An Overdosable Drug

            The Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary does not recognize “overdosable” as a word, which is interesting since many people claim that it’s impossible to overdose on marijuana. Let me set the record straight–it is indeed possible to overdose on marijuana, and once you are experiencing the effects of a marijuana overdose, every combination of letters is most certainly a word; I don’t care what Merriam-Webster (or his team of grammar thugs) says. How do I know this?

            It’s sometime in the middle of the first decade of the new millennium and I’m somewhere in the middle of New York State, taking in the sights and sounds of the Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance (and Drugs! If that’s what you’re into). It’s late afternoon and I’m still recovering from a combination gin/drug-of-your-choice hangover from the night before when I run into a friend of a friend who’s selling pot brownies for a dollar-a-piece. Like any long-haired, ill-informed, drug-enthused, rebellious free-thinker in the midst of a four-day bender, I buy the entire tray. I head over to the dance tent—where a zydeco band has their audience smiling, swinging, and shuffling—and hand out brownies to anybody who wants one, free of charge (how nice of me), careful to let them know the secret ingredient (how responsible of me), eating one myself each time I give one away (how utterly stupid of me). They are absolutely delicious, rich and chocolaty; hell, Julia Child wouldn’t even know what was in them if someone didn’t tell her.

I meet up with my friends Snake (not his real name, but I always thought it would be cool to have a friend named Snake) and his girlfriend Marla (not her real name, but I always thought it would be cool to have a friend named Marla), give them each as many brownies as they want, and then eat some more myself. By this point, the tray is empty; nearly half of the baked goods working their way through my digestive system like an army marching into enemy territory, or perhaps more appropriately, like an enemy army infiltrating my territory. The body buzz hits first—mild, moderate, then intense. My vision is next; waves of insecurity trembling off every object in view, sending anxious vibrations straight into the depths of my photoreceptors, playing a foreign film that I couldn’t turn off if I wanted to. I close my eyes, squeezing my lids so hard that my brows are brushing my cheeks and when I open them it is dark—nighttime—the daylight having vanished into thin air. Snake and Marla are sitting in front of me, Indian style, laughing at who knows what—wait, are they laughing at me?—I close my eyes again and when I open them, they’re standing erect, pulling me up by the arms. “Come on,” they say, “let’s go to the drum circle.”

             The drum circle is a football field away and getting there proves to be a laborious event. My feet are heavy, like walking through wet cement, my hands sweaty, like they’re covered in olive oil. The drummers sit in a circle, around an ensemble of dancing flames, enraged in a violent attempt to overthrow the New World Order through a combination of tribal pulses and ritualistic chants. The drummers heave their paws against the tight skin of dead animals, trying their best to resurrect their spirits. The flames do the rumba, the jitterbug, and the jive. Snake is swimming in the nighttime air, his arms doing the overhand crawl, which for reasons unknown, scares the bejesus out of me. Marla must see the horror in my eyes. She slaps Snake in the side with the back of her hand. “Knock it off,” she says.

            Snake stops swimming and starts running in motion, going nowhere fast, with a grin across his face that even Lucifer himself would be envious of. I quickly realize that everyone in the drum circle, some six dozen strong, are all looking at me. And laughing!!! Hehehehe, hahahahaha, huhuhuhuhuh…I NEED TO GO! And I need to go now.

            I say nothing. I just take off, away from the satanic cadence, away from the salsa dancing flames. But I don’t get far. Twenty yards away from the drums and I notice a cluster of diabolical children out of the corner of my eye. They are pointing at me and giggling and planning my demise. I hit the ground hard, my chest on the grass, my arms and legs spread apart like a snow angle in full extension. I try my best to blend into the surroundings. I pray that the ground will swallow me hole, to hide me from the spies that are all around. Everybody is after me—the entire festival an elaborate setup to take me down; everybody doing their part to ensure that I get locked up for a long time. Those hippies scampering by barefoot aren’t hippies at all—they’re FBI.  That group of musicians playing on the main stage isn’t a band at all—that’s the CIA. They’re all after me—the DEA, ATF, NSA, DHS, USDA, NCIS, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Interpol, Ameripol, MI5, IMF, Sector 7, Section 13, SMERSH, DXS, CONTROL, the Earth Protection Force, Omega Sector, The Phoenix Foundation, The Thought Police, and the Office of Unspecified Services—working together for one common goal: TO-BRING-ME-DOWN! I need water. The answer is water. Water will protect me. Only one problem—the spigot is back over by the dance tent, another football field away. I begin to army crawl towards it.

            “What are you doing down there?”

            “Fuck! They’ve found me.”

            “Hey, are you okay?”

            I turn to my side and discover Snake and Marla sitting Indian style right next to me.

            “We’ve been looking for you for hours.”

            Hours? Has it been hours? “Water,” is all I can say.

            “It’s right there.”

            “You are literally right next to it.”

            I look over to find the spigot about three feet from my motionless body. I crawl to it, flip the handle and let the water pour over my head, drip into my mouth, transforming cotton into a crystal clear mountain spring.

            “Come on; let’s go back to the campsite.”

            My friends lead me through the festival. I do my best to hide behind their bodies as we travel by the undercover agents. When we finally reach the tent, they say, “Climb in, you need to go to sleep.”

            I am apprehensive, frightened by what or who is waiting for me inside. I make a quick dash for the woods but Snake grabs my arm. “Where are you going to go?” he asks.

            “You’re safe here,” Marla whispers. “Just get in the tent. Don’t worry, it’s nothing sexual.”

            Sexual? Why did she have to use the word “sexual”? I close my eyes and crawl through the mouth of the beast, the tent swallowing me whole. I roll to the far end, bury my face into my hands and concentrate on my breathing, until blackness fades to nothing. That was ten years ago. I’m still waiting to wake up.