Dying Inside

Toni shrugged. “They were unstable,” she said loftily. “Perhaps murder or suicide was where they were really at, and the acid just gave them the push they needed to go and do it. But that doesn’t mean you would, or me. Or maybe the doses were too strong, or the stuff was cut with some other drug. Who knows? Those are one-in-a-million cases. I have friends who’ve tripped fifty, sixty times, and they’ve never had any trouble.” She sounded impatient with me. There was a patronizing, lecturing tone in her voice. Her esteem for me seemed clearly diminished by these old-maid hesitations of mine; we were on the threshold of a real rift. “What’s the matter, David? Are you afraid to trip?”

“I think it’s unwise for both of us to trip at once, that’s all. When we aren’t sure where the stuff is going to take us.”

“Tripping together is the most loving thing two people can do,” she said.

“But it’s a risky thing. We just don’t know. Look, you can get more acid if you want it, can’t you?”

“I suppose so.”

“Okay, then. Let’s do this thing in an orderly way, one step at a time. There’s no hurry. You trip tomorrow and I’ll watch. I’ll trip on Sunday and you’ll watch. If we both like what the acid does to our heads, we can trip together next time. All right, Toni? All right?”

It wasn’t all right. I saw her begin to speak, begin to frame some argument, some objection; but also I saw her catch herself, back up, rethink her position, and decide not to make an issue of it. Although I at no time entered her mind, her facial expressions made her sequence of thoughts wholly evident to me. “All right,” she said softly. “It isn’t worth a hassle.”

Saturday morning she skipped breakfast — she’d been told to trip on an empty stomach — and, after I had eaten, we sat for a time in the kitchen with one of the squares of blotting paper lying innocently on the table between us. We pretended it wasn’t there. Toni seemed a little clutched; I didn’t know whether she was bothered about my insisting that she trip without me or just troubled, here at the brink of it, by the whole idea of tripping. There wasn’t much conversation. She filled an ashtray with a great dismal mound of half-smoked cigarettes. From time to time she grinned nervously. From time to time I took her hand and smiled encouragingly. During this touching scene various of the tenants with whom we shared the kitchen on this floor of the hotel drifted in and out. First Eloise, the sleek black hooker. Then Miss Theotokis, the grim-faced nurse who worked at St. Luke’s. Mr. Wang, the mysterious little roly-poly Chinese who always walked around in his underwear. Aitken, the scholarly fag from Toledo, and his cadaverous mainlining roommate, Donaldson. A couple of them nodded to us but no one actually said anything, not even “Good morning.” In this place it was proper to behave as though your neighbors were invisible. The fine old New York tradition. About half past ten in the morning Toni said, “Get me some orange juice, will you?” I poured a glass from the container in the refrigerator that was labeled with my name. Giving me a wink and a broad toothy smile, all false bravado, she wadded up the blotting paper and pushed it into her mouth, bolting it and gulping the orange juice as a chaser.

“How long will it take to hit?” I asked.

“About an hour and a half,” she said.

In fact it was more like fifty minutes. We were back in our own room, the door locked, faint scratchy sounds of Bach coming from the portable phonograph. I was trying to read, and so was Toni; the pages weren’t turning very fast. She looked up suddenly and said, “I’m starting to feel a little funny.”

“Funny how?”

“Dizzy. A slight touch of nausea. There’s a prickling at the back of my neck.”

“Can I get you anything? Glass of water? Juice?”

“Nothing, thanks. I’m fine. Really I am.” A smile, timid but genuine. She seemed a little apprehensive but not at all frightened. Eager for the voyage. I put down my book and watched her vigilantly, feeling protective, almost wishing that I’d have some occasion to be of service to her. I didn’t want her to have a bad trip but I wanted her to need me.