.... in fairy-tale?

There has been a period in my life where I feel I took part in a play and acted for one year to see how the other half live. I was eighteen at the time. I lived from day to day not knowing where I'd be tomorrow - this short story is about a hippie I met in Australia while I was a prostitute.

I first met this guy about a week after I got involved with prostituteion. Before this year I had regularly indulged in taking drugs mainly, pot, speed, and other minor drugs. I had spoken to the girls I worked with about my scene with pot and asked if any of them knew of anyone who pushed it. Only one girl knew of a guy who she mentioned was an acid freak and who may be able to help me, that was all that was said.

"Yes you, I've got some mushrooms for you, heard you were a head." He handed me them wrapped in newspaper. I took them and offered him some money which he refused. I had never tasted mushroom and asked how to prepare them. He told me to cook about eight and eat them - the effect would come in about half an hour. I thanked him and he left.

I desperately needed a form of escape from the life I was leading. Each evening brought sickly thoughts of men fucking me in the most repulsive ways, memories of each act I performed still haunt me. I looked forward to taking the mushrooms and a few days later I had them along with a friend. It was the first time I had taken anything so close to acid - I was wrapped.

My work continued and the money flowed in. I averaged between 70 and 120 dollars per night and worked 6 out of 7 days a week.

I kkk8a lot to myself only mixing with the girls I worked with. We lived well, in the best of flats - it was nothing to spend 200 or 300 bucks a week on making life comfortable.

John turned up a week or so after I had tripped out on the mushrooms. He pulled up one night as I was loitering on the street with a car load of kids blowing their brains. He said, "quit work for tonight, drop this toil and join us." I wanted to so much but the girl I was working with hated to work by herself, (so did we all) and I would have felt rude taking off and leaving her and in any case the police were picking up their weekly bribe that evening and I hadn't earned the full rent ($75).

He said it was a shame and drove off. That night he smashed his car up - it was pouring with rain. He later told me this girl he had been living with was a jinx and every time she tripped with him he never failed to crash. No one was hurt except the car. His car was a 1969 Valiant, comfortable to ride in, he had a powerful stereo set un his car and at least 20 tapes.

We became good friends but I never really understood the guy. The first time we tripped I was too proud to tell him I hadn't dropped acid previously and made out I had tripped twice before. He and another friend picked me up around 9 one evening. We spent some time in a hotel and headed for a junkies pad where we dropped a full tab each 750m. It was a fair while before any reaction took place in my mind, just as it did an uncool scene took place.

The pad we were at had been busted only the night before and a few more of the occupants came home and felt that we were very uncool to be tripping on in their pad after the scene they had had. The bad vibrations shot around the room as if someone had opened a door and let a cold draft in, it hit the three of us and we headed for the door so fast. I remember John apologising and next thing we were heading down the road taking a rain check. Peter, John's friend mentioned the place may have been watched so we left trying to act like normal people. After about 200 yards one of the boys mentioned that such and such a police station was on our left. A terrible fear came over me. I thought we were giving ourselves up - police were pulling up in cop cars and throwing us in the back of divi wagons. I was getting flashes of the word police every where I looked. I was paranoid.

Somehow I pulled myself out of it. I was shaking like hell. Next thing I remember we were drinking coffee in a resturant.

The Night faded away along with the trip - at some unearthly hour of the morning I found myself in the two mens mines.

I split the scene and found my own way home. John had an uncool way of chatting a chick up. Junkies believe that whoever supplies the shit the girl involved naturally goes home with him. This wasn't me. So I always managed to avoid him towards the end of a trip. He never appealed to me sexually. No one did in that case. I guess I was beginning to hate sex as the work I involved myself in turned my thoughts against men in general.

I started buying acid in. $100 lots about 20 trips a time. They came in capsules of ten and I began tripping at least once a week.

This story seems to be centred around myself. It's not meant to be so we'll get on with John's scene.

John lived with a chick in his mother's pad which anyone would have envied - it was beautiful. His mother spent a lot of time in Surfer's Paradise so he mainly lived in a flat by himself and, it was an own-your-own flat with a television screen at the door to see who it was and automatic introducers. I only went to his flat twice. It seemed fairly well looked after. The lounge was done out in sheepskin rugs and a stereo with four speakers.

John often came looking for me. He seemed a lonely person but everywhere we went he knew people. He was well known amongst the junkies. He told me on several occassion how most of his life was spent with the spirits, how he let them run his life, they were his guides at all times. As I was saying he often came looking for me and not matter where I was, in the city visiting friends or at the beach, he always found me. His whole life seemed surrounded by these spirits. His tapes were important to him also. For weeks on end he turned to his tapes for answers he found difficult to figure out. He became very involved in his tapes what ever they told him he did, until one day he was told to destroy all his tapes, which he did without question.

To me his life seemed always protected. When we tripped together he drove carelessly but nothing ever went wrong. He was also colour blind and couldn't tell whether the traffic lights said stop or go - even if we went through a red light the spirits were there to avoid any accident.

He told me of an experience he had once which he rarely told people as he was laughed at. He had been dropping acid for about 6 weeks continuous and sleeping whenever and wherever he found himself. He woke up on a beach one morning with several pigs looking down on him. They said, quote; "You've gone the few John. We will have to lock you away for a while". From that moment on until he was released from custody he was semi conscious of all his actions. The court sent him to a mental home for treatment. He tried to defend himself in court and began screaming. His body was taken over by a spirit who through him began healing both mental and crippled people. The staff were frightened of him and regarded his as some sort of scourer. After a day or so he was thrown out and he returned to his natural self.

On several occasions he had visions where once he was taken up in a chariot into the sky. The general impression of this man, was good natured, kind hearted, he never once forced himself on to me but I kkkw he would have liked to.