CHAPTER TWENTY TWO—HUNG RIGHT SMACK IN THE MIDDLE New acid hit the street. Little caps of white powder guaranteed by various sources to be, “Owsley's finest effort to date. Handle with care, man. They’re White-lightnin’s.” I bought twenty of the new caps from Tilding and dissolved ten of them in a milk-bottle full of water, locked the apartment, closed the curtains, shut the world off and began drinking LSD and H2O while meditating—trying to meditate—on the void. For the first few days I made elaborate plans for gauging the amount of acid I consumed, marking the water-level on the side of the bottle with a crayon, drinking exactly the right arbitrary amount every eight hours by the clock, playing the microgram game as though it were important, until I’d completely lost the beginning—crawled out to the end of the silk time-continuum thread and, without thinking, let go and drifted around. When I looked for it again, it was gone. Don’t panic. Nothing to do. No reason to find it. Wander for a while and perhaps it will turn up. Drink from the enchanted milk-bottle. The clock ran down and it didn’t matter because numbers mean nothing. I fasted without realizing that I was fasting. I prayed for a definitive vision. I finished the liquid in the holy vessel, filled it with water once more, dropped white insect eggs—one for each finger of my left hand—into the water and sat on the floor which soon fell away and I saw that I was levitating. Ignore it. It’s a by-product sent to tempt you. Only a shabby toy compared to what is to come. I looked at the infinity of space and let my soul drift as it would. Carnivals were staged between the stars, but I noticed them only in passing. I was searching for council. Always awake or always asleep. There was no difference. I’d accidentally seen that it made no difference and so . . . there was no difference. Drift—drift nowhere and everywhere through the always Now—in search of council. Magnificent galaxies tempted me with their majestic silence and staggering beauty, but I drifted on—resolute. The sirens of space whispered and begged, low-moaned and murmured in my mind, but I drifted past them. Lace and gossamer veils of pure liquid-light encircled my arms and legs, stroking me like warm thoughts—like warm winds—dissolving into cool vapor, swirling and eddying away, forming whirlpools of colorless color revolving faster and faster, becoming pin-points of white-light, exploding in a shower of bright kaleidoscope-sparks—each spark an entire galaxy—each galaxy containing an infinite number of sparks. I drifted on . . . searching, without trying to search. Difficult because it’s so easy—bullshit because it’s so true. All and everything, waves of changing, neutral, trying to be charged energy, and no way to describe it. Much later, I structured it in celluloid, cow’s tongue and geraniums as follows: Balanced on a network of unblinking suns, a tiny, cream-colored cottage swung gracefully with the universe. A thin curl of cotton smoke from the red-brick chimney. Warm yellow glow from the white-lace curtained windows. The mailbox said, HIM, in old-fashioned gold script. I followed a cobblestone path to the open door and stepped inside without knocking. The inside of the tiny cottage was the enclosure of all that existed outside. Sitting on a three-legged stool beside a pleasantly radiating Franklin stove was Krishna’s, Buddha’s, Christ’s, earth’s and our Father. He held a dying sun in His gentle hands, speaking softly to it and stroking it with His thumb. The sun flared with pleasure, shortening its life span by eons. “God,” I whispered. God looked up from His dawning nova and smiled in a way that would have utterly disgusted Michelangelo. A benevolent grandpa smile. “Ah,” he said, and motioned for me to be seated. “You’re God,” I breathed in awe, settling on a tassled hassock. He chuckled and shrugged His holy right shoulder. “Only a portion,” He said, “but I go by that name. Makes it easier for certain factions, you know.” “You’re exactly as I once expected You to be,” I marveled. “Of course,” He replied matter-of-factly. The nova burned itself out with a tiny gasp. God deposited its ashes in a brass ashtray. “Help me,” I said, getting right to the point. “Certainly,” said God agreeably. “What can I do for you?” “Show me the right path. Tell me what to do.”

