RoboChildren Read online

  Mushrooms. Magic mushrooms. I was forced to pay 45 dollars for a pinched off eighth of psychedelic fungi. I knew I was being fucked, but I was desperate for my first truly hallucinogenic experience. Up until this point, it had only been robo. We wandered around until I got the call, their car pulled up beside us, and we got in to finish the transaction in secrecy. The driver was Cody an acquaintance of mine, and an extremely Emo motherfucker with a huge Mohawk that hung limply over his left eye, trademark of the Emos. The passenger, and the distributor of the Psilocybin mushrooms, was a fat-fuck with severe mental imbalances. Many times I witnessed him snort pasta, ranch dressing, marshmallows, and strawberry milk up his nose at the high school lunch table. Truly a whole other story itself, the misfortune of having to put up with him and his myriad mind numbing antics. A RoboChild straight out of hell – Phil.

  This kid and I were not on friendly terms, to say the least. In fact there existed a deep-seeded hatred for each other. Every chance we got we made fun of each other's style of clothing, hair, speech and thought processes. On this occasion he was stealing from me, snatching a few of the beautiful mushroom caps out of the bag that he was selling to me for an already unreasonably high price. I didn't know at the time that he was pinching off the bag, of course, but eventually he drunkenly admitted he did in fact douche me over.

  I accepted the not-quite-eighth of shrooms from the gothic fuckers. I had little more than a handful of slightly humorous conversations worth of respect for these ass holes, but I got Fat Phil's number (Fat Phil was actually his official nickname in their circle) in case I wished to purchase more of the trippy pizza toppings. I paid them, and left their presence as soon as I could.

  I recall lying on the grass, after having ingested them, and wondering how the grass was managing to blow in the wind in such a logic-defying manner. It was not swaying side to side as it normally would, but, instead, sliding up and down, growing and shrinking. I had never experienced anything like it and I was lost in it. I began questioning why I existed, why I needed to ingest a certain strand of fungus to have fun, and why I had to move out of the way for speeding vehicles. Thank god for Devon who happened to see us outside of her house. She had the common decency to remove us from the road while I pondered that last question. The trip was over before I realized it had began. Nothing unusually usual here.

  “It feels like a bucket in here. Don't move so much. We might pour out.”

  -Fat Phil

  Two more mind numbing weeks of my habitual low-dose robo craze with Daniel and Gary passed by without notice. This was my first robo-binge, before the madness really started. It was just innocent fun with a fun drug that did little more than give me a happy feeling and a few strange thoughts, it had not become anything serious.

  I had saved up enough money by the end of these two weeks to feel comfortable enough to spend on some “real drugs.” I texted my overweight nemesis and inquired about the status of his drugs-in-stock. Much like nine out of ten of all “drug dealers” I have had the “pleasure” of doing “business” with”,” he had no drugs at the time of my desperation. He then reminded me of the two boxes of Corocidin he received from me (which I'd shoplifted in the first place) in exchange for money, so I could buy my lunch the week before. He said he still had them lying around his house. Oh god, I thought, he's going to ask me if I want to trip with him. He asked me if I wanted to trip with him. I was hesitant. Apparently he was as desperate for intoxication as I was. I honestly never thought we would ever consent to be alone in the same room together. The wonders of Dex, bringing the most unlikely characters together with nothing in common besides the goal of getting more fucked up than should be humanly possible.

  I had never eaten Corocidin Cough and Cold (CCC) pills, a cough and cold medication in the form of little red candy coated pills, frequently referred to as skittles for their appearance and candy-coated taste. Although very easy to take the first couple times, the candy coated taste tends to be associated with dissociation and extreme nausea in the later CCC trips. The very thought of the candy coating makes me want to take a power drill to my temporal lobe. Four hundred eighty milligrams of Dextromethorphan are contained in the pills of one box of Corocidin, by that time my highest dose was three hundred fifty four milligrams in the form of an eight-ounce of the purple syrup – the one time I'd done that amount was a hellish squeegee to the thoughts that were condensating on my brain.

