(for Tom)
I went to the ATM machine to deposit my check, stuck the card in and punched numbers, licked the envelope, then I almost collapsed. Everything swirled. I held on to consciousness and the wall long enough to hit cancel and pocket my card. I could think clearly enough to recall that the last thing I did was lick that envelope and I had enough synapse left to wonder if I was poisoned. I could see the tight stack of deposit envelopes crammed into their holder, and I could see the folly of putting my mouth on something so public.
Imagine eternity swirling in the moments of clenching the wall, and hallucinating about a covert operation of thugs lacing envelopes with drugs in order to make small towns freak out. It could be that an epidemic will occur or that part of the population will temporarily go nuts. Anyway, I stood there with my knees half collapsed. Slowly, I stood straight and did my best to regain composure. There was a half-ton truck to the right on the corner with the kind of guy in it that usually drives with his dog in the back. I turned, took a step toward the crosswalk and reevaluated my idea to walk across the steamy pavement. The truck guy was watching me, which I understood as a concerned look. I asked the guy to help me walk across the street.
He refused. First he offended me, "Maybe your early years of partying are catching up to you." “Nope, not that kind of girl...” I said under my breath. Then he asked, “Has this happened before?” “No.” I said as indignantly as possible. He added, “Did you have a rough day at work?” “No just the usual Friday at high school.”I said stiffly. I couldn’t move because of the swirling and the heavy change of gravity. But I could remember that I had a school staff shirt on and that I didn’t look half bad. He started his line of questioning again, "If I help you across the street where are you going?" "To my car” I replied with the energy of Eeyore. "If you can't make it across the street lady, do you think you should drive?" I didn't say "DUH" because I couldn't take a deep enough breath to aspirate a word. He aimed me to the pole on the corner and told me to rest, and he left. Things eventually got into focus, but I was there for a long while.
Truth be told, there was that one experimental time when I wanted to try some acid. I remember the conversation. “You could see God on this stuff, man, there are faces in the wallpaper that you won’t forget.” That didn’t persuade me, but my curiosity got the better of me. Another friend, Terrie, warned me about it saying, “If you try that, you might get a flashback later and you won’t know when that’ll happen. It could be at the worst possible time.” She was trying to appeal to my need for sustained control, but I was thinking something more aligned with being thrifty, “If I take this now, it’s like an investment in the future! I’ll have another trip without spending any money.” There I was on the concrete sidewalk at the corner of Main and First Street waiting for the scene to pass at the bank of strange investments. I don’t know if I have a bad heart, a bad past or an inner ear infection, but for me, being helpless, was the worst fate.
to be continued.
