Chapter 3 (continued)
On Saturday morning, Eddie arrived at David�s apartment behind the Camphor-Christian home. It was a warm September day, and David was wearing denim shorts and a UGA t-shirt. He carried a 35 mm camera.
�How long does it take to kick in?� David asked, as Eddie showed him the powdered psilocybin capsules.
�You really won�t feel anything for an hour or so. I told Bill we�d pick him up and let him drive us to the beach.�
�We can take the Thunderbird, if you want.�
They drove to Landry�s, where Bill continued working on Albion. �He spends the night in Landry�s basement, working half the night so he can get Albion�s Voice out next week,� Eddie explained. �He sleeps on a cot.�
After David and Eddie took the psilicibon, the three drove to the beach. Bill talked about the articles that would be in the first issue of Albion. �We refer to the paper mill as �onion bag�,� Bill said. He went on to list the prime enemies of the people: industrial polluters, the oil companies, supporters of the war in Vietnam, and especially Richard Nixon.
�Do you really think Albion will change anyone�s mind?� David asked.
I just want our side in print,� Bill replied.
Fine. But don�t you think we�d help the cause by persuading people, rather than angering everyone?�
�We�ll do both. I want to motivate people who shouldn�t tolerate all this Fascist shit.�
David dropped the argument. Bill was too extreme to motivate anyone, David decided. Savannians would label Bill a communist when they read his paper. Worse, no one would take any of the articles seriously. David still admired Bill for the courage and tenacity of publishing what would be such an unpopular paper.
As the long stretches of marsh beyond Bull River drifted by, David began to sense an altered reality. The curves of the tidal creeks, the expanse of green marsh over which a white egret took flight, the blue sky filling with cirrus clouds -- all looked composed. It was as if David were watching a dynamic painting rearranging itself. He could not determine whether his perspective was the effect of the drug or just the heightened awareness of expecting some effect.
David realized he was no longer listening to Bill or Eddie, though they were carrying on a conversation. �I couldn�t believe it when Langston wouldn�t give me the part,� Eddie was saying. �I know Susan must have said something negative to him. And I can�t figure out why she didn�t want me in the play.�
�It would have been distracting,� David offered. �She can concentrate on her own role better if she doesn�t have you constantly courting her.�
This was a bit harsher than David had intended.
�I�ll bet Charlotte wouldn�t have minded having you in the play,� Eddie retorted.
�If she saw me act, she would,� David replied. The idea of performing before an audience was terrifying. He would never have been able to remember lines.
�Just give Susan room to breathe, Eddie,� Bill suggested. �I�m sure she likes you. She talks about you all the time.�
When they arrived at the beach, Bill dropped David and Eddie off at the south end. There were less people there, especially in September. �I�m going to the new library branch here. I�ll come back in a couple of hours to see how you�re doing.�
�We�ll just walk along the beach,� Eddie said. �I doubt if we�ll swim, though we may try wading a little bit.�
As Bill drove off, Eddie asked David if he felt anything. �Yeah. Everything we say seems to have several meanings,� David laughed. He was unsure if what he said was funny.
�It ought to be coming on now,� Eddie suggested. He was already seeing vivid colors that began to overlap their objects. The gold of the sea oats extended into the blue of the sky.
They walked over the dunes and out to the long strand of beach that stretched at low tide all the way from Tybee to neighboring Pelican Island. There was not a single person there. A handful of seagulls were wheeling, crying out, and leaving trails in their vision. �I think I need to sit down,� David said.
�Remember, the hallucinations aren�t real,� Eddie spoke, gently. �Just enjoy all the effects.�
�Yeah, everything is really beautiful,� David replied, being brave. The visual blending of time and space was fascinating, but he felt fear physically in his abdomen. He focused on Timothy Leary�s advice to �let go� and experience the visions and feelings with a sense of adventure. �If I fight it, I�ll have a horrible trip,� David told himself.
He turned to Eddie, who looked all of a sudden as if he were carved out of wood like Pinocchio. �I think what we are seeing is real,� David said. �We�re experiencing what we�ve been trained not to. This is reality without preconceptions.�
David�s philosophy bored Eddie. He shook his head as if in agreement. But what he wanted was to enjoy the drug without thinking at all. He lay back in the sand and let his mind absorb the clouds gathering overhead. The cirrus clouds multiplied into vast, overlapping patterns, moving in layers from the sky down to just above his head, just out of reach. Eddie lifted his hand in the air as if to ripple the clouds like the water of a pond. He watched in amazement as his arm seemed to extend off into space.
