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Rick Butler stretched his long legs in front of him and watched the drug dealers moving furtively through Central Park. Crank, crack, angel dust, smack, Ketamine, DMT, Ecstasy, LSD; he had done them all. Considered a “hard head” by anyone who knew him, Rick liked playing a dosage game of chicken with himself to see how much he could take. He liked it out there on the edge –- and he never lost it.
The lines on his face told the story of his travels like the scrawling in an old sea captain's log. Rick weathered many a drug storm in his thirty five years. It showed in the depths of his ancient brown eyes and the strands of gray that streaked his dark hair.
Empowered by an inexhaustible trust fund, Rick considered himself a pioneer of inner space who pushed all the envelopes and enjoyed reality in as many different versions as he could get himself into, until he had been everywhere imaginable and unimaginable, then he became bored.
A dozen hits of blotter acid had become another unfulfilling experience; in spite of his attempts to study its effects. He longed for something to push him further past the borders of his experience.
In his quest for the ultimate trip he had first read about, then gone to South America where he drank Ayahuasca brews, inhaled snuffs, and drank nasty concoctions, half of which he couldn’t remember. Sure, he had some pretty wild trips, but he also shit and puked his brains out -– and he still hadn't found "the" experience.
In Brazil, he worked for weeks to get accepted into a sacred Indian ceremony from a shaman who supposedly had a secret plant mixture that the other brujos feared. After a stinking, sweaty canoe ride with a chicken-shit, skinny little wetback named Juan, he ended up on the dirt floor of a thatched hut with an ancient long-haired, Indian who painted himself blue from head to toe.
Two crimson five sided figures stood out on each cheek and a mass of colored feathers covered his head. He wore a necklace made of claws and teeth. Black and orange stripes streaked the man's chest. Rick leaned toward Juan and whispered. "He really believes this mumbo-jumbo shit, doesn't he?"
Juan drew back, his wide eyes betraying his fear. "This is no laughing matter, amigo."
The shaman uttered more jungle mumbo-jumbo.
“What’s he saying?” Rick asked.
“You must respect the spirits of the plants before he can share their power with you. Though you cannot see them, their power is strong. They can take any shape they desire.”
While Juan spoke, the shaman kept his eyes locked on Rick’s as if his stare would bore the message into his brain.
“No sweat.” Rick made a show of keeping his own stare zeroed in on the other man’s. Silence hung between them before the shaman spoke again.
“There is one more thing,” Juan translated.
“What’s that?” Rick said, still staring.
"You must sacrifice a living creature to thank the allies for your vision," the guide said. "This must be done at the end of the ritual or the allies will come for their sacrifice and steal your soul."
"Okay, okay." Rick held up his hands. "I'll give them a sacrifice."
Juan's eyes darted from Rick to the shaman and back again. "I hope you are sincere. These people take their Gods very seriously..."
"I told you I'd do it," Rick said.
Juan said a few words to the shaman who remained motionless for a long moment before pulling a small leather pouch from his side and handing it to Rick. Rick took it and backed away. The old man's face remained expressionless.
When no one saw him, Rick slipped into the jungle. After making sure no one followed, he took off in the canoe, leaving Juan behind. He made it back to Rio de Janeiro where he spent two days tripping his brains out in a hotel room, then he flew back to the States, once again ending up back on his bench in Central Park, endlessly accosted by walking drugstores pitching their wares like carnival barkers.
"Crack, reefer, eight balls, bindles!"
Prostitutes, he thought. Selling dope just to stay high. He studied each one that passed, seeing the same lifelessness in their eyes until he became aware of the feeling of being watched. Whirling around, his gaze locked with that of another man whose eyes gleamed with a light all their own.
Charlie Manson eyes, he thought.
Small and wiry, the man had long, jet black hair, a goatee, and a single gold earring that stood out against tanned skin. He wore a battered army field jacket.
"Hi." He smiled with perfect teeth. "Name's Max. I've got what you're looking for."
Rick frowned. "How do you know what I'm looking for?"
Max winked.
"Even if you did know," Rick challenged, "what makes you so sure I'd buy it from you? What have you got to sell that's so different from the rest of these losers?"
"Designer drugs," the man said in a velvety, baritone.
"Oh, yeah?"
"That's right."
Rick studied Max's angular face until his gaze came to the earring; a gold pentacle with an inverted crucifix in the center. Something shifted in his mind.
"How much?" he asked.
––––––––
The pills looked like blood red, transparent bits of plastic, but were small and pentacle shaped like Max's earring. Rick poked at them. Max said one would be enough.
He popped two into his mouth and headed for his girlfriend's apartment.
Rick had met Michelle in a college psych class a few years before. She shared his enthusiasm for drugs, but in a different manner. Her pleasure came from studying his reactions to them.
"Hey, babe," he said when she answered his knock. "Wanna try something new?" He held out the last hit.
"You know I don't do drugs."
"Yeah, I know. Just thought I'd ask."
She studied him with mahogany eyes, then pushed a curl of long auburn hair behind her ear and examined the pentacle. "Looks like windowpane."
Rick held the remaining hit between his fingers. "I don’t think so.” He popped the last hit into his mouth and waited for over an hour, but nothing happened.
"I'm pissed," he said, heading for the door. "I'm going to find that guy and get my money back."
He felt an inward tremble that blossomed into a warm shiver. Chills crept up the base of his spine and circled his head with an exquisite tingling sensation, then colors exploded in his mind like the grand finale of a fireworks display.
