building that the fire, if left unattended for more than five minutes would begin to extinguish itself out. The burning I experienced in reviving my numb extremities was even worse than the pain I felt as they began to freeze. Like every fingertip had been smashed with a ball peen hammer. That awful throbbing. The small fire in that old cylindrical drum kept the chill at bay, somewhat. Standing around the barrel really didn't help that much, but it was all we had in them days, and so we made use of it. When lunchtime rolled around, I and Antinouche would either explore the city, or have two sixteen ounce beers with an assortment of Chinese food before returning to work. At fifteen, he looked like he was nearly twenty five, so we never got proofed! Besides, he stood at height of almost 6' 2" and had a well groomed beard! Nobody bothers you on a union job providing you act accordingly and work. Maybe having your dad as a Foreman helps a bit. There was no room for slackers, and you had to keep your pace. Everyone there called it "bulldog work" because
it was back breaking.

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Located alongside of the Manhattan bridge and the Bowery was the soon to be, newly renovated, Rosemary Theater. We seldom walked down the Bowery for it was a slum, and as far as we knew would always be a haven for wayward bums and derelicts. Adjacent to us was Chrystie Street, home of the ten dollar whore. If you are looking for gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes or chlamydia, then bring a few bucks cause you've come to the right place! Did I forget to mention crabs, sorry? Some of them could
be seen wearing fur coats from the early seventies that looked as though they've never been cleaned and judging by their personal appearance,
half of them struck me as being utterly repulsive. As if they had just
come crawling out of a coal chute. Coked up, strung out and staggering, they strut their wares proudly up and down the street. Cars pull up.
They get in. They go. Mercedes and Jaguars stopped there too, for a
taste of the Bowery's finest. Anyone wishing to partake of such immorality with a meretricious whore, so vile and self-loathing, would be considered by our standards, a lost cause.

"Filthy bitches, my friend Mike would utter as we walked passed.
When he was really revving and boiling over with acrimony,
well, then they were "cunting whores."

We would stay clear of that area and usually wound up walking down Canal street or strolling into Chinatown for a bite to eat. My all time favorite dish was the 'Singapore style chow mei fun' at the Mayflower
Tea Parlor! What a great place it was to have lunch. I am sorry to inform
you, that it is now long gone. Another victim of the ever changing times.

For me, going home was always a festive soiree! If you weren't loaded on the job, then you would most certainly be coming home! With a car load of people jabbering away, one talking shop and one talking shit, I would just listen and rarely if ever say a word. Everyday we would take an old concrete mortar pan, fill it with ice, stuff it full of Miller nips and then slide it into the back of Nicky the worms old '75 imperial wagon. The one with the 8-track player he seldom, if ever used. After you finished five or six-a-them little seven ounce beers, you were lit like a candle and
ready for the evening hour! By the time you got home,
you were barely able to stand!!!

Wow said my bewildered friend, wobbling under the ossified remains of a dead squirrel, while trying earnestly to secure himself so that he didn't fall to the floor like a lopsided tripod. Whether he actually heard anything I said, this, I could never know. As I continued
to talk, it all came back to me so vividly!

During the first week, I started working for my father, there was a company contracted to perform the demolition. A company called Red Ball. I would say there had to be anywhere from ten to twelve men on that particular crew. They were all very thin, very old, under 5'4" and not to mention they all looked like they had just sailed into New York harbor on
a Gondola! During break, they could be found reading that newspaper,
Il Progresso. They had those forty cubic yard dumpsters painted bright yellow with a big red ball in the middle of it that bore the company's name in white letters. As they were gutting out the building while breaking through the ancient plaster and lath, one of the workers found it.

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He proudly handed it to his friend Giovanni, who had much less interest
in the thing, and it threw off to the side. I then picked it up and showed
it to my father who in turn quoted Marcus Aurelius in his own words. "How fleeting and paltry, the estate of man. Today an embryo; tomorrow an ash." After showing it to everyone he took it home, made a hangman's noose out of an old clothesline, and it's been hanging up there ever since! When they were first building the structure in the 1800's, he must have found his way down from the roof to become ensnared within the wall itself. That's why he looks so contorted and grieved. So now, we're able to see his face in that final moment. It kind of makes you think of how precious time really is and besides, how many squirrels do you see today running up and down Canal street? All because of the automobile.
As I stared up at the decrepit fossil looming hideously above my head,
a thought entered my mind. A thought so revealing, I stepped back. "Today's babies shall be tomorrow's monsters" It then occurred to
me that I would one day be murdered by someone who as of this very moment, had not yet even been born. God, what a ghastly thought!

