A few months ago after reading this, I mentioned to Señor Ty that I would one day tell of my personal tales with the dust. Since I had been invited to post a guest spot over here, I figured it to be the perfect arena for drudging up the terrifying past. Prepare yourselves friends, this is no joke.Let’s head back to the nineties. I was attending state school in a very remote area, buried deep amidst the Christian Hasidim...
I can’t speak for my friends, but this was a personal era where I was looking to consume basically anything in search of undiscovered mental portals, with no fear of repercussion; a quest I’m still on, sans the illicit drug use.
Everyone has a story about a time they smoked pot they were convinced was laced with PCP, because they got so crazy high it had to be dusted. Perhaps there was a taint. What I am here to report is that no, it almost certainly wasn’t.
When you inhale PCP, there is an unmistakable taste, one which you shall never forget; there can be no question. Even when I’ve smoked the minutest amount in a bowl with weed, there is no mistake. The metallic burn of chemicals mixed with plastic overpowers any questioning.
Even then, about 99% of the street dust I’ve ever inhaled was watered down to the point that I was questioning why it was such a big deal. I had heard the stories of naked man fighting 10 cops but each time felt nothing remotely like that. That was until the fateful day we scored the real shit....
I present to you anecdotal evidence: myself, two friends, a microphone, drum machine, and guitar...(edited down from 2+hours) roll tape 1 (pardon the insanity):
We had been making semi-regular trips to North Philadelphia at the time. It was (and probably continues to be) an almost completely lawless area where anything happens. We knew the Badlands quite well; we knew the good spots for whichever particular drug we were looking for at the time. Much has been publicized about exactly how bad North Philly is, so I’ll spare the details in lieu of linkage. Needless to say, I’m not very proud of my youth stupidity. I could write an entire book of my escapades in North Philadelphia.
Nonetheless, this particular time we ventured in right around finals week, deciding on PCP. We scored, as usual. “Yo, got the get wet?”
We always had to take it to extremes, g-ddammit…never buying a normal amount, we always bought bundles, which as my memory serves was 40 bags, though I could be mistaken. Normally, people don’t buy a bundle. As a matter of fact, when a carload of white kids asks for a bundle, people get suspicious and lives could easily be lost over misinterpretation. Like I said, it was very stupid.
We scored in the late morning, and drove back to campus, about 2 hours total. I was the sole person having a class that day. It was my last class of the semester, and I needed to go to keep the grade up. Boy did I regret it.
I decided to puff a bit before class.
The way they distributed PCP was to coat it onto parsley leaves, although there are other methods. The bags usually look small, but go a long way. Regardless, it was always the case that you could take several hits and be fucked up, but not FUCKED UP! Realizing this, I proceeded to take about 3 hits. What I didn’t realize was that, for the first time, we had some REAL shit, which only required about 1 hit to trip your face off in a PCP:acid ratio of about 100:1.
I got about ½ way to class when I realized that I was completely numb. Out of nowhere, everyone was staring at me, taunting me. I realized that I was losing my shit in a brand new manner never before seen. This was not giggly, ‘feelgood’ tripping, either. It was absolute speaking to Greek deities tripping. I spent the entire lecture thinking only one thing: “Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit” and “keepittogetherkeepittogether”. Somehow, I did manage to do this.
I made it through class alright despite being so freaked out I was surprised I didn’t plant a metal compass into someone’s temple. Then, sadly, I had to take a leak and sauntered like a shady lunatic into the men’s room.
Of course as soon as the yellow began to flow, my teacher pulled up right next to me at the stall. He began talking at me, while I have no idea what happened on my end. Again, I cannot express how much further PCP is than acid in intensity. It really is acid’s acid, to say the least. My teacher proceeded to make whiz small talk, about the final, the class, everything. Again, I have absolutely no idea what I may have said to him, probably something like “HHHHUUUHHH….HUHHHUUHH…MMMMHHH”.
So I made it home alright, but now we have an ENTIRE BUNDLE of this shit to unload/smoke/deal. This was only the beginning of the most literally insane month of my entire life. If you were on a bender with this stuff, a lone bag could keep you and others tripping lunacy for a couple of days. Within our now larger group, there were many who tried it, but most of them were so freaked out they wanted nothing to do with it, so it was up to about 3-5 of us to dispose of this properly, which meant going completely off the deep end, of course.
Keep in mind this happened right at finals.
roll part 2 of the anecdotal evidence:
We proceeded to stumble everywhere on this stuff, taking it to parties, freaking everyone out. Another odd thing about our bundle was that even after you came down, it stayed with you. One way of explaining it would be to say more in sync with G-d than you will ever imagine; every fathom of your existence in tune with infinity, everything finally in its’ right place.
I wrote and recorded an entire album during this time, in probably 2 days. Perhaps I’ll post it online someday. Probably the oddest conceptual work I’ve ever done. It sounds awful, of course. Being high on dust somehow gets in the way of proper engineering.
When you would converse with someone, you fused with them, to the point that upon snapping out of a deep trance, I was convinced at one point I had actually made out with a dude. I didn’t, for the record. For this, I am glad we attended a peaceful university, because just as how good vibes fuse you in that way, bad vibes bring about this. Big Lurch best sums it up, when asked about whether or not he realized he was eating his roommate, “No, I didn’t know nothing. All I can remember, the world was gonna end. And I had to find the devil and kill the devil before the world ended.” While that could sound like a weak insanity plea, I’m telling you I can completely understand this.
All throughout finals week, I was as focused and tuned as I’ve ever been, perhaps even beyond anything possible on my end. I scored better than ever, every paper I wrote was as if G-d was speaking directly through me, and that was without smoking, 'twas all residual universal sync.
Then were the post-finals parties, and one of my very many colossal fuckups, #837 to be exact.
I was standing outside of the party, sharing a bowl with a friend when the police turned up through the bushes. My initial reaction was to palm and pocket the bowl, which I did, but then it happened:
I was absolutely prepared and willing to attack the police! I convinced myself that I was going to jail, and I would have to kill these men to prevent going to jail.
I stood there, stoic, staring right at them, ready to take bullets. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so focused or prepared in my life. It was probably akin to the feeling two young soldier enemies, virgins to the kill, feel upon stumbling into each other in the brush; both hearts dropping in the moment of realization they would have to kill one another...
Luck ‘get out of jail free’ card #348: There were about 15 people standing outside, the police ignored all of us, and headed directly into the house. I never tried PCP again.
I'm hoping the soundtrack alone will steer anyone reading away from ever considering getting down with Sherman Helmsley.
I do recommend watching all 6 parts of the Louis Theroux series "Law and Disorder in Philadelphia". I cannot begin to express what remorse I hold in the fact that I ever fed anything into this harsh reality.
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