DAY 14
LSD - THIRD SESSION, WEEK TWO, FRIDAY (CH.13)
I tried not to think about anything I went into the third session.
The first session I had dismissed as merely showing me the shallowness of my current life. My second experience led me to the nothingness within me since I had neither loved nor been loved. In the first trip, I had stayed outside, and found nothing of value there; in the second trip, I went inside, and found nothing of value there. During the week between the sessions I found agony and love and fear and pain and ecstasy waiting for the third trip at the hospital.
And now it was time for the third trip, certainly the last one I would be allowed to have, but I didn't permit myself to even think about that. For possibly the first time in my life I wasn't looking past today, since tomorrow, every tomorrow, would be based on today, and I didn't know what today would be. My only problem lay in the attempt to forget about the fears of yesterday.
"Just go along with it. The music is a river, just lie back on it and let it take you wherever it will." These few things were the only things I held close to me. "Not inside, not outside, but only with the music." It seemed so simple to formulate, but I feared I wouldn't be able to follow it. I feared I'd rip off the mask to revel in the spring garden outside; but even more I feared that I'd again seek to die, and, horribly, fail again, or even more horribly, succeed for eternity.
Fran and I were talking before breakfast, and Fran said something about the relationship between herself and her father, and I remembered that it touched me deeply. It had only been "And then he said that he loved me," but it was so strong, and it touched me so profoundly that, as I sat, I felt the pressure rising in my throat and the tears welling into my eyes, and I couldn't move for fear of revealing myself. She was deep in conversation with Lotte, however, and if they noticed anything of my reaction, they didn't say anything, and by sitting perfectly still as the lump dissolved in my neck, and the moisture dried from my eyes, I could again trust myself to move and speak, and the moment had passed, leaving only a vague wonder about the intensity of the feeling it produced in me.
Then during breakfast, with Jean talking about HIS father this time, he was saying how he had told his father about one of this accomplishments, in school or in business, and his father looked at him with an admiration he couldn't remember before, and said "I never knew I had such an intelligent son." When Jean said it, I was struck by the shallow way he was talking about it, and, as an echo, I heard the words again between my ears, spoken in my father's voice, and I realized the paradox that he had never said anything like that to me, yet I would have so much liked to have heard something like that from his lips.
Again, suddenly, my eyes brimmed over with years, and the pain in my throat made it impossible to say anything. This time the tears streaked down my cheeks, and there was a pause in the conversation as the other people at the table reacted, reconsidered their reactions, started to say something, then looked away. "I --- I --- ", and I could make no articulation in my constricted throat, and I whirled from my seat and strode to the bathroom, shutting the door quietly behind me.
There I stood, shaking, holding onto the sink, not daring to look at my face in the mirror, aghast at the reaction that such words would have on me. After a few moments, I reached into my hip pocket and took out my handkerchief to wipe my eyes and my face, and then only took courage to look into the mirror, frowning in pain at the look in the eyes that winced back at me, and I took a few deep breaths and trusted myself to reenter the room and talk with the people.
Fran made an attempt to be understanding, but Lotte caught her eye and made a silent warning to let the subject drop. I said something very lame about my being affected by what Jean had said, and the subject went to other matters. I finished the breakfast with difficulty, since the emotion at that simple statement seemed to have permanently diminished my larynx, but I wanted all the sustenance I could force into myself.
The breakfast trays were taken away, and we continued to talk, but I had only half an ear on the conversation, and still no one came into the room to take the condemned man away, no one came to relieve the pressures building in the room. I felt that, even though the eyes of the company were engaging the others in the talk, the attentions of the people were preternaturally focused on me.
Finally Adam came into the room, and Fran wished me good luck with a small hug, and the others chorused their hopes for a good trip. Adam and I walked across the hall and into the LSD room, and again Jules was waiting for us, and in moment the nurse came in with the usual tray: a tea pot, a coffee pot, sugar and cream, and on a small plate, a tiny tumbler of a clear liquid with four oval tapering pink and red capsules nestled against the base of the glass. If any of the drugs were placebos, at least they insured that the dosage APPEARED to be the same to the patient.
I reached out for the glass almost before the nurse was out of the room. Then I scooped up the magenta pills and dropped them into my mouth at once, and quickly tilted back the liquid into my mouth, swallowing once, twice, thrice, and four times in all. Again the ritual of peering into the bottom of the glass, seeing a stray drop or two sticking to the bottom, and cajoling it back to the mouth: and with gentle taps, the last drop rolled over my tongue, stopped at the glottis, which convulsed, opened, and the drop was gone, coursing down into my stomach, spewing its elements into my system.
I repeated certain things to Adam: I wanted to go, not inside, not outside, but only with the music. I told Adam about the remark concerning Fran's father; I told Adam about the statement Jean's father had made to him; I told Adam of my reactions and the strength of my feeling.
"Tell me about your Father," said Adam, when Jules had left the room, and the music was playing quietly in the background.
"There were the things that I said in the autobiographical sketch, that I'd worked with him in a grocery store between the ages of 10 and 20, and that was my main contact with him. I like working for him because it gave me spending money, and I usually did things right, and --- well, it's not that he praised me, but I could see that he trusted me, and that --- meant something to me. But then when I moved to New York, I saw him less and less. Or, really, not at all. I think he may have been home, visiting my mother and sister, once when I was there, but I really can't remember when it would have been, so I guess I have to say that I haven't seen him for about eight years."
"Do you hate him?" Adam asked the question quietly, expecting a "no."
"No, I guess not, even though my mother had always tried to make me hate him by painting him as the villain all the time."
"Was he a villain?"
"Oh, he drank, and gambled, but there was always money, and my mother was SUCH a bitch --- I don't find it hard to understand that he couldn't stand her."
"And you haven't seen him for about eight years." Adam was almost whispering.
