by Dominic Dimapilis
My heart speaks through my right foot, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, the bass drum pulses through the room. I swing the ride cymbal, tickling it with my right hand, backbeating with my left foot, ting, tsing, ta-ting, tsing, ta-ting. And my soul pours out of my left hand, comping crazy as I feel the groove in every fiber of my being. In front of me my fiancé, Celine, sits tall on a barstool. Her silky black hair slicked back, hanging free like drapes. Her silver-lined silhouette rocks to the heartbeat of my drums as her own heart beats through the glimmering brass of her saxophone. Run after run after sweet suspended note, Celine responds to my every call. Our souls singing, dancing, living as one; filling the room with the sounds of a life we just decided to spend together. Past the white wall of spotlight, a hazy dark room looks like the night sky: candlelights, martini glasses, and cigarillos like constellations complimented by the faint sparkles of white gold and diamonds adorned on every patron. The bar looks vague from this end of the room. A dimly-lit wall of yellow stained glass seems miles away. In this moment, Celine and I are the center of this universe.
The light feature shines a shade brighter and I signal to Celine to start our closer–a subtle measure of swung bass doubles. She gives me her confirmation and I break into a solo. For four measures, I pour my entire life through drumsticks and pedals. And then it’s Celine’s turn. She unleashes her spirit, bouncing from note to note, decorating the air with elegance and power the way only she can, before slowing down and fading out.
The lights turn on. Suits and slip-dresses stand up. Silverware clinks on crystal glassware. We stand and bow and make our way off the stage. We split up and like clockwork get started on our post-gig routine. I go to the bar, “a Manhattan and a tempranillo.”
“On the house, great performance!”
I bring the drinks to our dressing room where she already cut the tip off our Cohiba and opened her matchbox. I hand her the wine glass and we clink to our best gig yet. She strikes a match and swirls the flame around the tip of the cigar, filling the room with the aroma of an almost coffee-tinged tobacco.
The club owner knocks on the dressing room door. We open. She starts, “I haven’t seen a performance like that in ages.” We shake her hand.
Celine responds, “Thank you, Ma’am. It was an honor to play here.”
The owner nods, “The honor was all mine. Actually, I was speaking to one of our regulars and his wife is a scout for Red Note. She wants to hear you play.”
My jaw drops. I look at Celine, stunned all the same. The owner continues, “I booked you for the same time next week. She’ll be there. Good luck and congratulations!”
She pulls a pair of silver business cards out of her pantsuit and hands one to each of us.
“I’ll let you enjoy yourselves now, unless there’s anything else?”
I interject, “One more thing—a bottle of blanc de blanc.”
She smiles and nods, leaving briefly before returning with the bottle and two champagne glasses.
The following morning, I wake up to the smell of coffee and freshly-baked banana bread. I can hear Celine singing, alluring me to join her in the kitchen. She hands me a mug. “Hey Dee, so I was thinking, to celebrate our engagement, and our big break,” she pulls a half-dozen tray of muffins out of the oven, “we should go to our old spot and trip fucking balls.” Her big brown eyes are jovial and her smile is bright.
I laugh, “Seriously? It’s been like three years.”
“Why not? We deserve it,” she grabs a muffin from the middle row. I reach for a corner one. She stops my hand, “Not that one! Get the other middle one. The corner ones have four grams of magic mushrooms each.” She wasn’t kidding.
I take a bite of the middle muffin and sip my coffee. The muffin is delectable: sweet and crumbly, the slightest bit crispy on the edges. “Well,” I say in-between chews, “it’d be a shame for these muffins to go to waste. Let’s do it.”
She starts cleaning the kitchen while I pack the car: picnic blanket, hoodies, water, joints, throw pillows. She joins me in the garage just as I finish up, “Perfect timing.” I get in the driver seat and she settles into the passenger to take a nap.
We take a backroad and cruise for an hour or so before Celine wakes up. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take a shift?”
“Yeah,” I reply, “I like driving.”
“I know you say that, but do you actually? Or are you just saying it ‘cause you know I don’t like it?”
“Nah, I actually really love it.”
“You don’t get tired though, staying focused for so long?”
“Not really, it’s kinda meditative y’know?”
“If you say so.” She hums and goes back to sleep. We stop at Jacqui’s–a soul-food spot on the exit towards our getaway–and pick up some fried chicken and macaroni and cheese for our picnic. I take a right to a windy single-lane side road and wake Celine up for our favorite part of the drive. Spruce trees tower over either side of the car. I open the convertible and the invigorating forest air blows in our faces. She grabs a chicken thigh and hands me a drumstick. We throw our bones into the wind for the next three miles before passing the mossy limestone mound that tells us we’ve reached our destination.
