"Hey, where do I know you from?"
"I dunno. Uhm, you probably know my twin... Dina?"
That was it. I did know Dina - I'd met her briefly in Victoria before our journey had begun. The girl curled up in her jacket, shielded from the wealth of passers-by with her sign (entailing how BROKE and HUNGRY she was, obviously), was Squanch. How I recognized her, I'd never know - seeing her and her sister side-by-side six months in the future would prove that they didn't really look that similar.
Either way, this awkward introduction was enough to spur the beginning of a very interesting relationship. The ensuing conversation revealed that she, too, was interested in delving into the world of psychedelics. She left her hobo partner and joined our crew, adding her subtle, self-conscious voice to the music (noise?) of me and Fern's belligerence, the contemplative ring of Scrib's thought-provoking words, and the excitement of our new friend Hades.
There were five of us now, and we began making our way to the ferry terminal. We'd unanimously agreed to spend the duration of our acid trip on Toronto Island (a laughably named, man-made chunk of dirt that I'd never known to exist before.)
The ferry ride introduced us to another soon-to-be member of our psychedelic journey - Kevin. Kevin was a friend of Hades, and quickly proved himself to be more manly than any of us: he chomped back two of the ghost peppers I'd been smuggling around without so much as shedding (too many) tears. The mere smell of the bag was enough to make most people cry.
Kevin was a thick, put-forward fellow from Barrie, Ontario. His voice was laced with the residual sound of an adolescence cloaked in anger, but it seemed that he was now stepping away from the merciless, soul-crushing grip of gangsterhood. He wore a smile now, but it seemed to mask a childhood of difficult years.
His ability to rectify aggressive situations would come in extremely beneficial later in the evening - but we couldn't have guessed that. For now, our zealous chattering promised a colourful night filled with laughter and philosophy; there was nothing to foreshadow the psychotic and painful spiral that our acid-fueled night would offer. At the time, though, our hopes were high. We watched the eye of the island grow larger with every moment, unprepared for the heinous events that would forever tarnish my memories of Toronto Island.
Monday 16 December 2013
Tuesday 3 December 2013
Shitstorm
Scrib's morning jumpstarted into a confused shitstorm - quite literally. Clenching his buttcheeks, he vaulted from the chair he'd been crumpled up on all night. He had no time analyze his surroundings (other than coming to a quick conclusion that he had no idea where the fuck he was) before he bounded down the staircase of what seemed to be someone's front porch. He hustled into the back yard, exerting every ounce of his haggard consciousness towards keeping these furious turds safe within his bowels. Finally, once he'd leaned up against a fencepost and dropped his trousers, fully exposed and indifferent, he dropped a violent deuce fit for kings.
Relieved, he was met with another problem. He searched the yard for anything he could use as toilet paper and his eyes landed on an old, dewy paperback a dozen feet away. With his pants dangling around his ankles (and hoping that nobody inside whoever's house this was was watching him) he crab-walked over to the book. It was damp, its pages soggy and thus perfectly absorbent, and he wiped with glee before leaving his steaming pile and returning to the porch.
By that time, me and Fernweh had concluded that Aidan had most likely gotten ahold of one of his friends and organized a crash party for us on their front porch. Unfortunately, we had no recollection of who that might be, and Scrib had just shat upon their property, so we decided we ought to leave. The sun, looming overhead, promised an inviting day.
Little did we know how wrong the sun can be.
Since Scrib was trying to dodge the cops, and we'd grown tired of Queen street, we decided we'd bring our obnoxiously polite selves down to King street. We dove into our usual pastime of screaming and bellowing good wishes to passersby from across the street (or yelling pleasant greetings into their faces from mere feet away) earning us many awkward smiles, a few startled jumps and the odd returned greeting. Today, however, something different happened.
Today, our obnoxious pleasantries were received quite well by a young brown man named Hades. In response to our bloodcurdling shrieks of "HI!" and "HELLO!" and "HAVE A GOOD DAY!" he managed to squeeze in a few words. Those words, being: "Hey, guys. Wanna do some acid?"
Relieved, he was met with another problem. He searched the yard for anything he could use as toilet paper and his eyes landed on an old, dewy paperback a dozen feet away. With his pants dangling around his ankles (and hoping that nobody inside whoever's house this was was watching him) he crab-walked over to the book. It was damp, its pages soggy and thus perfectly absorbent, and he wiped with glee before leaving his steaming pile and returning to the porch.
By that time, me and Fernweh had concluded that Aidan had most likely gotten ahold of one of his friends and organized a crash party for us on their front porch. Unfortunately, we had no recollection of who that might be, and Scrib had just shat upon their property, so we decided we ought to leave. The sun, looming overhead, promised an inviting day.
Little did we know how wrong the sun can be.
Since Scrib was trying to dodge the cops, and we'd grown tired of Queen street, we decided we'd bring our obnoxiously polite selves down to King street. We dove into our usual pastime of screaming and bellowing good wishes to passersby from across the street (or yelling pleasant greetings into their faces from mere feet away) earning us many awkward smiles, a few startled jumps and the odd returned greeting. Today, however, something different happened.
Today, our obnoxious pleasantries were received quite well by a young brown man named Hades. In response to our bloodcurdling shrieks of "HI!" and "HELLO!" and "HAVE A GOOD DAY!" he managed to squeeze in a few words. Those words, being: "Hey, guys. Wanna do some acid?"
Monday 2 December 2013
Throne of Trash
Whether it was the drugs, the perfect form-fitting nature of our environment, or the quality of Toronto's garbage, we couldn't tell. What we could tell, was that we were far more comfortable we'd been since the journey started (except maybe for sprawling out on Carla's double bed back in Calgary.)
