7-7-7 Part 3: Fear and Loathing in Tunica

I don't remember much of the ride to Tunica. I do remember after doing the first few lines of cocaine my brain was completely scattered. I was beginning to believe that we were being chased by police. The paranoia and anxiety were overwhelming. I thought that Elvis was an undercover agent. The pistol, the drugs, the casino, I thought it was all one big red herring. I hid behind my aviators. If people could not see my eyes and I didn't speak, no one would know how out of my mind I really was. I agreed with whatever suggestions Elvis had made. I currently can find no words to describe the amount of fear and dread I had looming over me. I was completely consumed by it. Every thought, every action, every step I made, I felt I was being observed, monitored, and judged.

We entered the casino and surprisingly it wasn't overly full for the 7th day of July in 2007. We sat down at a roulette wheel and immediately the board blanked out. This even greater led to the ominous feeling that something bigger than me had intentions on my having a disastrous evening. While I do possess the ability to think logically, when it comes to gambling, I throw logic out the window, with the exception of odds and probability, and I find myself easily giving into the delusions of luck. We commented to the pit boss and he said that the board was on the fritz. This would continue to happen throughout the evening. For me, it meant that I would not be able to see what numbers had previously come up, and would have a harder time predicting the numbers that were yet to arise. No matter, there were drugs to be done.

Elvis would palm off the bullet to me at intervals and I would go to the bathroom stall to toot up. I was not the only one in the casino who had this idea. I couldn't have been. Why else would there be people making huffing and sniffing noises from a bathroom stall? Oh God, perhaps it is best if I just think they were all doing cocaine. After running back and forth to the bathroom a few times, we were both increasingly thirsty.

It's imperative that I state that at this time in my life I did not drink bourbon. I drank gin, only gin, and I drank it with zeal. This day however, I felt that by ordering a gin and tonic and trying to speak on my own would alert the authorities that I was out of my mind and I would be thrown out or arrested. Elvis was ordering Jack Daniels by the shot. Following suit, I did the same. He told them that I didn't talk much, they probably thought I was a retard with big sunglasses and Elvis was my handler. Being about the same size and having just shaved his head as well, we probably looked like to Neo-Nazi goons. After waiting for a half hour for an ordered drink, giving the waitress a dollar when she took the order, another when she returned, a third immediately upon taking the shot, and asking for another, Elvis was very unhappy with the service.

"Payne, take your money off the table. We're not going to play. BOSS! Pit Boss! We came here to drink and spend money in your casino. If you want us to spend money, we need shots. We'll take good care of the ladies, but we won't be thirsty while we play roulette."

The boss understood, the ladies, returned, and they remained at our beck and call for the evening. We were tipping rather well, but we were also doing very well at the wheel. My mind, having been in such a negative space, was stuck on Martina. I was playing her birthday, my mom's birthday, my birthday, and my sister's birthday: 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 16. When I play roulette I always play 9 numbers. When I get up I start to play more, but I always play 9. The other number I would play were the ones that appeared to visually rise off of the table. As I was vividly hallucinating, the numbers appeared to be growing and shrinking. The numbers that grew the largest with the brightest halos encircling them were the numbers I picked.

Four hours, twenty one shots of Jack Daniels, and three Heineken later, Elvis and I were completely fucked. I however, being on copious amounts of LSD, did not appear to be nearly as drunk as him. After spending our time there, we asked for our buffet tickets, and made our way to the opposite end of the casino. En route, Elvis detoured to the bathroom where he spent 20 minutes throwing up. I practically carried him into the buffet area, where we both filled up plates, and he then went back to the bathroom to vomit some more. I went to the casino gift shop and purchased some Alka-Seltzer tablets. After dragging him back to the buffet area, I gave him the good ole "plop, plop, fizz, fizz" and he was able to hold down his meal.

I am unlike any person I have ever met when it comes to cocaine. Cocaine will stimulate my appetite and I can ravenously eat several large portions without hesitation. Being the American that I am, I ate until I could barely walk. Elvis and I stumbled out of the casino and he began to drive us home. It was at this point I discovered his psychological illness. He began to tell me about his trials and tribulations with Zyprexa after having been diagnosed schizophrenic. I did not have my glasses, it was night time, I was wearing sunglasses, on too many drugs, and I was lost. I however, was not bothered by this. I was more concerned with my driver's ability to color inside the lines and not go off the page.

After an hour and a half we make it back to his house near Lamar. Elvis immediately passed out and uttered the phrase, "mi casa es su casa" before collapsing on his sofa. I certainly did not have the capacity to sit there alone on a head full of drugs in his house without any form of entertainment. I had to get out, but I didn't have a vehicle and there were a few miles of dangerous territory between his home and mine. I set off walking in the direction of my home, at midnight, wearing sunglasses, having nothing more for protection than a pocket knife, and too many chemicals coursing through my veins to have the sense to be scared. After getting lost in Orange Mound and finally recognizing Cooper, I made it to the Young Ave Deli. Upon arrival I called Floyd who didn't mind my calling him at 1:30AM to pick me up and bring me home safely. I guess he figured an annoying room mate who paid the bills was better than a dead room mate who did not. I would say I gambled quite a bit that day and was very happy to return home to the safety of my own bed.

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.