LSD, a Butchers Knife, and a paranoid druggy twice my size.... a night of debauchery on 4/20/01

So, my story starts 18 years ago and during a dark time in my life and was a person I am far removed from today. I was living in the basement of my parents and had just graduated from Roy High School about a year ago at this time. I was working at Sandridge Jr. High as a master of the custodial arts and just dropped out of college. At this point in life I was spending as much my time trying to maintain a certain level of "awareness" and by that, I mean I was trying to stay as stoned as possible, as often as possible. At the time I was a big advocate of smoking marijuana. Smoking encompassed my life and it’s about all I did every day. It was one of the few things I really cared about at the time because it helped to soften the blow of how horrible I felt about myself.

To help illustrate my point I would like to remind you the date was 04/20/2001. April 20th is considered the stoner national holiday due to the rumor that it was the chemical composition discovered in marijuana during the 90's. This “420” happened to arrive Friday and this fateful Friday my normal dealer happened to also have some LSD for sale. I decided to do something special because, and I quote myself, “I want to get REALLY HIGH". I had saved my money this month for this weekend, not only was it a 4/20 but my friend A.J. and I were going to go get tickets to a WWE “Rassling” house show (non-televised) in the morning.

I had just gotten off work and headed over at A.J.'s apartment. As soon as I got there, I called my dealer and placed an order for 10 “hits” of “Spiderman” (each dosage had Spiderman's face on it) and a half ounce of the “sticky icky” which was promptly delivered in a half hour. Note as we continue this story, that a normal human being typically only needs one dose of LSD in order to get high and hallucinate. Additional hits will vary the level of intensity or insanity his/her mind will conjure up.

With the arrival of the night’s festivities secured and with no time to waste, I promptly gobbled down the half of the LSD I ordered for myself in order to save the other half for later. My friend A.J.  would follow my lead which would prove to be detrimental and dangerous. Once consumed, I suddenly realized that I had not gotten the much-needed enhancer of LSD, vitamin C which helps sustain the high for a longer time and helping the body better deal with the poison running through it. Now folks this would be a close one as the initial high of LSD is extremely intense and will make it almost impossible for you to interact with other human beings on even a remotely coherent basis.

Now this first wave normally takes hold of you between half an hour give or take fifteen minutes. This timeframe was my predicament because I wanted to walk to Harmons (a local grocery store about 20-25 minutes away by foot from where I was). I had to make the right choice here because I could sacrifice oranges this one time which I would have probably not even have noticed or go get them and possibly end up in the detox ward of an insane asylum. Well I ended up deciding that we needed to take a walk.

We made it to Harmons safely and before the LSD kicked in, but we were not able to make it out in time. I am a picky man who will only hand pick my own fruit and it would be during this time when the chemicals hit me like a bullet to the brain. One minute I was totally sober and the next, SHAZAM! I had gone completely gonzo, out of my mind, twisted, laughing hysterically and barley able to converse with the cashier and give her the required money needed to leave the store without hassle or arrest. Luckily, we made it out without any issues other than looking like a fool when checking out. It was at this time I decided it was safe to consume the remaining LSD as we walked back to my place.

At this point in the evening we were cutting through neighborhoods to get back to “home base” through a maze of suburbia and enveloping darkness. It would be shortly into our walk when suddenly an officer of the law stopped us dead in our tracks. This was not just any officer of the law; he just happened to be the father of a child that I had taken care of in the daycare my high school. This was the same man who once told me: "My son looks up to you so if I ever catch you doing something to disappoint him, I will kick your *** hard before I throw you in jail." 

These words ran through my mind as he spent the next minute looking us over. Me with a sack of oranges in one hand with a large jug of orange juice in the other and to Officer Garcia, this only made me look like I was battling a cold. A.J. on the other hand was smoking a cigarette while his hand trembling violently in fear at the very thought of returning to jail. We both had eyes as wide as flying saucers and the words from the mouth of this fine officer would have me questioning if this was really happening or just a bad hallucination. Very cavalierly he would go on to ask us: "Have you seen a kid who just escaped our custody wearing a baseball cap in handcuffs?" I was dumbfounded at his question and it took my mind a minute to put all of what was said to me into the proper order as it came into my mind a jumbled mess. My mind was also betraying me as I had to fight off the urge to laugh hysterically until my kidneys hurt but this was no time to give away our delicate mindset with insane laughter. We were on our way after being able to mutter some words in order to indicate that we hadn’t seen anyone.

