24 August 2011

At a regular airport, at a normal restaurant, I waited for a flight to San Francisco with my roommate Kevin. The restaurant was garden-variety airportage, overpriced and vaguely themed. This was a ‘dockside’ affair with dark, wood-paneled walls. Seating in the front, bar in the back. After finding the only table with an outlet underneath, we sat down to charge laptops and have a beer. I was hungry enough to eat something small, and after skimming the menu, I decided upon the fried calamari (because nothing screams quality seafood quite like the airport).  

While Kevin and I drank, we made small talk with the guy next to us. He was maybe mid-twenties, a few years older than us but not much.  We explained we were from Baltimore and he, like everyone not from Baltimore, told us what a huge fan of The Wire he was. I felt better about my order when I noticed his crab cake sandwich.

When the food arrived, the hunger had taken hold so I dove in, even though it was served with only a glorified duck sauce and the calamari had been fried to shit. Big, dark-brown clumps — I had to pull them apart to get bite-size forkfuls. Barely resembled squid. Didn’t matter. I ate so fast I started to feel guilty and offered some to Kevin, who reached across the table for a few clumps.  

Our new friend paid and left, and I waited while Kevin sent an email to the campus radio station.  He snapped his laptop shut and sighed.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I just feel a little weird.”

“Weird how?”

“Just weird.”

I knew what he meant. Something felt a bit funky. Couldn’t figure it out. Nothing alarming, but certainly noticeable.  

“Like sick to your stomach or something?”

“Nah.”

But we were both starting to understand something. Not exactly what was happening, or why, or even how, but something, some unknown thing, was starting to occur. My palms prickled. An unpleasant tingle shot up my arms. My mouth soured. Kevin and I looked at each other. We both shook our heads, but he was smiling. I couldn’t. The dark-wood walls tightened along with my chest. Without prior mention, we began to think the same thing:

“Did someone put something in our drinks?”

“Who’d do that?”

“I dunno. Doesn’t really make sense.”

I couldn’t sit still. I knew what it was. This was that first breeze of acid, that first hint of things becoming abnormal, when everyone starts to giggle and notice the minutiae their brain normally filters out. Except this lacked the normal levity and pleasant introspection, leaving me with a brain rapidly decreasing in function — I was seeing things for the first time, all at once, overwhelmed — and no known cause, no way to estimate the potential duration, and no knowing when it might plateau. Acid users take that knowledge for granted. A luxury.

“Feels like acid, right?”

Time took longer and everything started to stretch itself out. Still sitting, still ‘dockside,’ I consulted my phone for the time. We had a flight to catch in ten minutes. I was unable to construct a plan; we had somewhere to be, and a certain time to be there, but the rest largely eluded me. Ideas took residency for only seconds at a time. I felt sick. 

Everyone knew. Everyone was looking. I raced into the bathroom and locked myself in a stall. The powder blue cubicle was momentarily comforting. So I sat. I laughed at the “For Rectal Use Only” sticker someone stuck to the toilet paper roll. Things were going to be alright. Calm down. Breathe. Where’s your luggage. With Kevin. Shit. 

I ran back to find him.

“We have to board.”

“How long were you in the bathroom?”

“Dunno. We have to go.”

So off we went. To the wrong gate. The woman explained how we needed to find ‘Gate 14’ not ‘Gate 19.’ Pull it together. I just needed to find anything with a big ‘14’ on it and we’d be fine. Maintain.

En route to our actual gate, the moving sidewalk engrossed me. I’d come back and ride it several more times while talking to my mother, my ‘emergency contact.’ Hopefully this paints an accurate picture: a young man under some influence, following emergency protocol he learned in second grade, concerned for himself, but also enjoying the moving sidewalk in ways never before possible.

We found it. Gate 14. The right gate. I finally knew I wouldn’t miss my flight because of whatever this was. Then I realized I had to get on a fucking plane and fly through the sky during whatever this was. Dread. I knew what acid did, and I certainly didn’t want to feel that way strapped into a plane full of strangers for six hours. 

Time to call Mom. She’ll get it. No she won’t. This happens to no one. 

“Hey Mom.”

“Hey! How’s the airport? …Honey?”

“I think someone put something in my drink. Things are weird.”

“Wow… Like what? Are you okay?”

“Just weird. Kevin feels weird too. Feels like acid. I’m having trouble, everything seems pretty weird and I can’t really…”

“Okay. You’re going to be fine. I don’t know why anyone would put something in your drink, that seems like a waste. Did you guys do anything before you got to the airport? Did you eat anything?”

We did. That fucking calamari. Airport seafood. I didn’t know it then, but there’s a word for it: ichthyoallyeinotoxism. I was tripping on squid. 

“Let me call you back.”

I took one last spin on the moving sidewalk, then headed back. Gate 14. Kevin was sitting with headphones on.

“Calamari,” I mouthed.

“Yeah, I thought about that. The feeling’s gone though.”

Mine hadn’t gone anywhere, but I knew what he meant. The effects had started to wane. It made sense: I ate a lot more than he did. I called Mom back and told her we were going to be fine. I was fine. We boarded. I still felt off, but I was stabilizing and glad to be stabilizing. I was ‘back’ after half an hour. Psychedelic squid.

Now I’m halfway to San Francisco.