“When I was a boy.”
“What age?”
“Five, I think.”
I waited.
He just looked back at me placidly.
“Killian – ” I warned him.
He sighed, resigned. “Me grandpop had a bunch of old 45s. You know, the little records? Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry, and Muddy Waters. He was in a band back in the ‘60’s, back when the Stones were comin’ up, and back then they were all into the blues, so that’s what he had mostly. I used to sit in front of the record player and just listen to ‘em, over and over. I was obsessed. And so I asked for a guitar for my birthday. Didn’t get it. Said I was too little, hands wouldn’t fit right. And I basically said bollocks to that, and I nicked 20 quid from me mum’s pocketbook – it was payday, I remember that – and I walked down to the pawnshop and I said, ‘I want a guitar.’ And the pawn broker gave me the most rubbish one you’ve ever seen. Acoustic. Looked like somebody’d taken a hatchet to it, but I was so fuckin’ proud of it. Took it back home and hid it in the attic where nobody would look for it.
“A few days later me mum figured out who stole her money, and asked me what it was for. I was afraid she’d make me take the guitar back if I told, so I said it was for sweets. She said that was a hell of a lot of sweets, and where were they. I couldn’t think of anything, so I told her I gave them all away to my friends. So she thrashed my hide, but at least I got to keep the guitar.
“Anytime I was alone – which was quite a bit, actually – I snuck up to the attic and plugged away at it. Basically taught myself to play. I would ask street musicians how to do such and such, and they would laugh and show me, and then I would go back to the attic and practice what they showed me, and that’s how I learned.
“Then one day me mum found the guitar, and brought it out and asked, ‘Where’d you get this,’ and I said, ‘I bought it.’ And she said, ‘Where,’ and I said, ‘The pawn shop.’ And she said, ‘With what,’ and I didn’t answer her. And she said ‘Tell me or I’m goin’ to give you a beatin’,’ so I said, ‘With that money I nicked and said was for sweets.’ She got all angry at me, tellin’ me how she was going to go back to the pawn shop and sell back the guitar – until I yelled, ‘But I can play it.’ And she said, ‘No you can’t, you’re too little,’ and I said, ‘Yes I can.’ So she gave me the guitar and I played it for her. It was bloody awful, though I guess it wasn’t too bad for a five-year-old who taught himself to play. And Mum was gobsmacked. She started crying, and after that she bought me a proper guitar, and she found a fellow round the way who was in a band, and he gave me lessons, and that was that, as they say.”
The way he recounted the story in his lilting accent was charming. I could imagine a five-year-old Killian defiantly standing up to his mother, desperate to keep his guitar.
Ryan looked at him strangely. “I never knew that.”
Derek looked in the rearview mirror. “Neither did I.”
Killian sighed, exasperated. “I’m giving up all my secrets today, apparently.”
And he did. I grilled him for the entire car ride, finding out when he had joined his first band (he was 14 – everybody else in the band was 17 and 18, but they let him in because he was ten times better than any of them). I found out when he had started smoking pot (14 again – he was introduced to it by his fellow band members). I found out that he was an only child, that his father had died when he was a baby, and that his mother had raised him by herself with help from her parents.
Plus I heard a host of colorful stories about Miles.
They had met when Killian was 24 and did some session recording for a band that Miles was managing. Apparently Miles was every bit as scary back then, too. No one knew where he’d gotten the scar on his face, but he had it when Killian met him. It was rumored that he’d gotten into a knife fight with a thug who ran a venue and cheated one of Miles’ bands out of their cut of the door proceeds. Miles got thirty stitches; the thug got two weeks in the hospital.
“But that’s just a rumor,” Killian said.
“Do you believe it, though?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he said seriously.
It was funny – over and over again, Derek and Ryan would exclaim, “I didn’t know that.” Apparently it wasn’t just me; Killian was extremely reserved with everyone around him. But he kept to his promise, and answered every question I posed him.
The one thing I couldn’t pin him down on was his romantic history. He hemmed and hawed, and would only admit to ‘seeing some bird named Lucy’ or ‘going around with a lovely girl named Jane.’
“As in ‘Mary Jane’?” Derek joked.
“Come on, Killian,” I prodded. “Details.”
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” he said primly, and would say no more on the topic.
60
On the way to Joshua Tree, we stopped in a little town called Yucca Valley to get provisions. It was so small and out of the way that not a single person in the tiny grocery store recognized the band.
“Don’t forget the orange juice,” Killian commanded. “We have to have orange juice.”
“I didn’t know you liked orange juice so much,” I said.
“It’s for all of us,” he explained. “Helps with the mushrooms. Intensifies the high. And helps you wash them down, since they taste like shite.”
“Literally,” Derek said. “Since they grow in cow shit.”
“Great,” I muttered, my stomach turning – and not just from the image of what I was going to ingest being plucked out of cow patties.
No, my stomach was upset because now it was real.
This was really going to happen.
We actually didn’t go to Joshua Tree National Park – at least not right away. Instead, we wound our way through dusty back roads, past trailer homes and barren fields of cactus and rock, until we wound up at a tiny group of cabins out in the desert.
“What’s this?”
