Drugs

by J. R. Helton

  I was convinced that I had just taken a bad batch during my trip through the great sequoia forests. That, combined with not eating more and the lack of alprazolam, diazepam, or any of the benzos to take the edge off, had led to my bad experience and anxiety, not the warm, outdoor, beatific setting in which I’d chosen to take it. Over the next few years, back in San Antonio, I took the drug several more times from different batches and had better results. Each experience though was somewhat less potent than the one before it. I took it outdoors once again when I accompanied my wife on a tubing trip down the clear blue limestone bedded Frio River in the Texas Hill Country on a weekend trip with her company. Everyone else was drinking beer and yakking loudly while I guzzled water and hung back alone, gritting my teeth only on occasion, my sunglasses and hat on, leaning back in my inner tube to look up at the thin green leaves of the many tall and ancient Cypress trees that lined one of the prettiest rivers in Texas, floating effortlessly on the water. It was a mild dose that wore off quickly, but it made the trip pleasurable, and I was one of the only people not intoxicated on alcohol.

  On another night, I joined my wife and her friend Madeline who was visiting from LA, down at La Tuna, a hip bar and outdoor café in south central San Antonio near the Blue Star Arts Complex. A band named Pseudo Buddha was playing a series of twenty-five minute instrumental pieces, using the sitar and some long horn-like instrument used by aborigines or maybe the monks in Tibet. I took a hit before dinner and it kicked in as we sat outside having a beer. Madeline and Patricia were catching up on old times and talking. I hadn’t been interested in their conversation before, and Patricia gave me a knowing and irritated look when I started yawning incessantly and began to jabber, emoting uncontrollably, spilling my guts with my most personal childhood experiences to her lifelong friend whom I’d just met that night. The music of Pseudo Buddha beckoned to me, and I left them to talk and stood transfixed before the band.

  It was a warm weeknight, few people were out, and I was one of a handful of people listening to them play. The deep base of the horn was vibrating in my skull; I was entranced by their playing. Their songs, their music, would never truly end but slowly subsided to a deep extended hum as each instrument faded away and the player had a drink or sat down. The hum would continue, only just audible and low. One musician would begin to play a new instrument again, another musician joined in, a cymbal was struck, a string pulled, and gradually a new “song” began. It seemed to be the most magical, timeless, cosmopolitan music I had ever heard, a perfect soundtrack for the rolling endless waves of pleasure that the drug was inducing in my body and mind. Patricia came to my side at one point to briefly hold my cold hand, checking in, and left me to my trance. When the session did finally fade to a definitive end, I approached the band members, blurting out compliments to one of them, asking to buy a CD which he happily sold me, probably the only one they moved that evening. I would listen to it later, over the following days, with lingering feelings of that evening’s pleasure. By the fourth or fifth time though, the music had lost its significance and seemed to mean nothing at all.

  -23-

  The drug MDMA, as it states roughly in most standard dictionaries or online encyclopedias, releases self-imposed or societal inhibitions, causing effusions of emoting, heightening the sense of touch and amplifying the impact of sound, mixing all with feelings of euphoria and an interconnectivity with all things. As I was normally a more reserved individual in person, always in a constant struggle for equanimity and control, the drug only worked briefly in this regard in my case, and only after I had taken it several times. It was usually only at the first onset and not for much longer afterwards that I now felt such a gushing of emotion, a feeling of such intense empathy that made others besides me want to hug somebody. My wife Patricia was the only person I wanted to ever touch on this drug, or any other. At forty-five, I had few people that I wanted to spend any time with, period, preferring to be home alone with my dogs, cats, and books in my backyard, if not with Patricia.