“The right path to where? And what would you like to do?” I hesitated, wondering why He didn’t already know . . . being Him and all. “I do,” He said as the thought winked in my mind, “Do you?” “The path to Truth,” I said with certainty. God shook His head gently from side to side. “Ah, Abel, you’ve come so far. You feel that you’ve searched and suffered for a terrible length of time, don’t you?” I nodded sincerely. “You’ve come so far,” He continued, “and yet . . .” He got to His feet and sighed. The universe echoed the sound. “Let me show you something,” He said, pulling a large ring that hung from the invisible distant ceiling, close to one recently materialized wall. I looked at a huge graph. God opened the top of my skull and pasted the graph onto my exposed brain. The lights went out as though a master-switch had been thrown and I saw only the graph and heard only The Voice of God. A God that I myself had created, but, having been created by God myself, a God none-the-less. God the narrator. “This graph,” said God, “represents your progress toward Truth . . . toward enlightenment or illumination, if you will. Yes. Little lines . . . dots . . . um, etcetera, yes. The goal, you will notice, is not represented on the graph. I hope this doesn’t disappoint you.” A rubber-tipped pointer appeared and tapped a small black dot. “This,” said God, “is you four years ago, and this . . .” the pointer moved up several hard-won inches, “is you today, (actually tomorrow, but we needn’t go into that).” A second graph superimposed itself over the first. “This graph,” continued God, “represents your proximity to, ah, the state of enlightenment two days after your most recent birth, when you were . . .” the pointer touched another tiny black dot, “here.” The two-days-after-birth dot was noticeably nearer the unrepresented goal. A wave of dismay swept over me. I fought down the dawning light and studied the graphs more closely. Always check the small print. I’d been to college. I knew the ropes. There’s always an out if you look close enough. “Hey,” I protested, “the second graph is upside down!” “So it is,” said God kindly. He spun both graphs round and round like a wheel of fortune. “It makes no difference, Abel. The beginning and the end are the same. At birth you were close. At death you will once again be close. Right now, you’re hung right smack in the middle.” The graphs revolved while I sought refuge in a four-day fantasy diversion. When I had exhausted myself, God peeled the graphs from my brain and the house-lights leapt to life. I stared at a point just below God’s eye and He smiled sad at me. “It’s hard, I know,” He said softly. “What can I do?” “What do you want to do?” “I want to know the Truth. I want to be the Truth. I’m tired of all the illusions. I want to see the Final Reality.” Without speaking, God asked, “Why, Abel?” I slumped in the chair. “I don’t know. I just have to. I have to see it. Once you’ve decided that It exists, you have to try for it. Nothing else comes close. I don’t know why. I want to know why.” “That is perhaps the only answer that a man bound to life and the earth can give,” said God, “But don’t you see, Abel? You say ‘I’ want to know the Truth, ‘I’ want to be the Truth, ‘I’ have to see it. Don’t you understand that when you do see the final reality, when you do see through the illusions, you will see through the illusion of your self as well? And, in the Final Reality, you do not exist. There are no ‘I’s or ‘you’s or ‘them’s in the Final Reality. There is only the All . . . which is exactly the same as the nothing-at-all. The knowledge would, therefore, do you absolutely no good. You wouldn’t be there to savor it. Do you understand?” I nodded slowly. “What can I do?” Impatient with my stolid refusal to see, God sighed, then said, “Well . . . you may either return and enjoy the beautiful illusions (which I think are quite good, Myself), or . . .” “Why did You make them in the first place?” I interrupted. God laughed like thunder. “I didn’t make them, Abel! You did. They’re your constructions. Don’t you see?”

