Driving High On Angel Dust

The year was 1998. I had just been arrested for my very first gun felony, which would have been October-ish. I was a sixteen-year-old and all I really thought about was making money (and smoking weed). Of course, in the midwest, we had the age-old, "find the weed man" problem that I think we all dealt with (assuming you aren’t a Tide-Pod-eating Jackalope millennial). Before you start posting on Facebook about how your mom was right all along, they really weren’t "lacing" weed with other shit then—and, they aren’t now, either. No one is ever going to give you extra drugs for the same price, unless sexual favors are involved (or, as in my case, you have friends who want to watch you act a goddamned fool).

I had a routine back then, where I would show up for school to kick it with the homies by the lockers, then leave when the first bell rang, to do whatever delinquent shit was on the menu that day. Most days, I’d come back for lunch (a man has to eat, after all). On this particular day, I met up with my friend Jeremy at lunch and we peaced out to go blow some trees on his back porch. What I didn’t know at this point, is that he had picked up a bag of PCP from another homie at school and put all that shit in the weed we were about to smoke. It was winter in Indiana. So, by the time we finished my artfully rolled blunt, the sun was already dipping and nighttime was well on its way.

I didn’t really notice anything amiss, while we were smoking the thing. It was the same shitty Mexican brick weed Jeremy’s cheap ass always bought, so it already tasted like shit anyway. We planned to go to this girl’s house after we smoked. So, when we finished, we got directly into my car (a sexy, shit-brown 1977 Ford Granada) and started the 30 or 40 minute drive to homegirl’s house.

We were about 15 minutes into our drive, when the drugs took hold. We were on a pretty empty road with corn fields on both sides—nothing else. Indiana is famous for its complete lack of shit to look at that isn’t fucking corn. I still didn’t realize I was on a whole other kind of high, because PCP sneaks up on you—it’s a sneaky little fuck like that. At this point, I just assumed Jeremy’s shitty weed was significantly less shitty this time and I was super-wicked blazed (see millenials, I don’t hate you...I have adopted your vernacular).

It was a while after my "I’m way too high" realization that off in the distance I saw what I was completely certain was the biggest tree I’d ever seen in my fucking life. We’re talking Northern California, dinosaur tree size. Like that one that has a tunnel, so drunk guys in their 50s can drive through it. I was still perceptively pretty far from the thing, so I kept driving the same speed, until I got into firing range. I still hadn’t mentioned it to Jeremy, comfortable in my assumption he saw it too, because it was definitely a real physical tree that was actually there...like, in real life. So, why would I mention it?

As I got close to it, I slowed to a crawl and eventually stopped right in front of it. It was at this juncture that Jeremy piped up with, "Why the fuck are we stopped in the middle of the road man?" Which, from my perspective, was a pretty stupid question, as you can imagine. I was absolutely aghast, when I said, "Because I don’t want to crash into that huge fuckin’ tree!"

I was even more shocked, when he looked me straight in my face and said, "What tree?"

"That fucking gigantic fucking tree right the fuck in front of us, man!" was my reply—quite annoyed by now, as you can imagine. His reply hit me, like un-contacted tribes must take seeing an airplane for the first time. It was so far outside my accepted concept of reality, as to be completely incomprehensible.

"There’s no tree man," he said quite frankly. "There’s definitely a tree man...it’s one of those giant Redwood Sequoia motherfuckers. It’s like a hundred feet tall, dude," I said.

"Nope, no tree man. Also, this might be a good time to mention all the angel dust I put in that weed we smoked. You’re trippin’ that tree bro. It’s definitely not there. You need to drive through it, because we’re stopped on a highway arguing about an invisible tree... about to actually die from getting hit".

"Okay, I’m willing to accept that you roofied the weed, because you’re a fucking asshole. But, I am certain you are the one hallucinating a lack of tree. You smoked that shit too, man."

"Seriously man, just hit the gas and drive through the tree—it’ll be fine. There is no tree!" he said, sounding like that creepy fuckin’ kid in The Matrix with the spoon.

"Okay, man, but if I fuck up my shit because you can’t see this fuckin’ tree, I’m whoopin’ your ass for real" I said, as I pushed my foot down on the gas pedal.

Screaming like a fucking child the whole way through, it turned out he was right—there was no tree. I was just geeked-out on PCP and I ain’t been right since.