We park the car in the dirt and walk along the perimeter of the massive rock formation. After a twenty minute walk, we finally arrive at our spot: a small patch of littoral land overlooking a lake that’s barely small enough to see the outlines of spruce trees on the other side and the colossal snow-capped mountain range behind them. We lay out the blanket and pillows and throw on our hoodies. And we eat the muffins.
The hallucinations slowly begin setting in. Subtle movements in solid objects caught the corners of my eyes. The tips of the spruce branches slowly start curling and straightening as if trying to grab the wind. The colors grow vivid. Celine lights a joint. We pass it back and forth. Puff. Every spruce starts wiggling like radio waves, each one in sync with the other. The ridges in the mountain range begin rolling like ocean waves. The once-still water undulates in a chevron pattern. Every sound in the forest becomes discernible. Celine and I look at each other. She’s google-eyed and her mouth is huge. We fall into our pillows laughing. Puff. The trees start forming spiraling fractals and the mountains do the same. Colors grow even more vibrant. The sky now a deep ocean blue. More colors start to appear. Streaks of orange start swirling in the purple mountains. Reds emanate from tree trunks. Yellows twinkle in the branches. Puff. The environment starts meshing into one singular entity. Spirals connect. They create a singular long thread. The sounds wax and wane like ocean waves to a whimsical cadence of silence and life. Celine’s olive skin blends with the moss. Her hair joining nature’s curlicues. We put the joint out and sit like this. Our bodies fill with unadulterated euphoria. There’s a sense of connection to the vastness around us, like we share a sole spirit with each other and the trees and rest of the natural world. I don’t know how much time passes, only that it gets dark.
Celine talks to me, “Dee, baby, how’re you feeling?”
I look at her, still big-lipped and google-eyed. I start laughing.
“You’re still feeling it?” The sounds wane. Quiet.
Confused, I ask, “Are you sober now?”
“Pretty much, the trip is gone but I still feel elated.”
I get a shiver, “It’s kinda cold.”
She reads my mind, “Do you want me to drive us back? Maybe sleep it off?”
“Please.”
She somehow gets me into the passenger seat of the car and starts driving us back. I stare out the window at the swirling forestscape before we make our way back to civilization. As cars start passing by, iridescent auras stick to their headlights like surface tension bubbles–the colors almost infrared. My eyelids sink watching them.
I wake up in my bed the following morning. The walls cave in and shudder. I can’t tell which ones are the real walls and which ones are superimposed on them by my hallucinating mind. The ceiling is falling. The floor too. This can’t be fucking happening right now. I’m dreaming. It’s just a dream. It has to be. I bury my face in my gray pillow to go back to sleep. Coiling trails of black and gunmetal maraud my vision. Closed eyes don’t scare them off. I’m not dreaming. Fuck.
I call to Celine, “BABE! COME IN HERE! PLEASE I NEED YOU SOMETHING’S WRONG!” She appears almost instantaneously and sits next to me.
“I’m right here Dee, what’s going on?”
I look into her cartoonish eyes. Faint swirls of lavender appear and disappear on her face. “I’m still tripping.”
Her bug eyes flash a concerned look. She wraps her arm around me and I rest my head on her chest underneath her chin. The room stops falling. The walls get calmer in their undulations.
“Celine, I think we should go to the hospital.”
“Okay, c’mon, I’ll take you. Anything you need, just let me know, okay?”
“Okay.”
The neurologist’s office is horrifying. A long twisting hallway forces the people in front of us to walk on walls. Fluorescent lights flicker and strobe and bleed into the air. Hollow inhuman moans beat from the walls. I anchor myself to Celine as we make our way to the diagnostic room. The room is the same as the corridor. The white light pulses through every fold in my brain. The room is spinning. Sinking. I sit on a comfy green armchair.
“So,” the neurologist starts. His voice is soothing. His nose is massive, at least to me, “tell me what’s going on.”
I word vomit. “I’m tripping balls, Doc, everything is spiraling, everything is moving, it’s all fucked. I’ve been tripping since yesterday I don’t–”
Celine butts in, “two days ago, actually.”
“Wait, babe, what? How long was I asleep?”
“You slept all through Monday. It’s Tuesday.”
The neurologist interjects, “So tell me more about these hallucinations. What are you seeing?” I tell him about the spirals and the colors and the sensation of falling. I tell him about the shrooms and the weed.
“I see.” He motions to Celine. “I need you to answer some questions about him and his medical history. In the case of inebriated patients, someone of sound mind needs to give me the information.”
They talk for a bit longer. The lights pulse through my being. I try to eavesdrop but their voices sound like they’re on the other side of a tunnel. I catch a word or two but nothing more. The neurologist leaves. Celine sits next to me. I rest my head on her shoulder and her warmth eases the hallucinations.
She updates me on the situation, “The doctor’s checking your records. He’s going to come back with a prescription.”