Come I said, and we climbed a small ladder situated near the foot of the crawl space. Since the ceiling was only three feet high, we had to walk on all fours until we reached its end. Here we were greeted by a lengthy Christmas box. When I unveiled the contents of this box, my friend drew his neck back fast as if he would surely bolt from the room! Even though his face bore a look of utter astonishment, he could not remove his eyes from the large bong. I pulled apart the thin plastic and emptied the whole nickel bag in the top of the mahareeshi pipe, with its four arms extended for more toking pleasure! Bet'cha didn't know I bought this in the mall last year? Rich looked at me like I was a garden gnome that had suddenly come alive and was now running through a field of singing daffodils! You're welcome to smoke, I said calmly. He immediately refused
and so I smoked the entire thing alone.

By the time I was finished, I saw a billion lights in the temple of Narawah reflecting only inner peace, tranquility and love. I could no longer see my friend for all the lights had gone out, and I was engulfed in an opaque gloom which had encompassed my entire being. I was strangely calm in the obscurity which may have brought another man to madness. It was darker than a coffin in this room of 8x12 with no windows, light or air.
All time was lost in that dark place, and I had no idea when I would be returning. *If I'd be returning* I rode on a rainbow colored butterfly
to the land of flowers and spoke to the king bee before the great twilight.
I climbed inside a pericarp, so warm and sweet and waited for that bird to arrive. Unknown to me, the head of Candor was there! That beast attached himself to my shoulder and paralyzed my mind. All the while hollering in tongues of the insane and chewing half his own face off. As this monster began to rot, I was up to my neck in pure white crawling maggots
and that screaming head would not quiet!!! Shut up you blatteroon,
I yelled in a frenzied rage and the maggots attacked him!

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They burrowed in through his eyes, filling the throat cavity and then
came out his ears. Teeming over that decaying flesh they would until he produced a gurgle of agony unheard of since the dark ages. After they finished crippling the head of Candor, they poured over my wounds and ate with their tiny little teeth every ulcerated abscess. Soon after this they left me (((to find oil))) and that rotting head became as meat and dropped off.
So calm is he now apart from me, floating down a lane of scurrying snails.
With no mouth to speak, he will be forever exalted. A floorboard begins to flop like a fish, and I try to catch it! Too late, it just became a window;
one that overlooks Hell. I won't look out that window!

I will never look out that window!!!

Below, there is disaster in the street as a terrible virus is spreading.
The umbilical cord leading up to the pod will be compromised.

As the bacterium exacts vengeance upon life's tender flesh, it shrivels and slowly begins to disintegrate. The pod has become alarmingly transparent.
In this frightening moment of truth, I find I am detached from my own soul.
A child am I now, so lost in this ever increasing despair sitting naked above the earth. (((So cold))) So alone in this life. Eventually, I am laid to rest in
a time capsule that has been fashioned to look like a primitive sepulcher. Descending to the mayhem below, I land successfully in the growing infection. The Palpebrates march in and seize the city, I must run! The women affected begin to nictitate while the men have now started to flog themselves. Queen Genteel offers to save the city if I can do her a small favor. "Give the card of Troy to the banker at the corner of Leeds at 5 pm on Thursday." Okay I said, as I gently shook the tail of this interesting creature and her antehumeral stripes began flashing! Thank you said the Queen, who was really an azure damselfly. With stick like arms she reached into my shirt pocket and carefully removed it. You have done well. As a beautiful ray of light emanated from her thorax, it coated the city in its warmth and everyone was cured!

"You have saved your people, now you can go home." I can never go home I said, crying terribly. She opened her chest and I crawled inside where it was warm. There, I curled up in a fetal position and wept for 48 days. I must have stayed too long, for I was now trapped. I wait for something but nothing happens. I call to someone but no one appears. I am lost without moving; captured & shackled; I'm blind but can still somehow see. Why can't anyone hear me? Why won't they help me? Oh God, what have I done? How many days have I been in this place? I want to tell my parents I love them, but I'm lost, I screwed up. I need to undo this!!! I of all people should know you can't undo time. Once you lose it, it's gone and once it's gone, it's gone forever. I've been here so long, I'm almost getting used to it. The sound of nothing. Just then I thought I heard something, a scratching sound! I'm hearing it again! There it is!!! After a year in the honey fig,
I heard the cachinnator through the pitch black darkness. I then leaped
out and clung to it, for that was the rope I needed to pull myself out
of the depths of the ominous pit.

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