6400 Miles (chapters 1-4) Into the Heart of America

After a long night of concert producing, vomit and blood cleansing fun; I was headed back into town along 287 north praying to whoever created this world that there would be a party waiting for me upon my return to town. I couldn't help but be overcome with this strong feeling of joy; after a bunch of months in a hot sign shop, the day that I had been waiting for was only hours away. As I pulled into town I made my way over to my friend Myron's where there was a whole array of people including both of my co-pilots for the road trip-Mark and Pat. Earlier I promised to visit other pals before I left so I took off-after some casual shit shootin'-to hang for a bit, and after I hung long enough I would swing by some booze shop hoping to acquire beer or a bottle of something sure to make jelly out of my body. It was late, I was underage, and it appeared that my dreams of getting drunk on my last night in Jersey would fall flat on their optimistic face.

On my way back to Myron's I stopped in the Pathmark parking lot to grab a shirt from my trunk, and as I was doing so I noticed a man loading a case of champagne into his truck. Desperate and under the idea that I wouldn't be finding any alcohol anytime soon, I approached the man who seemed to be under the influence of meth, crack or some other narcotic known to twist a man's face. "Hey man," I said.

Startled he turned on me with the mien of a man ready to strike, "Who are you? What do you want?"

"Uh...I was just wondering if I would be able to buy a bottle off you."

"Quick, give me ten bucks." I quickly pulled a crumpled up bill from my pocket and handed it to the highly paranoid man. The reason for the fast exchange was due to the fact that he was more than likely robbing the liqueur store adjacent to Pathmark, and I sure as hell did not want to be there when the law ran down on him. Granted it would make an interesting story, but I just do not feel ready to write about being arrested with a drug addict robbing cheap champagne from a two-bit booze shop-I got plenty of years for that.

After about an hour from my last visit to my pal Myron's I returned clutching a cheap, stolen bottle of champagne. Unfortunately for me the get-together that was there when I first arrived had dispersed leaving only Myron lying in his bed as I walked in with the green bottle. "Well," I thought, "I might as well drink this damned thing." So I sat down on his couch and began working on the metal wiring that held the cork in place. As I looked up at the TV a loud gunshot-like noise caused me and Myron to freeze up. It was the cork, which had exploded from the bottle due to its bumpy ride in the back of my trunk. Champagne soaked through my shorts and the carpet as I looked over at Myron who was staring at me with a look of astonished disappointment. He didn't say anything, but his eyes spoke well enough as they indicated to me, "Get a fucking towel you asshole." I obliged to the wishes of his eyes and in minutes was back on the couch sipping my slightly lighter bottle of champagne.

The entire time I was thinking to myself that there was no reason to even bother since there was no one there (besides Myron) to celebrate with, especially since he was hunkering down for sleep. By putting this alcohol into my body it only guaranteed that I would have to sleep on his couch, a situation I have long avoided as my bed, which is only five minutes away, is much more of a comfort. And in a town like Hopatcong drunk driving is only an option for the hopeless and the idiotic. As this thought finished tainting my champagne experience a familiar face strolled in. It was another friend, Sherri, who looked exhausted as she walked over saying hello to me and goodbye to Myron. When she finished hugging her goodbye she muttered a phrase that sounded as if it was coming from a broken man, but alas, it was coming from a sweet girl. "And now I must take the walk of shame." Now I knew what the saying meant, but I was unsure of why she was saying it. This was until a sloppy Pat stumbled into the kitchen, glowing of achievement and lacking a shirt. Aha! It all made sense, and as a sober Sherri took the infamous walk, Myron playfully teased her via obnoxious shouts.

When the front door was sealed off from the outside world I stood with my green bottle sipping casually as I asked, "So, man, you want to get high?" He smiled and opened the door to the guest room where Pat was trying to pass out, screaming various nonsense in his direction. Soon after, Myron offered an invitation to join us by the bong and Pat surprisingly turned it down. This was something Pat had never done no matter how shit faced he was. But with usual persistence from Myron, Pat stumbled out back and joined in on the festivities. As the second pack was finished off we all returned to our zones of slumber-mine being the god forsaken red couch-and passed out until the morning.

* * *A Foul Morning & A Harsh Evening

The morning tasted different on only a few short hours of sleep. I say short because I am pretty sure that I was docked a few minutes in the sorting process, but nonetheless I had a big day ahead of me. It was the Saturday on which we were supposed to depart, but things such as late nights and heavy mornings prevented the schedule from moving along as planned. At around 6 P.M. all the parents had gathered at my house to hold a safety meeting to make themselves feel secure in letting their 18 year olds head out west in pursuit of something that I still have trouble putting my finger on. Their little meeting started with the sight of Mark, Pat and I arguing over how the car should be packed-mainly the backseat or the sleeping quarters as I called it.

