12. Nylons and Blood

Travis was quiet as we headed south to the quarry. I could smell his old underwear and socks even with the window rolled down and his heavy splashing of Brut 33. I chewed up and swallowed the two hits of blotter that had been under my tongue. I knew it would be creeping over me at any moment and wanted to go into it with just about anything on my mind other than Travis’ body odor.

“So, I guess Piper and Whitney are gonna be there tonight and probably a bunch of their hot friends.”

“Yeah. They’ll all be doing acid, probably.”

“Yeah. Does that bother you?”

Travis shrugged, “What’s it like?”

I pondered a moment, “I can’t really explain it. It’s something you have to see for yourself.”

“You got any?”

Whatever sensibilities I had left told me to say “no.” I had no idea how Travis, with his Tourette’s Syndrome and the medication he was taking for it, would react to acid. Considering his strength, it wasn’t something I really wanted to play around with. Still, unlike most, I could see past the pure brutishness of his exterior. Travis had shared some of his deepest dreams with me. I knew he was basically a good person.

“Yeah. I have one hit. I’ll split it with you.”

His eyes brightened a bit, “Cool.”

We made it to the quarry and I emptied the last hit of blotter from an unlabeled vial in which I kept it. I cut it diagonally in half using a razor blade I carried for splitting pills. I put one half under my tongue and gave Travis the other, “Let that sit under your tongue until it gets soft. Then just chew it up and swallow it.”

“Okay!”

“So, ya ready to mingle?”

“Let’s just hang out in the car a while.”

I shrugged, not exactly anxious to move either, though I wanted to get rid of the quarter pound of pot I was carrying around. I decided it would be best to observe Travis’ reaction to the acid before unleashing him onto the unsuspecting public, “We can wait a bit.”

After about forty minutes of idle chit-chat Travis looked at me intently, “Man, I need to tell you something.”

“Okay…”

He looked away, “It’s hard. You have to promise to keep this to yourself.”

I was intrigued, “Okay.”

“Nylons really turn me on.”

“Oh. What do you mean?”

“Sometimes I wear my sister’s or mom’s nylons.”

“Oh.”

I sat blankly a moment. I could almost hear the sizzling in my skull and thought I detected the distinct scent of a burnt capacitor. The part of me that stayed up days in a row programming the PC-XT I had bought with my drug money wanted to analyze this fascinating revelation into oblivion, savoring every aspect of it fully. The part of me under the strict tutelage of opiates and LSD wanted no part of this, self-absorbed as it was. The two met somewhere in the middle, working together to avoid having to deal with someone else’s psyche.

“Well, you know, that’s no big deal. I mean, whatever. Everyone has their thing.”

“Yeah. What’s your thing?”

Some blood, desperately needed by my brain, found its way to my face, causing it to redden.

“I guess I have this fantasy involving needles.”

“What do you mean?”

Oh Jesus, why do we have to do this now?

“Well. Like, when you do morphine, you stick the needle in your vein and draw some blood up into it so it mixes with the dope, then inject it.”

Travis eyed me suspiciously.

“So, if there was a girl and she drew her blood into the syringe, then I injected it and the other way around and then we did it… that kinda turns me on.”

Travis broke out into an insane laughter, then abruptly stopped. I realized he was starting to trip. He was staring out the front windshield and slowly turned his head toward me. The look in his eye was so terrifying I had to turn away. It was as though his mind had been completely emptied. He had the same cold, insane hatred on his face as Charles Manson. He broke out into laughter again and didn’t stop for at least ten minutes. Tears were running down his face and his eyes were red.

“Oh my God this is fuckin’ hilarious!”

It’ll be okay, I tried to comfort myself.

I finally dislodged Travis from the passenger seat, convincing him to roam around and enjoy the acid while it lasted. I sold two ounces and a quarter bag of pot and paused to chat with Josh and Piper. Travis ended up sitting on a rock near the edge of the quarry, staring out into the darkness.

It was approaching midnight when I noticed several headlights pulling into the quarry. I thought I saw dim rows of red and blue on the tops of the cars, but realized that in my condition, that could have been anything. Still, I watched closely. As a couple of the cars came closer and stopped, the headlights of the others illuminated them and revealed that they really were police.

“It’s the fucking cops!” I yelled.

There was a flood of chaos. Red and blue lights started flashing obnoxiously. If I hadn’t been faced with such depths of shit, I would have savored every second of it. I ran to my Monte Carlo, yelling out on the way, “Travis, get in the fucking car!”

Travis bounced to the car, laughing without care. I started it up and waited nervously for him to get in. As soon as he touched the seat, I threw the car into gear and hit the gas. The tires spun uselessly on the loose gravel a few moments before latching onto something solid and propelling us out of the pit, past several cop cars.

“Oh shit! Oh shit!”

No other words could express what was in my head. I repeated them until I reached Travis’ house.

I waited in the driveway watching him giggle his way inside and trying to collect my thoughts. I left to find someplace else to meditate, since having a county cop next door to Travis was a bit disconcerting. Quietly, I slipped out of the driveway in the Monte Carlo and headed for home, ending up in the same spot where Shafto had stalked Travis and me with a rifle. I decided to wait there for a bit and count my pot, which was all divided up into quarter bags, and ride out the LSD storm before going back into the house.

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