Drug Deal with God
By: Tam Francis
Tags: Drugs, Perception, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Weed

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Drug Deal with God

Mixing LSD and Weed

Photo by Matt Flores on Unsplash

I waved my hand in front of my face. Tracers followed across the space, smudging the air in an arc. I’d dropped acid before, but this seemed more intense.

“Whoa. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” I asked.

Ed, ever the philosopher, replied, “Can anyone ever see what someone else is seeing?”

With LSD, I thought I could experience a higher consciousness or tap into dormant parts of my brain. I was taking Intro to Philosophy, and we’d just studied Descartes — the whole idea of not being able to trust our senses. I fixated on the concept of everything coming to us via our senses and our senses could be deceived, combining it with I think, therefore I am. I had proof I existed, but could not prove the outside world existed.

The LSD melded the two concepts. I wondered if my senses were being deceived at that time, in that room. Was I really sitting on Ed’s weight bench in his apartment? Was Ed even real?

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

We’d met when I worked at Farell’s Ice Cream Parlour — Ed the assistant manager. Blond, smart, funny, with a George Washington nose — too big to be devastatingly handsome by American standards — but cute enough. I was in love. I took him to be my boyfriend. He took my virginity. I was disappointed. I thought there would be a bigger orgasm with intercourse. I’d been doing that on my own for years.

He moved to Tucson, and I followed, thinking I would marry him, and we’d have big-nosed babies. But he wanted to see other people — we could still be friends and sometimes lovers.

Our friend Traci passed the bong.

“Hey, what if none of you are really here?” I took a tiny bong hit. My head swirled. My mouth dried into a desert. I exhaled and watched a trail of faeries dance into the room.

Ed took a hit. “Does it really matter?”

“Yeah.” Green stairs appeared in my vision, climbing on Ed, on Traci, on the wall. My horizon moved, rocking back and forth with nothing to hold on to. “Let’s get out of here. I’m creeping out.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s go to a movie? Pile in the jeep. We’ll go see what’s playing.”

I wanted Ed to hold me. Kiss me. Save me from this eerie feeling. But he wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t ask. A few months earlier, we’d painted Ed’s Jeep with what was supposed to look like camouflage, but ended up looking like cowhide. Every time I saw his jeep on campus, I knew he was fucking Hazel. It hurt. Why didn’t he want me anymore?

Photo by GoaShape on Unsplash

My consciousness drifted in and out of my body. I thought it was morning. I thought it was night. I thought I was going crazy. Time distorted and mixed events nonlinearly. Camel colored mud slithered over our skin, cool then itchy. We ate pizza. We knocked on a trailer door, needing a phone. We were at Ed’s again? Or before? A man wore a yellow hardhat. Jäger shots out of paper cups. We were too dirty to come inside. A backyard with a garden hose, a dog barked — his yap like scraping metal. A winch pulled the Jeep out of the muck as I rubbed tan mud on my arms. The horn was stuck upside down. Water droplets on the grass turned to emeralds and diamonds. The Jeep wailed like a beached whale. We four-wheeled in a muddy construction site. Fun until we flipped.

“Get out of the Jeep, Tammy.” Ed parked in front of my cottage.

“There’s something wrong with me. I think I’m going crazy.” Fear swirled inside me. My blood felt prickly under my skin. I was hot and cold intermittently. “Please don’t leave me. The acid hasn’t worn off. It should have worn off by now.” I hated my desperation.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. We’ve been up for twenty-four hours. Go sleep.”

He didn’t understand. Something was wrong with my brain, and if I lost control, if I slept and gave my brain over to my subconscious, I might not come back. I clung to the Jeep. I would not budge.

“Fine.” He peeled out, issuing a golden dust cloud.

He drove for what seemed like miles from my cottage, turned off the Jeep, pocketed the keys, and left. Jogged away. I cried. I shivered. I leaned over and threw up pink pizza guts. I recognized the grocery across the street and then the gas station. Neither were open. Time didn’t make sense. I walked and walked and walked. Found my tiny house.

I laid on my couch waiting to die. I made a deal with God, if he let me live, I would never do drugs again.