Street Hassle on Brownies

from blog, Atoms From My Youth by Rhombos

Friday, March 26, 2010

Less elegance for the sake of fun.

Last week I tried pot brownies for the first time. Me and my fellow cosmonaut, henceforth referred to as Herman, always seem to come up with the worst ideas when we're exploring the unknown universe.
I really wasn't prepared for how intense the whole trip would be, perhaps it was also somewhat of a mistake to get slightly intoxicated while eating them. We, the collective term referring to myself, Herman and Herman's girlfriend, also ate the whole tray in a matter of minutes, completely disregarding the fact that it takes around an hour for them to take effect. No matter. The night was pretty wild and, as usual when I'm out of my mind, I suggested going to San Juan for a session of pool and walking about, Herman's girlfriend silent protest was simply going to her room and falling asleep. A random black guy in a junker car was stopped by the police in front of my friend's apartment, no surprise there, but it did throw us into a sort of paranoid frenzy, we tried our damnedest to remain as calm as possible as we made our way down to my car... right, second note to self: avoid driving right when the THC is exploding like a million fireworks in your head. Once we wormed our way inside I realized I had forgotten my media player at his apartment, there was an overbearing and all-encompassing need in me to show him Lou Reed's Street Hassle which at the moment felt like the greatest masterpiece man could ever muster. Heeding this primal call I rushed up to the 5th floor where his apartment is situated, a trek that felt like it lasted a lifetime with interminable staircases that seemed to keep angling wildly in all spatial directions. Media player recovered, I clumsily shut the door behind me and floated down the stairs, I was moving far too quickly- faster than I really intended to, I had no idea how long it took me to fly down the stairs, but the door was within reach after what seemed to be aeons. Never have I moved so quickly yet slowly at the same time. It can be said that the trip really began there, after what felt like an hour we found the song and proceeded to listen to it while I drove down the highway. Everything was soft and unhurried, the sea of floodlights before me sunk endlessly into the night, there was no corner of its dark profile without illumination, light bled everywhere and on everyone. The song's string arrangement made me feel like the night was interminable, nothing felt more real than the infinite length of a second then, I thought back to all of my calculus classes and how we learned the limits of a given moment by what is essentially rounding out and creating an artificial limit for it, no such mechanic existed for us. Somehow we made it to our proposed destination where a police blockade was waiting for us. Herman kept trying to convince me to tell the cops that it was fine and that I was just on my way to picking up my new imaginary sister from Ben & Jerry's, but I couldn't hack it, I was laughing too much, I had to laugh because I was so light and so was time and space, so tearfully untangled that I just couldn't control myself. The song had ended and I hadn't even noticed it, the chords still flying around my head, I decided to park elsewhere to avoid the police. As it would later turn out, we had parked 30 minutes away from our destination, but we didn't care, we were so fast not even light could catch up to us, but relativity plays a mean trick on our perceptive ability, the faster you go, the slower you feel, I truly believe we traveled at the speed of light that night. It only took a moment to drag us to a store where I was promptly removed because I argued with the shopkeeper about the price of his bottled water. In my defense, I will never be high enough to buy a bottle of water for $2.25. I found no problem with his decision except for the fact that he pointed out that I was living in ignorance- the nerve! "If only he knew the places I dare tread", I thought to myself, but quickly let it go, the music was fading and all I could hear was the thumping noise of nearby dive bars, and then we found ourselves in one. We met up with one of Herman's friends who was, in turn, playing pool with one of his own friends, a strange brightly colored purple man with long white hair and a little too much cheer for my tastes. I assumed he was famous, he carried himself like a writer, this prompted me to automatically greet him, I thought for sure I had met someone so far above my league that this had to be a momentous occasion! Herman did not seem amused. We exchanged noise for a few moments, I felt a sick knot forming in my stomach and Herman was quickly leaving the establishment, in a bright flash we bought some water and were rapidly walking back to my car. I was plunged into that interminable moment once again, I wondered how the water was even able to travel down my throat if we traveled at the speed of light and how I was able to retain the mass in my body at such speeds, my atoms were champions for a night. I could barely speak out loud, there was so much going on around me, the noise that surrounded us was a powerful vibration that eased even my vocal cords, everything was a slow whisper, but Herman could hear me no matter how far ahead he walked. We reached the car eventually and headed to his apartment, admittedly I don't really remember how we got there, but it felt somewhat scary because I had no idea how it was possible to have enough control to control a vehicle so alien to my body. We raced up the stairs to his apartment like a game, the walls were cheerful sunlight and the stairs an upward sloping gravel road, it was the workout of a lifetime and I'm pretty sure it dehydrated me to the point of exhaustion, but it felt like it was worth the time. Once inside I couldn't bear the weight of my breath and I fell on his couch, the next few moments were spent wrestling my conscience as the dark of the night closed in slowly and I dozed off without so much as a physical protest. Sleep was upon me finally, I could feel my muscles relaxing and soon enough, like a soldier ready for his execution, so too my consciousness laid itself to rest.
I can't wait to do it all over again.