Psychotic Reaction

So I’m walking down the street, movin‘ my feet so they do a zig zag thing. Then I’m back at my place and the phone rings…

“Hello”
“Sup”
“Who’s this?”
“This is G Dawg.”
“g dAWG?”
“Mann… G Dawg. We met at the corner last week.”
“Oh yeah. Were you selling bud?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Let me call you back on Saturday. I’ll probably pick up an ounce.”
“Cool. Later.”

That was my friend, G Dawg. After that I took out a soda pop from the refrigerator and put some empties (waffles) into the toaster.

“Man, this shit’s beat.” That’s what I said.

Usual stuff to do when you’re a bachelor living in the suburbs.

After that I fell into a spiral astral plane time machine in a spare closet to make this stupid story more interesting. And I landed in a strange realm where time was not one-dimensional (as we’re used to it). This strange place had no borders. Anything could be anywhere and was any place. But I looked all over the place and I could find no combos.

I said to myself, “Man. What the fuck. I was planning to walk down to the god damn store and buy a fucking pack of combos. (Pepperoni Cracker - those are the kind I like). And now I’m in California and what looks like the year 1966. This is bullshit.”

I walked down the street and into a record store.

“ ‘If your store don’t have Mojo Nixon.. then your store could use some fixin’…’ yeah, that was the line. ‘Punk Rock Girl’, the Dead Milkmen. Can you order me that LP?”
“I don’t really do specialty orders…. But I think I do have a copy of Metaphysical Graffiti.”
“I’m not looking for Metaphysical Graffiti. I want the album Beelzebubba!!”
“Can’t you go down to Licorice Pizza? They’re in L.A.”
“Licorice Pizza? I don’t think they’re even around anymore.”
“Well Metaphysical Graffiti is all I’ve got. Take it or leave it.”
“I got that. I’ll look through the $ .89 cents bin. Maybe you got Psychotic Reaction or something…”

“What do you want fella?” the clerk said to me.
“You guys are talking about the Dead Milkmen. I don’t think that band comes around until another 20 years.”
“That’s true. But see, a long time ago there were these time travelers. They lived in the year 10,002. And actually they live down the street. But long before they decided to reside in Huntington Beach for vacation. They traveled to the year 1987 back in 10,001. They bought so many record albums so you couldn’t believe it. But one day when they were unpacking their things, they left a lot of vinyl behind. Then a few years ago, a few people in this town found their vinyl. We got into most of the music. And I opened this store with a pal of my mine who goes by the name Eddie (but now he’s doing electrical work). So yeah, I know about the Dead Milkmen.”
“Do you know that song where they’re talking about drinking bleach?”
“No, I don’t know that one.”

I felt a bit awkward so I walked over to an arcade machine. It kind of looked dirty and I could barely read Pong on the top of it.

“Is this Pong?”
“Yep.”
“Damn…. You got pong on arcade. That’s gotta be worth like 20 million dollars!!??”
“Kid. This is the year 1966, no one is going to be interested in a video game like Pong.”
“Can I play it?”
“Sure, as long as you keep the volume down.”

I didn’t feel like hanging around at the record store anymore. I couldn’t seem to hold a conversation with anybody.

I spent a long time walking around. It must have been hours, or minutes, days or somethin’. Somehow I woke up in a ditch on the side of a hill. It was Burbank, California. A car came up beside me, and in it was a beautiful woman offering me a ride. This joke comes from a true time when a lady offered me a ride in Columbia and we had this conversation. She drove me maybe ½ a mile up the road to a gas station.

“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Pretty good, how about you?”
“I’m doing ok.”
“Well, at least you’ve got some coffee.”
“Yeah… but it’s from Starbucks..”
“What do you mean?”
“Starbucks makes it so you have to add your own cream & sugar to the cup. It’s such a pain in the ass. I don’t even know how much cream & sugar I want, so I’m spending minutes adding a little bit at a time. I mean, with Dunkin Donuts, they add the cream & sugar for you. It’s so much more convenient.”
“I know. I feel the same way!”

Then we parted ways. I told her, I really had no destination. I was just a drifter, coming up with fragments of ideas for a bunch of dribble you could barely call ‘a story’.

I walked into an arcade. They had a lot of video games that I didn’t recognize. But they add 2 which I did. Wild Gunman (which is shown in the 80’s café in Back to the Future 2). And the 2nd Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game. There was a kid there and I asked him if I could play.

“Sure.”

So the time came when we were choosing characters.

“Who do you want to be?”
“I guess Leonardo,” I said.
“Yeah. Michelangelo is definitely the coolest but his nunchucks weapon doesn’t compare with Leonardo’s sword.”
I kind of followed what he was talking about.
We played the first level. And it ended with Rock Steady as usual. Then the second, which ends with Bebop (a bit harder). Then the 3rd level, in the sewers and after that the game kinda sucks… So we walked away.

“Hey dude, you wanna check out something?”
“Sure, what?”
“Let’s head out back…”

He pulled out a piece and a small baggie with tiny rocks in it. He offered it to me and told me to inhale slowly while he lit up the rocks.

I had an absurd mental euphoria that is not even describable in words. And then he smoked it too.

“Is this crack??” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Man, they should sell this at Starbucks!” Then I ran around for about 19 minutes until I no longer felt it anymore.

(I did actually say that the first time I smoked it.)

“It’s so funny. People think that they know a lot. They’ll tell you all about so many things. But they don’t have a clue about the kind of experiences, like crack, that they’re missin’…”