  Dean was still one of the few people whom I genuinely admired as an intelligent, creative individual who had an interesting take on the world unlike so many I knew or had known. We had maintained contact after all this time, seeing each other once or twice a year when he came into town on legal business or just to visit. We called each other often to talk about life and work. I was a teacher and writer by trade, and Dean was an attorney, but we rarely sent one another emails or letters. Dean was a good writer, though and he had excellent cinematic, musical, and literary taste. I was such a solitary individual that I sincerely doubt we would have remained such good friends had he not made the initial effort to find me on The Farm years before and then to stay in touch, something for which I was thankful. I had only a handful of other male and female friends and relatives like him, people to whom you were close enough that it didn’t bother them if you didn’t call them back, if they didn’t return a call or email, or if you even went for long periods with no communication at all, as whenever you did talk with them again, your friendship would just pick right back up on the same even note that wouldn’t fade. None of this needed to be articulated, but ingesting a drug like MDMA made even the hardest, closed off hearts want to express, or embarrass, themselves.

  The last time I took MDMA during the day was on the “campus” of one of these new and often right-wing, conservatively funded “charter schools” that were springing up occasionally in partially abandoned strip malls for a couple of years under G. W. Bush, until they closed shop. The guy who ran this one was using the pompous, self-righteous, multi-million dollar-high stakes gambling addict Bill Bennet’s Book of Virtues as the primary textbook for his “school,” which pretty much says it all. This charter school principal, or businessman I should say, was desperately in need of qualified college professors, and called me repeatedly to become a full-time teacher at his low-paying, high-profit scam of a school. Once he told me I would have to use that Bennet text, I told him to forget it.

  But the man was persistent, and I was broke, so in order to make a little money that summer and support my writing, I was teaching an intense, two-week writing workshop that I created for him, one that would help the many nontraditional lower income and older students he had get into college. The course would give me enough money to at least tide me over through the dry summer months. Like all my jobs, I took my part of this short summer workshop seriously, and I lectured for the first week between giving the class a series of reading comprehension tests to help on their college entrance exams. My twelve students were all middle-aged Hispanic women with children who were trying hard to better themselves with an education in order to hopefully get a better paying job than the low-level shit jobs they were forced to endure now, barely supporting themselves and their families, like the rest of us.

  The second and last week of class was full of writing exercises that also served them well, as I had condensed almost a semester’s worth of teaching into our hours-long afternoon writing sessions while also grading all of their essays every day and night. In short, it was hard work for us both. The last day of class, though, would be an easy and fun one, where the students would write one last short paper which they would peer edit and grade themselves. It was officially called Family Day on the syllabus. Most of my students would have their children with them then, also. The cheap bastard who ran the school was providing some stale cookies and coffee and juice so the women and kids could eat, write, talk, and play, slowly killing the afternoon with their easy banter and laughter with little or nothing for me to do but stare at my computer screen and work on something else. I figured this day would be so easy and uneventful, that I might as well take a hit of X before I went to preside over the class.

  I would encounter no one with whom I worked on a regular basis that day unless they were getting their nails done, or having a car alarm installed in the strip mall, so I figured I was safe on that end. All I would ha
ve to do is maintain my composure before this group of people whom I would never see again, all of whom liked and respected me already due to my teaching style, my small bit of professorial authority, and my giving a damn. I’d swallowed the purple pill, which was shaped like the cartoon character Bart Simpson’s head, earlier that morning at home. As it began to take effect, I sat in the hammock in my backyard under the shade of a hackberry tree, watching my two dogs roll on their backs, warming themselves in the morning sun. I could feel a smile come to my face and a profound urge to talk to someone. I called Patricia and we spoke briefly but she was heading to a series of serious meetings, and it wasn’t the time for a long conversation. I tried Dean also on his cell and at home, but he was at work in court on another tough case that was then consuming most of his time and life.

  It was a particularly nice and rare summer day in Texas, very dry and comfortable. I was wearing shorts and sandals and a polo shirt. With no one to talk to, and my mind and body in no mood to do any serious writing, I drove up to the strip mall early, a good two hours before my workshop began. I walked into the cool air conditioned room and sat down at my desk in front of an old used computer they’d given me. The drug was now forcing me to emote, to engage, to connect with someone, but the charter school was empty.