  I picked him up from his apartment and brought him back to my house where I gave him warnings of grave importance: “DO NOT LEAVE THIS HOUSE!” I remember wondering what my neighbors would think if they happened to look outside to find a child of immense proportions and a large “Emo-swoop” running about naked together. Not good. Thoughts most unacceptable. He agreed to these terms as we pulled into my garage.

  * * *

  We enter my house and within seconds he reaches into his pocket to reveal a double-sided pill container. He opens one side and pours sixteen of the skittles out and hands them over to me. He opens the other side and pours the remaining sixteen pills into his mouth. He notices me staring blankly at the massive amount of pills before me. He has completely devoured his portion of the pills and is looking at me, puzzled by my hesitation.

  “Are you sure I should eat all of these?” I ask, so full of naive and ignorant energy.

  “Yeah man, It’s a great trip, trust me.” He assures me with an understanding that I never thought possible from this sub-human fuck. He is much different outside of school and drug-transactions.

  “I don't know man....” I say, hoping he encourages me further so I will be motivated to indulge in this experience.

  “Dude, seriously, you'll be fine, I used to eat twice this much all the time! Don't be a pussy.” That's more like it.

  * * *

  I recalled a movie I had seen in which one of the main characters attempts suicide by way of overdose, “Scanner Darkly,” and the amount of pills it took to extinguish his life force was eerily close to the amount my shady friend had handed me. I felt very uneasy with this because, Phil here, did not fit into the hierarchy of my current drug world. I had been running around with Daniel and Gary with the occasional appearance of Macaroni and Julian. Within this world of mine, Daniel was the spiritual and experienced guide for all the trips, being the only one within the core group who had taken acid. And Gary was the drunkard who did anything I did. We were on the same level in the drug world. But in the drinking world, he was far more advanced.

  We operated in our strange ways with my house as the base of operations. There was always something going on at that time, but it was nothing more than a high-school party or getting fucked out of our skins on Robo or some other pharmaceutical. Our spiritual leader, Daniel, constantly reminded us what we were doing was dumb, and that our main goal was to prepare our minds for the dreaded LSD. Whenever I asked him if I was ready for such an experience, he told me no, but I was close, and then he would crank the childlike tunes of Architecture In Helsinki. I can see now he enjoyed playing the part of the leader too much and abused his power, soaking up every minute Gary and I felt he knew anything about this strange world we were “preparing” for.

  They and I were one mind, and me standing there in my kitchen preparing for a dexperience without Daniel or even Gary scared me. I was alone, perhaps worse than alone. They had lost their robo-faith, they stopped the consumption of the horrid shit and pretty much disowned me as one of their kind. I had drank too much at a party and shat myself. And I'd stolen my girlfriend back from Gary. But none of that mattered to me. I was now the last surviving Dex-head of Daniel's sect of twisted fucks. At least that’s how it played out in my mind – but nowhere in this twisted hierarchy of my imagination did Phil fit in.

  “Eh... Fuck it I guess,” I said, more to myself than to Phil, and put 5 pills in my mouth. I used off-brand Raspberry Soda to wash them down. The taste of the candy coating and the flat soda mixing together created a pleasant experience for my tas
te buds. If this works, I can report back to my true comrades I have finally found a source of the Dex-high that is actually pleasant, and perhaps they will once again allow my presence. I knew, even then, how pathetic I was.

  Five more pills down the hatch, choking on the large amount of pills trying to squeeze down my throat. Phil, the bastard, chuckled at this. NOT EVERYONE CAN BE A COLD-HEARTED DRUG ADDICT THAT CAN SWALLOW PILLS LIKE IT'S NOTHING, PHIL. I obviously had a lot to learn about the drug culture. I had only tapped into one tiny portion of the characters that make up the world's drug-population. This new personality seemed to be as rock solid and uncaring as mother nature herself. This person was the embodiment of realism himself, and it would take me years to discover just how real life could be. He cared no more for my health than he did for his own, a true sociopath, this much was apparent.