"Wow." He blinked, wide-eyed. "This is different."
Michelle grabbed her notebook. "Tell me about it."
He caught her movements out of the corner of his eye. Colored lights trailed off her hands as she picked up a pen. Flecks of gold danced in the brownness of her eyes, giving them an enchanting brightness and depth.
"Colors. Magnificent—and you. Your face, it's more beautiful than any face I've ever seen."
She smiled, her teeth gleaming with shimmering silver sparks. Her face and skin glowed with an otherworldly light. Rick couldn't take his eyes from her.
Her smile faded. "Don't look at me like that. You're giving me the creeps."
"Sorry, it's just that – that..." He stared down at his hands. They glowed like Michelle's and his skin moved on the surface like a colony of amoeba and protozoa flowing in their own dance of life. He looked past them to the carpet. It too had a life of its own. Hordes of indescribable multicolored alien insects marched across it, teeming and undulating.
"What is it?" Michelle said, breaking in on his reverie. "What are you seeing?"
"Life. Everywhere. Everything has life. Your face. My hands. Millions of living creatures."
His perception shifted, heightening the intensity of his vision. The fluttering, eerie light filling everything he looked at blazed brighter. "Whoa, this is intense."
"What?"
He recognized Michelle's voice, but they sounded like they echoed from the end of a long plastic tunnel. "Michelle?" His own voice sounded distant. "Everything's brighter now." His face felt like invisible hands molded it. He groped his way to the bathroom. "Have to see what my face looks like."
The walls, the furniture, and everything else in the apartment lit up as though covered with colored phosphorus. If he stared at any one thing for more than a few seconds he saw tiny "things" crawling across the surface.
Like melting, incandescent wax, his face shifted and changed in the mirror until he looked brilliant and fancied himself a god-like being from a distant planet, then his features metamorphosed into a hideous, sub-human creature from a Saturday afternoon matinee—then he saw the painted face of the blue shaman mocking him.
His hair twisted and writhed, each strand becoming its own single organism. His eyes spun in pinpoints of swirling light that drew him into their bottomless depths.
Beyond words.
He gasped and turned from the mirror. His surroundings grew brighter until the glare became painful. He held his hands up to block the light. They were brighter too, then the movement around him quickened into a more frenzied pace.
His stomach knotted.
"Too much." He grabbed at his hair, then vomited in a brilliant explosion of color.
"Rick?" Michelle's voice, barely audible now. "Rick? What's wrong? What are you doing?"
"I can't—I wish—I would—I can't..." find the words to describe. He buried his face in his hands and felt it expanding.
Michelle spoke again, but her words sounded like a phone line cutting in and out. Rick only understood a few syllables through the din of his mind.
"Should...call? ... Do...help?"
Rick tried to answer, but his speech took on the same disconnected quality. He repeated his message over and over, only able to utter three words; "Out – of - control."
He never heard an answer, but both heard and felt his own scream when he took his hands away from his face.
His world had become even brighter.
The feeling of being swallowed jolted him. He had the sensation of sinking into the bathroom floor. Panicking, he forced his eyes open, but whether open or closed, it made no difference. The painful glow nearly blinded him. Every part of it came alive with frantic motion. He clawed and scrambled to pull himself out of the morass. Panting and sweating, he got on his hands and knees and pulled himself up on his feet, blinking in disbelief when he found himself back in the jungle.
My God. What's happening? I keep getting off—getting off. It won't stop. My mind—slipping.
A flurry of colored activity swirled at the other end of the room.
What the... What's that?
A hideous egg-shaped apparition flew toward him, its tendrils rushing wildly about its head, its mouth wide, teeth bared in a gaping scream of unintelligible fury.
Going for my throat.
He staggered back and fell over, his arm flew out and his hand hit something long and heavy.
The beast attacked, fangs bared, its hot moist breath on his face. His hand wrapped itself around the heavy object. He swung hard, bringing it down on the beast's head again and again. It howled a mournful wail that faded into a smattering of words; “Rick... No..." It stopped, its breath no more than a gurgle followed by silence.
He stared at the green fluid gushing from it, covering his hands with stickiness, then he pushed the pulpy mass from on top of him and tried to stand.
Two more beasts ambushed him.
He struggled, but one of them pinned him while the other sank its needle-like teeth into his arm. Darkness came swiftly.
––––––––
He opened his eyes to blazing colors and tried to sit up, but an unseen presence held him down. He strained to push himself up, but couldn’t.
A rumbling off to his side made him turn his head to see a group of egg-things rush toward him again. Powerless to resist, he twisted, turned, and screamed, helpless to fight. He thought he understood part of their strange babble as the sting of one of their fangs burned into his shoulder.
"Been – like – this - days."
––––––––
Trapped. Tubes of glowing fluids in and out of me. Arms pinned. Too tired to fight. Not important anymore.
Rick struggled to adjust to his new world. The colors and movement still came bright and lively. If he remained quiet, he could pick up snatches of conversation.
"Beat – girl - death."
––––––––
He retreated deep inside himself, his only hope in repose. The colors stayed whether he opened his eyes or closed them; as strong and bright as the first day. He gave commands to his body but it refused to respond.
He felt vaguely aware of a stream of spittle running out of the corner of his mouth. He wanted so much to wipe it off, but couldn't. He could still hear snatches of his captor’s voices.
"Strange – Dying – Hopeless."