"No." I merely formed the word with my lips, shaking my head grimly back and forth. I somehow wished I could cry again, as I had when Jean made his comment about his father thinking him intelligent, but the tears now felt far from my eyes.
"How are you feeling now?" Adam looked up sharply at me, and again I got the impression of hayseed sticking in his ears and out of his collar as it poorly fit the corded scrawny neck.
"I guess I'm feeling tired and dizzy; I'd like to lay down." I was feeling more weak than anything else, as if it weren't worth the effort to remain in a seated position. "But I don't like this sofa; could I lay on the floor?"
Adam was surprised, and his voice cracked on an ascending note.
"On the FLOOR? Well, I guess you can if you really WANT to; I'll just move these pillows to the floor --- " and it was all done as he spoke it.
"Thanks, Adam."
"Don't thank me, I'm just here to see what I can do to help YOU." His apple bobbed up and down, and there was almost a halo of hay around his entire person.
"Thanks." Exhausted, I arranged my numbing body on the cushions on the floor. I had directed that they be set perpendicular to the speaker cabinet, so that the sound from the right speaker would be on my right, and from the left to my left, so that both ears had the chance for the stereo effect which was lost while laying on the sofa. I felt that the session was beginning correctly, that is, as I wanted it, and I composed myself on the floor, waiting for the effect to take over.
Adam moved around behind me, there was a small whispered conference at the door, and then I could hear him sinking back into the chair at the record player. The volume went up slightly, the record finished, and another record was put on. My ears strained for the volume to turn up again, and it seems that it did, for again I heard the crackle, different from each speaker, as if the volume were up full, and some Bruckner-Mahler record came on, filling the room with sound, and again it happened.
Breathlessly, as if the speakers were moved from my feet to my head and amplified for all they could produce, I again heard the "spacing out" of the sound, as if the walls of the room flew back to allow a huge cathedral of sound to float above and around me. With only a little imagination, I could believe that I was floating in an ocean of music, and I quietly repeated to myself, in a barely audible thought-whisper: "Not inside, not outside, just go with the music."
The music was going, and I was following it. I began to anticipate it, but a giant stood at that gate, warning me that it wouldn't do to anticipate the crescendos: I must go along with the music, not ahead of it. I shifted my position on the floor. Unfortunately, the floor wasn't as soft as the sofa under the pillows, and some of the cold air from outside seemed destined always to flow just at the floor level, possibly under the cracks in the doors. I reached down and pulled the blankets around me, and in a few minutes I felt the whisper of pressure and air that told me that Adam had gotten another blanket and laid it over me. But I still felt cold: my feet were in a cold sweat, and I again began to feel the tickle of woolen fuzz-balls around my neck and hands.
But I shouldn't move --- that would put the session into my body, and I didn't want it in my body, it should be in my mind. I sighed deeply, very deeply, and shook my head back and forth. Why did it have to take so long for the drug to take effect? Maybe THIS time there was no drug? Oh, God, stop thinking such things, just go along with the music.
Stop thinking, stop moving, stop enjoying the music so much, just go along with it, don't vibrate to it. Thoughts zipped unbidden and hated through my mind. What's going to happen next? What if I louse this one up again? Think about Adam; he's such a good guy. Yeah, but it's a pity he's so stupid. Don't call him stupid; he's simple, and that's a GOOD quality. Yeah. Oh, God, shut up!
God? Stop thinking about God, he has nothing to do with this, this is for me. And I'm making a mess of it!! Relax. Shift position. Listen to the music. I'm cold. Deep, deep sigh. Oh, God.
Minutes pass, another record ends. What time must it be getting to be? Why is it taking longer this time? Was I stupid to ask to be on the floor? I guess I was. But I'm more comfortable on the floor. Bullshit. Shut up. I'm trying to be good. Shut up.
More minutes pass. Discomfort eases in and out of my body.
Another record ends.
God!
Nothing's happening. Nothing's happening, and wouldn't you know, I have to go to the toilet. You have to be kidding. No, I really have to go to the toilet. But that happened last time. Silence for awhile. But I really DO have to go to the toilet. Deep sigh. Well, OK.
"Adam?" There's no answer, but the room moved about me, as if the walls were rearranging themselves over my head.
"Adam, I have to go the john." Still no answer. The room is holding its breath. There has to be a certain fit of the body into the corpse to allow the soul to move the body and the corpse.
"HEY, I'm not kidding!"
"OK, OK, let's get you up and let you go to the john." The voice sounded approximately right, approximately like Adam's apple, and the hands that moved to touch me seemed approximately right, right enough, in any case. There were movements and shuffles and grunts and entanglements with the blankets, but finally Adam and I separated me and the pajamas from everything else on the floor, and the object which was now Adam and I lurched toward the bathroom.
"Why don't you take off the blindfold?" Stupid Adam with a simple suggestion. I figured it would be OK, since I was hardly into the session yet. I lifted the blindfold from my eyes. The light in the room was dim, but there was no tendency for the eyes to squint, though the pupils must have been dilated completely under the opaque blindfold. Objects in the room were bright, but not uncomfortably so, and there was a greenish tinge to everything, but the greenish tinge was yellow, which made it rather confusing.
With care I negotiated the step into the bathroom. Why couldn't they do something about that. Wouldn't that be easier? I certainly wasn't under the LSD influence yet. I moved to the toilet, and Adam shut the door behind me, and seemingly I was five years old, and my father was waiting outside for me to take a pee. I almost felt that I stuck my tongue out with the effort to disentangle my peedee from my pajamas, and I leaned over very far, swaying in my stockinged feet as if I were drunk, to make sure I didn't get my clothes wet.
"Can' ge' th' 'jamas we'" I said to myself, thinking of myself simultaneously as a twenty-eight-year-old drunk or a five-year-old with my head strangely distant from the toilet bowl. I frowned down as the liquid splashed into the bowl. That same, farty smell floated up to me, and the bits of blanket fluff on my hands made them feel as if they'd been soaking in water for days.