Such a scene did anything but ease their already high tensions, and why would it? Not even out of the damn town let alone New Jersey, and we were already going at it like a bunch of starved orphans fighting over the last bowl of slop. After my dad whipped up some BBQ (burgers, dogs, ribs and the like) the morale seemed to get better as we sat at the trunk of my car joking around and sharing our nearsighted expectations. Meanwhile our parents sat at the shaded glass table in the backyard also sharing their expectations, which I am sure had a copious amount of dreary elements sure to cause one of them to stand up and abruptly call off the trip. But that wasn't the case as they were in the process of drinking away any doubts or strange fears they most definitely had.

The hardest part about this safety meeting was the fact that we had to hold off on smoking a bowl until all but my parents had dispersed. Now it was not because Mark and Pat's parents were unaware to their little habit; that was far from the case. The reality was that they were more than aware, but for some odd reason both Pat and Mark felt uncomfortable with the situation of being stoned in front of their rents. This fear was much stronger in Pat, but nevertheless it kept us from lighting up the green herb that we had packed in Geppetto-a nice piece of glass that was responsible for many memories as well as the loss of other ones.

After what seemed like many hours of sitting on my couch watching nonsense on TV, Pat and I finally got the idea to call Mark who was off banging some beer-bellied, frog-voiced gal. He only stuck around long enough for the pre-trip argument and the BBQ before his urges took him in Frogger's direction. He made his reappearance much later in the night, at which point our parental units were already a few sheets and even some comforters to the wind. This little handicap would make our next stunt much harder. Being that we are a group of four-Me, Pat, Mark and Myron-we had to say goodbye to the forth member of our slightly...highly dysfunctional group. However, the time was moving fast on the midnight hours and our parents who, as you know were quite tanked on wine and beers, decided we needed a good deal of sleep if we planned to leave early Sunday morning. Our previous departure was already delayed as the idea of leaving late at night appeared to be a poor decision to our folks, and in hindsight it might have been just that, but as you will learn soon enough our exit was no couch party.

With opposition to our late night goodbye we left on low terms, but deep down our parents understood it was something that had to be done. Being one of the group, and not going on the trip is a hard thing to handle. It was the least we could do to ease the frustration that I am sure was poking at Myron's brain. Now the reason for our excluding of Myron had very little to do with his confrontational and argumentative personality, but more to do with the fact that 2 weeks is a short amount of time to get from New Jersey to San Fran and back with a few other stops along the way; and while 2 weeks with 4 guys in a Hyundai Sonata would make the trip seem longer it was an extension that wasn't worth the discomfort. So it wasn't anything personal at least in the sense of personality, but in the sense of personal comfort-something that is integral to a 6400 mile road trip in a Korean made car.

And this lingering sense of guilt was with us as we went to say farewell, but the guilt would be gone no more than 5 minutes into our goodbye ceremony. As we entered Myron's room we were immediately thrown into argument. It was an ambush, a trap and Mark had been the one to step through the leaves into the punji pit as all Pat and I could do was watch in absolute shock and horror. The confrontation arose when Mark suggested we use a Dutch that was in Myron's room to roll the goodbye blunt, but for whatever reason Myron was not having it as he demanded we go buy another one. This would not have been such a problem if not for the fact that the closest store was closed and the only open ones were back by my house-a place we had to be back at before midnight if we wanted to get an early start west.

The time was 11:20 P.M and we didn't get to the part where we would tell Myron that we had packed our bud for the trip, which meant we had none to throw in; a discovery that would truly disturb the already confrontational son of a bitch. Once we arrived at this part of the conflict Myron erupted into a fit of blind rage, which left us all with a terrible taste in our mouths as we stormed out. "Should we go back? Is he serious? You have to be fucking kidding me." These all went through our heads and out of our mouths as we got into the car to return to my house. But due to the circumstances, one being the fact that we were in our friend John's car (the result of Mark's gas gauge resting on E), and two being the childish tactic of telling us not to come back, left us with no choice. So we returned to my house and as Pat and Mark ran interference with the inebriated parental units I snuck inside to snag some of our road trip stash. With no plastic bag in sight I was forced to keep a closed fist on the situation and as I left my front door I noticed that there was another firefight up by the glass picnic table. Mark and Pat were trying to justify our return to Myron's, and since our first visit was no more then ten minutes ago the rents knew what was going down. The jig was up and the only thing we could do was turn and walk away leaving our parents with a fire burning inside their stomachs.