David crawled into the sea oats. They were animated. He knew, intellectually, that the sea breezes were making them move. What he saw, however, were dancing sea oats; each stalk had a life of its own. The oats were swaying as if in joy in the sun and sea air. David understood, for the first time, the theory that everything has consciousness.
Both men floated in this euphoria for over an hour, though they had no consciousness of the passage of time. David managed to crawl back to Eddie�s side and almost dozed off. It was as if he were lying on a float in a pool, being rocked by the lapping water. Then, his attention turned to Eddie, who had removed his shirt and was soaking up the September sunshine. �We need to be careful not to get burned,� he said to Eddie. The idea made them both laugh. David stared at Eddie�s chest. He noticed dark moles, the hairs around Eddie�s broad nipples, the dark hair in the center, above his sternum. He wanted to stroke that hair but knew it would spoil the harmony they were sharing.
Eddie felt his friend�s desire, but he also felt the presence of other people. He had seen in the corner of his eye a couple strolling along the beach to their left. When he turned his head, the couple dissolved into sandpipers running along the water�s edge. �We should walk in the water,� he suggested, rising to avoid having David touch him.
David followed him to the water. They waded in the shallow waves, carrying their shirts, tennis shoes, and David�s camera. Eddie towered over David and occasionally placed his hand on David�s back. For David it was an electric feeling that sent a shock down his spine to the cool water around his feet. Other people appeared, but low tide provided such a wide beach that they looked like ants in a Salvador Dali painting.
Eddie had brought a small paper bag with apples and other snacks. �Hungry?� he asked David.
�Sure.� David bit into the apple. The crunching and rush of juicy sweetness were intense. The skin of the apple slashed his gum, and for a second, David thought his teeth were coming loose. Chewing was equally strange. Eddie must be experiencing something weird as well, for he had a look of surprise on his face. He looked red and beady-eyed. Both men laughed at each other.
�It�s incredible the things we take for granted,� David managed to say. �Eating is so bizarre when you stop and really experience it.� �You should take a picture,� Eddie suggested.
�Of what?� David asked, looking around at the surging sea, the stretch of beach, and the accumulating clouds over the ocean.
�Of us. Of the apples,� Eddie said.
�O.K.� David put the camera on the beach. He lined Eddie up in the viewer, then went to stand beside him. He had pressed the timer, which gave them 30 seconds.
Eddie held up the half-eaten core of his apple. �Friends to the core,� he said.
David laughed and held up his own core. The camera clicked. �It�s more like the forbidden apple,� David remarked, tossing the core into the waves.
Bill had parked in the public lot near the boardwalk and easily found them, still wading in the water. In fact, they had sat in the shallow waves and were digging in the mud like babies. �I think it�s time to take you children home,� he said, as he walked up to the water�s edge. He could see that they were beyond reason. Bill picked up shoes, shirts, and cameras lumped together on the beach. Eddie and David slowly arose and followed wherever Bill told them to go. David had the sensation of bouncing in and out of reality as he walked. His body flashed in and out of awareness as his eyes and mind floated along. He imagined himself as a helium balloon being pulled along by Bill.
On the drive back to town, David thought about death. He stared at his hands, which appeared to be aging. �Isn�t it incredible,� he said, �that all the cells in our body can die but we stay alive. Perhaps all the souls of the world are God�s cells. We die but God lives on.�
�There is no God,� Bill declared.
�Sure there is,� Eddie piped in. �God is the collective spirit of all of us, not some granddaddy in the sky.�
�Let�s go to Bonaventure,� David exclaimed. �I want to visit my grandmother�s grave.�
�We can go for a few minutes,� Bill replied, �but I need to get back to Albion. I still have a lot to do to get it ready for next week�s press.�
Finding Sybil�s grave was not easy. Bonaventure had two entrances, one marked by a cross, the other by the Star of David.
�When Grandma died, they gave her a Jewish burial,� David told his friends. �That was the only way she could be buried next to Herman.�
�She was a Christian?� Bill asked.