"Wit' only a BI' of 'magination," I groggily went on, thinking I could see the vortex forming in the bowl as coming closer or going farther away, and I had the feeling I was peeing for an awfully long time. Was there something wrong with my functions? Was I peeing too long? But then my bladder was empty, and I felt slightly nauseous as I grimaced down at the water so far below my five-year-old head, and I stabbed at the lever to flush as if I had some sort of a paw, rather than an articulated hand.
"Well, that took a long time," someone said, as I bobbled away from the toilet, brushing my front absently to make sure nothing was wet, and my mind swooped around like some huge drunken bird trying to figure out whose voice that was. Oh, yes, it was Adam's, yet, somehow, it was my father's. But there was something about my father, wasn't there? There was something about my father in Adam, wasn't there? Was there? And then I was focusing all my concentration on my feet as Adam gripped my shoulders and steered me back into the room.
"On th' sofa, now," I directed, feeling I'd had enough of this foolishness of lying on the floor. Whose idea was it, anyway? Quickly the bedding was redistributed, and I fell down onto the sofa, permitting myself to be tucked in, and there might even have been a trace of a smile about my lips as the corners of the blankets were tucked under my body. "He takes care of you," I thought, in some obscure third-person locution.
Again the music went on and on, and I lay on the sofa and listened to the music, not thinking anything, not knowing anything, not even knowing whether I was going along with the music or whether I wasn't going along with the music. Time passed. Records changed without stopping or starting; all that the records had were middles.
"Father, it has something to do with father." The thought came and I went with the music. The music went on and on, and I became lost. I didn't know what music was playing, I could practically not hear the music, but I couldn't hear anything else, either. I really couldn't feel anything else, but every so often I heaved what felt like a chest-shattering sigh, just to keep the air in my body. My body was there, but it wasn't feeling much of anything. I shifted positions, and knew that I shifted positions, but there was no real feeling attached to it. The only feeling was in my stomach when I took my deep breaths and my diaphragm pressed down on my aching stomach.
The music went on and on. And on. Oh, there was so much time! But I wasn't getting anywhere, I wasn't getting anything. How long could this go on? Was something going wrong again?
On and on went the music.
"Adam," I said, though the sound took much effort, as if plugs had to be re-inserted into sockets, and wires restretched, and bodies reoriented, so that my mind could tell my mouth to talk. "Adam, help me." It was as simple as that.
Without hesitation, though I had no real concept of time passing, I felt the pressure on the sofa as Adam sat there. "What do you want me to do, Bob."
"I don't know." And somehow my eyes had opened, and the room was dim, and my blindfold was gone, and Adam was sitting there, looking at me, and his face was Adam's face, and not everyone's face, or no one's face, but Adam's face, but somehow that was the best possible face it could have been.
"Why don't you --- ", began Adam, racking his brain to see what to say.
"No. Please." Adam stopped, looking down at me, our hands clasped.
"Please. Don't. Say. Anything." The hands remained clasped.
"Just." There was the fleeting image that I might be offending Adam, that I was telling him to shut up, but I brushed the image aside with no effort.
"BE." And Adam was. And I knew it. And our hands remained clasped, and then, our hands were not clasped, but that didn't matter. Adam was. I knew it.
Though I had no concept of time passing, time passed. I didn't know whether there was any music or not, and whether there was music or not didn't made any difference. More time passed.
At a moment, I became conscious of a sound, the sound of the record player clicking, doing something. It was my first awareness of anything in the universe: music:
"Last night I lay a-sleeping; there came a dream so fair,
I stood in old Jerusalem, beside the temple there.
I heard the children singing, and ever as they sang,
Methought the voice of angels from heaven in answer rang,
Methought the voice of angels from heaven in answer rang."
The sounds were vaguely familiar, and there was a memory that I'd heard this same song back in the second session, and that I had cried during it, but that it was so late in the session that nothing much came of it. I listened to the music again, and a welling feeling came from within me as the orchestra swelled into the chorus:
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, lift up your gates and sing.
Hosannah in the highest, Hosannah to your king."
I twisted my body around to hear the music more plainly. There was a quality to the singing that I liked --- a sturdiness, a simpleness, a matter-of-factness. There was a longer orchestral interlude, and then the second verse began:
"And then, methought, my dream was changed; the streets no longer rang.
"Hushed were the glad hosannahs, the little children sang.
The sun grew dark with mystery, the morn was cold and chill
As the shadow of a cross arose upon a lonely hill,
As the shadow of a cross arose upon a lonely hill."
I had trouble making out the words to some of the lines, but the song itself struck me as beautiful, and the singing was beautiful, and during the musical interlude I almost raised my head off the pillows to make sure to hear what was next. Concentrating, concentrating on the record, my being was gathered into my ears as the third verse came on:
"And once again, the scene was changed, new earth there seemed to be.
I saw the Holy City, beside the timeless sea.
The light of God was on its streets, the gates were open wide
And all who would might enter, and no one was denied.
No need of moon or stars by night, or sun to shine by day,
It was the new Jerusalem, that would not pass away,
It was the new Jerusalem, that would not pass away."
It was so beautiful, it was SO beautiful. My heart was filled with its beauty, and I waited through the triumphant trumpets of the last interlude, and, breathtakingly, it was prolonged as the verse had been, so that there were more notes to listen to just where I WANTED more notes to listen to, and I felt my throat tightening as I listened to the final, glorious chorus:
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, sing for the night is o'ver.
Hosannah in the highest, Hosannah forevermore.
Hosannah in the highest, Hosannah forevermore.
Hosannah forevermore."
It was over. It was magnificent. "Sing for the night is o'ver!" It was as if the song had been written for me. There were tears in my eyes, and I felt a glorious exultation: I wanted to hear it again.