Once again I nodded, and this time fought back tears. “All right, then. Now . . . where was I? Ah! You may enjoy the illusions, live with them and make your stay on earth as pleasant and comfortable as possible, or . . .” He paused for emphasis, “Or . . . you may strive for the Truth which means that eventually you must forsake the world of illusion, embrace enlightenment . . . and cease to exist. Realize now that I don’t simply mean that your body will cease to exist. I mean that you will cease to exist. No more Abel. No more Abel or rebirth of Abel or Abel’s earth. Instead . . . everything . . . and nothing at all. Total enlightenment.” As He spoke, He fashioned the void in His palm and held it out to me. I looked into its endless depth and felt the powerful pull of eternity. God’s voice droned in my mind, “Total enlightenment . . . the Final Reality . . . the void.” I drew closer and the pull became stronger still. My pitiful, laughable life not even a faint flicker in the perfect vacuum. All life only an illusion of vapor. I watched from a great distance as my body began to shift and fade. “Enlightenment . . . final peace . . . illumination.” The pull was now irresistible and I felt my Self falling into an eternal sleep. “Death.” Now hold on . . . death? . . . discorporation is a bit much to ask. The void beckoned with fingers of soft mist. Death’s only a word. Leave the realm of word-symbols. “Your illusions . . . shut them off,” whispered The Voice. Layer after layer of illusion dropped away and crumbled into nothing. The Final Reality began to dawn. “Here, there is no suffering, no struggle, no fear, no death, no life . . .” “No life?” the tiny dying I whimpered with growing understanding. “No life . . . All Life . . . accept it. It’s the meaningless price of enlightenment. No pain, and no pleasure . . . no struggle, and no success . . . no hate, and no love . . .” “But,” said the rapidly disappearing, frightened I, “no love? How can that be?” “No love as you selfishly know it, because there is no you.” And the Final Reality grew clearer as the All of the Nothing Void began to wrap itself around the expiring I. It was good. It was peace. It was the end. “No!" I shrieked, ripping my Self from the embrace of the void and gaining substance and strength. I ran madly out of the cottage and across galaxies and over time-warps and through the seas of space, searching frantically for the green planet earth among the infinite suns. I searched forever and gave up and began again after another forever of doing nothing behind a blue star, finally spying the earth nestled between Mars and Venus. “Thank God!” I cried, rushing toward it. “Not at all,” said God. “Do come again sometime. Any time.” On Earth, I ran past the androids, bumping against a plastic arm, stumbling over a hard-rubber foot, levitating to my mumbling apartment where I pulled a bread knife from the wall and removed the memory of the Final Reality from my spongy brain in seven swift strokes, leaving only a microscopic speck stuck to the side of my skull. Immediately after the operation, I collapsed on my pulsating bed. “I came very close,” I thought, when thinking was nearly possible. “I know that I almost made it. Next time . . . next time . . .” - a gray fade-out - time must pretend to pass i must pretend to believe in the passage of time  and the validity of the world around me i must pretend to ingest the remainder of  the second bottle of lsd and H20 in hopes  of a revelation - a gray fade-in -

The wheezing, belching, howling, grinding machinery is hidden (none too carefully) behind a smoke-cloud of yellowish ash, hanging motionless in the dead, burnt air. Smoke. Smoke and ash—ash and smoke. Smoke veils and dirties the suffocating, crawling city. I watch its life being pumped away, while it squirms and quivers in blind asphalt agony. The police-siren-wails snake their way across the pitted pavement and rear up into the dry, brittle air to entwine themselves with the frail tentacles of the human-howls. I wonder fleetingly where these tortured souls are being kept. I’ve seen no human life in weeks. Only the mock-life of the mind-vampires and the electronically controlled, captured corpses, those sad rotting carcasses that plod the scorched streets at certain ordered hours. If only it weren’t for the dense gray smoke. If only I could see a bit more clearly. But perhaps it’s better that I can’t. The flash-by moments of absolute clarity are appalling. The smell of ozone and burning cells is everywhere. My eyes smart and water, cloud over and I must blink rapidly to clear them. Stifling one moment, sweating a thin oil that smells of mold, and then suddenly shivering uncontrollably the next moment as I pass through a heavy pocket of icy air that clings to my body, sucking the heat. I walk stiffly and haltingly to an alley I