FRIDAY FABLE/ CHICKEN

Once upon a time… way back when TyeDye and Bliss were just getting to really know each other and exploring their universe together…

Bliss remembers when TyeDye’s mother thought Bliss was the bad influence in TyeDye’s life, but graciously allowed the two to be together. There were occasions when it was actually the other way around… TyeDye corrupted Bliss, who gladly accompanied her without much objection. Bliss takes responsibility for her actions and does not blame TyeDye for her failings! On the contrary… Bliss is tremendously grateful that they shared experiences together. Let’s call it what it was… mutual stupidity! Here is another excellent example of the idiocy of abuse and use, interrupt of morals and general WTF were we thinking!

The first time Bliss ever tried acid was initiated by TyeDye. She’d gotten it from Pud. Yes, we had a friend we truly did call Pud. As it “pulling your pud”. He did not seem to mind being called a penis at all. Marvelously inappropriate and obscene. Just the sort of immaturity that we were so attracted to in those days. But maybe he did mind and didn’t say. You know how badly teens want to be accepted… and that the things we did to each other often hurt years later when we thought back on them. So glad I don’t have to live that part of my life over!

LSD. It was a drug that was not all that well known. A relatively new drug to the world. A misdemeanor in that time frame, not yet the drug that became so hated. It was cheap and came in a variety of forms. Cheap was likely the cause behind its use and abuse. In Bliss’s world at that time you could go to the neighborhood 7-Eleven and buy it from the clerk… who kept blotter acid under the counter. Not at all 7-Elevens… mind you. This 7-Eleven was near a friend’s home. It offered LSD that has been placed by dropper onto a piece of ordinary construction paper in a grid pattern, and then cut off in little squares as it was sold.

You could buy it in barrel form… a cylindrical pill. The really good stuff had a cartoon of the Mad Hatter on its end. It had names to entice. Orange Sunshine was a favorite of Bliss. The green barrel gave them the runs and was avoided after the initial experience. There was a thing called Windowpane that looked like a bit of snot and had a very visual effect without the speed contained in barrel acids. One time Bliss was gifted by a little hobbit of a touchie-feelie-jerk with a drop of liquid LSD placed into one eye. This left her with damage to her left eye that persists to this day in the form of an iris that refuses to close down properly in the sunshine, resulting in headaches, watery eye and migraines. Yes indeed. LSD was not good for you! Not recommended at all!

Yet, curiosity and stupidity reined in those days when we still believed that we were immortal and unbreakable. Bliss is somewhat wiser in her current age. Proudly so. Now that you have the background required to understand the story… here we go!

Early on in the evening Bliss was introduced… for the very first time… to LSD in the form of barrel acid… Orange Sunshine, the best by far of the acids available, though she was unaware of it at the time. TyeDye shared on the way to 7-Eleven to buy Minute Rice to make for a potluck party. They took it on the street corner of Wishon Blvd. and Home Ave. On the opposite corner of Van Ness and Home, was a dental office with budgies in the front picture window. Here they stood and observed the birds for an extended period of time. By the time they got to the mini mart, both were on their way to altered reality. Bliss was repeating the words “Minute rice and dog food” over and over, so as not to forget what she was about to buy. Tye Dye could only laugh at her. The clerk enjoyed their obvious intoxication and played a bit of mind-fuck at the register.

Bliss cannot recall the trip home or making the rice for the potluck. Only the irony of taking Minute Rice to a place of health nuts instead of the fantastic smelling Basmati brown rice that she loves now. There is a brief recall of trying to feed the three basset hounds in the back yard. Their bodies hopping up and down as she held the food bowl above her head and laughed for no reason. The dogs bayed until her father screamed out the upstairs window to stop teasing the dogs and put the bowl down. She was not teasing them. She was laughing at them tickling her with their feet as they jumped up and down. The bassets responded with happy wags and slurping sounds that only bassets can make. If you don’t have a basset or memory of one, you are out of the loop of understanding.

She does not recall the trip to the house where the potluck was held. Only that they were suddenly there… giggling like mad things… and greeted by Pud, who wanted to know how we liked his drug. Bliss said “It’s so mellow!” But the word “Mellow” came out all weird. Like “mell-auw”. Pud would forever after torment her with this mispronunciation.

Snippets of that evening remain… Deck bragging endlessly about his mad skiing skills… leading to Bliss running away. Lying on her back in the music room listening to Steve Miller sing The Joker over and over until Big B took it upon himself to decide what music would be played. Hahaha. Fortunately he had great taste and Bliss was thrilled.

Eventually Bliss and TyeDye ended up on the front porch of the house, alone smoking something or other… hash or pot… to mellow out the intensity of the high. As they sat there a sound down the street drew their united attention. One of those WTF situations that result in awe-stuck observation of facts that is too large to fit into the brain. A car. The engine screaming its objection to the high revolution of its engine as it accelerated beyond its limits. Sparks were shooting off the part that was dragging behind. A pyrotechnic show of amazing display! Fireworks in September! When the car neared their position, it left the pavement and launched up the lawn and into the lower under section of the latticed porch of the Victorian cottage directly across the street from where they sat.

Bliss and TyeDye looked at each other. Blink. Blink. Bliss clutched her head in her hands. This was not good. Not good at all! Responsibilities would be required. Explanations demanded. Witness of crime extraordinaire! Noooooooo!

Across the street the driver bailed out of the car window and ran away, leaving a large piece of automotive evidence behind. People alerted to the tragic situation began to spill out of the house onto the lawn. Bliss continued to hold her head in her hands, repeating the words “Bad, bad, bad…” over and over. God Himself has no clue what TyeDye was thinking!

When it was established that they were indeed witnesses, one of the staff members of their school informed them that they would be expected to give a statement to the police. This was even worse than Bliss had anticipated. This was the worst possible outcome. Conversation with the police was never a good thing, but conversation with the police while tripping was suicidal. There was an argument of a sort on this subject. The teacher insisted that they could maintain and must do this…it was the right thing. The teacher had no idea that they were so high, and so is forgiven.

They did what they had to do. They ran away like the true chickens they were. They ran hard and fast to Bliss’s house, where they would once again regain the giggles that go with LSD and function so poorly that Bliss could not get her key into the key hole. The door was whipped open by her father, who told her that the door was not even locked and suggested that they go sleep off whatever they had been drinking.

The evening ended with them laying on Bliss’s brass bed, contemplating the James Taylor poster on the wall and wondering about the stars and moons that glowed and danced on the radiator… how they managed to float like that instead of lay flat on the radiator where Bliss had painted them by hand. Gradually the evening faded to dawn and nothing was left of the high but the odd patterns of acid vision imprinted on everything. Bliss and TyeDye fell into grateful sleep.

As always... drugs are not a good thing and no one here recommends that they ever be tried or abused. These are just the random memories of Bliss, who was foolish and careless and way too young to be doing such things. While TyeDye is part of this all… being Bliss’s support and constant companion, and greatly adored by Bliss… it is the memory of Bliss that is contained here. Only TyeDye can speak truly for herself. Bliss cannot tell you what was happening in the mind of that fine and wonderful friend. Only that she was loved deeply and was there. Bliss does not intentionally leave out her thoughts or feelings. She simply does not know them. That is the way it was. Way back then.

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