"Play it again." The facility for words was there though I didn't know how I had it. I knew that there was someone in the room who would do as I wanted, I knew it was Adam, and Adam WAS, and Adam wanted to help me, so I knew I would hear it again.
The slow introductory strains came over the speakers, and I relaxed: Adam had heard, Adam had understood. The volume seemed somewhat louder, and since I knew what the song was, and how long it was, I prepared to listen this time not in the suspense of what was coming next, but in the moment-to-moment enjoyment of each verse, each sound, each voice raised in song. First came a chorus of male voices, deep and mellow, coming from the earth, from all men: "Last night I lay a-sleeping; there came a dream so fair." A dream so fair, what a lovely phrase. A dream, yes, but part of reality. Oh wonderful, wonderful.
"I stood in old Jerusalem, beside the temple there." I had been in Jerusalem. I had a feeling for the dark narrow streets of the way of the Cross, the shops and the sellers on either side, crowded together in the perpetual twilight of the canyon-streets. "I heard the children singing, and ever as they sang, Methought the voice of angels from heaven in answer rang." Singing, singing --- children and angels and the men's voices. And I had sung at one point in my life, when I was a schoolboy, in the choir, before my voice had changed into the uncertainty of adulthood, when it was secure in its soprano, I had sung before, and I felt my throat caressing the words of the song.
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, lift up your gates and sing, Hosannah in the highest, Hosannah to your king." The chorus was bracketed by trumpet flourishes of brazen richness. Though I couldn't make out all the words, I felt my vocal cords almost unconsciously going along with the music. How good it had been to sing! How glorious to stand with an entire choir and just open your mouth, open your throat, and in praise and glory, pour out the sounds of the songs, of the words and the notes, the beautiful songs.
I waited through the interlude, and flutes and violins prefaced the second chorus. There were soft pizzicato strings to introduce the female chorus for the second verse: "And then methought my dream was changed; the streets no longer rang." My dream was changed! As if by magic I could sense the essence of change, as if a veil were shifted or reversed, and what was seen in one way was suddenly seen in another. What marvelous words there were to this song, and how well they fitted my mood. "Hushed were the glad hosannahs the little children sang. The sun grew dark with mystery --- " and the music grew dark and deep, and shadows and chills were seizing my body and mind and throat as the sound became ominous and leaden. How perfectly it was done, how wonderful the music!
" --- the morn was cold and chill, as the shadow of a cross arose upon a lonely hill." That was the text of the song! Now I understood that there were three times of note for the Holy City: when Christ was born and the angels sang, when Christ was killed and the city mourned, and then in some final, eternal time, timeless, where there was peace and happiness. And --- and --- I opened my mental eyes wide, and there was joy and happiness: I, too, had been somewhere three times; I had been under the influence of LSD three times. The first time, I, too, had been born, as Christ was born during the first verse of the song. The second time, that horrible, oppressive, devastating time, I had tried to die, had sought to die, as Christ had died during the second verse. The third time was THIS time, and the song told of eternity, happiness, joy, triumph, during the third verse, and I WAS TO HAVE JOY THIS TIME, TOO!
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, hark how the angels sing. Hosannah in the highest, Hosannah to your king." Now I knew, came the third part, the part that corresponded to right now, and I followed the violins as they led to the three ominous chords that seemed to bring the song and the current time to an instant: THIS instant: "And once again the scene was changed, new earth there seemed to be." The music began quietly, but just as gently began to rise in eagerness, in volume, in truth. This, oh, God, THIS was the truth! "I saw the Holy City, beside the timeless sea. The light of God was on its streets, the gates were open wide."
I saw the golden glow on the city, felt the heat of the everlasting sun reflecting off the towers of a city which had been turned to ivory and gold and set beside a sea of aquamarine --- brilliant, clear, bottomless. God was the sun, pouring down Himself on the city, cleaning it, baking it, making it glow from within; the energy of the sun was the energy of the stuff of the city, all was that energy, and God was that energy, and I knew myself to be one with that energy. I missed the next line of the song as my spirit soared up, waiting for the final chorus.
Again there were only male voices, rich, buoyant, carved from a hard wood and buffed to a buttery-chocolate brazen hardness; the voices were substance, strength, of the same energy, the voices were the voices of ALL peoples of the world, all peoples pouring out their homage to the energy which was in them all, of them all, which WAS them, itself. "No need of moon or stars by night, or sun to shine by day, It was the new Jerusalem, that would not pass away."
Eternity! The Holy City was eternal, just as these voices were eternal! Just as man was eternal, just as that energy which was man, and the city, and the light from the city, was eternal. "It was the new Jerusalem, that would not pass away." Confirmation. Enlightenment. The chorus swelled upward, and my emotions swelled upward, tears bursting from my eyes at the final chorus, introduced by a trumpet passage which was repeated an octave higher than at first, leading to an apotheosis of sound: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem" --- what marvelous sounds, what a marvelous chorus; I cried and cried and cried. "Sing for the night is o'er." Sing, oh, God, sing. Yes, the night is over, it's OVER. "Hosannah in the highest, Hosannah forevermore." That was the end, but it wasn't the end. There was re-affirmation, repetition, the trumpets swelled higher, breaking the bonds of life, and I burst through the bonds of fears and desires and hopes: "Hosannah in the highest" And there was a moment of silence, rushing silence from the voices which still echoed through it, but a silence of goodness, a silence which could come again after the song was over, yet it would fit in with the song, just as the light and the city fit in with the energy which was God.
"Hosannah forevermore." There wasn't even the hope, as usual, that the song would go on, eternally. The song, as all songs, had an end, and it was coming near, but the effect was complete. I was crying openly, heartily, brokenly, my body curving in on itself on the sofa, my neck stretched up, singing in silence, my voice again the voice of a ten-year-old, pure, untroubled, soft and beautiful, untouched by the world and by disappointment, the voice of one who was born, and had died, and was born into a new world, by a timeless sea.