All I remember from that point on was that we did smoke one final time with Myron and John before we left, but there was something about the previous encounter that made the smoke session end quickly. We were all in a bad state due to a sandwich of conflict that we were unwillingly forced to eat at the will of not only Myron but our parents. Once the blunt had fizzled down to roach size we said goodbye, Myron wished us luck even though deep down he was probably hoping we got arrested or killed each other just so he could say, "told you so," but whatever the reason for his change of heart we didn't care as it was better than the previously psychotic bastard he was only twenty minutes prior. And with that we returned to my house to get our last sleep before departure and with a departure time of 5 A.M. it would be quite a lackluster slumber-and it was. By the time everything had dwindled down it was 1:30 A.M. and I tossed and turned until about 3, which might not have been so bad if not for the fact that I was first to drive. Things were falling together so beautifully. Right and I am the next king of England.

* * *The Corn Dialogues

We left for Des Moines at 5 in the morning; the car was packed full of all the supplies and items that we would need to get us through the next two weeks, out on our own in a foreign land for the first time. My expectations were nonexistent as I knew from past travels that each venture is filled with more uncertainty than the likes of someone in the midst of a salvia trip-a heady experience sure to make you feel inanimate and worthless. But the one thing that was for sure was that this trip into the west was not worthless; there was this vague sense that what we were in the early stages of, would come to serve as a milestone in our lives. We were anxious for what would come our way, and the fact that we had 19 hours until our first checkpoint didn't bother us much as our spirits where more than high.

For someone running on two hours of sleep I was a driving powerhouse as Mark and Pat slept quietly around me. If there was one thing I could accredit my endurance to it would have be the tunes that I was cranking as I raced through Pennsylvania. And I am surprised that I didn't wake the dunderheads as I was banging the steering loudly and belting out whatever song I knew the words to. It was all I could do to keep alert as my highway companions were incapacitated; plus, the Red Bull didn't hurt either.

4 hours and 200 miles later we reached our gas stop limit at a quarter of a tank. I was good to keep driving, but Pat who had just woken up along with Mark was fresh off a full night of sleep and eager to drive. Wanting to reach my goal of driving the entire distance to Des Moines was ambitious at best, but impractical and unfair, so I handed the keys over and made my way to the sleeping quarters. It was quite comfortable and I clocked out as soon as I-80 was rolling along beneath us.

A glittering sensation danced across my closed eyelids nudging me from my unconscious state. The sign read "Ohio Rest Stop", and I got out of the car to notice my leg was partially asleep, which almost led to my collapse as I took a massive stretch that caused my head to go light and my vision to go black for a brief second. I was fortunate to maintain, keeping my stride towards the best stop for those who just drove straight through Pennsylvania. And even though I slept through the second half it was still a beautiful sight due to the fact that I needed a stretch, and to relieve some extra bodily content as did my company. After Pat finished contemplating if it was a good time to drop one, Mark emerged from just leaving a piece of him behind as I finished pissing away the last of my fluid consumed on the East. Now Pat's problem was not due to a fear of public restrooms, it was more the result of the feeling to go being minimal. However, he knew it could potentially evolve into something heinous. He ran in and tried his best, but failed and left it up to fate as we hurried out to car to get back on the road as soon as possible.

We opened the cooler and snagged the sandwiches that Mark's mom had provided for the ride. They were quite delicious and I relocated to the navigation position located in the passenger's seat. Mark was at the helm, Pat in the back and in no time at all after a quick gas up we were off towards our first stop-Des Moines, Iowa.

The ride to Des Moines was uneventful to say the least; open roads, never ending fields of corn, wheat and other exportable goods, but nothing to write home about. Probably the most excitement we had during this stretch of farmland was Mark's unrelenting pondering of why we need so much corn. Each time he would ask the question I would give him one of the numerous rational answers that could be given to such a question, never really giving a damn myself. "What is the purpose for all this corn?" he would say.

"Well for food obviously and for food of food. You know livestock and so on. Also ethanol is getting popular out here so they need more than before. Not to mention food to send to third world countries. There are a lot of reasons for all this corn. Corn starch and I am sure there are other uses that we couldn't imagine," I would tell him. But hey we had to keep ourselves occupied somehow especially when it felt as if we were driving on a paved conveyor belt that provided the notion of movement as similar pictures passed by.

For the most part the first batch of driving went along pretty fast despite a rush hour cluster fuck in Illinois about 10 miles outside of Chicago, but we eventually ended up in Des Moines late at night. Our hope was to find some land to set up camp, but the only area we found had a nice candy striped barricade that read, "CLOSED." We were shit out luck, energy and anything else that would foster up enough hope to press on into Nebraska towards Colorado. So with our reserves drained we settled for a hotel, which in hindsight was actually a pretty solid choice. I needed a decent night's rest because I was deprived of such a thing the previous night and after 19 hours on American highways a bed, shower and cable TV was better than saving the fifth-teen bucks it cost each of us to get a room. They had a pool as well, but after an intense round of rock, paper, scissors for who the first shower would go to we didn't care enough to take a dip. On that note Mark won the first shower, but I won the privilege of having my own bed, which was more important than being the first one clean.

