Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="BigTom" data-source="post: 1845180" data-attributes="member: 16366">Big Tom's Story“Dude, I have smoked a lot of things, and taken a lot of pills, but I have never heard of getting buzzed from eating cactus.”    “I’m telling you man, these are, like, the bonus level for shrooms.  You will never have an experience like this again.  Just take one.  Would I steer you wrong?”    Jakey didn’t thing Bo would steer him wrong.  He also didn’t think he was going to have the freakiest experience of his life from a little cactus.  But Bo was a wise man.  He had survived the 60s and lived with the Indians, so Jakey was pretty sure he knew what he was talking about.  When Bo had called and said he had something special to share, Jakey had assumed that he meant the California Gold Bo was always raving about.  He hadn’t expected to find Bo with a cake pan full of cactus.  As Jakey debated whether to eat one of the spikey little things, Bo told him, “Well, this goes back to when I was on the reservation.  I was a freaked out kid in a freaked out world, and the Indians seemed to be the only people I met who had their thing together.  So they let me crash out with them.  I guess maybe they figured they needed all the white friends they could get, what with the G trying to take their land because they might have some oil.  After a while, they sort of adopted me into their tribe.  They didn’t, like, give me feathers or paint my face or any of that stuff.  They did give me an Indian name though, ‘Chi-hoo’, which meant ‘seeker of medicine’.  For them, medicine wasn’t just some pills that made you feel better; medicine was about curing what ailed the body and the spirit.  I wasn’t, like, allowed into their meetings or anything, but they did let me work the land and consult with the elders.  Eventually, they turned me on to shrooms.  You can call it peyote or mescaline or whatever man, but I call it the short path to God.  I followed Peyote to Coyote and he lead me to the Promised Land.  But it was like Moses man, he could take me to the entrance, but I could go no further.  That’s when the medicine man turned me on to these bad boys.  They never talk about these to outsiders, but they considered me on the inside then.  When the missionaries came, they found the mushrooms and the weeds, but they never grokked the cactus, so it remained their little secret.  I can’t describe what I found on that next trip to you.  I can just tell you I learned everything I needed to know to become the groovy human I am today on that trip.  I saw god, man.  When the medicine man passed on to the spirit realms, he left instructions that I should receive these, and use them to, like, turn on another mixed up white dude to the spiritual truth.  Jakey, you are the most mixed up cool little white dude I know, so I decided to share them with you.”    <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17158" target="_blank">Jakey looked down at the pan of baked cacti</a>.  Then he gingerly picked one up.  He sniffed at it, and it had a strangely pleasant aroma.  A weak, aloe vera like smell.  “Go on, man,” said Bo, “it will crunch in your mouth just like a popper.”  Jakey took a deep breath, tossed the cactus into his mouth, and crunched down. It did indeed crunch like a popper, but his mouth was instantly filled with a strangely bitter taste.  He clamped his jaw against a sudden reflex to spit it out.  He bit down a few more times.  His face grew into a twisted mask from the awful taste and the battle to hold his mouth closed.  Finally he swallowed it down.  “Man, that was the worst thing I ever tasted,” said Jakey.  Bo replied, “yeah, but the best medicines always taste the worst man.”    Then the room spun.    Jakey was standing in the empty lot next to his apartment building.  It was a dirty place.  The neighbors used it as a dump.  He saw the metallic carcasses of televisions and air conditioners.  Something was different though.  At first he couldn’t quite figure what it was.  He looked up, and the sky was still blue.  He looked around, and the buildings were still there, then he looked down.    He was completely naked.    And that was ok.    Jakey began to slowly walk across the field.  He knew his nudity should bother him.  After all, if the cops caught him walking around naked he’d be downtown again for sure, and his mom would throw one of her tantrums and his dad would smack him around again and ask him what was wrong with him.  That didn’t matter right now.  Right now being naked was just perfect.  A voice in his head told him, “clothes inherently lead to fashion.  Fashion by its nature leads to vanity and conformity.  By shedding your clothes, you have removed the need to hide yourself or to appear better than you are.”  Jakey smiled at that thought.  