Roughly one hundred fifty miles southeast of the beaches of Orange County, in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park, was a peak called Split Mountain. More than thirty miles away, by the edge of the park, was Casa Del Zorro, a cottage-renting resort catering to the upper middle class. Here, Rama divined, was a good place to drop acid in a group.
During the drive to Casa Del Zorro, a fast-food restaurant triggered a flashback of Rama giving Sal and me LSD and taking us to MacDonald's. "Whatever you do," Rama had said, "don't order a strawberry shake!" Rama and Sal proceeded to repeat the warning as if it were a mantra. Perhaps the drug magnified my sensitivity to the way Sal parroted Rama. Perhaps it magnified my sense of independence. Perhaps I was not in the mood for chocolate or vanilla. I stumbled to the counter and ordered a strawberry shake. It was delicious. Rama and Sal looked at me disapprovingly. I couldn't have cared less.
The memory of the MacDonald's trip made me smile. Later, as I approached Casa Del Zorro, I had a flashback of Rama giving me acid at his home in Malibu. I had been sitting on a rug in the living room. A Beatles record played. ("You never give me your money... ") Rama entered the room.
"How are you doing, kid?" he asked.
"Not so good." I had been thinking about money. The world of my finances had appeared as menacing walls of debt that were surrounding and closing in on me. I felt miserable. Tears formed. I told Rama what I was going through.
"Listen to the words of the song," he said. ("Oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go... ") "See, kid? Nowhere to go."
I gazed at the floor.
"You need to take time and rethink your life," he went on. "Somehow you got entrenched in the dark side. But life does not have to be that way. Life can be wonderful."
Typically, I would have felt elated by the attention he was giving me. It had been years since we were close. But through hallucinating eyes he seemed distant and small, and his attempt to cheer me up made me feel worse.
"Why don't you go jump in the pool," he finally said. Years before, in La Jolla, he had often suggested "Pool Therapy" as a way to douse the flames of a conflict burning within. In Malibu, as in La Jolla, my woes soon diffused among ripples from the impact of one hand slapping.