With everyone clean and dressed in their bedtime attire we sparked one of the half blunts we had rolled for our time in the Central States, and settled down for some cable TV before the melatonin took control. In my case I could have easily gone to the pillow whenever I wanted, but like every fool I continued my search for some kind of entertainment. When Mark went I decided that this was no night to be the champion of sleep depravation and followed suit.

The morning in Des Moines was short and sweet; with a quick detour to gas up and to snag some supplies at Kum & Go, which is not only the best name for a convenience store, but it had pretty decent gas prices in a time where gas was pushing $3 a gallon. We had 12 hours until Frisco, Colorado-a resort town 20 minutes outside of Denver-where we would be reunited with our childhood pal who fled New Jersey to pursue a simple life of a resort worker in what was probably one of the most happening resort areas in the country. This pal was none other than Dan 'Scannyman' Scanlon and the last time I saw him was back at New Jersey's own Mt. Creek where we both had winter jobs. Luckily for us the job consisted of getting high, snowboarding and occasionally overseeing the exchange students from South America.

Now these exchange students were quite a handful as most were lured into coming to work at Mt. Creek with some fancy video that showed it as this amazing, fun-filled place to work. This kind of thing is sure to create a tension as the tactic is deceptive, not to mention dicks like Scanny and I were too busy coaxing them into shoveling and watching lift lines as we would be off riding the pseudo mountain. The funny thing about it was the video didn't even show Mt. Creek, it showed Copper Mountain, which was the resort Scanny relocated to. The difference between New Jersey snow sports and Colorado snow sports is equal to California surfing versus New Jersey surfing. New Jersey is mediocre at best, which should be the states slogan since Jersey does in fact have everything your heart can desire, but unfortunately it is far from the best unless we are speaking of pizza and bagels-even those are made by transplant New Yorkers. New Jersey: The State of Mediocrity, and indeed it is, but the reason for this side story, which I have yet to finish, is because like the rest of the ride from Western PA to Colorado there wasn't much to provoke any kind of entertaining story. For the most part it was farmland, and I could write about how it felt like the road was a treadmill, but I think I mentioned that already and since I have a tendency to babble on it wouldn't be fair to you if I were to repeat myself.

Anyway it was a crisp winter day when Lance from Lift Maintenance busted through the door of the Gondola lift shack. Being freshly baked I was startled as I heard a loud bang over the music playing through my headphones-a major breach of company policy. "These fucking foreigners man; they're gonna get us shut down."

I looked over barely hearing Lance's impassioned sentence, "What happened?"

"Fucking Bruno Pinto didn't look up the line and some yahoo from New York in his damn jeans ended up falling through the seat. Good thing the seat closed on his ski preventing him from falling head first thirty feet to the ground."

I was confused to say the least, "Wait the seat was up?"

"Yea shithead Bruno didn't check the chairs this morning and one of the seats was up; I had to climb up the lift and cut the guys pants off to get him down. I swear man these fucking foreigners need to get their shit together." This story was just the thing I needed to hear because in all of mine and Scanny's scamming and slacking we still never managed to fuck up that bad, and with that story filling the void that would have been taken up by mine and Mark's reoccurring discussion on why we need so much corn, we had reached the great state of Colorado.

After a quick photo op in the middle of I-76 we were pushing an average of 90 mph as we breezed through the first part of Colorado. The landscape was dramatically different than the flat, corn ridden land that seemed to follow us for the 2 day stint that took us into Colorado. The first half was desert like with an orange sun governing over it, but the rolling hills and numerous rock formations set it apart from most deserts. The Rockies were off in the distance and we would not see them until we entered the capital city of Denver. Not to mention the first half of Colorado was warm, but once we reached Denver there was a haze intruding on the air and the temperate was resting at 65 degrees. We could only make out a silhouette of the Rocky Mountains, but the more we pushed on the greater the scenery became causing our spirits to soar.

We stopped at a rest area soon after we emerged on the western end of the Eisenhower tunnel. Rain came down in a light drizzle as Pat and Mark ran along the sidewalk trying to get the best picture they could. Being that I was riding in the sleeping quarters my shoes were off and I opted to climb onto the roof of the car to snap a few glorious photos of the lake and mountain range that we were overlooking. As I was doing so a man with a worn trucker hat came strolling by with his dog, and happened to notice our New Jersey license plate. "You boys are a long way from home." Cocking my head to the left I looked at the man and realized that the stereotype fitting this man meant we were about to reach the first conflict in this movie. His eye glasses were big and lightly tinted, his gut was the result of a 6 pack a night diet and his dog certainly would have no problem using our bones as chew toys.