The doctor comes back with a new clipboard. Celine stands up to talk to him and the room starts wobbling a little faster. He gestures to the armchair,
“Please, sit.”
Celine sits back next to me like a breath of fresh air. She rubs her hand against my back.
“You have substance-induced psychosis. Psilocybin-induced psychosis specifically. Due to your allergies to other antipsychotics and the severity of your hallucinations, I’m prescribing you Clozapine. I’m starting you at 25 milligrams daily. It may take up to a year before you start seeing results, but some find that results come in as little as six weeks.”
Again, I hear through tunnels. I catch the words “side effects” before watching Celine force a smile then shrink down as the doctor answers her question. She looks at me with wistful eyes then looks back at the doctor. The room stretches. The doctor is a mile away. Only his nose remains in sight. Celine keeps talking to him. I can only hear whirring. She looks confused and angry but she nods her head. She stands up and shakes the doctor’s hand as he passes her a paper. She gingerly helps me out of our chair and flickering lights turn to blinding strobes: double-time and twice as bright. I shake the doctor’s hand too. His skin is cold and loose.
As soon as we return to the mile-long rotating hallway, the walls start moaning again. The floor ripples under my footsteps like water. I turn to my fiancé, “Celine what the fuck did he say? Am I totally fucked?”
“No, you’re gonna be alright, trust me. We’re going to CVS next door to pick up your prescription.”
I take my pill as soon as we get in the car, naively expecting the world to get better again. Nothing. I’m trapped inside a kaleidoscope. I curl back into bed into fetal position, rocking back and forth. I can feel Celine’s arms around me for a little bit and then away for a little bit. And then back. Whenever she’s gone, my hands find my drumsticks. Lightness and darkness pass and pass. Technicolor daydreams crumble into my psyche from every surface of the room. I talk to Celine here and there but can’t understand much. The week passes in an hour.
“Do you think you’ll be able to play today?” The room shatters open like glass.
“Where did the time go? Did I spend the whole week in this bed?” I latch my hands to her shoulders.
“More or less. But you’ve been playing drums on these pillows for most of your waking hours.”
“The beats scare the hallucinations away.”
“Do you want to perform? You don’t have to, Dee, but I think you should.”
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
The dressing room of the club is claustrophobic. The ceiling rockets up, stretching the walls like rubber bands. The room is shaking. I’m shrinking. My stomach writhes and churns. Sweat builds in my palms and on my forehead. My heart races at a rapid tempo. I turn to Celine, “I can’t go on stage like this. I think you should solo.”
She looks at me, concerned, confused, “Dee, what are you talking about?”
“I’m gonna bring us down. Celine, I just can’t think straight right now.”
“Just play, baby. I know you can do it. You’ve been doing it all week.”
“The spotlights. The people. It’s too much Celine. I can feel it already. Their eyes drilling into me. The sinking. The spinning–”
“I can’t begin to understand what you’re feeling, Dee. I can’t. But you can’t fucking do this to me.”
My skin boils. The walls crack and crumble. The floor collapses. I’m in freefall. “The fuck are you talking about. You think I want to be like this? You think I asked for any of this?”
“No, Dee, of course not.” She holds my hands in hers. They’re warm and solid and the room seems to steady. “But you tell me all the time that it’s never about the circumstances, it’s your reaction to them. You taught me that. You. What happened to that? Where did you go?”
“This is different. I’m not living in the same world anymore.”
“No, you’re not.” Her eyes close and a long puff of air comes out of her nose. “And I understand that, I really do. But you can’t tell me that you’re just gonna lay down and die.”
“This was your idea, y’know. And now you want me to bring you down too.”
Her hands pull away from mine. “Can’t you see you already are?” Tears begin to roll down her face. “I fucked up, Dee. I know that. But I’ve been spending all week doing everything I can for you and I’m just asking you to do the only thing you can still do.”
I freefall again. My eyes close and my lungs deflate. The air in the room becomes thin. I hear her voice again, softer this time. Shaky.
“I’d never ask you to do this if I didn’t think you could.” She pushes my drumsticks into my chest. They fall into my hands. “Do whatever the hell you want. I have to get ready for sound check.” I open my eyes and meet hers for a split second before she turns and disappears between curtains.
I become shrouded in an almost purple darkness. The walls and floor and ceiling disappear into a cloud. My body starts descending through the thick black air. I hope for a liferaft–something to stop me from completely careening into the darkness. And I get one: a saxophone tune riddled with equal parts pain and beauty. Hexatonic. Like magic, I find myself backstage once again. Albeit only slightly, the walls are still shaking. But they’re there. I can see them. With hands against the walls and ears bound to Celine’s saxophone, I slowly but surely make my way to the stage.
