Mushroom Sea

It was 11pm in Fairbanks, Alaska and the tracers from the street lights were kicking in. I turned to my captain and said to the scrawny little Alabaman, 'Hey, did you know I am high on shrooms?'

Magic Mushrooms, good on pizza but not because of the taste.

'No way, dude,' he replied in his thick hillbilly accent. Something unsettling came over me that moment when I noticed a lack of concern in his eyes after hearing that he had unknowingly inherited the responsibility of my care taking for the evening. After all, I was high on a hallucinogen, it was his civic duty as a fellow college student to care for me.

Too bad he didn't care and too bad we were headed for the airport to pick up Montana Brad. (No relation to Hanana Montana, in fact I think she was in elementary school at this time.)

'We are on a journey,' I informed him. 'We started back there and we are headed there, but now... now we are here.' Why does it seem that the most simplest and beautifully poetic philosophies escape my lips when I am tripping on mother natures 'brain' killers.

Rule #1: You are no Picasso!

I remember spending 5 hours drawing a intricate maze across a 4 foot square sheet of paper after smoking an 8th of marijuana by myself. Yeah, creativity at it's finest. Just remember to throw it out before you come down or you will be sadly disappointed. 5x4+8=28

So, there we were pulling up to the airport, -20 degrees out. Back then I sported a stylish army green trench coat that had a rip up the back, black clod hoppers with broken shoe laces and a terrible, un-kept dish-water blond mullet. I was an eye sore to anyone and everyone, a big geek trying his best to be 'grunge'. Good thing I had a great personality.

Rule #2: When caring for a shoom-head, don't let him out of your sight.

Yet, somehow I found myself alone in the public bathroom staring at the aqua-green stall walls with intense fascination.

'Oh wow,' I cooed. 'Nice color.'

Yeah, I'm not sure that's what you want to hear coming out of a bathroom stall when you're bleeding the lizard in a public restroom after a twelve hour flight from Logan airport.

One thing I discovered about me and shrooms, somehow I can retain some cognitive grasp on what I am doing, despite how dumb it may be. I just can't stop myself from doing it. Or from a different perspective, I know everything is OK but I just can't convince myself of the fact.

Rule #3: Stay indoors where it is safe.

Once, I spent 3 hours stuck in a car behind a grocery store, high on acid and too afraid to move the vehicle. I smoked a whole pack of cigarettes and 2 cigars in that time. I swear the cops passed by on 10 different occasions looking for me. I turned the radio on, a good song played and I felt better. Then some song I didn't recognize came on and I felt the rising terror of paranoia creep over me, turned the radio off and sat in silence, listening for cop cars.

It was not OK, in my current state, to head back out to the parking lot in search of the car. But I had little choice. The security guards had been staring me down like a one eyed man at a porn theater and I figured it was time to make a hasty exit out into the freezing cold winter in search of the black SUV.

Rule #4: You will never trust your instincts.

Is this his car? It is a black SUV. It has the same Jesus bobble head on the dash board that I stared at the entire ride over here. But what if it's somebody else's car? What if they are walking this way. Go. Carry on. If you find his car it will tell you it is his car and then you will have no doubt.

It's odd what cold does to sound. It seems so raw and heartless, crunching like a million tiny bones beneath your black clod-hoppers with each step. And as I walked around that parking lot for the third time in the frigid Alaskan cold I found my mind had sunk into a hoary hell of shimmering ice crystals painted orange by the parking lot lights like tongues of frozen flames.

Then they appeared. Alabama (the Captain), Montana Brad and some guy named Pat who was hitching a ride with us. Off we went, me taking my respected position of rear shotgun, feet propped up on a case of 'natty ice' that served as a trash can. The street light tracers were gone and we were headed back to camp.

Rule#4.5: Have a good time.

-to be continued-

-Nosmo