“This is the fine establishment where we’re staying,” Killian said as he climbed out of the car. “Bob’s Desert Oasis.”
“…Bob?”
As we got out of the car, a barking pack of dogs – half a dozen of them – raced out of the main house. They were all mutts, though there seemed to be a lot of labrador in the mix. I jumped back in the convertible, but Derek bent over and held out his hands. The dogs raced around him, sniffing him, jumping up on his jeans excitedly.
Even strange dogs liked Derek.
They liked Killian, too, although he didn’t let them touch his hands (or his guitar). But he did murmur soothing things like, “How are ya, luv,” and “Ooh, good boy, good boy.” They seemed to realize that jumping up on him was off-limits, and behaved themselves accordingly.
An overweight man in a red flannel short-sleeve shirt and overalls came out of the main house and waddled after the dogs. He had a bushy white beard, rosy cheeks, and tiny gold-rimmed spectacles. For a second I wondered if we’d found Santa Claus’s summer home.
“Mr. Derek, Mr. Killian,” the man said jovially, and shook hands with both of them.
Everyone exchanged a few pleasantries – how was the drive, how have you been – and then Santa Bob said, “I see we have newcomers.”
Derek gestured to me. “Yeah, this is Kaitlyn – ”
“Hi,” I said nervously. I wondered if he knew we were there to do drugs… and what in the world was he thinking of me right about now?
“ – and this is Ryan. He’s our bassist.”
“Hi there,” Ryan said, and shook Bob’s proffered hand.
“Very nice to meet you. Any friends of Derek and Killian’s are friends of mine.” He fished some keys out of his pocket and handed them to Derek. “Got your cabins all ready for you. You’ve got the last two on the end, real secluded, just like you asked. Sorry I couldn’t get you three – but the one’s got two double beds in it, just like you asked.”
“Thanks, Bob.”
“Well, I’ll let you folks get
unpacked,” he said amiably, then shouted, “Come on doggies, come on! Come on!” as he walked back towards the house, with the dogs yapping and yipping and racing all around him.
I looked over at Derek. “Where the hell did you find this place?”
He looked at me like I’d just asked a very confusing question. “Why do you say it like that?”
“Well… you’re a rock star who just bought a ninety-five thousand dollar car on a whim. This isn’t exactly the Dubai.”
He grinned as he pulled our bags out of the trunk. “Not every place has to be the Dubai, Kaitlyn.”
“I found out about him through a friend,” Killian said. “Bob is known for several things: his friendliness, the isolation of his establishment… and his discretion.”
“Which is just as important as staying at the Dubai,” Derek said.
“Especially when you’re doing drugs,” Ryan said facetiously.
“When you plan to walk around trippin’ your balls off, it most definitely is,” Killian said. “Come along, then, let’s go, we’re burning daylight.”
61
Derek’s and my cabin was nice and cozy. Nothing fancy, but there was a queen-size bed in the bedroom, a den with chairs upholstered in a print only old people could love, and a kitchen with a refrigerator and stove-top. Derek and I stashed the groceries in our fridge, and then Killian and Ryan came on over after they’d got situated.
“Well, are we ready?” Killian asked gleefully, and pulled out a clear Ziploc bag, the type you might store sandwiches in. It was filled with dried-out mushrooms with long, skinny stems and flattened brown caps. “Pour the orange juice, will you, Derek?”
I watched nervously as Killian apportioned the mushrooms into three tiny piles on the countertop. Two were almost twice as big as the third.
“Why aren’t they the same size?” I asked.
“That,” Killian said, pointing at the small pile, “is for you. It’s a regular portion. As experienced cosmonauts of the infinite mind, I decided to give myself and Derek a double portion – but I can give you a bit more, if you – ”
“No no no, that’s fine,” I interrupted him. “Regular is fine.”
Ryan watched me with concern as I picked up one of the mushrooms and inspected it. It was light as a feather, felt like handmade paper you can buy in stationary stores, and smelled like ass. I made a face.
“You can still back out if you want to,” Ryan said.
“No she can’t, I already gave her the bloody interview,” Killian said.
“Killian – ” Ryan warned.
The guitarist sighed. “Of course you don’t have to if you really don’t want to, luv… but you did promise.”
I looked over at Derek for reassurance.
“You’re going to be fine. It’s gonna be awesome,” he smiled.
I looked at him for a few seconds more… and then nodded hesitantly. “Okay.”
“Alright, then, bottoms up!” Killian said, and began stuffing the mushrooms in his mouth and chewing them, followed by a few swigs of orange juice.
I followed suit, and almost gagged. They tasted like musty dirt, and were as chewy as cardboard. “Ugh, this is gross.”
“Drink the OJ,” Derek said through a mouthful of shrooms, and passed me a glass.
I finally got them down. Then I looked around. “I don’t see anything.”
Both Killian and Derek laughed.
“It takes a while to kick in,” Derek explained.
“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “How long?”
“Twenty to thirty minutes.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s move the party outdoors, shall we?” Killian suggested.
“What are we going to do outdoors?”
“We’re going for a walk.”
“Why?!”
“Well, we have to have something to look at, don’t we?”