  I logged onto the computer then and released my feelings, in writing, on the screen:

  Jack and the Beanstalk

  From: Jake V. Stewart (jvstewart@hotmail.com)

  Sent: Friday on Jul 22, 2005, at 11:24 AM

  To: Dean Brown

  Well, I went all the way with a full bean buddy and teach my old lady college prep class with a dozen people in it in two hours. Am flying high at the moment so hopefully will descend somewhat and they won’t notice the two black holes in my head that are now my pupils. Gritting my teeth HARD, lights are bright, can’t focus, this should be interesting, especially the group photo and the fact that this is Family Day I believe. I have usually been very positive with these guys, on two (20 mg) of Vike and a big cup of coffee, so they won’t see a change there. The challenge is this evening with the wife, especially since we fought last night about the uncle-in-law situation, which has now

  been resolved, that is, I capitulated. Patricia’s uncle Pike, the six foot eight 300 pound biker and the other one, Paul, a reformed alcoholic who was dispensing Vicodin to the biker right in front of me the last time they dropped by are coming by tonight to visit again. Pike just had a broken leg set, is on crutches, and is thus WEAKENED, and his brother Paul had to drive all the way from LA to get him out of the hospital cuz his other brother, Patricia’s dad, won’t even talk to Pike anymore. Pike lives in a nice little limestone cabin on a cliff above the Blue Well, used to be the unofficial bouncer at a tough Cypress bar called Mikey’s for years, a bar where I witnessed many a beer and whiskey fueled country boy fight back in high school, it was known as the place to go, in fact, if you wanted to start a fight, so WE, MY friends and I, my high school girlfriend Susan and her sexy blond friend Rebecca that she and I BOTH fucked in better times, smoked pot and went skinny dipping in the clear cold springs of the Blue Well, had unbelievable sex, and avoided all those boys playing with each other at Mikey’s. I actually like Pike myself, he has a nice no bullshit quality that giant people often have because they lack THE FEAR that often makes LITTLE MEN such vicious lying fuckers. I like Pike except for one major problem: he doesn’t work and sometimes tries to hit up Patricia, and even her little brother, for money some times, but hopefully that won’t happen tonight . . .

  Question: Who controls control?

  Answer: Control.

  Dude, why can’t I feel this way always? I guess because we would never be able to notice we feel this way, if we’re depressed or not. I was reading about beans last week and noticed they were used in psychotherapy. Sometimes a little bump to the synapses can actually help for months, same thing with taking Wellbutrin or Prozac, both of which are really doing the same thing to a degree, a much smaller, and less fun, and addicting degree. I do suffer from mild depression obviously, on occasion, and need the bumps I suppose but as a reformed LEGAL addict (massive infusions of nicotine and alcohol for years in a variety of forms) I have to be careful. I can’t keep going down, if you know what I mean, and mix it with so much alcohol. Patricia, upset, told me (seriously, don’t tell her I told you this) that she has even checked to see if I am even breathing at night sometimes because I have drugged myself so heavily, much heavier than she even knows actually. When you take 10 Vikes at 10 mg each, 20 mg of Val, and 2 mg of Xanax, 30 mg of Flexeril, two Darvocet, Percodan, several pipe hits of pure strong club weed AND mix it with four heavy duty double shot VODKAS and TEQUILA you are asking for a real chance to not wake up. Of course, Dean Martin did all that just to get ready for his first song of the show. We are the lotus eaters today, buddy, and that means we, AS AMERICANS, could be in for big trouble. Soma has been here for years and Huxley predicted it all. 1984 came and went and Orwell was right as well, because most didn’t even notice. But I did . . . Thompson has blown out the back of his head and most all of his brain straight from his skull with a high caliber pistol to the mouth, Burroughs and Bukowski are still dead, Joe Frank probably has a new kidney on his mind, Crumb is living the good life in the south of France, and meanwhile, all this time, CHARLIE is still out there, happy with just a little rat meat, and getting stronger EVERY DAY. THERFORE, we, you and I, are carrying a HEAVY BURDEN my friend, I am, I know I am, and this next book has got to be “it,” I have to do it and I think I can, especially if I stick to THE TRUTH to confuse the masses, and then PROVE that SECULAR HUMANISM and the TRUTH are the answer. But most of all, here is the key that B. pointed out also: DON’T TRY. I am reading the famous psychoanalyst’s Victor Frankl’s book right now entitled “Man’s Search for Meaning” and that is exactly what he says in so far as succeeding as an author as well as in life, maybe at anything, just do the opposite. This man, Frankl, he speaks Universal Truths and the mother fucker survived FOUR concentration camps, including Auschwitz (the best parts of the book), and came out with a way to find meaning in life. You see HUMANISM is indeed the only way out of our CURRENT WORLD OF LIES, the Truth MUST be told. And Love is indeed the answer, coupled with THE SELECTIVE USE OF FORCE, I’m afraid, at the moment. Even Chomsky says he isn’t a complete pacifist. Now, if Frankl can find meaning, even through my two favorite philosophers, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, then I can. Frankl calls it Existential Tragic Optimism (ETO) and it makes a lot of sense, in fact I have said for years that in Schopenhauer’s “Studies in Pessimism” there actually lies a true optimist that can see the worldly potential through its massive FAILURES and THE INEVITABLE SUFFERING THAT ALL MEN MUST FACE . . .

