7-7-7 part 1: the preemptive strike

This is a sheet of Gelatine LSD:


This is my motorcycle: This is how I looked the morning I woke up:
(blurrier in reality)



Well, now we can get started...


July 7th, 2007, a day with great numerical significance for anyone who likes to gamble. Especially those of us who like the roulette wheel. Martina was A-Boy's fiancee and the two of us had been having an affair for several months, unbeknownst to A-Boy. Actually, he was the only person who didn't know about it. She was leaving him and we had made plans for a future in Austin, TX. The night before A-boy had gotten twisted on uppers, pulled out a 12 gauge, and threatened to kill Martina and himself. I was working at the time and was luckily absent from this event. She never explained what brought on this situation. I didn't ask; par for the course. I got us a room at the Doubletree and some drugs to ease the trauma. I woke up in the Doubletree on Sanderlin with a pounding headache after having insufflated three hits of MDMA and sleeping with Martina the night prior. I found her absent from the bed and in her place a note saying, "I'm sorry I have to go. I'll see you at the house." I go downstairs, check out, and get the cash deposit back, hoping the girl at the front desk doesn't notice how my appearance has greatly changed and I don't look like I've seen sleep in a week. We both worked for the same company and chances are she would remember my name if she called in for help with her PC.

I get home around 10:30am and start a load of laundry only to find Martina downstairs in our shared laundry room. She has her back to me and I go to hug her from behind only to be shrugged off. "I'm sorry Payne, I can't do this any more. I'm staying with A and I'm moving to Austin alone. He's going to live here for the next three months until he finishes his degree. I can't see you or talk to you any more. He won't let me." Reality. I have just deservedly been karmatically bitch-slapped. In shock I walk away. I say nothing. What could I do? At this point, I do what any warm-blooded American would do, I walked inside, put my .45 in my waist band, ingested 10 hits of high powered gelatine-tab LSD, and hopped on my motorcycle.

I had been saving the acid for the twelfth of August, the peak of the Perseids meteor shower. Martina and I were going to half it and watch the meteors. I head west on Poplar out of the driveway. I feel sick. This is not the drug; timetable is all wrong. Onset is not this fast. I'm crying but no one can see the tears behind my huge highway patrollmen style aviators. I make my way downtown and almost laid my bike down on the trolley tracks. I think perhaps this is the wrong place to be riding. I head back to midtown. I'm cruising down Central Ave when I get the feeling. It is as if electricity is surging from my fingernails and down to the ends of my hair. I'm gritting my teeth, jaw-locked. The sun has lit up the road so much it's like my lenses have no tint. The road takes on its own personality, it's taunting me, daring me to go faster. I oblige. I feel very mechanical, another part of the bike. I roll the throttle back and feel emotions and any semblance of humanity pour out of the exhaust pipe. I am no longer human. I am more in tune with my bike than I have ever been. I can feel every bump on the road, every movement of the engine. It's running a little rich now that it's gotten hot. I stop at a red light and turn the idle down. There's a douche bag on a cell phone in a small red foreign car in front of me in the right lane and a minivan in the left. The visuals at this point are so intense I can't recognize what kind of car the guy is driving. I can only tell that it is red, small, probably foreign, and seems to be filled with a spiteful life because the man driving just isn't treating it right. I think it's a Miata, maybe? The little red car and the minivan have matched speeds at 35mph. This will not work. I shift lanes behind the minivan, draft off of her, jerk the throttle back, and like an ejaculation shoot the bike and myself between the soccer mom and the douche bag. The soccer mom had a look of terror and astonishment on her face. She had never even seen me behind her. She put the all-daring arm in front of her child as if to brace her for impact, because we all know a mother's arm can ease any high speed collision in a moving vehicle. It is guaranteed to prevent impact with the dash board. This made me giggle a little. I then caught another red light and the guy in what appeared to be a Miata felt the need to yell some choice phrases at me. I look back and grin, and slightly lifted my shirt in an effort to scratch my back. I didn't do this to passively-aggressively show him I was packing. I did this because the large dose of LSD made me feel as if meel worms were crawling out of every pour of my skin and I was itching all over. He immediately stopped talking and then I remembered, "Oh shit, I hope that bastard wasn't a cop. Did I just brandish a firearm? Shit. Fuck. Shit-fuck. I can't let the paranoia can't get to me now. Fuck paranoia is called for, you're right, getting arrested is far worse than losing my cool."

I cut down Alexander to Southern and take that back to Cooper. Being that my body is a little more sensitive I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket and almost spill into the gutter. I pull over beside Yosemite Sam's to check the phone, hoping it's Martina. It's my brother. I answer the phone and he tells me that he and his girlfriend of several years, whom he was recently considering leaving, have just gotten married on "7 7 7" and "Isn't that awesome, bro?" I didn't know what to say other than wish him well and tell him that I had to get going as I was on a head full of acid and engaged negotiating with traffic. Luckily he informed me that traffic was nothing for a motorcyclist to negotiate with and asked if I was serious. Before I could say anything he could hear the confusion in my own voice. He called those of us who rode together "Gorillas" and he told me he couldn't go to a Gorilla funeral two days after his wedding. After all, it would ruin his honeymoon. Brother told me to get my monkey ass home immediately and call him because I couldn't ruin his wedding day. I complied.