He thought about all the girls in school who spent so much time putting on make up and picking out clothes and how nasty that all were to each other and to guys like him who bought second hand clothes.  He thought how much happier all of them could be if they could all just be naked together and not have to fight over who was pretty.  Then he thought, “Wait a minute, I heard that statement.”  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17159" target="_blank">He looked up and saw The Warrior.</a>    A moment before it had been a bright afternoon.  Now it was sunset.  Against the blazing orange of the sunset stood the most incredible person Jakey had ever seen.  He was a tall Indian warrior.  His head was wrapped, and his skin was painted with strange symbols.  It was hard to read them against the brightness of the sunset.  In his hand he held a bow, and Jakey could sense by his stance that he was ready and able to use it.  When he turned, Jakey saw arrows sticking out of his back.  Jakey knew those arrows were what killed The Warrior and knew The Warrior was standing before him.  The Warrior spoke again.  “Jakey, I am your guide.  In life I was a great leader of my people.  I fought glorious battles against my enemies.  But I never looked to the spirits to learn how to use my gifts.  In the end, my own people shot me in the back to end my reign of terror, even though I gave them victory and glory.   Now my eternal penance is to guide lost souls like yours.  Come now and journey with me to heaven.”    The Warrior began to walk into the wastes, and Jakey followed.    Jakey wasn’t sure how long he walked.  There was no sense of time in this place.  He only sensed that it was a long time, and that his body was tired and sore.  Yet The Warrior walked on and on, never breaking stride.  Jakey tried to question him, but the warrior would only reply, “your answers lie at the end of your path, not here.”  So eventually Jakey stopped questioning and began to concentrate on keeping up.  They walked through many places.  For a while they were in a vast wasteland of rotting televisions and rusted out cars.  Then they were in a forest, full of the sounds of the animals and cool from the shade.  Then they were on a great cornfield walking though row after row after row.  Then they walked across a lake.  This Jakey found slightly disconcerting, but he was afraid to not follow The Warrior so he walked on water.  Finally they came to the base of a low hill.  Their The Warrior stopped.  He did not turn, but spoke to Jakey as he stared at the hill.  “Jakey, this is where you must make a choice.  On the other side of this hill is the path to heaven.  This path is long and painful, and many do not complete it.  Those who fail to complete it are damned souls doomed to forever walk the spirit world aimlessly and hopelessly.  I cannot accompany you on this path, Jakey.  I can take you home now.  You must either travel alone to heaven or hell or travel with me to the safety of your life.  Choose.”    For Jakey there was no choice.  His life was already a path to Hell and he knew it in his heart.  Any path with heaven at the end was better to follow.  Jakey answered The Warrior by climbing the hill.  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17160" target="_blank">At the top, he looked out over a vast, blasted wasteland.</a>  There were tall mountains, but nothing grew on them.  The only change in color from the burned, ashen gray of the mountains was the white caps of snow on top of them.  Nothing green was visible.  There was no movement.  There was no sound.  There was just Jakey and emptiness as far as the eye could see.  Jakey turned around to look at The Warrior, and The Warrior was gone.  So was everything else that had been behind him.  He beheld nothing but a void.  Now the only ground he could walk on lead into the waste.  Jakey took one more look at the way in front of him, and took the first step into the wastes.    For Jakey there was no time except the feeling of eternity.  There was no distance; each mountain seemed to lead to another mountain and another empty valley.  He slaked his thirst on snow at the top of the mountains, then shivered from the cold entering his body and felt even weaker.  Many times he fell.  He felt the bruises and sometimes the tearing of his flesh, and was aware that he had begun to bleed.  He could do nothing about it.  If he rested to let his wounds heal, he wouldn’t have the strength to finish the journey.  Finally he came to the base of the tallest mountain he had ever seen.  His strength was gone.  He felt more pain in his body that ever before, even when his old man beat him down or the kids bashed him around in the gym.  He felt weak from blood loss.  He felt himself dying.  He knew he could lay down right now and die.  Dying here was the least painful thing he could do.  He could simply lay down and let the bleeding take him out slowly.  