Rasputin

Rasputin

To awaken, naked, covered in vomit is not a good way to begin. Head throbbing and neck muscles tense, I uncurled from the fetal position and began putting my face back on. Staggering into the bathroom I slurped at the water faucet like some kind of famished dog. Projectile vomiting ensued. Easing my way back onto the bed, I began recollecting the previous nights events.
I had come into possession of six peyote buttons from a mutual friend who we will call Hank. I was already plastered by the time he placed the satchel in my lap so I figured, “why not?” Chewing the first of what would become 4 buttons I was immediately drawn to the texture of it. Almost like eating an artichoke, stringy and salty came to mind. I washed it down with some warm Pacifico and continued on.
My apartment was hot and getting hotter by the minute. I cracked some windows and poured myself some two-buck chuck wine and sat in my chair. Ohhh my chair; I found it on a side street near work. It was leather with a high back decorated with diamond inlay. Some degenerates had tagged on it and defaced a nice fucking chair. But I loved that thing; sitting lonesome, turned on it side, discarded on the street by some old man who probably sat in it watching M.A.S.H. while he was drinking scotch and smoking a Backwood Cigar. I had to bring that thing home. You should have seen the look on my brothers’ faces when I lugged it up the stairs. Fuck em’, they don’t have to sit in it.
About 20 minutes into my passionate chair loving, I decided to take a second dose. Button number two made me gag as soon as it hit my lips. Needless to say, it tasted like I had a sock in my mouth. The nausea was setting in, and the wine wasn’t helping any. To defuse my desire to vomit, I stuck my head out of my window for some fresh air. Lighting a cigarette and taking a drag, I started thinking about what life would be like if we could only see in black in white. Would we lose all passion for food? Art? What would racism be like? Would people be more into texture and shadows? You dig?
After tossing my cigarette onto my landlords car, I stuck my head back in and went to work on chewing the third one. These little fucks were starting to taste pretty good. Almost made me think of slapping some goat cheese on top with some grapes and making a party tray for the annual “Santiago” family Thanksgiving dinner.
I faded into the television for a while and watched “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”. I never noticed how Bill Murray never smiles, but delivers his lines with a smooth, charismatic voice and doesn’t try to be funny. He just is. He just is. I just am, as we all move about. Adjusting, nursing, screaming, crying, fighting, arguing, living, dying, breathing, sighing, jumping, dancing, fucking, sucking, kicking, groping, testing, driving, smoking, drinking, drinking, drinking,….. you dig?
By this time, I was not well. But in the tradition of my elders, I pushed on and chewed the fourth button for what felt like ten minutes. Standing up to refill my glass, I felt my earrings begin to weigh me down. My knees locked, and I could feel my blood pumping and oozing from every pore. I whimpered like puppy that got slapped in the nose with a rolled up “Time” magazine and fell to the floor. My bottom lip quivering, the last thing I saw was a pair of shoes running towards me. My eyes watered up and everything went a blur.
Blackout.
Sipping a frosty beverage with an umbrella, it was the middle of summer. I sat in a state of numbness, as my body was no longer connected to my limbs. I was free falling, to quote Tom Petty. Every move I made was not felt. I had to only think “it” and “it” would happen without even a bit of effort. Things manifested themselves in front of me. Pretty soon I had a nice setup going. Full bar, a couple Cuban cigars, some hot chicas in bikinis fanning me with huge feathers. I was living it up! I heard a loud squawk and looked up to see two crows hanging about on the phone line. Phone line? Who needs phones where I’m going? Then it happened. My cigar, gone. My chicas, gone. Even the bar. Ahh the bar.. please take anything but my precious bar.
The crows swooped down and perched on both my knees. I was scared to look at them, I knew they were there, but I refused to take my forearm away from my eyes. When I did manage to muster up the strength, I saw right into his deep black eye. Nothingness, eternal, deep, down, plague of hell nothingness. Suddenly he spoke: “Leave us alone”. I thought the bastards were going to peck out my eyeballs and have them for lunch. But they gave me a loving peck on each check, rustled their wings softly against my face, and flew away.
When they were gone, I felt this cold loneliness that comes when you haven’t held a warm hand for a very long time. You keep telling yourself that it’ll be all right, you don’t need the fucks, but it’s true. I could feel everything then. I could feel the emotions of millions of people deep down in the dark part of me. It made my stomach turn. I could feel the coldness of shadows and the warmth of the sun on my face. The desire of the boy who wants to become a man. The sweat dripping from the farmers’ brow as he plucked ripe, delicious grapes off the vine and treated them with care. Transforming them into wine that would reach a cold hard glass bottle and finally my warm fine hand and be devoured deep down into my blood stream and taken to my brain and make my vision less blurry and more tolerable. I could sense. I could feel. I could be.
The sun was beginning to shine its first rays into the apartment. The floor was colder than a Minnesota winter; it also didn’t help that I was buck ass naked. Crawling to my brothers’ room to find some kind of solace, I vomited on the carpet (and myself) and passed out cold.
My headache has subsided, and I am nursing some coffee to get my system back on track. I feel as though this might have been a good experience for me. Believe you me; I have a new respect for our black winged friend. I don’t think I’ll be doing much hunting anytime soon. Although I do hear duck season is underway. Now where’d I leave those other two peyote buttons?