100 Words / 12 Hits / Gravity

100 Words / 12 Hits / Gravity

GINA MORIARTY

The first time my boyfriend ever tried LSD, I put two hits in a beer bottle a half hour before I told him about it. He was already rolling so he fucking loved it. 

“Let’s candy flip on the coast.” 

Before our trip, I traded a half ounce of Medicinal Gelato for two strips of Rick and Morty perforated paper. I sold ten hits, one strip, and the profits funded a ball of cocaine. We stopped along the turnpike every hour on the hour to sniff lines in the family bathroom stalls. The ball didn’t make it to the beach.

*

1:53 AM. The motorcycle revved into the parking lot just in time: Ocean City liquor store closed at 2. Neon lights fizzled in the salty breeze. We were in and out, but we had a dilemma: until you’ve packed for a motorcycle trip, you’ve taken the luxury of luggage for granted. The pannier was crammed full, and all our clothes jammed in a duffel bungie-tied to my backrest. Now what? We hit Coastal Highway, full speed. Him driving, me on the back, with a case of Budweiser and a bottle of cheap tequila across my lap. Let’s call it carry-on. 

*

We ate Rick and Morty LSD on the Fourth of July. Three days in advance a friend hooked us up with one room two blocks from the beach. Three Cheers. Second Floor. One hit each. Sul-sul. This batch made me speak Simlish: A language from the Sims. A strategic life simulation computer game. Auschten-Dorf. Holographic vision. Beach and back. Sisaroom? The condo was brand new. Aventurescence. Pleasant. Ah, docka morpher. Tequila. OJ. Tequila. I expected an explosion. Boom. Big boom. Back to beach. Ooh be gah. Beachside at sunrise, the sun shone green like a traffic light traversing the atmosphere. 

*

Sunshine. Sugar Cubes. Lucy. Liquid Love. Uncle Cid. Windowpanes. Doses. Paper. Blotter. Stamps. Lysergic-Acid-Diethylamide. One hundred hits are known within the psychedelic community as a sheet. Ten sheets, a book. One-hundred sheets, ten thousand hits, we call that a Bible. On the beach, I suggested we call it a passport instead. The nomenclature of a traveler’s visa derives from the Latin phrase Charta Visa: “paper that has been seen,” and U.S. citizens refer to their passport as a “blue book.” So, why not? Ingesting that much LSD is a spiritual journey, but ten-thousand stamps sure make a lot of trips. 

*

Clothed with surge, heavy with undercurrent, our feet and our hands in the tide. We let the waves drag the beach snug around our shins. 

 “Do you feel it? The waves, the energy? More than the water. That pull – a deep force beneath – in and out… in and out…in.” I felt connected to the core: beckoned from the nucleus. 

“What has the moon to do with the tide?” he asked the summer night’s sky. 

“How can the moon affect the Earth breathing?” I breathed deeply. In and out. I suggested, “It’s all connected by a remarkable something. Maybe it’s love.”

*

I promise, you don’t know what tie-dye is until you’ve watched the rising sun’s rays tickle through the ocean foam while you’re tripping on LSD. The swells of water twist and turn vibrant shades of pinks and violets into turquoise, cobalt, white and emerald green colored braids. A fluid rainbow fashioned from the Earth, the wind, and the water. The involuntary tug, infinitely heaving. Swirling streams of shades into a mirror of humanity. In Portuguese, the word cafuné means to lovingly run your fingers through someone’s hair. That’s what the sky was doing: caressing strands into the ocean’s chaotic locks.

*

Lights off – useless. I could sense his signature with my eyes shut; his aura glowed sultry shades of pinks, blues, orange. Perception vibrated. His energy was enveloping. It pulsated, savage, and intimate. When my eyes blinked open, I engulfed his white swirling energy. I breathed him in, consumed by desire, and a carnal urge to bite. My lips slid sideways across the bridge of his nose. My incisor punctured skin. The movement sent us slipping, polished with passion, we plummeted to the rented condo floor. My lips were wet and red with his blood. We chuckled, convulsing, still connected.  

*

Wearing shorts on a Harley is frowned upon. The pipes will burn the skin off your shin faster than you can cuss. Riding the east coast beneath the July sun, jeans were out of the question. Sunscreen made my butt cheeks squeak. When I shifted, my skin sounded like the beginning of “Money.” To achieve this noise in the recording studio, Pink Floyd tore pieces of tape. Sweaty thighs against black leather make the same sound: riiiiiip. Red splotches appeared like bruises. When traffic stopped, the asphalt replied with ripples of heat. High-fidelity first-class traveling.  No way to get away.

*

Map Quest lied. The three-and-a-half-hour ride became five. From Ocean City, MD to AC, New Jersey, we rode painfully hungover with the coast on our right. Traffic was a bitch. We rode the berm. One side of my body burned bright red. On the AC Expressway, the Jersey skies opened and cried. The lobby was filled with flashy sundresses and sandals. We were holding hands and dripping rain. Sunburn singed my shoulders. 

“One smoking king. Floor 7.” 

Pot fumes greeted our arrival as if Cheech and Chong were down the hall. I sparked a joint before our door clicked shut.

*

We meandered Old Philadelphia Pike and took back roads home. I watched red teardrops on my GPS, set to “search along” our route for restaurants. The town names of south-central PA, nearby Amish Country, are coined with silly, sexual innuendos. First, Intercourse. Now, Bird-In-Hand. Fertility Village ahead. Signs for horse-and-buggy crossings punctuated the otherwise empty roads. “Smokehouse BBQ and Brews” appeared promptly. I tapped him, stretching my arm across his shoulder, I waved my phone in his face. He nodded and signaled the turn. Two-and-a-half hours since we left Atlantic City. We stopped once for gas. Still six hours from home.

*

“Pump the brakes,” I yelled, pinching his sides. 

He couldn’t hear me. I should’ve let him buy the expensive headsets. I wanted to spend our money on drugs, but now that all the drugs were gone, I was beginning to doubt the expenditures, our priorities. For roughly nine rough hours I sat behind him, with nothing to amuse me besides the steady scenery, the rolling hills of Pennsylvania. I played Grateful Dead renditions through the Bluetooth radio, barreling a parade from the saddle bags. I hoped the melodies would distract me from how quickly the asphalt whizzed beneath my feet. 

*

8:57 PM. The sky had darkened by the time we pulled into the driveway. Darkled. Nine-hundred-and-eighty-nine miles in total. 11 miles shy of 1000. I dismounted first, hamstrings aching. Riding a motorcycle can be a real pain in the ass. We untangled our luggage and collapsed beside each other on the couch. After twelve hours, the physical separation from feet to floor, from chest to back, was unfamiliar. I was ungrounded, cold without him. We went to bed immediately, slept tucked together, like when the bike turns hard into a steep turn, and the pressure smushes us together like one. 

BIO

Gina Moriarty is an emerging writer who earned her MFA through Chatham University in Pittsburgh. Her thesis was the recipient of the Katherine Ayres Award. She writes emotion driven narrative nonfiction. Typically, her work covers the themes of addiction, heartache, and coincidence beneath an umbrella of hope.