  Well . . .

  Aren’t I the Chatty Cathy?

  Could it be the drug?

  If you have any loyalty to me as a friend at all, you will delete this email.

  But answer me this first:

  Who deserves it most?

  The innocent little badger?

  Or that white piece of shit?

  Jacob Victor Stewart, Jr. Twelve-twenty-five p.m. central standard time on 7/22, in the year of our lord 2005.

  I punched send and left the room to sit in my truck, close my eyes, and listen to some good music. Once the students began to arrive, and the class began, as I suspected, no one seemed to notice anything about my demeanor except that I was a bit more encouraging of their writing than usual. Several women introduced me to their kids but, for the most part, they talked with one another and had fun while doing little work, eating cookies, and enjoying their well-deserved break. I logged onto my computer and found Dean had answered my email. I had come down some and laughed, thinking of my former electronic letter while reading his.

  Re: Jack and the Beanstalk:

  On Jul 22, 2005, at 2:45 PM, Dean Brown wrote:

  Welly welly
welly well! You know you’re near the top when your only wish is that this, whatever it is, could just continue! That is a great place to be, and a great place to have been! Most mortals have never even conceived that such a state exists. The mind fuck part is that all you really did was swallow a pill that changed your brain chemistry ever so slightly and but Oh so profoundly! This idea has haunted my very grasp of perception and experience. It even prompted me to read “Listening To Prozac” back in the early ’90s. The idea that our moods and mental states may have their psychological basis in the physical realm, i.e.

  brain chemistry . . . instead of our perceived reality! So, “in reality,” there may be no real current “reason” that I am depressed other than my current biological state. At the same time it thrills me to think that this way of seeing the world is always and has always been . . . inside me. I read Frankl’s book back in the late ’80s, but I don’t remember him mentioning Existential Tragic Optimism, but I definitely dig the phrase! I whole heartedly agree with your “Unified theory” of secular humanism but my skeptic quickly kicks in with a less than probable projected outcome for the mass of humanity. We are collectively, now, and in all of human history, quite insane . . . and as much as I’d like to

  believe everyone could quit being greedy fucks and power freaks and arrive at some groovy middle ground where learning and just being alive, (and aware of it!) is the binding fabric of society, I just don’t! Which proves to me once and for all that, of the two of us, you are the optimist! You still believe young Skywalker! Yes, Orwell has come and gone, Americans are undeserving spoiled idiots, we are all caught in the swirling sucking eddy of despair. And as if that’s not enough, I too have some serious addictions I must soon deal with, or die! What’s even weirder, my own demise doesn’t seem to