"Hosannah forevermore." This was the end of the song as the record had it, but I knew that it went on forever, in the grooves of the record, in the hearts of the singers, in my mind. It was part of the energy of God, which was everything felt or heard or thought. My mind went back to the book I had read a lifetime ago, where the author said that he could sense the sincerity of the singers. The singers on this record sounded infinitely sincere, as if each of them were convinced that he was carrying the eternal message of being into the world. The voices were utterly convinced of their own song.
The trumpets went into a climax that was an anticlimax. I was lying limply on the sofa, sobbing softly, head off the edge of the pillow, holding the music in my being. There was silence in the room for a few moments, and only my sighs showed life. Adam remained at the record console, in agony about what to do. Play it again and break the passion of the moment? Play something else and possible break up the entire session? Leave it silent and let the frozen moment melt into nothingness?
"Just --- once --- more." It was my plea from the sofa, in a voice wracked with tears; and there was a finger on a control, and a click, and the electronic sound through the speakers produced when the needle swung through the arc from the rest position to playing position, hovered above the outermost grooves, and dropped slowly into one with a small sideways jolt, which came out of the speakers as a slight snap and crackle of sound.
The organ and brass and strings came once more from the speakers, and I was rapt on the sofa, knowing it almost by heart, yet it somehow didn't matter that I could anticipate the climax, foresee the words and the phrasing. It was an everlasting song of praise to people --- people. I knew, who were singing the song. The singers were everyone alive, everyone who would ever live, everyone who ever had lived. The chorus, every chorus, was life itself, singing for itself, and every singer used the energy of God to show the energy of God to the other manifestations of the energy of God.
My third hearing of the "Holy City" wasn't nearly as emotional as the first two. I knew what was coming. In the interval between the second and third playing, I had cried and cried all the anger and the hurt and the unrequited love out of my system. I had wanted love and affection from my father, and I hadn't gotten it, yet I had gotten something ineffable from my father, I had gotten myself. If my father had died, if my father had never spoken to me, if my father had been far more damning to me than he had been, it wouldn't have made any difference in the face of a fact: if it hadn't been for my father, I wouldn't be anywhere, let alone here, now.
More than before, the sounds of the chorus became mankind raising its voice in praise of life and living. The Holy City was life itself, and the Holy City of the third verse, glowing beside the timeless sea, was life, now, as it actually exists: timeless, glowing, eternal. As the words sung by the chorus reviewed themselves in my mind, I didn't even attempt to sing along with the record, as I had on second listening. I would never be a child again in quite the same way I had been a child before, but the singing was still possible, love was still possible, a life was still possible --- more than possible, it was desirable and eagerly awaited.
I knew myself to be still under the influence of LSD, but I knew also that I had finished with my revelations. I had wanted to cry, I had wanted to feel, I had wanted to know that life was unending --- and now I knew this. A song would end, as this song was ending. A day would end, as this day was ending; but life, life ITSELF would go on forever. When the song was finished, I lay there again, peacefully, like a person after an enormous drunken party, and I now simply wanted to sleep off the effects of the party. But Adam had no way of knowing my feelings, and put on another record, Mahler's Second, which had had an effect on me before.
But it was the wrong time, it was like trying for an orgasm after there had been the most fantastically prolonged orgasm in the world. The new record was useless, and I was about to say something, but didn't; possibly there was something more to be gained? I had no idea, but for the first time since the start of the sessions, I felt willing to go along with the music, to see where it led. Through minutes and hours I followed the music, but it lead nowhere, until finally I became tired of listening to it, and I said, "That's awful," when it got into a part which had been very impressive to me before.
Adam frantically tried to recapture the peak of the session, and put on a vocal recording of a man reading from 1 Corinthians 13, "If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have no charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing." It seemed to me that the reader had in fact NO charity, and was nothing, because the reading was doing nothing for me. The voice was too fruity, too well modulated, too stage-ful, and it didn't come across; it was actually embarrassing to listen to this man reading, who obviously didn't believe what he was reading. Adam played it again.
"HE'S the sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." I said bitterly. Mahler's Second came on again, and again it was terrible. Finally Adam shut off the record player and again sat on the sofa.
"What next, Bob?" asked Adam, and the sincerity was more evident than it could have been from the reassuring hand on the knee, the level gaze of the untroubled eyes, the even tenor of the helpful voice. I knew it was a truth that Adam wanted to help me.
"I don't know." There was a pause, and then I added, "I only know you stand for something important." Darkness had begun to settle into the room, but it was still possible to see though no lights had been turned on as yet. We sat close to each other on the sofa, each feeling comfortable with the other, each wanting to say those words, perform those actions, which would give both what we wanted.
"I'm a father," said Adam gently, bending forward slightly to look from below up into my eyes. Then my eyes filled with tears as they re-saw the pleasure that this man had in being with his children, saw again the joy that the children had in being with the father, a simple trust in the goodness and rightness of this tall man with them, and they had no compunctions about hanging onto his legs, the younger son sitting on the floor, hugging the father around the thin calf, the older son standing by his side, burying his face in his father's crotch as his arms clung to his father's thigh. The closeness was as evident as the closeness between Adam and me now.
Adam! The father of ALL people, and I stared with aghast eyes at this man seated with me, but I wasn't looking at the man, with rumpled clothes and a vague odor of nervousness, but I was looking under the skin and under the straw-stack hair into the eyes of the archetype hidden within. The lines of the face didn't change into unrecognizable caricatures as Russ' had, the face didn't change at all, but it was as if the person owning the face had just been RECOGNIZED as someone I had known in youngest childhood, but had forgotten. It was the face of fatherhood itself.
"How are you?" said Adam, and again there was the lowering of the head, so as to look up into my eyes. The mouth moved as though a smile wouldn't be permitted until there was reassurance that I was all right.