�Yeah. I was really pissed. They spoke Hebrew at the funeral. And when we had a memorial service for her at St. John�s, my aunt and cousins didn�t even attend.�
�I don�t think Jews can attend Christian services,� Eddie speculated.
�Couldn�t or wouldn�t. Skip and I went to our cousin Mo�s Bar Mitzvah. And I went to Ruth�s wedding. It just seemed so disrespectful to our grandmother to act as if she were Jewish, when she wasn�t.�
�The whole rigmarole of religious ceremony is absurd,� Bill remarked. �Religion breeds nothing but hate and war.�
David was too stoned to have a political or theological discussion. He felt God. The world outside the car was a sphere, psychical and spiritual, and David felt it. His awareness was curved, and God was the unifying force that held the curve together. �I am a cell of God,� David whispered, again thinking of organisms. Eddie turned around from the front seat. �We all are,� Eddie whispered back. �God is in our cells, too.� He reached back and touched David�s hand with his own. For both it was as if they connected physically and flowed into one another.
�Does it matter which gate I drive through?� Bill asked on reaching Bonaventure Cemetery.
�Not at all. They both go to exactly the same place. It�s all symbolic. Jews and Christians think of the cemetery as two different places, depending on which gate you enter.�
�What if you enter one and leave by the other?� Bill asked.
�Let�s do it,� Eddie exclaimed.
Finding Sybil was not easy. �I know you can see Wilmington River from her site,� David said. They drove down several oak-lined paths. Heavy, silver moss made the paths like tunnels. The huge gravestones announced Habersham, Duffy, Low, and Miller with no apparent order. Still stoned, Eddie and David felt the presence of ghosts hovering over the markers. The sky had become dark, and David imagined a fierce storm and all the graves opening to reveal the blessed and the damned. The latter, David felt, were lurking in the shadows and hanging from the trees in the moss.
At last they found them -- Herman and Sybil Jackson, buried under modest marble stones. David pictured her once again in the garage apartment making him coffee and toast. He saw her hand smearing butter across the toast with a silver butter knife. Her wrinkled hand, with long red fingernails, reached to touch his face. �She still exists,� David said. �She knows we are here, I�m certain of it.�
Eddie and Bill stood silent. The only sound was the steady pulse of crickets. Drops of rain began to fall like tears from the dark sky. Water burned the corners of David�s eyes. �Let�s go,� he said.
Bill drove the Thunderbird back to David�s apartment on Oglethorpe. �I�ll walk to Dr. Landry�s, it�s not far. Actually, I want to walk,� he said to them. �That visit to your grandmother�s grave was heavy.�
David and Eddie hugged Bill goodbye, then entered the courtyard. It was late afternoon, and the rain had stopped though the sky was still overcast. �I�m going to meet Susan at her place around 6,� Eddie said. �Maybe the four of us can go to supper later.�
�I think Charlotte already has plans with her family,� David replied. �Besides, I�m exhausted. I just want to be alone, take a nap, and maybe a hot bath.� David was beginning to feel poisoned, as if some metallic and enervating substance were flowing in his veins. �I think I�m crashing.�
David wanted Eddie to stay with him, but could think of nothing to keep him there. "I'll see you in a day or two, then."
Eddie looked at his friend, forlorn in the empty courtyard. He must give David some comfort before going to see Susan. He overflowed with good will. He felt pity and empathy. "Come here, then," he offered, taking David in his arms. They kissed.
David felt he was passing through a tunnel to Eddie's soul. Their mouths fused and their tongues merged. Both felt they were soaring through inner space, bodies dissolved. The kiss fulfilled them both. They hugged a long time, each in his own way happy with the other. Eddie felt at one with David, almost the opposite of the night they had had sex.
�Saturday night,� Landry said to himself, �and I�m home grading papers.� He was reading a rather clever essay Charlotte had written on Yeats� use of the rose as a metaphor for short-lived beauty. He would give her an �A� even though she was only auditing his course. He admired the fact that she attended his lectures voluntarily and still managed to work and rehearse for the play.
As Landry finished her essay and wondered whether to go out, he heard a knock on the glass of the front door. He peeked through the curtain of the study window and saw that it was David. He was thrilled, yet didn�t approve of people showing up, repeatedly, unannounced. He had to put a stop to it.