Or he could climb until his body stopped, and every step would be agony.  As he looked at the mountain, he realized he wanted to see what was on the other side.  Finally, he said to himself, “I am going to die, but I am at least going to die walking towards heaven.”  He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and took the first agonized step up the mountain.    By the time Jakey reached the top of the mountain, he had no strength left.  He could accept death in this moment to end the agony he felt.  But he wanted to see the other side before he lay down in the snow to freeze.  Before him was unending mountains.  Unending waste.  Unending death.  The gray was broken up by one spot of color.  It was at the base of the mountain.  Jakey looked and knew what it was.  It was a door.  Jakey took a step forward, and everything began to spin.  Jakey realized what was happening, he was falling down the mountain.  He hadn’t the strength to hold himself up anymore.  He could do nothing but let himself fall.  He felt pain after pain as he bounced down the mountain.  He felt his bones break.  The wind was knocked out of him and he was even more helpless.  There was an enormous feeling of force striking his whole body, and Jakey realized he had reached the bottom.  For a time everything went dark.  Then it became gray again, and Jakey was conscious.  He saw the door in front of him.  It was a simple wooden door with a simple brass handle.  Realizing that his legs would no longer work, Jakey crawled with his hands to the door and, with the last of his strength, pulled himself up enough to turn the knob and open it.  He collapsed through the door, and merciful oblivion took him for a time.    When he woke up, he was in Bo’s apartment, sticking out of the wall.  In front of him he saw Bo slumped over at his kitchen table.  To his right he saw himself lying on the couch glassy eyed and drooling.  It wasn’t a pleasant picture.  To his left he saw The Warrior, standing by Bo’s stereo.  “Is this Heaven?” Jakey asked The Warrior.  “No, this is your life and you must return to it.” The Warrior looked at him and smiled slightly.  “Jakey, you are a man who can climb a hundred mountains, who can bleed from a hundred wounds and can still triumph.  If you can do that, you can achieve any happiness you want in this life.  It is time for you to walk this world as a man, find your happiness, and conquer it like you conquered the tall mountain.  That is Heaven.”  And The Warrior was gone.  Jakey crawled to his disgusting, drooling body and felt himself return into himself.  Then he rested some more, but this time it was the simple, dreamless sleep of the very intoxicated.    Bo and Jakey both awoke several hours later.  They did not speak for some time, as neither could put words to what he had discovered.  They quietly ate some Pizza Bo had left from the night before, and that helped restore their strength.  For some time they sat at the kitchen table, staring at each other.  Finally, Jakey broke the silence.  “Bo, I need some money man.  I need enough bread to get a bus ticket out of this town.”  Bo looked down at his plate and spoke.  “You found out where you need to be?”  “No,” Jakey responded, “but I did find out I need to go.  My happiness isn’t here man.  I don’t know where it is, but if I stay here, I ain’t gonna find it ever.  I need bus fare man.”  Bo smiled.  He looked at Jakey and giggled a bit before speaking.  “Jakey, I wandered for, like, twenty years to find this hole of an apartment so I could find one screwed up kid to help, and I have not regretted a moment of it.  Here is my wallet, there should be, like, three hundred bucks and a Visa card in there.  Take the cash.  Use the Visa to order a bus ticket by phone.  And I have something else for you.  Something more valuable.”  Bo got up and went to his dresser.  He pulled out a strange looking necklace.  It was a chain mesh with what looked to be nutshells hanging from it.  Bo handed it to him.  “This was a gift to me from my Medicine Man.  Those things hanging from it are wampum.  They used to be money before the white man replaced them with coins and paper.  Now, they hold a little bit of luck and a little bit of history.  Take this with you.  If you ever get lost, use this to get a little luck and find your path.  If you ever get confused, use this to remember what you learned today and find clarity.”  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17161" target="_blank">Jakey stared at the necklace for a moment, and what had looked ugly a moment before was suddenly beautiful for what it was.</a>  Quietly, Jakey put it in his backpack.  Then he ordered a bus ticket and put the cash in his pocket.  Jakey and Bo hugged.  Then Jakey turned and walked away, heading for the bus station.  They didn’t say another word to each other.  There was nothing left to say and too much to do.</blockquote>

Verification