He was your typical blue collar working man gone over the edge into the world of a rest area serial killer. At least that was the stereotype, but stereotypes are nasty little things. With this idea floating around in my head I realized it would be best to return words and prevent tipping him off that fear was tapping on my brain.

"Yea we decided to come out and visit our buddy."

He smiled, casually pulling on the cigar that was securely lodged between his yellow chiclet teeth, "Well be careful out here. The law dogs get excited when those kind of plates drive by."

Amused by the man's description of cops my fear subsided a bit and a slight smile appeared on my face as I continued the dialogue, "Ah we're use to that back home."

"Well I'm sure you aren't use to the elevation. Where you guys heading?"

"We're stopping in Frisco for a few days and then we're off to San Francisco and onto to Yosemite."

He smiled blowing out his most recent drag, "Well you guys will see a lot of great sights, good luck and have fun." At this point Mark and Pat had shifted their attention to the man and we all muttered some variation of, "have a good one," as the man made his way back to his truck where his wife was waiting. The conflict would have to wait.

It wasn't long after our stop until we reached Frisco, Colorado; the place where Scanny had fled to, and the place where our eyes would be opened to a very different kind of way of civilized life for the first time on the trip. We arrived late Monday night, and as much as we were looking to jump into action we knew it would have to wait until tomorrow. So we loaded in the things necessary to sleep, and set up on the floor in Dan's room. Of course we didn't go right to sleep as we were handed a 4 foot bong among many other implements that would prove effective in getting Colorado THC into our bloodstream. Since they had a 5 pack of strawberry Phillies we felt it was only proper to mix in the Jersey bud we had left to remind Scanny of the good ole days; but as we would soon come to learn, his days in Colorado were far better and much less stressful than his 18 years on the east.

***Beer, Weed & Shrooms, "Welcome to Colorado." Flashback to Pennsylvania

The following day's events were and are a foggy haze to me, which is strange because by all conventional standards that night should be the haze. What I remember from the day was going to the post office to pick up Mark's camera, which he had his mom Fed Ex to him. After that some breakfast, and a quick ride down I-70 to Copper Mountain. The day consisted of riding a 2 wheeled scooter called a 'Diggler' down the mountain, fish tailing go-carts around hay bails, a blunt in between and then more go-carting-so maybe it wasn't that much of a haze. Summer in the 20 mile resort mecca was active to say the least, but only locals and people driving through made up the population, which reduced it to a ghost town in comparison to its winter glory. Such glory would not be seen during our time in Colorado, but other glory was plentiful.

It began when we returned to Scanny's apartment at around 4, and immediately sent out a team to acquire a few cases of beer. Meanwhile we spent the time waiting for them to return by seeing how much weed could be smoked in 20 minutes. The conclusion we reached was enough because at the time the two man team rolled in with cases of beer stacked past their eyelids we were in the midst of a pleasant euphoria. But like all people who consider chemically altered states one of their favorite past times it is common to push that euphoria to an extent where most motor skills are severely hindered. It was this spirit that shaped the night into something I will not soon forget.

After a few hours of heavy drinking and smoking, one of Scanny's roommates received a fateful call, which informed us all of the availability of Psilocybin mushrooms. With Mark having a great fear of the fungi due to previous experiences he was not up for the trip and neither was Pat for that matter. You see Pat had developed this condition where he felt he had pushed his psychoactive drug use right to the edge, and anymore experiences might cause him to slip and fall all the way down into a dark hole. And with a mentality like that it is not wise to ingest psychedelics because you are already setting yourself up for a bumpy ride. The best approach was to think happy thoughts and to remain optimistic.

With happy thoughts on my mind I committed, and soon realized that everyone was incredibly drunk. Not to mention there were only two people with cars, one of Scanny's roommates and me. Drunk driving was the only course of action, but it was something I did not do. This was of course with the exception of one time about a week prior to the trip. Pat and I had gone deep into the backwoods of Pennsylvania to visit a long time elementary school pal named Billy. He lived in a private community that was about 20-30 minutes away from the nearest town, and he was well stocked with alcohol. After a night of drinking beer, whiskey and playing the wonderful table game of pool, Billy headed up to bed as he was on probation and could not be in the presence of two grassheads who had not yet smoked that night. Billy knew we were gearing up for it and the temptation would be too strong to resist considering the situation. So he wisely decided to hit the pillow as Pat and I continued to drink and play pool. After each game we would go outside to smoke a bowl and then return to the table to continue what was an epic stint of pool playing. We went back and forth with a new winner each game, and then this urge came over us.

