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| Note: This isn't me in the pic. this pic is for reference only |
Damn.
So on the way back to my table, which I was packing up, I saw another table’s vendor drinking a beer from a contoured, plain brown bag. That was daring, brave and beautifully criminal.
"Hey man, that’s awesome!" I said making a motion of holding and raising a 40 ounce to take a swig. I introduced myself and he reciprocated. He asked about my shirt. I was wearing a FUTURE OF THE LEFT T-Shirt that I’m afraid to wash (shrinkage) so every time I get home and I’m wearing this shirt it directly goes back on a hanger.
He acknowledged my description and critique of the shirt, band and song reference ("You need Satan more than Satan needs you ").
"Cool man..." he said. Looking past me then bringing his focus to me, eye to eye and asked, "You wanna get high?"
Of course the answer was yes. I had sampled marijuana once again after 'everything' to see how it affected my diagnosis with, among other things, neuropathy. It worked great. It allowed me reprise from the insistent pressure and zaps that oral medication only softened. Marijuana ceased the feeling of neuropathy’s contradictive feeling. In fact, I felt free for want of a better word. I felt as if a door opened to an unused, or busy part of my brain dealing with nerve pain. Like my creativity increased to levels I hadn’t seen in years, if ever before. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING had a deeper artistic meaning.
I would like to say it was around this time that I decided to grow my hair out but I don’t think it was.
So I told my comrade, XXXX, about how XXX and I were gonna go get high (and when I said high I paused and said it with the highest pitch sound I could emphasizing and decoding the word). XXX was confident about smoking behind a forbidden area behind a screen in back of the room. I suggested XXXX attend too, so he did.
We went behind the screen unnoticed... I think... I don't know, didn't care really. We three acted like it was natural and allowable for us despite signs sating differently. I explained how pot affected me positively with my diagnosis. XXX really embraced that and gave me the first hit.
I took a good pull. Instantly I felt better and as usual, I held in the smoke and said "This is some good shit" one of the two things I purposely said every time I got high years ago. XXX took a pull. XXXX wasn’t sure if he took a hit or not suggesting the pipe was spent despite the fact he exhaled smoke like he was a blond Irish dragon. Wow, that has to be a first. Too high to notice you were high. Wow. XXX inspected the pipe... There was some green left. He lit the lighter pulled again... Passed the pipe and lighter to me. I was still laughing at XXXX's 'phantom' high. I took a second pull... Sating my next big line while holding in the smoke:
"Shits... creepin'... hard"
I exhaled and began a coughing spell that had definitely alerted anyone who didn’t know that there were some guys getting high where they shouldn’t even be standing. But we three didn’t care. We were in our own dimension already
XXXX declined a second hit... The pipe was now spent. We thanked XXX who got me to stop coughing by patting me on my back laughing himself. XXXX helped me finish packing up stuff and we split.
XXXX went to get his car. I stood just outside the event waiting for XXXX. An older lady asked me if the fair was upstairs. "Yes" I told her "Just go up these steps but be warned, there’s so many ghost up there, you cant tell whose alive and who is dead"
She turned and walked up the steps. "Good luck up there." I said.
She didn’t respond.
Standing on the street corner after dragging my merch there next to an alley waiting for XXXX I wasn’t to sure if I was having a non-pain headache with aura or I was high really really high. Everything looked like an instagramed image. I wasn’t too sure if I was even just floating a couple inches off the ground or what. I grasped onto the brick side of the building for a moment just as XXXX showed up. "Whew, that was cloe. i thought I was going to float away" I said. Or I thought I said it. or was I just thinking it? Together we loaded up the stuff the whole time with him and I giggling like school children. It felt good to laugh even though we both didnt really know what was so funny.
"I think I had a psychedelic moment a few minutes ago" I told him.
"Me too... I think" XXXX responded. "Am I talking?" He asked.
"Yeah..." I said and tried my best to sound reassuring but I wasn't certain really.
Joe Walsh was wailing through "Life Has Been Good to Me So far" on the radio
We drove away giggling at every line Joe belted like we knew all the inside jokes that were camouflaged with allusion.
I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime
Its good to laugh.
Going into explanation about pot-induced paranoia I suggested to XXXX that really, paranoia was just an 'enhancement of the moment' and to ride with it not against it.
"You realize that just as you are finishing telling me this, the song "Paranoid" is playing on the stereo?"
My whole 'just ride with it speech' lost its ground with XXXX and honestly, it was a sort of strange coincidence. "Yeah... Thats weird."
"The classic rock radio station is reading our minds!" I said in my best radio DJ voice. XXXX didn't laugh. Was I talking or just thinking that?
"Man, I’m really fucking high" I said. XXXX agreed.
"I’m gonna have to stop at the house and chill for a bit before I take you home. I’m too high to drive." Said XXXX and I agreed. "I need to chill out and drink some whiskey to help take the edge off this high"
I agreed but questioned "You do realize, of course, that you are going to turn to whiskey to help you thru this intense high right?"
"Yeah, I know,” acknowledged XXXX "Sorta fucked-up in a way isn’t it?"
Like I said, or thought... It felt good to laugh.