glimpsed through a brief parting of the smoke. Direction shifts three times and I freeze motionless—fighting down panic—waiting to reclaim my bearings. The alley appears—disappears—forms itself again, and I leap for it. Safe. I recognize this alley. Is it a clue? Is it a clew? Is it a cluu? Is it a klu? A Cloo? Is it important? I’ve been here before. No, I am here now . . . yes, but I will be here again or have been here . . . no, I am here now and it is possible that this means that I have caught up to my time and my mind and the beginning which it (time) has been holding, fulfilling my obligation to the future, thereby leaving my original arrival in the past. No. No, that’s projecting far too much structured hope. Carefully step from the entangling, clinging concept. Try not to disturb its framework, risking a re-activation before it has safely and completely disintegrated. What the hell’s happening? Think this over. There’s a way out. There’s a way back. There’s a back to get back to. At least there always has been . . . hasn’t there? Wails and moans all around me. Across the street, several of the decaying automatons walk stiffly by. A mind-vampire is hiding, pretending not to be, watching the street with sharp bright eyes. Everything’s in shades of gray, some rust oranges, dusty blacks, a sick yellowish tinge around the edges. Foul air. Chemicals or electric spark. My apartment! I’ve got an apartment! I left my apartment to . . . Wait-wait-wait. Where do I have an apartment? Try to remember. Can’t remember. The harder I try, the harder it gets. Yes, something’s definitely wrong. I’ve forgotten . . . I’ve forgotten what I’ve forgotten. For gotten. Strange. Hold on. Grab hold of a concept . . . any concept. I’m missing something. There’s something happening that I’m not in on. It’s probably something simple, but I’m missing it. Crawl deep inside where an idea is painfully pulling itself together. It all gets . . . down . . . to . . . No. Drop that one fast. That’s too utterly ugly and finally bum. I’ve been up against it before and it goes nowhere . . . by the longest and slowest route. On the other hand—on the brighter side—we have . . . love. That’s it! Good ole love! Yessir, love. I can be anywhere I want. In the coolest of fine happy places. It’s all in your mind. In a burst of joyous relief, I ease into a perfect Alpine mountain set. The air is so clear, so clear, and like ice, but I’m warm inside a glow produced by good thoughts and love. Green trees with white powder snow on their branches. A stream makes tumbling, gurgling water-noises over the frost silence of the cold mountain-side. Plenty nice. I’m strong and new again and there’s no such thing as dark soul-fear and confusion. It’s all love and beauty. And I can’t hold it. Without a transition, I’m suddenly into the nasty countervision, watching a life-picture of myself murmuring, “It’s all love . . . it’s love . . . love . . .” groveling in a filthy gutter on Main Street, deluded into thinking it’s a beautiful snow-covered peak. “He’s mad,” whispers an on-looker to his horrified girl-friend. I can see the fear and repulsion in their eyes. “Love . . . nice . . . ooohhhh, luhhhhve.” A cop is elbowing his way through the crowd, trying to reach the hopeless geek who’s disrupting the organized flow of the city. With tangled, matted hair, with drool soaking my greasy beard, I crouch in the gutter eating a cigar butt. I’ve lost all control over my bowels

and the stench is sickening. Middle-aged woman in mink claps a hand over her mouth and is led away by her shaken husband. A vacant, idiot’s smile dangles under my dripping nose—twitching lips babble, “Love . . . uhhhh, love,” as I rip off my soiled, ragged clothing and lie naked in the street. The cop covers me with a blanket as he and another uniform shove me into a black van under flashing red and yellow lights. “Love . . . beautiful . . . buuuuuh-uhhh, love,” as the paddy-wagon wails off toward the madhouse. I chop off the vision hurriedly although the quick rip costs at least a thousand brain cells. Maintain, boy. Brace up. Pull it all together. Get the ole head straight. Mm-hm. Breathe deep. In, out, in, out. Not too fast. Slow an easy. All’s cool. A little freaked, but all’s cool. Things are falling into place. Let em come. Easy. This is a wall—the wall of a building—and I’m on a street and, by God and thank de Lord, I recognize the street I’m on. Close to LaMer’s house, so I hurry in that direction saying, “Phew . . . wow . . . big . . . strange . . . phew.” A long list of memories tied up in half-dreams and phantoms, and too soon to sort any of it out. Go to LaMer’s place. Andre’ll talk me down. From the street, I can see a light in Andre’s room. I walk in little circles and stare at the glowing yellow square of window wondering what to do. A long time. Many little circles.