Sound check. I hit the bass pedal with my right foot. A singular boom. I give the snare drum a quick five-stroke roll. A crisp d-r-r-r-a flies into the air. I do it again. I play a fill, bouncing around every piece of the drum set before ending with the hi-hat and choking the sound off with my left foot. The music floods my ears: clean and crisp–the first sense of control I’ve had in what feels like decades. Celine smiles at me, exaggerating her breathing, signaling for me to do the same. I do. The lights dim. The spotlight turns on. White flares bombard my vision. I close my eyes. Celine restarts her waltzy blues, I recognize it this time.
I remember our college apartment when I would sit at the drum kit in the corner of the living room and play. Celine would sit on the orange sofa wearing a XXL t-shirt as a dress. Chunky gold hoops dangled from her earlobes, swaying as she did, dancing to her own music. I would follow her lead because I couldn’t keep tempo on my own yet, watching her foot tap the floor. At this point in time, I was in love with playing 6/8. Something about the triplet feel allowed me to put emotion into my music the way I never had before. Celine was way better than me at this. I could feel her heart in everything she played. This was more than just music. She looked at me with her deep brown eyes and gold-frame reading glasses and held her eye contact as she played—a look I’ve come to know meant she was going to teach me something. She became more emphatic in her movements; leaning into every note, every breath. She blew the low notes into the floor and the high ones into the ceiling. She looked at me again. I still didn’t get what she was trying to teach me. She kept playing and tried something else. She dipped into her left on every downbeat and returned to her posture on the upbeats. I followed along. She made eye contact once again and gave an exaggerated long blink. I closed my eyes, still dipping my whole body into the bass drum hits and snapping up with the snare. I felt something. For the first time, I understood music as something more than just patterns, but as freedom and expression.
I open my eyes and see the back of Celine’s head and her hair is a waterfall–the same cascading blackness she wears at every show. The crowd is nothing but a flurry of vague white and yellow flares. Once again, my entire universe is just Celine. My hands and feet are moving automatically in a halftime shuffle. My heart pounding the same rhythm as the bass drum. My hands dancing along. I solo. She solos. And somehow we make it to the end of the gig. The lights turn back on and suddenly I’m under water. I stand up from behind my drums and I have sea legs. The room is on tilt and I can’t find which way is up. I feel Celine’s hand grab mine and lead me behind the curtains. I fall before we’re out of sight. She helps me up. Her eyes are bigger than ever and they keep growing. She wraps her arms around me, “I’m so proud of you, Dee. That was amazing. How’re you feeling?”
Nauseous. I feel like throwing up. I’m drowning in air. “That was amazing. I just, I think I need some air.”
“Let’s go then.”
We make our way to the dressing room to grab our coats, and the club owner and a woman I’ve never seen before follow us in.
“Dee, Celine, this is Amy, the scout for the Red Note.”
The floor disappears from underneath. Falling again. My head gets heavy and it lands in Celine’s hand. I put on a jacket.
“It’s a pleasure,” Celine answers them, “just give us a minute.” She turns to me, “Baby what do you need right now? Anything.”
“I need to sit alone. Somewhere warm and quiet.” There’s nowhere in the building that’s warm or quiet.
“Okay.” Celine walks me to the car. The seat warmer is cozy against my back. The night sky is streaked by the iridescent city lights bleeding upwards, purling into the sky. She gives me a bottled water, “Are you sure you’ll be okay alone?”
“I think I need some silence. Plus the white noise from the heater is nice.”
“Okay, honk the horn if you need anything. Anything at all. I’m gonna check on you in five minutes.” She leaves.
The engine purring sends vibrations up my right leg. A sensation I know to be real. My hands get jittery in my lap and I steady them on the steering wheel. I can feel this. I can feel the world in this moment. I rev the engine and I’m in control. The car does everything I tell it to. I get an idea. I switch the car to first gear. I get vibrations throughout my body, but they’re familiar ones. I let off the brake and I start to move. This is music–the synergy of every piece working as one. I find myself on a backroad, one of my favorite ones to cruise on–I know it like the back of my hand. The stars start to dash back and forth in the sky. Trees start leaning and twisting. No. This isn’t real. I’m hallucinating. The car is real. The wheel, the gas pedal, the engine is real. I close my eyes. I press harder on the gas and the lifeforce of the car reverberates through my leg. My back presses against the seat. My left hand plays with the turn signal.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
About the author: Dominic Dimapilis an aspiring memoirist from Murrieta, California. He holds a BA in English and a minor in Psychology. He is currently an MFA student at San José State, focusing on creative nonfiction with a secondary focus on fiction. He focuses on narratives that traverse the psychological aspects of the human condition and how the world around us molds our psyches. He is a recipient of the Graduate Steinbeck Fellowship and has nonfiction published in The Oakland Arts Review and 30 North Literary Magazine, as well as fiction published in Outrageous Fortune Literary Magazine.