First time on acid, flashback to May '97, age 17. First time with any drug that wasn't weed. Perfect night, wasn't too hot, wasn't too cold. Drove out to a friend's house in the boondocks with good ol' Bob. They lived half a mile away from an airport, a two story house that was built in the 1860s with a willow tree out front. There was us two, plus the dealer-friend and her two friends. All three were goth chicks, graduated high school in '87 and been stuck in that era since. Whole different breed, let me tell ya.
Bob and I order up 2 hits each, plus another 5 hits each for next weekend. Total price $40. The girls say we should hang out there. Everyone doses around 8pm. Forty-five minutes later it starts to come on. Starts in the toes and slowly creeps up the backs of my legs. When it hits my trunk I start grinning mad. Likewise Bob and the girls. After all this waiting, been wanting to try some for so long, but every weekend it's "Sorry, no, we couldn't find any." It's finally happening. The dealer starts whipping up batches of Oohblech.
What's Oohblech? Oh kids, you haven't lived till you play with this stuff. Cornstarch + warm water, blended to a consistency of oatmeal. Quick! Go make some right now! Hours of entertainment! Stick your hand in a bowl of that stuff. Great little frytoy. Is it solid? Is it liquid? It's both and neither! And warm and squishy and everything in between! Holy gods I'm loving this stuff! Up to my elbows in it.
Acid's coming on strong. Time starts to slow down. I see little movements in my peripheral vision. Anything I focus on stops moving, but ghostly copies radiate outward, then bleed into their surroundings like a drop of dye in water. At one point I coo like a pigeon, "Oohblech mmm!" Then I made a slurp sound because I'm salivating. One of the girls looks at me; between her and I there's a fountain drink on the table. She sees the straw but not the cup. She thinks I just drank some Oohblech. I try to say No, but I can't think of how to put it. I give her a sheepish grin and her eyes bug out. And I suddenly realize how she looks like a 30s cartoon character, complete with Pacman eyes. She's wearing a vinyl black and white checked car coat, a leather beret. She puts on Squirrel Nut Zippers and dances the Charleston. Mimes driving a convertible, beeps on a horn, waves at passers-by. Excellent stuff. She's a frytoy in herself. A cyberflapper.
The girls decide they want some Subway. They take off with some words of wisdom: "Don't look in a mirror! Drink some orange juice! Go for a walk!" It's been a couple hours. A walk sounds like a great idea. Bob and I go, leave the lit house and head down the road in sheer darkness. We each take a side of the road No moon, no streetlamps or nearby houses. Just the stars and the big airport spotlight that spins around and around and around. We're starting our peak. Time is crawling. Stars wash out and reappear from every pass; a psychedelic doppler. It sounds like waves crashing ashore each time. It is so perfect. I can see so many stars, the sky is rainbow glitter, killed and reborn every 10 seconds. Spotlight scares them, woooosh, they come out of hiding and dance some more. Car is coming. Bob and I are on each side of the road. Heart beats faster. It's slowing down. Wish it would pass. No sidewalk, little shoulder. It's on my side. I look over at Bob. His face is featureless except for skin-colored bubbles. Like boiling taffy. I get the permagrin. Stare at the headlights, crack up uncontrollably. Car passes within inches and I feel every molecule in my body humming like a bee hive. My soul feels like it got a good scrubbing. We watch the tail lights go around the corner. The trails from the headlights are giving off their own fractal neon smoke. "Maybe we should go back," one of us says.
We're smoking cigarettes on the front porch, the peak is wearing off. We go inside. I put on the soundtrack to the computer game Quake. Not the best fry music I had but I didn't feel like anything with lyrics. The peak was over, but I didn't know what to expect. No one really prepared me for all this. Still, I was having a good time seeing geometric patterns, trails and an iridescent reflection on the edges of everything. Used the bathroom, took a long leak and that was an incredible experience, feeling all my anxieties drain away from me. I felt like I lost 100 pounds. I was completely renewed. Stared in the bathroom mirror for 10 minutes. Strange seeing your own face for the very first time. No bias or premeditation. Saw each layer of skin. Saw what coders call subsurface scatter diffusion(?). Saw myself morphing into different expressions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9EpnVAl5JA is a really good presentation of that. I got a kick out of it. Scary? Lies!
Girls came home. The dealer brought her sister, my brother's girlfriend. One threw me a bag of Sunchips. Never had them before. After a few it felt like I was slicing open the sides of my mouth with salty razor blades. Kept eating, even after that thought. I knew that corn chips can't do that, no sense freaking over something impossible. Then I realized I probably won't get one of those ++++ experiences because I ground myself too hard. One girl looks at me and goes "You're eating? How can you eat on acid??" Room goes quiet except for Quake music by Nine Inch Nails. That annoying seventh track that's like a heartbeat for 8 minutes. Good time to turn off music. Bob looks like a mad horse, with large nostrils a-flaring and a great black mane of hockey hair.
Myself and the sister go out and smoke in front of the willow tree. She says it always reminds her of little corpses swinging from it when she's frying. Hmmm, now that you mention it... Came in, found my Oohblech cold and hard. Analogous to that point in the evening. Made the comment "Everything must come to an end." The girls all went to bed, told Bob and I to stay until we're able sober enough to drive. We stayed for another couple hours, finding little things to trip on. Stared at the walls, ceiling, carpet, kept very quiet to ourselves.
Can't remember much else about that night. Driving was easy, uneventful. Took Bob home, got home about 5:30. Turned on lava lamp, tried to draw, thinking I would squirt out some Dali-esque imagery. Not so. Guess acid didn't flip on the creativity switch I was hoping it would. Took about 2 hours for my brain to calm down before I could sleep. My jaw was sore. My molars hurt. The acid was cut with speed. But it was a neat experience. I knew I was just scratching at the surface, the way people always raved about it. Plenty of giggles, a ++ experience. Plus I had that little five-hit strip in my pocket, wrapped so carefully in tinfoil. I fell asleep smiling.