It was an urge powered by the release of adrenalin, and before we knew it we were on our way to Pat's car. Giggling like a couple of mischievous 8^th graders we powered up his dent ridden Toyota, and began driving through the back roads of the private community at a comfortable speed. The reason for this brazen feat of hypocrisy on both our parts was due to the fact that cops were not allowed in the community unless called upon. But our drunk fueled adventure did not stop with simple criminal mischief such as driving in a manic state completely inebriated and without a care in the world. No, it only progressed as we pulled into the community's private lake club. This was due to Pat's sudden need to check his oil. I sat in the passenger seat laughing sporadically as the reality of the situation set in. We were parked in plain sight of the road with the lights on, and the hood up with Pat carefully adding oil to his car.

If someone were to stop to see if we needed help it wouldn't be long before they realized the state we were in, and it is good that no one drove by in our time sitting idle. Our next act would be one of the greatest, most idiotic things I have ever done. Pat and I had an odd friendship, which will get explained soon enough, but as Pat returned to the controls he did something that surprised me. Instead of following the jug handle out of the lake club he drove up onto the grass and around back where the lake was. Slamming his foot on the gas pedal he accelerated towards the lake and as I was thinking things were about to get interesting he yanked his e-brake and the car did a 180 coming to a stop on the grass that was about to be torn to bits. A few more 180s and it was my turn. I did a few doughnuts always finishing with a 180 twist, and soon after I got my fix I handed the keys back to Pat who took it from there. On our way back to the road Pat looked at me and said, "What do you think of me now?"

I was unaware that this was an attempt to change my impression of him. This is where our strange friendship comes into the mix. I have known Pat for 14 years going back to kindergarten, but recently there seemed to be this odd tension between us. Pat is known to get moody at times, and I am known to be quite the sarcastic twit as well as a chronic practical joker. Often I will fuck with my friends in a joking way, but at times I pull it off too well and end up pissing them off. This was especially the case when I would decide to screw around with Pat when he wasn't in the greatest of moods. Such events would lead to a blow up where we would both walk away with an overwhelmingly bitter taste in our mouths. Like most arguments between friends it was the cause of bad timing. Our moods were simply at opposite poles, but I knew what Pat was implying when he said, "What do you think of me now?"

Realizing this I gave the best response I could think of, "I never had a problem with you."

Such reply led to me giving him the whole theory of different moods and bad timing to which he replied, "Yea I can see that, but how about we head back for another game of pool and some shots of JD."

"Agreed," and in no time at all we were back at Billy's slamming down shots between games, but our urge for adventure was still not satisfied as it only grew with each shot of whiskey. After a tie breaker game, which I believe I won even though Pat may say otherwise, we found ourselves gathering tools such as a monkey wrench and a screw driver. Back in our youth we had this addiction to felonious activity in the form of stealing street signs. A few signs never made it into our collection, and being that we saw two handicap signs on the front lawn of the lake club we knew what had to be done. A shot for good luck and we were off towards the previous location of criminal activity. We parked the car facing towards Billy's and ran awkwardly from the car laughing as we took a baseball slide on the grass, flying straight into the signs. Pulling the signs back and forth until we freed them from the ground we quickly threw the signs in Pat's trunk and sped off. Back at Billy's we still felt like we needed to do more and with that we decided to exit the private community in search of a "Slow Children" sign. The best we could do was a "Watch Children" but it was good enough and we began shaking it violently until it ripped from the dirt.

With the back seats down we had trouble getting the sign, which was still attached to its pole, to go in far enough to allow us to close the trunk. Despite our previous poor choices we had enough sense to avoid driving back with a street sign hanging out of the back of the car so we hurried back and grabbed the tools we had gathered for the first job. The sign was located near a few houses so we had to work quietly to get the sign of the pole, but we were professionals and in minutes the sign was hidden in the trunk and we were on our way back to Billy's to celebrate with more drinking, more pool and a bedtime BP.

That night was a great bonding experience for Pat and I. It seemed to remove the strange tension between us and we looked forward to the road trip as we knew it would probably bring us closer together. Well things were going well, and remembering that experience I asked how long the ride to the shrooms dealer's house was. It wasn't long according to Mike, and I knew I could pull it off as I drove with the poise of a veteran quarterback, at a time where I was much drunker and running on a sick lust for adventure. This time was not about the rush, but more for a bag that would provide a similar kick. Scanny's friend, Mike, joined me on the ride, which was no longer than 5 minutes and two turns away.

