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White Punks on Dope was an anthem I found during my sophomore year in high school by The Tubes. Up there in a prep school, I pretty well defined us all. Even this minor player in Maine, the year following my implosion and expulsion from Vahalla, was an elitist white enclave of privilege. Filled with jokes and fools, high school kids, apart from their parents are going to do some stupid shit.
“Hang myself when I get enough rope.”
There’s no other way to say it. I hastened my rush toward the mental collapse that March morning after I got of the phone with my confused father.
“You’re killing yourself, Dad.”
“You take care of yourself up there, son,” he said. “I’m doing fine.”
“No. Dad. You’re not. It’s not fine. You’re an alcoholic…”
“Okay, okay. I’m doing okay. You don’t need to be worrying about me.”
But it’s just what I was doing. Or I was attempting escape by skydiving. I closed the door on the phone booth, numb with panic and rage at the same time. I walked up a single flight of stairs in the dorm and knocked on Granger’s door, the local dealer. It was still early, before breakfast even. He was bleary-eyed and irritated. “What is it?”
“I want some speed.”
Pop. Two little blue-crossed tablets. And the fire of fear inside was ignited into a bonfire of my soul. I flew into the sun and became an overnight scholar in all classes. I argued with my English professor, who I loved, about the difference between egoism and egotism. She asked me to stay after class. “I love the enthusiasm, but…”
No. Things were not okay. No. I can’t explain it. No. I didn’t do the assignment. By lunch I was losing touch with those around me. My girlfriend bopped down next to me at lunch and I almost ran away. “What’s wrong?” She said. She grabbed my hands in hers.
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“What? I’m here. I’m trying to reach you not fuck with you.”
Nothing else went very well from there. By dinner time I had not pulled back from the comet-like arc of flames I was burning. “I can’t talk about it,” I said to Nancy. “I’m sorry. I’m just trippin.” She held my hand under the table, tears in her eyes. We were in uncharted waters. I was bobbing under. Unable to scream for help. With a willing and strong swimmer right beside me, asking to help. I started some fight and left for the dorms.
It was starting to get weird. By study hall 7 – 9 pm the hallucinations had taken away my ability to study for the History final I had the next day. I started reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slapstick and getting more of the inside jokes than I could possibly understand. I was crying and laughing at the same time. Greg, my roommate asked if I was okay. There was nothing I could explain. By midnight I still had not been able to fall asleep. I sat by the window looking out as a parade of my family members strolled by in the falling snow. It was exquisite. I wanted to wake up Greg to get him to validate the madness, but I was even more afraid that I wasn’t real. I sat on the edge of the chair and waited for the circus to finish. The radiator knocked beneath the window and my dry throat was full of glass. Tears wanted to come.
Some kind of blur happened next. A phone call from my mom. An urgency developing around me as I disrupted breakfast that morning. I went to the infirmary and asked for help.
Near dusk my mom arrived in a Blue Trans Am with my other sister.
“Oh, you got me a car!” I delighted myself with the ideas.
“It’s a rental.”
“Wow, I can’t wait to drive it!”
There were several muffled conversations between my mom and nurse Jayne. I was given a passable spaghetti dinner and some kind of calm pill. Told to come down. Get some rest.
Ayn Rand’s Anthem was lighting up my thoughts and connected deeply with the blazing hot nerves and hormones coursing around with words, songs, poems, and brilliance. Always this brilliance. I could be famous. I would capture all this. Sometime in the future, this was going to be the story. The Catcher. The next Sallinger. All an individual’s effort. That’s all that matters. Individuals. Speaking up. Finding truth. Speaking truth. Connecting the dots. Ascending.
At 9:12 pm on a Wednesday, my mom and sister stood beside my bed. “John, we’re going to go to the hospital, now.” And they latched on either side of me, arm in arm, and we marched to the school’s old station wagon. Nurse Jayne was driving. My mom was praying out loud. My sister, wide-eyed and silent.
In the ER I pleaded with my mom. “Just be here when I wake up. I don’t want to wake up. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be awake. Please don’t let me be alone. Don’t leave me. Please. Mom.”
“Count backward from 10 to 1,” said the nurse in white. I made it to 6. I woke up in a private room the next morning, afraid, alone, and foggy.
Alone.
I rubbed my eyes. From the light outside I guessed it was morning. It was 5 pm and the nurses were getting everyone ready to walk to the cafeteria for dinner. “No puthy!” A sharp yell rose above the din of people gathering in the hallway. I would learn later this was Earnest, a 6’5″ African American man with closely cropped grey hair. I couldn’t know that yet. I just heard his yell. And again, “No puthy!” I had no context. The stark white room held no clues.
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