فصل 25

January 14, 1992

Dear friend,

I feel like a big faker because I’ve been putting my life back together, and nobody knows. It’s hard to sit in my bedroom and read like I always did. It’s even hard to talk to my brother on the phone. His team finished third in the nation. Nobody told him we missed the game live because of me.

I went to the library and checked out a book because I was getting scared. Every now and then things would start moving again, and sounds were bass heavy and hollow. And I couldn’t put a thought together. The book said that sometimes people take LSD, and they don’t really get out of it. They said that it increases this one type of brain transmitter. They said that essentially the drug is twelve hours of schizophrenia, and if you already have a lot of this brain transmitter, you don’t get out of it.

I started breathing fast in the library. It was really bad because I remembered some of the schizophrenic kids in the hospital when I was little. And it didn’t help that this was the day after I noticed that all the kids were wearing their new Christmas clothes, so I decided to wear my new suit from Patrick to school, and was teased mercilessly for nine straight hours. It was such a bad day. I skipped my first class ever and went to see Sam and Patrick outside.

“Looking sharp, Charlie,” Patrick said grinning.

“Can I have a cigarette?” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to say “bum a smoke.” Not for my first one. I just couldn’t.

“Sure,” said Patrick.

Sam stopped him.

“What’s wrong, Charlie?”

I told them what was wrong, which prompted Patrick to keep asking me if I had a “bad trip.”

“No. No. It’s not that.” I was really getting upset.

Sam put her arm around my shoulder, and she said she knew what I was going through. She told me I shouldn’t worry about it. Once you do it, you remember how things looked on it. That’s all. Like how the road turned into waves. And how your face was plastic and your eyes were two different sizes. It’s all in your mind.

That’s when she gave me the cigarette.

When I lit it, I didn’t cough. It actually felt soothing. I know that’s bad in a health class way, but it was true.

“Now, focus on the smoke,” Sam said.

And I focused on the smoke.

“Now, that looks normal doesn’t it?”

“Uh-huh,” I think I said.

“Now, look at the cement on the playground. Is it moving?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay … now focus on the piece of paper that’s just sitting there on the ground.”

And I focused on the piece of paper that was sitting on the ground.

“Is the cement moving now?”

“No. It’s not.”

From there you go, to you’re going to be okay, to you probably should never do acid again, Sam went on to explain what she called “the trance.” The trance happens when you don’t focus on anything, and the whole big picture swallows and moves around you. She said it was usually metaphoric, but for people who should never do acid again, it was literal.

That’s when I started laughing. I was so relieved. And Sam and Patrick smiled. I was glad they started smiling, too, because I couldn’t stand their looking so worried.

Things have stopped moving for the most part ever since. I haven’t skipped another class. And I guess now I don’t feel like a big faker for trying to put my life back together. Bill thought my paper on The Catcher in the Rye (which I wrote on my new old typewriter!) was my best one yet. He said I was “developing” at a rapid pace and gave me a different kind of book as “a reward.” It’s On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

I’m now up to about ten cigarettes a day.

Love always, Charlie