My Mother IV

In Rome, obviously

The problem with street LSD is that you really don’t know what the dosage is. My friends, including me, would buy a bunch, usually a hundred hits, and if they were, like in this case, microdots, after they were all gone there would be a bunch of powder left. So no one knew how much was in that powder, let alone the microdots. So when I ate it, out of sheer boredom, I did not expect what I got. Within the hour I was sitting on the concrete porch out back, watching ants. They seemed to be all moving synchronously. My mom noticed. Why are you staring at the ants? I don’t exactly remember how I got out of that, but I was back, sitting in my usual position with her, across a tiny table in an alcove in that house, where we usually talked about books. Then, she asked “Why are your pupils so big?”, or something to that effect. And, being completely stoned, I thought, unwisely perhaps, I’d just tell her the truth. “Oh, I took some LSD that friends sent me.” Actually, it probably wasn’t that seamless. I may have been acting anxiously, as I usually did while tripping in unusual circumstances. But her response was swift and unyielding: Get in the car, we’re going to the hospital.