14.

Pink Floyd’s Laser Show.

Split the pills with Little Chris and watched him make his rounds of the trailer park, trying to induce its citizens to purchase Mexican Valium. Good luck. Their tastes tended towards crystal meth but who knew. Everybody can get too high. Oh yes they can. Meanwhile Motherland and I were preparing ourselves for the trip to San Antonio to see the Floyd. I’d been warned that it was a life-altering experience and I was ready. My mind was such a ball of confusion already, I may as well alter it some more. Bang and a door slammed shut. Little Chris retreated from a weed-filled yard. I guess they weren’t interested. My poor amigo. Once more his stubborn pride wouldn’t let him say yes to a free ticket to the show. He’d sit at the picnic table next to Motherland’s trailer and continue his long letter to his wife. He wasn’t sure of her address. He might have to tie it to a balloon and set it free. He needed to tie himself to another balloon and cut the cord, let himself off the hook for his crimes. He wanted to be a good father. It was in him to do so. If he could just get over the hump, get it all together, make a new start. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Little Chris backing down someone’s driveway with his hands in the air. The owner of the trailer was advancing towards Little Chris with a heavy revolver in his hand. No sale there today.

So back in the Buick and Motherland behind the wheel and me rolling my terrible joints, the kind that look like a python swallowed a porcupine. We had these huge horse tranquiller sized pills that allegedly were Ecstasy but might actually be acid. Or something else. Who knew what was going around in the mid-90’s? Heroin, borax, PCP, we put anything into our livers and figured what didn’t kill us would make us stronger. Why were we like that? Could we just blame our parents and call it a day? That seemed too easy, but the evidence was all too real. My own family was a nest of alcoholics, drug addicts, attempted suicides and long stints in the pokey. Motherland’s tale was about the same. At that very moment his mother was behind bars in Huntsville, his brother was on the run for manslaughter and his father was on a three day blow from which he would arise on Easter Sunday with a tattoo on his forearm that said Inez and he had no idea who Inez was. He’d eventually replace it with a really cool panther.

But that was later. Let’s get our ass to the show and our butts in the seats because we need to get this freakout on. Because that’s the whole point. Now the following should not be construed as medical advice because it isn’t. But maybe you’ll use it someday when you see someone acting like I was. Because once we got settled in the stadium and the lights went down and the chick on the stage started wailing and the music was boiling and we were reaching for the first joint to ease us through the ragged edges of the X, or LSD or whatthefuckever, sparking it up, there were the ushers with flashlights and their Gestapo powers to eject you from the concert if you even thought you were going to smoke anything in this pristine stadium where no football team played. And so I sat there feeling whacky and I began to get the premonition that I might be having a bad trip and then I was, I was beginning to get the crazies, the roar in the ears, the swirl of maddening voices, the panic attack. I looked at Motherland. He was loving every minute of whatever the drug was doing to him. Not me. I left my seat and headed for the concession stand. Surely a Coca Cola was the answer at a time like this.

I stood in the line surrounded by San Antonio’s finest. My body began shaking. I thought of the bottles of pills in my jeans, the many jazz cigarettes I held. A fellow standing in front of me glanced over his shoulder. His face morphed into a melting mask of demonic intensity. Oh Lord, oh Lord. This would be a terrible time to freak out. I could see it all happening, the cops shooting me with mace, clubbing me, no Acid Christ anywhere to talk me down, tell me that I was okay, that I was indeed a Son of Man and worthy of Life if I would just get my shit together and calm down. Oh Lord, oh lord. I felt my thumping heart, could almost see it beating its way through my Mr. Fatty t-shirt. My heart. That was it. My heart was going a mile a minute. The overload to my system was telling my brain that I was dying. The sympathetic nervous system. Fight or flight. Or neither. Put on the brakes. Slow down that heart. Take four deep breaths. Relax. Rethefucklax. And I did. I simply stopped freaking out. I ‘willed’ if such a thing is possible my heart to slow down. The fellow in front of me looked over his shoulder again. He smiled. He wasn’t even looking at me. His sandal shoed girlfriend was joining him for a hug. All was well with the world. I was shaking and pissing my pants but I was alive. There’d be no Texas hold ‘em, no death by misadventure. I didn’t think I’d ever want nor need drugs again. I stepped up to the counter and told the pretty girl that I’d like a 7-Up.

“We got Sprite,” she said.

“That’ll be fine.”