Reality Trip

The door opens and Jeff walks in. “I got it!” he says cheerfully as a smile crosses his face. He strolls across the room to where his friends are seated, awaiting his triumphant return.
“What kind is it?” Daryl asks, looking skeptical.
“It’s blotter paper, but from what I saw, it’s pretty damn good,” Jeff replies. He pulls his wallet from his back right-hand pocket. He digs around in the wallet and pulls out a small Ziploc baggie. Inside the baggie is a small thin strip of what seems to be ordinary paper. The paper is perforated into ten equally divided pieces, each about a quarter inch square. “We get two each, but we have to wait till we’re at the campgrounds to eat it.”
For the next few hours, the five men packed everything they’d need for a weekend in the wilderness. Jeff always said that camping was the best thing if you wanted to relieve stress. Let the tensions in life fade into the woods as the firelight soothes the mind like a cool breeze on a summer day. The basics are a must, but there are always those small necessities that you never want to leave behind when taking a trip into the middle of nowhere. For this trip, the necessities are ten hits of extremely powerful LSD, scientifically known as lysergic acid diethylamide. LSD is a derivative of a certain kind of mold that tends to develop on wheat and rye grains as they grow.
Somewhere along the way, scientists learned to extract the salts from this type of mold. They’ve been studying its effect on the human brain ever since. At times, it was even used in experiments involving military personnel and prison inmates.
“Should I take my gun?” Terry asks excitedly.
“Fuck no, man. We’re going to a public park. Plus, a gun might not come in too handy if this trip turns out to be any good,” Daryl answers. “I could see it if we were going to a patch of nowhere, but this is a public place. We should play it safe and leave the gun here.”
Terry looks hurt and confused but says nothing. As sad as he was, Terry puts the chrome-plated .357 back into its box.
The men pack the truck with typical weekend camping gear—two single-person pup tents and one four-man folding pole tent. These aren’t the most knowledgeable campers; they are of the amateur variety. They’ve only been camping a handful of times.
There was a time when people went camping regularly as entertainment; now, not so much. This group of friends are definitely victims of the inner-city influences—no sleeping bags, no cook plate, no lanterns or hammocks. Nope, these boys do it the rustic way, which in their case is to drink all night, pass out, wake up with a hangover, and go home early.
With the blue 1978 Ford Bronco loaded and ready to go, anticipation for the morning drive sets in. They embark on what is to be an epic adventure into the unknown.
Each is a musician and has spent time on the internet. Through conversations about music and making music on a website forum, set up to give musicians a chance to connect, they formed a union and began meeting in person. Eventually, they formed a heavy metal band.
Although they all have similar interests in music, they come from completely different walks of life. Jeff works at a lumberyard ten miles out of town. He spends at least ten hours a day running a giant saw. The wood he cuts is used for building houses and other types of projects.
Terry spends his days toiling over the fry plate and dish tub at the Savory Steak. The Savory Steak is the fast-food industry’s interpretation of a drive-through steak house. Problem is, the steak isn’t all that savory and probably isn’t even beef. It’s said that the steak burgers are made from beef hearts and other usually discarded parts of the cow. Terry never eats there and always leaves for lunch.
Daryl sits at home in his underwear most of the time, watching football while his wife works at the grocery store two miles away. He hit the lottery several years back in a five-winner split. Four hundred thousand bones ain’t bad. Unfortunately, now, a few years later, he’s spent every penny, other than what his wife put away. Lucky thing she did that; had she not, the money would be gone.
Glen is slightly overweight and works as a full-time unpaid guitar player who lives in his mother’s house. He’ll inherit the house when she dies, but for now, he helps her with whatever she needs. In turn, she lets him live in the house rent-free. She never asks about where or what time he comes and goes. At six foot three and 240 pounds, Glen also makes for a great guard dog. His mother feels safer with him there. Glen should have been famous long ago but never found the right group of musicians and never had any interest in doing a solo act.
Aaron is the youngest of the group, which is the best thing for the front man in a heavy metal band. Old-school ripped jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt are just about the only clothes Aaron wears on a regular basis.
These men, although different in their own personal lives, have two traits in common—all are musicians and all are internet junkies. For them, forming a band online was better than putting one together offline. Eventually, after the band started playing in Jeff’s basement, they formed a bond, which resulted in the perfect formula for writing their own music.