"A Magic Carpet Ride With Tonto and The Ranger"

My father's job took our family to a new town from Douglas, Wyoming to Cheyenne in the summer of 1974. This was our third move in three years, but I did not go with them. I opted instead to move in with my grandparents in Guernsey, Wyoming. Most of my summers during my childhood were spent there experiencing many wonderful adventures. The year that I was allowed to attend high school there promised to be very rewarding and beneficial to my freedom. The hopes of entering adulthood on my terms were, however, crushed by my blatant acts of misuse. The first week of my fifteenth year found me in a near death situation, leaving my soul with a cross to bear.
There was a warm, summery quality that day in early September, three weeks into my sophomore year. Thinking that I was sitting in my third-hour study hall classroom, I gradually opened my eyes. I slowly became aware that I was lying on my back in front of a TV that was playing "The Lone Ranger." The black and white images drifted without sound across the small screen that hung from the white wall near the ceiling. Everything that was not in my immediate sight was cloudy and completely out of focus, as if I were looking through a camera lens that was being used for some dreamy special effects. The room had a soft, white glow that warmed my heart and let me know that everything was pretty groovy. Strange emotions crept through me like a cat exiting a dark alley into daylight, not knowing what it was going to find, looking at everything with expectant curiosity. An amusing thought occurred to me that had me wondering if I was having some grand hallucination.
"What?" was my mind's response with some amusement, but no one else inside me seemed to care or even be mildly interested in where, let alone why.
I slowly turned my head to the left, noticing that I was in an inclined position in a tall bed. My thin chest was bare above the dark-colored bedspread and white sheets that covered the rest of my tiny, disconnected body. My head seemed like a big balloon that had become detached from the rest of me with my thoughts floating in a haze behind me. I had no sensations in my body. The room started to become clearer, allowing me to notice that everything was very small. A faceless, older woman in a white suit, with her hair tied up above her head like a turbine, was next to me.
"Bee-hive," laughed someone in my head and I turned back toward the TV in front of me. Her voice entered my mind through ears of cotton with a language I had heard before but could not comprehend at this time. It did not really seem like words, so a response felt unnecessary. The eyes in the back of my head told me there was a night stand with a lamp that she commanded to stop emanating light. There was no change in the rooms brightness. She left the room without moving her legs, too deliberate to float.
Hours or seconds later, a soft, nervous voice spoke to me. I sensed that I had not been looking toward him when he started speaking and slowly turned my head in his
direction. I had no memory or care of him entering the room or how long he had been standing there at my left.
"I don't want you to worry about this, Son," he stated trying to hide his discomfort. He was a short, warm, older, overweight man wearing a worn, brown plaid suit-jacket and slacks. What small amount of hair that remained was gray and arranged to the side of his round head, just above his fat ears. "These things happen."
A voice inside me contemplated asking "Who the hell are you and what the hell are talking about?" This voice, however, was unable to convince the rest of me to respond. While the voices in my head held this conversation, the little, bald man turned his back to me, shuffling out of the room.
Another woman of identical description as the first, but opposite essence, marched into the room. She angrily trudged toward a brown, wooden closet that was leaning in my direction. A debate had sparked inside my mind on where that closet had come from, how long it had been there, and why doesn't it stand up straight and act like a closet should.
"Your clothes are in here," she abruptly stated, opening the closet door.
"We don't have any underwear for you, though." Her firm voice trailed off as she walked out the door. "So, you'll have to . . ."
My deflector shields were deployed in a vain attempt to fend off her negative vibes, but it was too little to late: she had already bummed my high. Somehow I knew now that I was no longer in my faded bell-bottom jeans, sneakers, and tie-dyed T-shirt, although I did not look to see for sure. My eyes began to wander slowly around the room. Toward my right, I noticed that I was not alone in this room. Next to me was a very old man with yellow skin in a hospital bed.
"Just where am I and what am I doing here, anyway?" I wanted to ask, but no one inside me would inform the motor skills department to vocalize these thoughts.
Some rational thoughts from amidst the fog were struggling for control of the magic carpet I was on, when suddenly two more women appeared at my left side. This time, they were not wearing white uniforms, but they did have turbines of hair. I recognized them as my mother and my Aunt Marilyn. In that very instant, I had complete understanding of what was happening to me. I had only a few small memories of the last twenty-four hours, some vague notion of how and why I was here, and just what "here" meant. This strange little trip I'd been on was annihilated by a nuclear fire of reality, leaving me with a feeling of overkill.
I'd been experimenting with my grandparents medications that had been nonchalantly lying about the house. Hundreds of unused prescriptions joyfully filled the shelves of the cupboards in the kitchen, inviting me to partake in a game of come-what-may. The
previous evening, I had taken about six of my grandfather's pills that slowed his heart
rate, but I did not notice a response. That morning, I took four more with a few of my grandmother's nerve pills mixed in for effect and a glass of milk before heading to school. I can only recall three small episodes after setting the empty glass on the kitchen counter.
The first event was in my first-hour class. All of the desks in this class were in a circle, so that everyone faced everyone else. I was sitting at my desk with the teacher sitting next to me. The right side of my face was embedded in my hand. My elbow was propped on the desk holding my head up. My eyes slowly opened to see the entire classroom staring at me like a stage curtain being drawn open to a captive audience eagerly awaiting the drama of the next act.
About two hours later, although it seemed like the following moment, I was walking to my desk in a different classroom. The room and everything in it seemed very small. It felt as though I was larger than life and behind myself as I approached the desk. I watched my books followed by my hands slide across the top of the desk onto the floor.
The next clouded memory I had was in this hospital room in Torrington, Wyoming, in this bed. My Uncle Leon was yelling at me "Was this it? Is this the one?", while holding up a brown prescription pill bottle in my face. The next thing I knew, Tonto's melting with The Ranger.
"Get your clothes on and let's go," my mother demanded, then stormed toward the door way.
"Your damn lucky to have lived," she stated with sharp anger as she stopped at the doorway.
"Now let's go." Her anger and disgust cut into my soul like the sharp blade of a crooked knife. This was the usual response from my parents in these situations. She was almost in the hallway before finishing her last statement.
"Your going back to Cheyenne with us." My aunt was still beside me.
"Since you took most of them the night before," she began after watching my mother leave, "they had to flush it out with IVs and sugar water. They couldn't just make you throw it up. All we could do was wait it out and see. Those pills stopped your heart. It was touch-and-go there for a while, Timmy." She patted my left forearm and walked out the door.
Everything around me was still small as my bare feet collided with the tile on the hospital floor. There was still no sensation in my body, nor would it return for about two days. Pulling my jeans over my blue hospital pants, I wondered how it had ever gotten this crazy and how much I would have to pay for this mistake.
I would like to say that this was the eye-opening experience that curtailed my drug abuse career. Quite the contrary, actually. It had only just begun. I was allowed to return to Grandma's and finish out the school year. This opened a lot of doors for me, allowing me to became very experienced in the abuse of illicit drugs.