First Time I Got Bananas

From smoking a banana. The era was Beach Week. The day was mid-week. The air was hot. And people wanted to smoke, bananas. So our good friend, we'll call him Cameroon, he was our great spiritual guide into this new world (well at least for me, I know J1 had smoked before, and I think J2 might have (names concealed for various internet privacy/courtesy reasons)). Cam was also there when I first tried bananas but didn't actually get bananas. This time, he said, it was sure to happen.

We found ourselves a space in the bathroom-damn all those who had to pee or worse that night for some hour(s) - and Cam took the helm on the toilet while the rest of us gathered around like disciples of the great herb-- er banana. I think I was standing in the shower, J1 was sitting on the tub, and J2 was sitting on the ground. Matt had also entered himself into the running for a bit in the beginning but he soon lost the will, and he scrambled off into the house for more booze and drunken romancing of the night.

Meanwhile, Cameroon was already lighting up the banana, and passing out the inaugural hits. I remember it taking some time to take effect, maybe years, but I kept at it, because damn it I wanted to get bananas. As per typical in big trips/boozing sessions involving many a people and species of people there tends to be drama and problems and life lessons dished out like hotcakes, and the only reasonable response to such things is to continue to lay ruin to yourselves and perceptions of life. I had various things mess up in the earlier days of the beach week, but those would probably be best left to later posts, the point being, it was time to get bananas.

I had the oft-experienced "I'm not high yet / I don't feel anything yet / it's not working" as many a naive youth does when venturing into contraband only to be struck across the face with its effects ten-fold in an instant, as it catches up to your body. My initial feeling was this, the bathroom was in space as a capsule, and we were in it. There was only space surrounding the small bathroom cube were in, as in cosmic space. It was an intense high for sure. We spent a good while in there, or at least it seemed that way against the warped time-space continuum we now occupied. The main conversation that occurred between the passing was J2 giving us the rundown on his relationship at the time. I'm not sure how we got there, but he was going deep into it, while jumped around on the shower curtain rod, J1 sat smiling I'm sure, and Cam sort of stared out into the depths of space. At a certain point towards the end of one particular anecdote involving this girl, there was a bit of a pause, and Cam suddenly chimes in, "Wait, what are you talking about?"

J1 and I burst out laughing, like humor was suddenly woven into our bones controlling our bodies when it so chose. I also realized that most everything I laughed at was just plain mean, but I couldn't stop it. Everyone was funny, and everyone was dumb, and I was the dumbest of all, but none of it mattered. Before we knew it, we were apparently finishing up and preparing to exit the great bathroom. Cam sat up from his Buddha/Jabba the Hut pose in the middle of the room, and we got up with him. He cleaned up the remains and went to the door, but before he opened it he turned to us with a big delirious smile.

"Today is the first day of the rest of your lives, boys!" He started. "You're never gonna be able to look at your mothers the same way! Nothing will be the same! You're minds will be altered from here on out, and although the man might be staring you down, you'll be laughing in his face! This is where we break free and learn to live! Now, go! Go! Go!"

And he waved us out the door, each of us bolting out with big dumb smiles slapped across our faces as we fell into an abyss of images, scenery, and record-skipping time lapses. J1 and I quickly paced into the living room looking around at the faces then back at each other. We were already starting to crack. We couldn't take trying to pretend to be normal, even if everyone around us was trashed. We kept walking onto the other bathroom on the other side of the house. We were safe, and when we tried to talk about, we just started laughing, and didn't stop for maybe a good twenty minutes.

The rest of the night went less sequentially as it did in portraits, like when we were back in the living room watching what appeared to be Cameroon and Zachariah Bohemian clash drunkenly. These are large, large young men, and they battled wildly as I stared on in disbelief. Another short portrait was on the way back to the other house where we were staying. We took the back way to avoid my crush of the era so I wouldn't have to interact on bananas (we got word she was headed our way). I was a nervous wreck around her most of the time those days, and being rather paranoid it wasn't going to get any better if we went the normal way. We also spent a good hour or five in one of the bedrooms lying around and just listening to shit happening outside like some female cop yelling at kids. I remember seeing J1 looking like he was depressed and I told him that everything was all right, and that he shouldn't be upset with himself over everything, but he didn't respond. Turns out later, as he told me, that he was simply bananas and didn't hear a word I said, and he was actually rather happy.

The night was capped off with a big and stupid argument with a highly inebriated friend of ours (who'd actually pushed for us to get high earlier that night) about which drug was worse, weed or booze. Then we passed out and forgot ourselves.