  * * *

  What Phil was thinking during the first meeting of the two most twisted RoboChildren the world has ever known: What’s this kid's deal? I mean, he claims to be a drug abuser, and tells many stories of his experiences with his gay little trendy-fuck friends. But look at him, trying to choke down five little CANDY COATED pills... With his stupidly tight pants and ridiculous Jewfro. Probably listens to the fucking Mars Volta... What a complete loser... He claims to be a Dexhead, yet has never eaten Corocidin before? What kind of a prank is he trying to pull? And what’s with this horrible music he is forcing me to listen to? Modest mother-fucking Mouse?! Are you kidding me!? If I die here today, and I hope I do, I swear to god I will forever haunt this intolerable fucker.

  “Do you like Modest Mouse?” I asked.

  “I haven't heard much of their stuff, but I don't really like his voice,” he responded with strong overtones of distaste in his voice. I put in their latest album. Fuck it. We migrated from the kitchen to the living room and sat on adjacent sofas. The situation was awkward, and there didn't seem to be hope for an interesting conversation, except for perhaps our drug experiences. It was clear he had more experience with more recreational chemicals than I was even aware of at the time. I chalked it up to his eg, and him trying to make me feel like less of a man by putting my stories to shame.

  Take for instance: looping. No amount of words in the English language will ever begin to describe this strange feeling. It’s like entering a new dimension, a dimension that consists of one thought process that must play repeatedly. Sometimes a single action or thought will replay itself for hours on end. It's not so much that someone in a loop is unaware of the repeated thought or action, but they feel the need to keep it alive by doing it over and over. Only from experience can anyone truly respect what is being described here. Phil laughed at my description of this concept, I could tell he didn't take it, me, seriously.

  I am reminded of the time Gary told me that my forehead was non-existent and I returned his compliment by making note of his third nose. Totally pointless really.

  “First I thought it was a penis then I realized you had your shoes on.”

  Our conversation started to pick up along with our heart rates. I expressed amazement at how fast the drug kicked in. Chlorpheniramine Maleate, the other active ingredient in the red pills besides the Dextromethorphan Hbr, was responsible for this. It's also responsible for the massive amount of hospitalizations and physical damage done to its users. I felt a numbness I could only compare to the few occasions on which I had gobbled up five or more Vicodin. The conversation began to gravitate toward religious issues. Phil adamantly claimed to be a member of the Christian faith, which I found astonishing. I figured he'd have been the “anti-organized religion” type. Curiouser and curiouser. We talked about who this god creature was, and what kind of implications were involved. The details are lost in the fog of time.

  * * *

  Suddenly, we're in my kitchen and I'm saying, “Do you see this painting?”

  “Yes, I do. It is very painting-y?”

  “PRECISELY! The feeling is mutual. Doesn't it scream... CONGLOMERATION?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Is that even a word? Like, to conglomerate? A piece of conglomeratory conglomeration?”

  “It reminds me of throwing a bunch of paint onto a canvas!” he said just barely grasping the extreme seriousness of the situation on hand.

  “Now, follow me on this, as it is not a new thought of mine, so it needs no further delays to construct,” I said, rambling at 20 words per minute. “What if we assigned to each chord on the guitar a specific color, then looked at each pixel of this conglomerated piece of shit and formed a beautiful song out of the dotage it will teach us!”

  “I'm not sure if it works like that,” he said, ignoring my foul disposition, “But perhaps, if we took the chemical formulas of each of the different colors of paint and used the lettering to map out an opera.”

  “BRILLIANT!”

