The Tobacco Incident

     Shep was an interesting character. He had evidently been a speed freak before coming to Morningstar… his brain completely fried. At the oddest times he shouted out, “I’ll do the fixing, Jude!” It was like he had Tourette's syndrome. Other than his usual silence he was a friendly enough guy and didn’t stray too much from company. I just wondered what hell he had been through and hoped he could come out of it. I’m not sure where he came from or very much about him at all, but before he hooked up with Candy, he wandered around the mesa saying nothing much to anyone. He was much more communicative after that tryst.

    Other folks had their own quirks. One guy, who had a hogan on the other side of the mesa called himself “Strider” after a character from the Tolkien Trilogy. Once, right after a tremendous thunderstorm had passed over the mesa, he came dashing across to the A-frame exclaiming that he’d seen a UFO. I had watched the same thunderstorm and marveled over its power and beauty but had seen no such thing. But, like everyone else, I humored him to some degree but did not discount it as an authentic observation.

    At one point a pair of guys… brothers from the Dakotas or Nebraska, had shown up and planted an umbrella tent near the latrine and parking lot. They had been dodging the draft and claimed to be evading the FBI… cut off from their family. They had all the camp gear needed for such an adventure: Coleman lantern; air mattresses; Coleman stove; their tent was a luxury palace compared to the primitive conditions some of us had. I spent some time with them out of curiosity and the fact that their camp was between the goat pasture and the pueblo. They told me about how their dad disowned them and before that had confessed that when he saw hippies hitchhiking he had to resist the temptation to swerve his car to run them down. After hearing that, whenever I hitchhiked  I paid more attention to approaching vehicles.

    Then there was a woman everyone called Magic Mary. Magic Mary lived in an adobe at the side of the highway on the outskirts of Taos. She was a forty-something artist who hosted a celebration of her birthday. Almost every one, including freeloaders like me, had convened at her place. There was plenty of Red Mountain and acid around for all of us. It was an all day and all-night affair that was accompanied by musicians at times and a stereo with a collection of record albums playing full blast otherwise. I’m not even sure whether or not all of us were welcome when I think back on it.

    Magic Mary had been recently busted... a U-Haul truck loaded with bails of marijuana… she, and her husband had been arraigned and she was out on bail awaiting trial. He was still locked up. This might have been a source of tension but it only showed itself once that I can recall. There were several of us who had dropped a considerable amount of acid and were sitting in a room tripping to the stereo when a man came into the room sniffing and gesturing… “Does anyone smell gas?” sniffing some more… “No kidding, I smell gas.”

     The power of suggestion maybe… we were all tripping… some agreed, “Yes, I smell gas!” and hastily left the room… others just sat on the floor and couch sniffing… agreeing and disagreeing… what was this guy up to? I sniffed, smelling nothing but the smell of pot everywhere… then that smell turned to the odor of gas… then back to pot… what was it? I was about to get off my ass and leave the room just in case when someone lit a match, “Look we would all be dead now if it was gas!” he declared.

    Any time I was offered a hit of acid, I took it. I’m not sure now how many I dropped but it was over a dozen… plus what was already in the Red Mountain. I was so very fucked up. I had a pouch of tobacco that one of the women hit me up to roll one. It just happened that I had previously insulted her a few days before back at the dome… I thought it to be nothing and, truthfully, I thought I was just making a joke… at least I thought it was funny. I don’t remember the joke at all but I do remember that I had used the "C" word. She had rightfully taken offense at whatever I said and harbored such resentment that she refused to return the pouch and papers after she rolled one. Tripping my brains out, I decided that I had been wrong but that she would have to give me my tobacco back. We hounded each other for what seemed like hours and, only after a complete act of contrition on my part, did she return the pouch… albeit, half gone. I have never made an off color joke demeaning women since then and have a hard time even writing the “C” word to this day. These things seem trivial but made a hell of an impression on my acid drenched brain.

     The party at Magic Mary’s broke up long after I had left. Arroyo Hondo is eleven miles north of Taos but I considered walking just to get out of the madness in there or in my head... which is which! Someone offered me a ride on the back of a flat bed truck and I rolled around there all the way to the mesa. I know I had to be pretty damned blasted from all the Red Mountain spiked with acid but to tell the truth I don’t think I got near as high on all of that as I did from the few bites off  peyote buttons previous to that… something about alcohol and LSD… just plain don’t mix. Wine simply flattens the... takes the edge off acid and what is the use in that?