�David,� Landry said, pausing at the door. �I�m in the middle of grading papers.�
Sorry,� David said sheepishly. �I was taking a meditative walk and decided to stop by. You don�t want me to come in?�
�You should call, first,� Landry lectured.
�I�ll come back another time.� David turned to walk away.
�You could wait for me in the living room,� Landry relented. �Do you mind sitting for a half-hour or so? I should be finished by then.�
David hesitated. Perhaps he should just go home. A wave of nausea gripped him, and Landry�s unfriendly manner had been odd.
Landry opened the door wide to let him in. David did as Landry gestured. He ambled into the living room and sorted through the magazines on the glass table beside the French Sofa. Landry returned to the study.
The green living room looked as elegant as ever. David studied the paintings and prints again. He sat on the sofa and flipped through The New Republic. There was an article on Hair. David kicked off his shoes and curled up on the sofa. He was asleep in minutes.
�David!� Landry said. David opened his eyes. �Are you O.K.?�
�Yeah. Just dozed off. What time is it?� David slurred.
�Almost 11. Have you been drinking?� It was an hour later and Landry had finished with the papers.
�I had psilocybin this morning,� David confessed. �With Eddie. I just came down.�
�What happened to Eddie?�
�He�s with Susan, somewhere. Have you ever tripped?�
�Once, on L.S.D.�
�What was it like?�
�Confusing,� Landry answered. �Colorful, stimulating, and ultimately, confusing. I couldn�t clear my head for several days after.�
�I took a bath and I felt like I was dissolving,� David said. �My skin was like a transparent membrane.� I saw myself as a liquid, separated by skin from bathwater. Weird.�
�I can see you�ve had a rough day.� Landry�s heart was dissolving as he sat next to David and listened to the details of his trip. �He�s a hopeless hypochondriac,� Landry thought.
�Didn�t you think tripping was mystical?� David asked. �Like Coleridge on opium?�
�That�s what I expected. But I was disappointed. Actually, I�ve taken opium.�
�What�s it like?� David was impressed.
�I only had it once. I smoked it in a water pipe when I lived in New Orleans. At first it was visionary and exciting. Later it became nightmarish and I felt increasingly paranoid and claustrophobic. I fled back to my apartment and lay in terror for hours.�
Landry led David back to the study and put on an Eric Satie record. David sat on the striped settee next to Fergus. As he stroked the cat�s long Burmese fur, he relaxed. Landry sat in the wing chair, and they talked quietly of poets and drugs, or just listened to the piano music.
�Do you want to go out?� Landry asked.
�Where, Pinkies?�
�We could look in at the Office Lounge. It�s quieter there.�
�Never been there.� David had passed the entrance on Liberty Street but had never gone in. �Sure. That sounds fine.�
The bar was nearly empty and the two spent an hour there, David sipping his regular bourbon and ginger, Landry drinking scotch. Then they returned to Gaston Street. �Let�s walk in the park,� David suggested, not wanting to go inside again. �It�s such a gorgeous night.�
Forsythe Park was cool and dark. There were only dim, old-fashioned lights made to look like gas lights. The only well-lit place was the fountain, glowing under white spotlights. Neither thought of the safely of walking there late at night.
�How�s your job at Carnegie?� Landry asked.
�Getting interesting. There�s a fight brewing over the collection of black authors. The Main Library wants it and the Carnegie librarians are furious."
�They want to move the collection? Why?�
�Oh, it�s very prestigious. And it would diminish the influence of Carnegie Library. It�s all political.�
They reached the fountain and sat on a bench.
�What are you going to do? Or can you do anything?�
�I�m working on it. I�m really for Carnegie. The collection should stay where it is.�
Landry spoke softly. His words of support were a caress to David�s ego. His interest, his undivided attention, was soothing. David knew Landry was seducing him.
�How are things between you and Eddie?�
�Fine.� David remembered the long kiss, open mouth to mouth. He felt a ripple of euphoria. �Eddie has been wonderful, lately.�
�And he�s still seeing Susan?�
�Yes.�
Landry had a way of leading one logically to unpleasant conclusions without completely saying the syllogism himself. David recognized the image Landry had of him, a fool for unrequited love.
Landry was intoxicated, both with alcohol and David. The image he held of a fool was himself.
�Do you think you will ever care for anyone else the way you do now for Eddie?� Landry asked.
�Never,� David said.