"I'm --- " I was about to use the word confused, but with a rush I saw that Adam was even more confused than I, and a flood of love rose through my entire being. " --- just fine, Adam. I'm --- " and now I was about to use the word thinking, but again felt that would be a poor touch. In fact I wasn't thinking, I was merely being happy. " --- just fine."
"Good," and the smile came out, though the lined face still showed the worry, the uncertainty, the hope for release, that Adam was looking forward to. For once there didn't seem to be any problem with time. There was no time, which meant that there was all the time there ever was.
"You --- you were what I needed." I couldn't think of what to say which wouldn't break the fragile bubble that encased the two of us, on the sofa.
"Good," said Adam again, and the smile looked more secure. The hand was nervous on my knee, and I sensed the growing artificiality of that hand, and reached out to clasp it.
"Yes, you're a father, and I never had a father that I could say that to." Tears were close to the surface of my whispering voice, but the time for tears had past, the tears had already been shed, and there were no more to be shed at this time.
"I'll bet you were a fine kid," said Adam, his voice unsteady.
"Yes, Adam, yes, I was, but no one ever told me. No --- that mattered." I wasn't happy with the words, but they were only the tokens, only the symbols, like the piece of paper which "stood" for a quantity of gold buried in a cave somewhere, and I was pleased to see that Adam seemed to be accepting them only as tokens. But then Adam would know that words are always token; words are never the reality itself! I turned my head slightly, as if a safe tumbler, another in a long series of tumblers, had just clicked into place.
"Are you OK now?" asked Adam, seeing the lightening of my face.
"Um hmm." I placed Adam's hand back toward him, signifying that the time of needed contact was over. Adam wouldn't have to fear making the wrong move: all the necessary moves had been made.
"Would you like to try the mirror?" asked Adam, after a number of minutes of silence.
"Yes," I said, knowing that, like the last few notes of the song I had heard, this wouldn't change things. The important things had already happened.
Yet there seemed to be important things still to happen: as Adam swung the mirror toward me, the face of the mirror reflected Adam's face into my vision for only a sweeping instant, but in that instant the face in the mirror had changed; the face had broadened from a thin gauntness to a square-jawed strength, while the mouth remained narrow. The puffs of flesh above and below the eyes broadened out, and the eyes narrowed from Adam's habitual expression of surprise. The nose widened from a thin slice of skin to a pugnacious bluntness: it was the face of assassinated President John F. Kennedy! It didn't look LIKE the face of President Kennedy, it WAS the face of President Kennedy.
The fraction of a second passed, and the only face seen in the mirror was my own. But there were other faces there, replacing my face one by one. There was a woman's face, an amalgam of Fran's and Lotte's, and that face came out of the sadness in the mirror. A plump yellow face replaced the woman's face, and stared passively back at me: it could only have been Buddha's face, with its abbreviated eyebrows, its round baby-cheeks, the slit-like eyes hiding enormous wisdom.
My face changed its expression in amazement, and the reflection in the mirror, seen by my eyes, changed again and again: that could only be the Devil, again a token, a token of the lack of love. There was a strong masculine face then, and that face was mine, as was the woman's face which had come on first. These didn't look like those faces, they WERE those faces, I was sure, and I wearily accepted the truth of what I saw: yes, I was --- I AM these people, all these people. That was so. This is true.
"What do you see Bob," Adam prodded, not happy to see me so silent so long. He seemed to be speaking to someone from an enormous distance. The silence of the room was the silence of outer space, separating bodies by light-years. But Adam felt closeness in the air, felt presence, though to outward appearances we were distant.
"I see me, and everyone." I said, since that was the truth. Adam was satisfied by the answer, and after a time took the mirror from me and looked at his watch.
Instantly sensitive to Adam's concern, I knew that Adam wanted to get home to his family. His job here was completed, he wanted to go where he loved and was loved, and I felt immensities of levels of emotion separating the two of us: we two who had been so intimately close only moments before.
"Hey," I said with a little chuckle, "you better get back home to your kids, before they forget what you look like."
"Oh, I'm in no hurry," said Adam, knowing that both realized the lie. "But it is getting late. Is there anything I can get you?"
I felt sad that the session had to end, but knew that it was, in fact, ended, and there was no sense in prolonging it. I was about to say I didn't need anything when a dryness in my throat came into my consciousness. "I'd like a glass of water, please."
Pleased to have been asked for something so easily done, Adam went into the bathroom and returned with a glass full of water. The glass was indistinguishable from the glass in which the LSD was administered, and as I drained the water, it was as if I drank chlorpromazine. The lingering effects of time-stretching, dizziness, haziness of thought, body disorientation, all effects instantly ended, and I looked up, handed back the glass, and said "Thank you," in a voice that was radically different from the whispery, sad voice I had used before.
Adam took confidence in this voice, checked to see that there was nothing more "No chicken, no malted milk? Maybe some orange juice? Nothing? OK; do you want to stay here overnight?" I nodded assent.
"OK, I'll tell them you'll be there tonight. Goodnight." Adam sort of looked like he wanted to do something more, but his stomach rumbled again from his hunger. I smiled and said goodnight, that I'd be fine. And Adam was gone.
Time passed. Long hours passed during which I slipped from the pinnacle of happy exultation into the slough of despair. I didn't FEEL any different, I began thinking petulantly, I didn't THINK any differently. I was still the same PERSON. How long could this go on?? Then the sound of a querulous child came to my ears --- the sound of my own thought. With a sudden motion that left me momentarily dizzy, I sat up on the sofa with the realization that I had been shitting all over the good I had gotten from the last session.
"What kind of insanity is this?" I almost asked my question aloud, to make it more forceful. Here I had been through a day in which I had cried my heart out for the lack of love I had had from my father when I was a child; I had come to the realization that the session had offered liberation from the past sadness. My life could begin at this point, based on a new love, from me, for my father. In an instant I realized what my next move would be: I would go home, see my mother, see my father for the first time in ten years.