The dealer man was shirtless when we strolled through the door; he was a skinny bearded man, and friendly at that. I introduced myself, immediately extending my hand to show I was a friendly, "Hey man, I'm Joe." In Jersey most dealers coming face to face with someone they have never seen before would immediately put up their defenses, but the attitude was different out west and it was a welcomed change from the paranoid mentality of the east.

"What's going on man, I'm Dan and that's Chris," he said as he pointed towards a husky fellow sitting in a red chair just out of my peripheral field of vision. "So are you Dan's friend from back home?"

"Yeah, we drove in from Des Moines yesterday. It was a pretty dull ride, but we had music and weed so it was fine."

He chuckled slightly, "That always seems to make things better. So where you guys heading?"

"After we leave here we're going to San Francisco to visit some more friends who jumped the Jersey ship, and then onto Yosemite and possibly back here."

"You'll have a good time in San Fran it's a great city, but you're looking for shrooms, right?"

I smiled and repositioned myself on the couch as I placed the bowl that we were smoking during our conversation back on the table. "Yeah something around an eighth, and if you have it, we are looking to snag either a quarter or a half zip of bud for our ride to San Fran."

He got up to go grab the mushrooms, and spoke as he walked towards the backroom, "Right now I'm dry as far as to sell, but have Mike or Dan give me a call when you are getting ready to leave."

I turned back around now facing Chris who didn't hesitate to keep the conversation going, "So you guys having fun in Frisco?"

"Yeah it is a lot more laid back than back home. I couldn't believe it when Mike told me he got caught with a half and only got an $80 fine."

Chris tapped the ash from the bowl, "You don't believe it at first; that is until something happens, but we can't complain."

At that moment Mike and Dan came out of the back room in a conversation themselves.

"Dude I was flying down the hill over by the post office on my way over to the apartment and I went right over my handle bars. Fucked my ribs up good, that's why I didn't show up; I came back here to lay down." said Dan.

Mike laughed with a slight stoner twang, "Man that's rough, but hey it could have been worse."

"Yeah, I suppose so. Yo Joe here are the shrooms my friend."

Chris jutted in as I was handed the bag, "They are some good stuff. I ate an eighth last night and tripped my balls off."

"That's always good." I then turned my attention to Dan, "How much? $35?"

"Yeah that will cover it."

I handed him the money and me and Mike were back on the road after a quick goodbye bong pack. But the ride this time left me with another dangerous element sitting in my jean pocket. The booze had leveled out and my head was clear as I kept the speedometer directly on the required speed. My driving was sure to please any driving instructor as I obeyed every law of the road-well with the exception of one-and returned safely to Scanny's apartment. There were two new faces when I got back, but I grabbed a Tommy Knocker Maple Nut Brown Ale and began chewing on the mushrooms as conversations bounced around the room. I looked up from my small Ziploc bag that was home to a little more than an eighth and saw Mark staring me down. "You gonna' eat all that?" asked Mark.

"Well I plan on it, but do you want a little?" I said holding the bag towards Mark.

Pat chimed in from the side, "Hey if you are giving them out you mind if I grab a pinch?"

I had already swallowed a gram or so, and was beginning to feel the changes taking place so I reached into my bag and grab a decent sized pinch for myself. As I shoved the shrooms in my mouth like a pitcher positioning a wad of dip, I simultaneously handed the remaining amount to Mark and Pat who quickly forced them down. Another one of Scanny's roomies, Chet, grabbed my attention.

"Yo dude you feeling those yet?" Chet said.

"Well I was feeling the beer and weed before, but I feel different now. Things are beginning to look like ovals, in fact I feel like I am sitting in a round room. So yes I am feeling them."

Chet laughed encouragingly, "Hell yea dude."

Mike began talking to me, and while I had a reply to everything he said the room started to swirl. I found myself lying down on the floor, chatting briefly with people as I observed the environment that was seemingly spinning around me. Everyone had a smile on their face, a beer in their hand and there was a thick white fog that floated around the apartment. Overwhelmed by the general good vibes I broke out in manic laughter that spread throughout the room as everyone turned their attention in my direction. With no end in sight to my outburst of breath taking laughter I tried to speak, but an incoherent garble of misplaced words came out.

"I....it's like....my face is frozen...but it feels so good"

"Let it out dude, let it out" said Chet.

Finally after 5 minutes of fierce laughter I regained control and relocated to the couch where a spot had recently opened up. Mark looked at me with a smile on his face and chuckled before saying, "So how do you do it? Every time I eat shrooms I get bugged out" he said.

"Sometimes you have to talk yourself down. Remind yourself it's the drugs, think positive" I said.