On second thought - this was way better.
"Right?" Scrib was in full agreement, and we both leaned back against our garbage bag thrones. We listened to the beating of the wind against the dumpster's steel casing and flashed a condescending grin towards nature. Dumpsters had saved us from the elements again.
Smoking drugs outside had proved difficult. Smoking drugs in here had proved excellent. Once we'd finished the first bowl of our jib, we fell into the most intense and hyper-motivated bro-talk I'd experienced since the days of being an e-tard in high school. We evaluated our entire friendship from the moment we'd accidentally laid eyes on each other at a party years ago; we pin-pointed our positive memories and repented in regard to negative ones; we analyzed and contemplated the reasons we were friends and why we were going to stay that way. We picked apart our contrasting personalities; Scrib's anger and my lax amiability made for an interesting balance - our shared desire in linguistics and freestyle poetry was a fantastic bond, and the fact that we were both introverts stuck trying to thrive in an extrovert's world held us together.
Apparently, however, reliving an entire friendship while smoking meth in a dumpster disorients you. (That's a sentence everyone should be able to say at least once in their lifetime... right?) The next time we checked our clocks and the bag of drugs, we realized that we'd been sitting in our trash castle for almost 45 minutes. 45 minutes that Fernweh had been left waiting in the blustering wind a block away, while we were inadvertently smoking his portion of the drugs. Fuck. There was too much dopamine battering our brains for us to remember how to feel sympathy, but we knew it was time to go back.
We vaulted out of the dumpster and hustled back to Fernweh and our new photographer friend, Aidan (who none of us really seem to remember, save for our lingering Facebook relationship that had sprung up and confused us the next morning.) He remembered us, though.
While me and Scrib had been elatedly experiencing the highest point of our relationship, Aidan and Fernweh had been stranded in the windstorm, their hair slapping their faces and their arms huddled up under their jackets, oblivious to our whereabouts. We tried to buy their acceptance. We didn't say sorry, but we offered the next best thing: food. Before we'd jumped out of the dumpster, we'd ripped open one of the bags and scored ourselves an apology gift - two boxes of KD, an unopened package of microwave popcorn, 2 cans of tuna, and a box of crackers - all prior to expiry. Great!
We'd expected rage, but what we received was worse: disappointment. We passed Fernweh the rest of the drugs and he trudged off into a corner to smoke them by himself. Me and Scrib's buzz hit the ground as guilt wrapped its hands around the euphoria we'd been unjustly experiencing. We watched Fernweh flick his lighter dejectedly while the wind kept beating the flame out, occasionally managing to blow out a meager puff of smoke.
He finished blazing the meth and stood up to walk back towards us. I guess he'd managed to get some decent hoots, because that was where everyone blacked out.
On second thought - this was way better.
"Right?" Scrib was in full agreement, and we both leaned back against our garbage bag thrones. We listened to the beating of the wind against the dumpster's steel casing and flashed a condescending grin towards nature. Dumpsters had saved us from the elements again.
Smoking drugs outside had proved difficult. Smoking drugs in here had proved excellent. Once we'd finished the first bowl of our jib, we fell into the most intense and hyper-motivated bro-talk I'd experienced since the days of being an e-tard in high school. We evaluated our entire friendship from the moment we'd accidentally laid eyes on each other at a party years ago; we pin-pointed our positive memories and repented in regard to negative ones; we analyzed and contemplated the reasons we were friends and why we were going to stay that way. We picked apart our contrasting personalities; Scrib's anger and my lax amiability made for an interesting balance - our shared desire in linguistics and freestyle poetry was a fantastic bond, and the fact that we were both introverts stuck trying to thrive in an extrovert's world held us together.
Apparently, however, reliving an entire friendship while smoking meth in a dumpster disorients you. (That's a sentence everyone should be able to say at least once in their lifetime... right?) The next time we checked our clocks and the bag of drugs, we realized that we'd been sitting in our trash castle for almost 45 minutes. 45 minutes that Fernweh had been left waiting in the blustering wind a block away, while we were inadvertently smoking his portion of the drugs. Fuck. There was too much dopamine battering our brains for us to remember how to feel sympathy, but we knew it was time to go back.
We vaulted out of the dumpster and hustled back to Fernweh and our new photographer friend, Aidan (who none of us really seem to remember, save for our lingering Facebook relationship that had sprung up and confused us the next morning.) He remembered us, though.
While me and Scrib had been elatedly experiencing the highest point of our relationship, Aidan and Fernweh had been stranded in the windstorm, their hair slapping their faces and their arms huddled up under their jackets, oblivious to our whereabouts. We tried to buy their acceptance. We didn't say sorry, but we offered the next best thing: food. Before we'd jumped out of the dumpster, we'd ripped open one of the bags and scored ourselves an apology gift - two boxes of KD, an unopened package of microwave popcorn, 2 cans of tuna, and a box of crackers - all prior to expiry. Great!
We'd expected rage, but what we received was worse: disappointment. We passed Fernweh the rest of the drugs and he trudged off into a corner to smoke them by himself. Me and Scrib's buzz hit the ground as guilt wrapped its hands around the euphoria we'd been unjustly experiencing. We watched Fernweh flick his lighter dejectedly while the wind kept beating the flame out, occasionally managing to blow out a meager puff of smoke.
He finished blazing the meth and stood up to walk back towards us. I guess he'd managed to get some decent hoots, because that was where everyone blacked out.
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