“Why can’t we look at stuff in here?”
Derek grinned and put his arm around my shoulders. “You’ll see. You’ll want to be outside, that’s half the fun.”
“…okay,” I grumbled, and felt the last vestiges of control slip away from me as we walked out of the cabin.
62
As soon as we were outside, I heard the dogs barking again and approaching fast. I turned around, and there was Bob waddling along as the happy pack of mutts swarmed Derek.
“You folks going for a walk?” he called from about 60 feet away.
“Yep,” Derek confirmed.
“You should take the dogs with you. They’ll enjoy it, and they won’t be any trouble.”
My first thought was, Walk your own damn dogs, mister!
But Derek seemed happy enough to oblige. “Cool, you got it, Bob.”
The old man waved at us, then walked back to the house alone.
The dogs tore off ahead of us into the desert, streaking over the dirt road into the middle of nowhere. We followed behind them. Though they were out of sight within 30 seconds, we could still hear them barking in the distance.
“Where are they going?” I asked nervously.
“Don’t worry, they know this place backwards and forwards,” Derek said.
“I just don’t want them running off and we get blamed for it,” I said, still nursing a bit of resentment over having to be a dog-walker while I was on psychedelics.
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
“Are we walking the dogs, or are the dogs walking us?” Killian philosophized as he toddled off after them, plinking away at his guitar.
Ryan, Derek, and I followed him in silence.
After about 30 seconds of our footsteps gritting in the sand and dirt, I asked, “This is it? This is all we’re doing, just taking a walk in the desert?”
Derek grinned. “That’s about it.”
“This is what Killian made such a big fuss over last night? Walking around in the desert.”
“Just wait.”
I sighed and we continued walking.
Thirty seconds later I asked, “How will I know when something’s happening?”
“You’ll start seeing shit.”
“Like what?”
“Like patterns.”
“Patterns? Where?”
“In everything.”
I remembered stories from the resident Grateful Dead fan back in journalism school. Like the time he saw a giant alligator skeleton in the sky, and its footprints in the clouds were outlined in pink cotton candy. Or when he was driving and had a flashback, and a fire hydrant sprouted feet and ran across the road.
Though I think he did LSD, not shrooms.
“Am I going to see stuff that’s not really there?”
“No, probably not.”
“What am I going to see?”
“Everything will just be a lot more interesting.”
“Interesting how?”
“Jesus, Kaitlyn, enough with the questions,” Derek said – not exactly mean, but the way you might talk to a three-year-old who kept asking Why? Why? Why?
“Cut her some slack, Derek,” Ryan said. “She’s just nervous.”
“She doesn’t have anything to be nervous about,” Derek shot back. “I’m here, you’re here – it’s going to be fine.”
“She’s never done this before.”
“Well, if she keeps worrying about it, she’s going to end up on a bad trip.”
“A bad trip?” I squeaked.
“Good one, dumbass,” Ryan growled.
Derek rolled his eyes and hugged me close to him with one arm. “You’re not going to have a bad trip, Kaitlyn. Just roll with it, okay? Enjoy it.”
But now I was obsessing over having a bad trip. “What happens if I have a bad trip?”
“You won’t.”
“But what if I do?”
“You won’t.”
“But what if I – ”
“Oh my God,” he sighed in exasperation, “just stop, okay? It hasn’t even kicked in yet and you’re fu
ckin’ freaking out.”
“Derek, why don’t you go take a break and hang out with Killian for a few minutes?” Ryan suggested.
Killian was already a good hundred feet up the road ahead of us. The metallic plinking of guitar strings drifted through the air.
Derek looked over at Ryan, annoyed. “Dude, I’m just trying to tell her not to freak out.”
“I know. But just take a break for a few minutes,” Ryan said soothingly. “Just a few minutes, that’s all.”
Derek glared at Ryan from the corners of his eyes. Then he looked down at me. “What do you want?”
I wanted to say, Don’t go, but the truth was, he was stressing me out. It was weird – I wanted him to make me feel better, but he wasn’t doing that. If I complained about it, I knew it would only make matters worse. And if he stayed, that would make it worse, too, because I was afraid to say anything else that might make him mad.
“You can go see Killian for a minute,” I said quietly.
He huffed as though offended, then took his arm away from me. “Fine. Call me if you need me.”
Then he sped up and headed for Killian.
Ryan looked down at me and smiled gently. “He’s not exactly the most comforting guy ever, is he?”
“He could take some lessons,” I muttered.
Ryan laughed. “Look, I just want you to know that you don’t have anything to worry about. I’m going to be here the entire time. If you need anything – anything at all – just come to me, okay?”
I nodded mutely as I watched Derek and Killian clowning around in the distance.
“But don’t worry, because you’re going to have a great time,” Ryan continued, though I was only half-listening to him. “The biggest thing you’ve got to worry about is pooping your pants.”
What I heard was blah blah blah great time blah blah POOPING YOUR PANTS.
“WHAT?!” I yelped. I wheeled around to face him. He had my full attention now.
“Yeah, you didn’t know that?” he asked, suddenly quite serious. “98% of all people who do shrooms poop their pants. Nobody ever told you that?”
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