At this point I began to regain my composure. Chanting a dual monologue I alternately berated myself for forgetting so quickly what had happened, and sneered at the experience as useless. "Why is it useless?" I shouted mentally at myself, trying to find why it was so easy to dismiss an experience so powerful. I had never respected the powers for my mind so strongly as now, when my mind seemed to be working against every feeling in my body.
Two segments of my personality were pulling against my physical body, and the pain in my stomach again forced itself into my consciousness: "I'm pulling myself APART!" The battle continued for hours, until it seemed that the combatants were my childish side, wanting the ideal, wanting perfect happiness, wanting myself to be the center of the universe, and my adult side, still weak from a short existence, but realizing facts about happiness and the universe that the child wanted to shut out. The child simply didn't want to believe in death, for example, while the adult solemnly knew that this shell of a body containing the warring elements would one day be dust and ashes, returning atoms to a soil or a tree or a body which one day would be recombined into another body, like or unlike this one, inhabited by another mind, possibly by another divided mind as this was.
How everything came back to the same idea! The idea of the unity of the energies of the universe. I saw an atom in my hand growing to the surface, dying, flaking off when I undressed, adhering to clothing which was then washed, and the wash water flushed into the sewers, where it was purified into drinking water again, either artificially in a sewage disposal plant, or naturally by being carried into the ocean, evaporated, and rained into the water supply, and ingested into another individual, living as part of that individual, unless flushed out again as urine or, another thought, tears, or that atom could come to the point of creation of a new individual: it could be one of the multitudes of genes in the germ-plasm of some fertile individual, and that atom, which had come from my hand, might be a part of THE gene which could cause this individual, being conceived, to be a genius who would be ultimately responsible for a new way of life on earth: a religious leader who would unite the earth in one religion, a scientist who would discover a way to PROVE the unity of everyone SCIENTIFICALLY, so that scientists and chemists and psychologists and cosmologists would VERIFIABLY know that all energy was one: human, atomic, Godly, shit, soul, everything.
"Yeah, but how have you CHANGED?" Again the sneer surfaced, kicking philosophy out of the mind. "You're still the same fucked-up queer who came here." But what else could have happened. At some points in the past it seemed as if the entire world had been created to test me, and that finally I had arrived in Acid House, where Jules was God himself, and he welcomed me into the Empyrean, to become one of the gods --- even further, to become GOD himself. The world melted into energy, my soul eternally blissful in a garden world of immortals.
"But --- but this IS TRUE. I AM God!" Said my adult, but immediately my child came up with a razzberry so loud that confusion reigned for a number of minutes. "I've got to get out of this," and the feeling came almost from my body itself, trying desperately to intermediate between the warring factions. "What can I do?"
Rather than a deafening silence, I was greeted to a barrage of alternatives: kill myself, go out and spread the gospel and save the world, tear out my stomach and SEE what's the matter with it, have another LSD session, get out of this kooky place and start LIVING in the real world. The real world? Where was the real world? Where did it start, where did it end?
Like a dog chasing his tail, or Ourouboros devouring himself, I spun my thoughts like cotton candy, ate them, then spun them out again, but the circles got smaller and smaller, and I felt somewhat like the first LSD session, where I go more and more inward, until I fell through to some area of light --- but that's stupid --- no, that's the wisdom I'd come to seek --- but you're kidding yourself --- who are you kidding ---
STOP! I was working up a physical sweat following my conflicting thoughts. What nonsense this was! I was just going in circles, and I was getting nowhere. How could I get out? Write it down. Immediately the solution leaped to my mind, too compelling to scoff at.
But I thought that all records were nonsense? Yes, but this isn't going to be a record, only and "aid to memory" for the future. What future? The future of now, when you want to throw out all you've learned in this session! But I stopped writing right after the first session, and I have written nothing since, and it feels good not to be writing. I don't have to carry around all that past with me: I can be free to live.
Shit! You still have to sleep and eat and defecate, so maybe you still have to write. Remember Bach. But I'm no Bach --- you're arguing with yourself again. But I'll have to put the light on. So put the light on. But that will break the mood.
Good, you need the mood broken. There was no response to that sally, and I slowly rose from the sofa and turned on the light. Reactions were as expected: my eyes winced, my head ached slightly; I felt nauseous and dizzy. Encouraged by these signs, I got pencil and paper and wrote.
There is a fact.
The fact is, I have found it.
What is it, that I have found?
All tears, all life, all love, from father through son to all people.
I may mock the fact, but it is there.
I may mock, but I DO have it.
It is there for me to feel, as a touchstone against which all words, mere words, may be evaluated.
I must hold the FEELING of the fact, but the inescapable FEELING of the intellectual (which I inescapably AM) is that the feeling must be, not smothered and covered by, but buoyed up and clarified by, mere words.
So I take a lesson from "The Prophet" and my ego asks, of my self which possesses "it," what do you say, now about
Love? Love is all, from father through son to all people. Love will shine brighter through all the following.
Life? Life is created by love; may be created, but imperfectly, without love; needs love to be lived to the fullest.
Hate? Ignorance of love, or perversion of love: Germans fight because sons get little love from authoritarian fathers, Japs fight because the Royal Father TELLS them to fight and die gloriously.
I sat back, dizzier and dizzier, and waited for the reaction to what I had written. But there was none. I had won some sort of a point, stilled some warring factions in my body. I shut the light off with a sigh and settled back down on the sofa.
Comfortable as he was, he didn't feel like sleep, but he didn't feel like writing more, and he didn't feel like wearing himself out beating ideas over the head in his stomach. Eyes open, he lay on the sofa, staring at the small line of lighter darkness at the top of the drapes. What time was it, anyway?
It was 4AM, and he thought he might be able to see the first faint signs of day outside, so he pulled the drapes aside. The room got lighter, and the sounds of outside, formerly muffled by the drapery folds, invaded the stuffy silence of the room. The wind moved the trees to murmuring, and a few insomniac birds chirped back and forth in the coming light. Trees could be seen outlined against the sky, or rather, sky could be seen outlined through the trees, since the canopy extended beyond the porch roof outside.
