In the Wilderness - Kim Barnes [61]
The walk home had done little to alleviate my disoriented state. I sat on the couch, trying to explain to my concerned mother the effect of the lights and noise, how everything had swirled together and made me feel light-headed, giddy and nauseated. My mother felt my forehead, then pulled my lids up and studied my pupils.
“You go to bed. We’ll talk more about this in the morning when your father gets home.”
I felt my way down the stairwell, then fell into bed. I found the dial in the dark and tuned in KRLC. The game was still on, and I closed my eyes and imagined myself there, part of a world I might step into like Alice through her glass. I wasn’t sure I was ready. I wasn’t sure I could hold my own in such a place.
Finally, the decision would not be mine. My behavior after the game had set alarm bells ringing in the minds of my parents: disoriented, pale, breathless, describing what could easily be hallucinatory events. It must be drugs.
They sat across from me, asking their strange questions that held some hidden meaning, I thought. Their combined and studied attention made me sweat.
“Did you take anything?” my mother asked.
I knew by the way she emphasized anything—drew it out, loaded it with a small nod of her head—that she meant LSD or speed or marijuana or some other horrible substance our minister was always warning us about. The idea seemed ridiculous to me: where would I get it? Why would I take it? What made them think I would do such a thing?
I might have laughed had it not been for the seriousness of their focus on my face. They were looking for truth in my eyes. I tried to appear humble, a compatriot, not a rebel.
My father crossed his legs and stubbed out his cigarette. He was still in his oil-spattered pants and plaid western shirt with pearl snaps, having made this time between work and sleep to address my last night’s state. My mother had spread a towel on the couch for him to sit on. I waited for whatever thought or question that was forming in his head to manifest itself into speech.
“When we were teenagers, your mother and I, sometimes we dropped aspirin into our Pepsi.” He paused here, gauging my response. I was intrigued by his confession, but I had no idea of its significance. Aspirin and soda pop? Did it explode? Was it like Alka-Seltzer, then? Was it dangerous?
“Why?” I asked.
My father glanced at my mother, who sat with her head bowed. I sensed she was ashamed of this story, just as she was about much of the life that had been hers before my father.
“It made us high.”
I considered this tidbit of information from such an unlikely source. Pepsi and aspirin. I tucked the formula away. Maria would be amazed.
“Did you and Maria do that?”
I shook my head. “We drank pop, but we didn’t put aspirin in it.”
My father uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Did anyone offer you anything? Offer to buy you candy?”
I’d been cautioned to death about this. No, no one.
“Where did you get the pop?”
“At the snack stand.”
“Did the cups have lids?”
“No.” What were they after now? I wondered.
“When did you start feeling funny?”
I thought back to the game, the lights and noise. “As soon as we got there.”
“Is that when you got the Pepsi?” He leaned back, flicked his lighter.
They were trying to trick me. “Yes, but we didn’t put anything in it, honest, Dad, we didn’t … we didn’t even know …”
My father held up his hand, his cigarette nestled deep between his fingers. “I’m not saying you did.” He looked at my mother and forced a jet of smoke from between his teeth. “I think someone dropped something in her pop.”
I didn’t really think I’d been drugged by some pervert hoping to render me helpless or a pusher baiting his next junkie—I still believed my altered state came from being in such an altered environment—but it got me off the hook. We could all rest easier knowing the blame lay outside our circle.
There