"I try, but it just doesn't work"

"I don't know I guess I am just one of those people who were made for psychedelics. I have never had a bad trip. Even strange events are fun to me. I'm not normal"

"You can say that again" he said followed by a coy smile.

"So are you feeling anything from what you ate?" I asked.

"Eh a little buzz, but I didn't eat that much."

At that moment one of the new faces that had arrived while I was gone was getting up to leave. He came over to say goodbye to those on the couch, and as Mark was shaking his hand he said something that was so strange, so out of place that I went from a pleasant functional state to my previous condition, which was similar to someone who had just inhaled a large amount of laughing gas.

"That's a nice jacket you got there" said Mark.

Caught off guard by the odd statement the average looking man replied, "Ugh...thanks."

I looked over with an inquiring look on my face, "Who says that?" In a mocking tone I continued, "That's a nice jacket."

Mark's faced turned red as he shook his head left and right as he began to laugh. At this point I was already fully engulfed, struggling to breathe as I broke down in a laughing fit that again spread through the room like a Southern Californian wild fire.

After the laughter died down and the room emptied out a bit, I found myself lying on Scanny's air mattress with my iPod on. Jimi Hendrix was blasting from my headphones as I wiggled about like a pig in shit. And like a pig in shit I was happy and life was good as evidenced by the giant smile on my face. I laid alone for about 40 minutes just until I got my musical fix and immediately returned to the living room for a smoke session and a beer. It is easy to understand why one falls into a serious drug addiction. Being under the influence of any narcotic (including the legal ones such as alcohol, caffeine, gingko biloba and so on) is a spiritual event regardless of whether it is pleasant or chaotic. You come out of each experience a slightly different person for good or ill. But I never wanted to be a drug addict, which is why I refrain from the use of the likes of cocaine, heroin, meth and anything else where the high isn't worth the inevitable outcome. Yet I can understand what draws people to a life that is a constant pursuit of a high regardless of the means in which it is achieved.

And after all maybe I am an addict to some degree. Everything I do is in pursuit of a high. This trip for instance was just that. I was in search of something that I knew couldn't be found anywhere near home, but I knew that it would bring me an overwhelming feeling of euphoria, and I got chills of anticipation just thinking about it. Ah the chills are back just mentioning the idea of the illusive natural high. Some people claim to know the secret to that natural rush of chemicals and maybe they do, but for the most part they are embellishing about that one time where they felt like they were floating on air, not knowing why, but not questioning it either. Once you experience a truly pure rush, free of any drug you hold onto that moment forever because you know that same feeling will never happen again. Sure you might find yourself riding high again, but that first natural euphoria is a glorious sensation that will completely overhaul your perspective on life from that moment on. And that is why it is easy to understand why one becomes so afflicted by a horrible drug addiction-they don't realize that the one moment where heaven seems real will never come again until they push their habit too far and find themselves looking at the bright light off in the distance, unable to reach it.

Thankfully for myself I never moved towards that light, but simply stared at it and smiled knowing that one day I will be able to bask in it. Until then I'll take what I can get and be happy that I was there for the ride. The ride me and my pals were on was sure to bring us all smiles among many other things. The night of drinking, smoking and shrooming at the halfway point of our trip was a good time that none of us will forget anytime soon. It wasn't until the beer was gone that everyone decided it was time for bed. Since I went back for another listening session I was in the room when the lights turned on and Mark, Pat and Scanny looked at me, laughed and said, "JD fucking Stylez." I pulled my headphones off and suggested a bedtime bowl pack between 4 long time pals, but they were already one step ahead of me as Scanny pulled out a packed bowl from under his clammy little hand.

I sat Indian style on my sleeping bag as we formed a circle in the tiny apartment room. We reminisced about the times we spent back home when we were younger and much crazier. Things were different then. There was no fear of being arrested, no fear at all. Once you hit the ripe age of 18 you find yourself faced with a decision. And that is the decision to either give into the wishes of society or hang onto the misfit lifestyle. When it comes down to it most young kids are total outcasts running wild, which is why you often hear the reformed children or adults talk so harshly about them. Nonetheless, our actions on that chilly Colorado night would surely get a slew of negative reactions from the reformed members of society. This trip in general would not be viewed with praise by those who find comfort in the regulations of government; as in their eyes we ran through the country like drunken barbarians out to rape and pillage whatever settlement we came across.

Righty-O, we were freedom fighters pushing forward in the name of something that might die horribly in the next few decades. And with all these grim descriptions we came in peace knowing that the only true way to survive in this world was not to obey man's law, but to understand that those who respect the freedom of others will in turn have their own freedom secured. In other terms karma was our governing force as we passed through the turf of different tribes. We were ambassadors of fun and that was our only real responsibility.