Also, during my sophomore year back at school, my dad and Dena decided to get divorced. I was thrilled. I hated her and thought she was a nagging bitch. She didn't like me either. On her way out, she stole probably $600 worth of precious rocks I had in a giant jar that I had been collecting since I was little. She stole Malachites, Emeralds, Amethysts, Blue Halite, etcetera. She moved out and my dad said they separated because she had lupus and didn't tell my dad until after they were married. I think he said that to save face, or she told him that to ensure he would sign the divorce paperwork. I was talking to my dad one time and he showed me where he put his head through the drywall, because he was mad and didn't want to actually hit her, just scare her till she moved out. Fool is a fucking psychopath, straight out The Shining.
I managed to dedicate several hours a day to doing homework and I attended all my classes this time. That still left several hours a day to hang out with friends, maybe get high, but not like I did my freshman year. Several of us from PHS, and Ryan, taking the bus from Arcadia would meet up every day at The Sandwich Stop in Kersting Court in downtown Sierra Madre. This was the fall semester. One day, Ryan comes in all excited talking about how he found his mom's pot and that it was so crystally, he thought it might have been dusted with meth. It was just really good pot and we all tried the little bit he stole.
He also got into acid that semester. He tried it one weekend and thought it was the greatest thing ever. I heard about acid and other hard drugs, but I was very leery of them because two of my uncles and one aunt on my mom's side were hardcore heroin addicts and they spent years and years in jail for various crimes. Ryan was super excited about his experience on acid, that he talked me into trying it the next weekend. So Ryan, Anthony Griego and I all spent the night at Ryan's house. We got a ride to a party in Arcadia and Ryan and I dropped acid before we left. Anthony hadn't made up his mind yet, so he declined. It was an experience that would change my life.
We were at the party and the last clear thing I remember was seeing a white guy in a Ben Davis t-shirt. I looked at my beer and it looked out of perspective, like it was being elongated. Then the rest of my vision became distorted, elongated. I was nervous because I heard about bad trips but so far so good. We hung out for an hour or 2 and then we headed back home. On the trip back, there were now flies all over the dashboard. Interesting. We got back to Ryan's and were sitting in his front porch area with plants all over the ground and walls. All of sudden, the leaves start growing long and swaying. I wasn't really enjoying this and I had about 5 hours left to trip. We go inside. Now there are ants all over Ryan's walls in his bedroom. Meanwhile, I am describing all this. He gives me a bowl to smoke to calm me down. Now I see letter blocks on his ceiling and we smoke another bowl. Now my heart is beating super fast. I think I am having a heart attack. Ryan turns into fucking Medusa with snakes coming out of his head. I tell Ryan to wake up his mom, that I am going to die. He calms me down and gives me a Playboy magazine to stare at for what seemed an hour.
Now that I am calm, we go outside to smoke a cigarette and he gives me some orange juice to drink. Now I am tripping balls again. I can't see it, but I feel the presence of a spaceship nearby. Ryan is laughing at this point. "Orange juice makes you fry harder." We go back inside and I am staring and the ants and letter blocks, but at least Ryan wasn't Medusa anymore. He was just evil looking. Sunday morning comes about, and I start watching football. The players are walking outside the TV. It's been about 12 hours since I took the acid. I shouldn't still be seeing things. Did I permanently fuck myself in the head? I go home that evening and am sick to my stomach. The floor was still oscillating and I didn't want to touch food. I prayed to God that night that I would never touch acid again if he would make me stop hallucinating.
I stopped frying that day. But the letter blocks on the floor and ceiling, and the patterns I would see when staring at textured carpets came back. Not that intense. But I would see them for several months and for several years more, to a lesser degree. I was so worried about these mild hallucinations I quit getting high for several months, but I would still have a couple beers now and again. I was almost totally sober for the rest of fall semester, which explains why I managed to get straight A's. I still hung out with people, just didn't get high. The fact that I took acid at all, meant to the kids around town that I was "cool," and I didn't even have to get high anymore to kick it.
