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Cars move past us in the rain like big and
small ships in treeless avenues. The whup-whap of the single wiper blade
follow the regional radio station out of step. We sail through the gates
of the psychological institution to visit a friend that swears like a
sailor.
He knows his pills well and understands his own crotchets. He is slim
and tall and shaves when the sun shines in winter. His beard and uncombed
hair grows like an orange tree from his oversized jersey. His shoes, he
says, are good for ten thousand miles. He has walked the downhills of
life.
We drink coffee from half-filled cups without sauces. They don't allow
him sugar.
We are here in the grayish visiting room to hear about his unpublished
book on LSD."LSD in action" he calls it. He knows the story
well.
"Do you think I'm mad?" he asks me.
"No, only people who don't like rock music and..." he smiles
and tipples around the small low coffee table, "and people who kill
people..."
"No! No! I can't take killing! They gave me a rifle and said: 'Go
kill people' and I killed people! They are mad! They're all mad! I want
out. I want to leave. I know about schizophrenia: the paranoia, the temper,
the unpredictability. I do everything right. After nineteen months they
throw me in the military hospital. I smoke pot. Only then they kick me
out!"
I peek over the edge of the half-filled coffee cup. He gets nervous when
he looses eye contact.
"This was a civvy case. They lock me up. They shave my hair. That's
all I know: LSD. I was a trafficker, man. Since little. Then somebody
bailed me out; my dad. He shits on me. I say sorry. He brings me here.
Ten years now. They treat me shit. Sometimes I look in the mirror just
to make sure I'm still white. I love my girlfriend. She is tall and wet.
I love her." I notice the short plump girl walking up and down past
the visiting room.
"Today I'm not afraid of death. Yesterday, yes, but not today."
"What is death?" my friend asks.
"Death is what is and what is not." A short pause.
"What is love?"
"Love is Jesus, man!" He asks if we'd like more coffee.
"What is life?"
"Life is light. Life is strokes. You know what strokes are?"
We try a few explanations out of an LSD book.
"When you touch somebody, that is a stroke. It strokes you inside."
He lifts his yellow jersey and places his hand on the black t-shirt. Then
he strokes my friends shoulder with his other hand: "When I stroke
you, you stroke me. It is your body: you stroke and drive. Your body drives
you through life. You drive between the trees until you get to heaven.
You drive it hard, you drive it slow. You drive what you are. You just
have to top up the whole time. One time I take one thousand two hundred
milligram. I was on a trip for four days, man. Through the traffic lights
and parking areas. I can drive when I'm on a trip like that. I was just
ticking over for four days. But you got to drive carefully. Doesn't matter
what your body is."
The short plump girls finally enters the room and aims for the second
chair from me.
"What do you use at the moment?" my friend asks him.
"Aikatine. They give me aikatine. It's almost like LSD. Yesterday
I swallowed eight of them. Today I feel good. Bianpathanine: rubbish.
Thearathanine: nothing." He explains a range of psychiatric medicines
and their side effects with staggering insight. I ask him which of the
medicines he finds best for him. "LSD." he answers without hesitation.
"It stabilizes me."
The short plump girl occupied the chair before it had a chance of fighting
back. "I'm too clever for them. In four years time I'm a doctor,
okay? I'll open my own clinic, okay? They couldn't tell me anything. I
use sixty marbles, okay. I'm the best. I feel the condition of the moment
and mix the oils and rub it in."
Different strokes for different folks, I thought.
"I'm the best, okay. They can't teach me anything. Baphathine doesn't
help. I'm here only to rest, okay? In four years time I'm a doctor, okay?"
"What is democracy?" my friend asks. He is a friend of many
questions.
The short plump girl leans forward: "Look here man, I know what democracy
is, okay? Democracy is I am I and you are you, okay. God is God, okay.
But in my clinic you will be the dimension of yourself."
"There are many dimensions, many!" the orange tree resident
utters.
The short plump lady gets up. "I am I and you are you, okay?"
and then she waddles out of the small room.
"I like your mustache. Do you want to make a pipe?" He brings
a bent pipe and cherry flavoured tobacco out from under his big yellow
jersey. "You look like an otter." he says to my friend. "Oh,
I'm only joking. No killing." He searches for his matches. "Actually,
I'm serious." I fear to ask what I look like but I offer him my lighter.
The cherry aroma fills the room and lends colour to the grayish walls.
Through the smoke I notice for the first time a small framed war painting
by an unknown painter. It hangs slightly skew. We start walking for the
car.
"On what are you?" he asks my friend who gets involved in a
rather technical explanation of medicines and poetry. The schizophrenics
are excellent poets; short powerful poetry, cubist perspective and straight
down to the woman. Some schizophrenics publish regularly.
"You don't talk... but you drive." He catches me unawares as
I'm thinking about the consequences of the wars in Africa that we all
got to know so well. "You drive a good car."
"We're here in my friend's Fiat." I answered.
"Porsche!" he says and I don't know what to answer. "Porsche!
You drive a Porsche."
"Thank you," I said and point the nose of the little car through
the treeless avenues to the airport.
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