Without thinking, Ken opened the door to the screened porch, merely to be nearer to outside. The smells of his fear, tension, and bodily secretions were replaced by a chill freshness from outside, and the touch of the breeze on his cheek was like the cool hand of a nurse after a long fever. He moved back inside for a blanket in which to wrap himself, and huddled Indian-style in a chair in the middle of the porch, watching the last stars vanish from their windows in the trees, seeing the eastern sky color from blue to pearl to litmus pink to rose as the sun came up behind a further hill. The sounds of the birds increased in cheerfulness during the lightening, and it was only after listening to these cheery chirps that Ken realized that the crow, bird of night and foreboding, was silenced; only the melodious tiny sounds of birds which were brown or tan or even red were parts of the dawn-sounds, and it was another revelation of a new time: the reptilian grotesque qualities of the crow were as extinct as the dinosaurs, to be replaced by the more delicate, fragile, but more loving qualities of the birds and mammals.
In so many ways it was the dawn of a new age! Though the trees kept the effects of the sun from the porch, there was still a warming quality to the air, no longer gray from early dawning, but now white with day, and Ken stood at the screen looking down at the dew of the grass, and people moved across the lawn, possibly drunks from the back, tormented by fantasies during the night, were now invoking the sun to release them from their terrors. A surprised sound behind him caused him to look back into the room, still dark behind him --- behind him!! --- and a cleaning lady, hair pulled up into a net, asked if it would be all right if she cleaned the room.
Yes, it would be perfectly all right. Sweep up all the skin flakes of the old person that lay about the room, decaying and giving off the stench of sickness. Open the drapes completely, disinfect the bathroom, polish the mirror for new reflections. It was a new day; it was a new millenium, and nothing from the past which was grim or dirty should be preserved. Thoughts flew like moths to a light, but not a night light or a flickering candle, it was as if moths grew immense and had powers to fly and circle the sun, where the cleansing rays would blaze through their wings, turning them to dusty tapestries of jewel-colors, there to circle like planets, replacing the mundane earth beneath --- beneath! --- him now.
As each thought entered his head, it seemed vitrified by the heat of his brain, so that each idea radiated light and the truth of his transformation. He had finished here, it was perfectly clear to him, clear as the light that filtered through the branches affording vivid glimpses of tree behind tree behind tree, leading to the sun, whose rays now, one by one, bounced off the dewy grass and ignited the white side of the house. No more LSD trips, the change was effected, the deed was done. Ken was a new man, and though the world may not have been the garden world of spring where there was no pain and no suffering, yet it was a world with a beauty beyond what most men saw, and Ken was happy to be looking at it through unfogged eyes at last.
Then he felt the flannel of the pajamas around hi, the greasy darkness of his hair. He would be clean! He opened the door to the hallway --- the artificial light seemed yellow and sallow --- and went to his room for fresh underwear and walked down the hall for one last time to the shower-room. No one was there to watch the last purification of the old body, from which the new body would emerge, unchanged to the viewer, but different from Ken's eyes.
Back in the LSD room, he looked through different eyes, and when Jules came in to check on the previous day's activities, he found a smiling, happy Ken.
"Well, how are you?" Jules asked, his smile showing that the answer was obvious.
"Just fine. JUST fine. I sat up all the night thinking through some things, and everything fits into place." Ken felt like hugging and kissing Jules, but somehow he didn't.
"Good, that's good." And "good, that's good" seemed to be the order of the day. Ken wasn't even concerned about the people around him: their troubles were troubles that would stay or pass as they wished, but his troubles were over, and he knew what he was doing. This day would be spent saying goodbye to everyone in the hospital whom he had come to know and love, and making arrangement to go home. Home! Even that word was reborn in the crucible of his heated mind. It was no longer a place to be shunned and hated: there would be work to do there, and not all the work might be pleasant, but he was looking forward to the work. He was looking forward to going home!
The day passed in a blaze of activity and happiness, but since there was no thought of the order of the activity, he did what had to be done, and gave no thought to the showing of happiness: it was there for all to enjoy and see, there was no worry, no concern about time. "The Prophet" didn't have to be consulted at this point. It was as if a machine, built for an infinite set of tasks, had had a cog adjusted, a joint oiled, and it functioned as it was intended to function: without complaint, without the rubbing of parts.
When there were disappointments, as when there were no flights out except one at 6AM, there was a rapid evaluation of solutions, and David volunteered to drive him to the airport in the evening, so that he could stay at a hotel near the airport and be nearby for the early flight. Even the thought of flying had no special impact, there was nothing to think about: he was flying home, there was nothing more to be said than that.
Without thought, without effort, with joy and fullness, Ken went through the day's activities, and the evening farewell dinner was pleasant beyond recall. In activities there were as easy joy, there is nothing to remember: everything was as it should be. Without problems, there was nothing to fret about, nothing to be nervous or tense about --- the hours passed without counting their minutes.
Described event by event, the day was a complete bore, devoid of interest or suspense. The day happened, there was a certain amount of time, the time was filled with talking to Fran and Lotte and David and even Russ, and then it was dark, and the car was outside waiting for the trip to the airport, and the bags were packed without even thinking about the mechanics of packing a bag. The bag had to be packed, there was time to pack the bag, and, as easily as that, the bag was packed.
Life, simplistically, became a river. The river doesn't think how to flow to the sea, the river flows to the sea. Ken didn't have to think about how to prepare to fly home, Ken was flying home, and he knew what to do. There was one moment, frozen in the river, as the car drove down the crunchy gravel driveway away from the house. The sound was the same as the sound when the taxi drove up to the porch: that sound would never change.
But how many ways were there to listen to that sound!
THE END
