Like I said I was HOOKED!

Like I said.... I was hooked! All I could think about was how open my mind had become. I was going to open all of my friends minds also. We would all hang out at J.'s house. He was slightly younger than I but into the same things. We would all gather at his house and partake of this mind blowing thing called acid. We would listen to The Cure, The Smiths and The Doors. We would write poetry and think we had it all figured out. We would believe we were invisible or that the grass was talking to us. We would watch each others faces contort and the walls would melt. We would go into the historic district and go insane among the tourist. I had finally gotten my sense of style. I would wear a psychedelic T-shirt with plaid short, a pair of OX Blood Doc Martins and Rainbow socks. Oh yeah I was fuckin cool.

I would skip school in my senior year and go to M.'s house. He had graduated and his mom was a teacher so she was not there during school hours. I would go around to his bedroom window and knock and knock and knock. The I would say, "Hey, I have a joint!" I would hear him reply, "meet me at the door". You could hear him scuffling through the house and hear the heavy wooden door creek slowly open and here he stood in his tighty whities asking where the joint was. Then I would have to break the news I had none, it was my way of getting him out of bed. We would sit around watching MTV and finally walk the long walk to downtown. We would walk into the ghetto to go to corner store since it was the only one that would sell quarts of malt liquor to us kids of 16. We would go and drink it at the gazebo. Then the rest of the downtown rats would come and join. The cops would run us off after a while. We would move spots over to the Majik Tree. We would sit and talk and goof off. Then when the time was right we would go in search of acid.

When we had acid it was as if the world did not matter for we were creating our own. We had our own set of rules and systems. We watched out for each other. With nothing but love to save us. We would go and hang out at the local Head Shop. The owner was this really cool Dead Head. He would show us pipes bongs and pictures. The artwork on the walls was amazing.

Then one day out of the blue he got robbed. I get a phone call at my house. It was the owner telling me he knew I had robbed him. BULL SHIT! I explained that he had my name but was obviously confused on who I was. So I offered to meet him and show him that I was Henry but not the person he thought I was. So we met up for coffee at the local Head Coffee Shop and he agreed. I was not who he was thinking. He then told me he was going to see Jerry Garcia in Hampton VA. He told me that if I wanted to go he would buy my ticket and give a ride. All I had to do was sell T-shirts he had made! Let me tell you he made some bad ass shirts!

Now I had never been to a Dead Show before, so I had no idea of what to expect. When we get to Lot it was a fucking circus. I had never seen anything like it. People juggling fire sticks and playing Djembe drums. I was totally in shock! At the same time I was totally in love with it. He gave me a handful of shirts and sent me on my way. I was way too busy taking in the scene to sell these shirts. I could hear music coming from every direction. You could not get away from the sound of the Nitrous tanks filling the air. The sun fell and the owner found me wandering and said it 's time to go in. On our way in we stopped and smoked and took some acid and found a few balloons. For those of you who have never done a whip-it, it is laughing gas. Only not in the dentist office. I think I burned a few billion brain cells that night. When we arrived inside, I was trippin nuts! I watched the whole show in amazement. After the show we went and slept in the truck while the others slept in a hotel. We had to protect the merchandise. The owner said he was running to the bar and would return. When he returned it was with Tanqueray. We sat and talked and drank. We did not have tickets for the next night but stayed on lot to sell. When we found our buddy he had nothing with him. He said an officer arrested him for peddling without a license. When we studied the citation there was a court date set for Thanksgiving. We were duped.