Bend so you don't break

It had been a gray, damp afternoon, the air oppressive and humid. John and I had hooked up with a couple really young girls, high school seniors from a local prep-school and figured we were going to have a huge old time. Most of the afternoon was spent trying to chase down some acid and what we finally found was extremely week. It was all we could get.

By time we started hiking up the canyon, the sun was setting and it was completely dark when we arrived at the perch above the waterfall. Rain was falling steady and the four of us stood up there, soaked and shivering. We passed a bottle of tequilla around to stay warm.

Though the acid was weak, we'd taken enough to get a bit of a trip. There's something about LSD that makes me glib and often times, caustic, as if my filter has been completely ripped away. As we scrambled around trying to build a fire so we'd have something to huddle around, I said some rather unkind things to John, things bitter enough to really piss him off. The girls were losing patience with us. Freezing, wet, and now fighting, still no fire, they had to be wondering why they'd followed us up there.

At some point, on the rain-slick rocks and enough acid and tequilla in me to make my footing unceertain, I started to fall back. John reached out and grabbed me, preventing my fall. I clutched his arm and steadied myself, thanked him; and everything was fine.

We finally got a little fire started and coupled up. Finished the tequilla, doused the fire, and walked back down the canyon. The girls held on to us as we went blindly through the brush back to the car. We drove back to my place in silence.

The next day, John and I went back up the canyon, I think we'd left something up there. When we arrived back to our perch, I looked at where I'd almost fallen. It was a about an eighty foot drop onto sharp rocks. I'd have certainly been killed. John didn't say anything, I don't even know if he realized he'd saved my life. Looking at where we'd been, I realized it had been insane to be up there, in complete darkness, drunk and tripping.

We never saw those girls again. John and I went on to do many more insane things together, saving each other's lives.