On the way back to my house we had cut through the play yard at Lakeview elementary school. The eerie orange-yellow lights on the buildings casted shadows of the fencing that caused great confusion from our drug addled minds. We couldn’t seem to find the exit no matter how hard we tried and even though we had walked through here thousands of times. What I didn’t know at the time was that in his mind, A.J. was back in jail and this caused a great panic that I had never seen in him. He had horrible memories that haunted him from his time at a young age in the Utah State Prison for an attempted bank robbery.

A.J. decided that he had enough of this night and wanted to go back to his girlfriend’s apartment. I of course tried talking him into staying with me at my parents and enjoying our night, but he would have none of this. We were in my room when I received a phone call from a friend. I just could not comprehend what she was trying to tell me, and she was yelling some strange gibberish to me. While throwing my phone against the wall in fear, he was able to escape my house and get to the end of the street. I caught up with him at the end of 4800 s. and attempted to argue with him over the logic of staying, but we had to pause for every car that drove past. This is because the lights on each vehicle would trail like magic and our minds became moths to the flame. There was no resisting this sorcery. After quite some time in this debating each other, it was decided to go back to his girlfriends after collecting supplies back at my house.

Once there, we sat down to watch South Park on VHS while listening to the Pink Floyd album, "Dark side of the moon". I figured this combination of animated violence and obscenity mixed with the trippy nature of the album would calm him. This did not. While I sat in one seat tripping out on his girlfriend’s fountain, he was next to me clinging onto the arms of his chair for dear life.

Right as the album ended, he bolted for the kitchen rummaging through drawers while I was still busy in “la la land” because the fountain was cascading its light and water reflection on the apartment walls. After the spell of the fountain was broken, I got up to see where A.J. went as I felt like I hadn’t seen him in quite some time. It was at that moment he came bulldozing in the living room waving around the biggest butchers' knife that I had ever seen. Being twice my size and high to boot, he had not hesitated in picking me up and slamming me up against the wall with the knife to my throat. What came out of his mouth showed me that the drug had fully taken control of his mind and was doing all the talking.

"You’re ******* snitching for the police aren’t you Brad!!!"

Note that I had learned how to consume and control LSD via my father and one important aspect of the drug he taught me was that you not only have to have full control of the drug or else it would end up controlling you. Also, you must never show fear when someone is having a “Bad trip” and you need to help calm their mind. So, with that knowledge I would go on to look him dead in his eyes and challenge his accusation.  

“No, you dumb ****! We grew up together man! You've known me since we were kids, when would I have ever had the time or motivation to become a snitch to the pigs?! Come on man put the knife down!”

I was standing my ground and talking to his "rational" side in hopes it would wake up. This is what I had to do for the better part of an hour until he calmed down enough to put the knife away. He would then admit that he had lied to me about his prior use of LSD and that this was his first-time doing LSD and he was having a hard time coping with taking so much at once. He would then break down crying while admitting I was his best friend and one of the only friends he had ever had.

I would spend the remaining night helping to keep him calm and in control so from that moment on, we had a wonderful night of tripping out and talking about memories we had until the sun started rising. We headed to a Smith’s grocery store in Sunset to get our tickets to the even while still plenty high. It was surreal and trippy seeing all the "rasslin" fans in their own element, connected as sub-culture while us two good ol' boys expanded our minds by screaming random things to people we will never see again.

While I reminisce of the past, I can’t help but to stress that I was in a situation that could have ended very badly and by badly, I mean I could have died that night a gruesome death. I was very blessed that night to have been able to keep a cool head and defuse A.J.’s bad trip. I was obviously being watched over by what must have been (very exhausted) angels of our Heavenly Father. It is insane to think of how much my life has changed; how much I have changed in all these years since. Honestly, I get melancholy for my past life and lifestyle, but this is not a time in my life I would want to pick back up and start living again because I am so much better off.

 

I would rather take my memories of the past and use them as steps to progress and move up in my life as a more intelligent and wise man that is learning his way to Heaven. I am thankful to still be live so I can grow into the person I was meant to be.

(From left to right) Cooper, myself, A.J. at the wrestling event we bought tickets for that morning.