  * * *

  In my basement, labeled Deep Purple, I asked this beast of a man if he enjoyed the wondrous sound of The Mars Volta. He quickly replied with some ass hole remark about how unimpressed he was with them. He had seen them at a System of a Down concert and beat the shit out of a Volta fan, just to prove how unimpressed he was. I scolded him and ensured him he did not know them LIKE THIS, and hit play on my iPod. In a light-speed reaction, the speed of my thoughts, the huge speakers that were strategically placed around my drum set and guitar cabinet blared with the intergalactic sounds of the introductory track 'Son Et Lumiere.' His expression seemed uninterested despite seeing me losing complete control and flailing my limbs in wild fashion to the vibrations of the song. I could feel the injections of morphine portrayed musically at the end of the song surging throughout my being in the most holy and natural way. I was now one with the acid freaks. Then the song stopped for a split second giving way to the next track to take over my mind, 'Inertiatic ESP.' I danced my dance of the robo-trip, the one where mind and body are separate entities in an untiring twist of limbs and endless hair flailage. I sometimes wish I could step outside of myself and see if this appeared as it felt. I deemed it the iPod dance. I was a fluid silhouette. I was one with the liquid that was my brain, the liquid that was the music flowing from the speakers and cascading through my senses, through my permanently detaching spinal column. I only thank god I couldn't feel any of the stress on my body after these strenuous dance sessions, or I would have surely been hospitalized from overexertion. The iPod dance.

  To my surprise, Phil was not uneasy about this dance of mine. He seemed to be coming into my world – or was I going into his? god forbid I became part of his sick mind! I would forever be labeled a pedophile freak as well. I couldn't live with that. Something must be done. Then the song changed to one with heavier distortion, distorting my sense of tranquility and harmony with the world. He enjoyed this, the dissociated anger. He bent his knees and put a leg behind him in a classic metal-head stance and began to swing his Emo-hair with wild vigor. This enthralled me. Suddenly our dances united and we were one giant spasmodic creature. I remember feeling the first hints of looping there as I thought I would never again be able to see any image other than his limp blue-dyed Mohawk flailing in circles around his dumb little head. Fuck, I hated him. Who head bangs to The Mars Volta? (But it seemed so appropriate.)

  He admitted to me it was probably the greatest music he'd ever heard. Brilliant! He is coming around. Then the dance got old and we stood facing each other laughing as two very small children would after realizing they were doing something characteristic of their age. We both became very still. Peering into each other's souls.

  .... getting lost....

  OH FUCK! I'm lost in here. Oh no, how will I ever direct this massive body of his in any direction that I deem necessary?

  Oh well... I suppose it could be worse. I could have inhabited the body of a necrophiliac with a horrible syphilis-AIDS cocktail. Does Phil have AIDS? I seem to recall something about Phil having AIDS... Oh wait, that was me thinking it only a few seconds ago... I wonder if Phil is having any be
tter luck in my body. I hope he depreciates the hair I so painstakingly grew out into a massive ball of curls and stringy strands of... DNA? Dynamic Nuclear Acid? No, that’s not right. Will I have to listen to shitty metal now that I live here? Now I'm playing this game with my body/Phil's mind where I lift our arms and place our hands in a picture frame formation around our heads, moving our hands from the sides of the frame to the top and bottom and back again. How long has this mad game been allowed to endure? Hours, I suppose. OH FUCK! Did I just unsynchronize our mind and bodies? Or was it he? Did it even happen or is Phil's body completely rejecting my thoughts like a disease or bad piercing? Does he hate me to the core of his being so adamantly his body would know it is me in his head without even being told by HIS mind? How long can this awful shit last?

  We were sitting around my kitchen table while the two of us fought over each other's bodies in the Deep Purple. We decided the dining room would be named Orange as it seemed to have the obnoxious and over-powering hint of that most annoying color. Appropriate by any measure of any measurement of anything measurable.

  Meanwhile, the two of us that had been sitting in the living room throughout this entire thing were still contemplating the deeper meanings of life. Mellow Yellow was the name affectionately given to this location of complex life analysis. I believe we were on to something in Mellow Yellow, and if it wasn't for the ignorant fucks sitting in Orange, we might have found some answers to life. The assholes in Orange decided to venture off to Blue... the WallyWhirled down the street. god damn them! I strictly warned them not to leave this house in such a condition. I don't understand. It is never a problem to keep my other robo-counterparts and myself from trying to escape into the untamed wild outside of my door. Alas, I watched helplessly as Phil and I waltzed right past me and Phil, out the front door into the burning daylight. Hope they stay out of trouble if not for my sake, then at least for MY sake.