Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
He called the idea original, or, as he put it afterwards, he invented it.
No
body he heard of
had yet hit acid with a spike. Now there was the space shot he'd been looking for. Besides, what
could it do to you, take you out six dimensions on a bumpy ride? So? What's wrong with that?
So Jimmy hit some acid by himself, like a test pilot, kind of. Heavy Greg worked the record
player, because once you hit acid, you can't really control the volume and wouldn't be able to
tell if it was way up or whisper quiet or if you got it right, really, and if you missed the groove,
you'd already be in the heavy Gs, where you could spend a day and night staring at the grooves
in search of the lost one. So it was best that he had heavy Greg there to work the controls.
Jimmy loved all his music as a parent might love all his children, each for its unique char-
acter and lovable quirk. He picked Led Zeppelin to shoot acid to,
You Need Love
; it seemed
so perfect, and heavy Greg did not blow the mechanicals but got the needle into the groove
at exactly the right spot with no scratches and optimal hiss. Jimmy pressed the plunger and
slumped into the floor, leaning against the wall, staring and twitching.
Greg tweaked the treble and bass so the tone was perfect, then he untied Jimmy and
laughed, “What's it like, man?”
Jimmy's mouth went all floppy, and he laughed too, kind of, and made some noises but
couldn't talk too well, which everyone thought was similar to Houston Control losing contact
with Major Tom. Then Jimmy nodded. He stared at the record player and said, “It's off.”
Greg said, “It sounds of. That's all. You're accelerating, man. You're breaking out of subor-
bital. It's not off. Get all the way, man. It's on. It's right on . . . man.”
We hung out for a while watching Jimmy get all the way, but then we started getting off
too, maybe forty-five minutes later, because we'd only swallowed our acid. Then we drifted
apart to roam the Universe. Some of us may still be out there. I think Jimmy might be. A few
days later he had Heavy Greg convinced that it was a stoned gas and then some, and maybe,
just maybe, anybody who didn't try it would never know, never
experience
, which would not
do, which is what happened to our parents, and look how they ended up. So they bantered
further, working together to get Heavy Greg pumped up to try it. Greg was game, already feel-
ing a little bit second fiddle, with Jimmy telling everyone how it was, and he, Heavy Greg,
grinning and nodding like a bump on a log while Jimmy debriefed on his journey to where no
human had ever been and returned from: the outer galaxy. “It's like, man, you're just sitting
there one second, and the next second, you're like . . . like . . . tripping your fucking brains in
two, man.”
What a nut. But what a dazzling character. Many called him a waste of everything. But he
wasn't. He wasted his human potential in the material productivity arena, but that was exactly
as intended, what he wanted most of all. Jimmy set out to blaze the ether. Till the day he died
and maybe beyond that, he was a warm, fun loving guy who set himself apart from most hu-
mans by making a commitment—not to drugs; they were merely his vehicle. He wanted to be
the tungsten in the light bulb. He stood out in the Heart of the Revolution by refusing to re-
