June 12. Took five hundred mikes of mescaline and am examining the crevice in my tongue when it suddenly turns into a Komodo dragon and chases me out into the yard. I come down at midnight and can’t find my tongue. Dope paranoia forces me to hide under the bed, where I discover a box turtle with halitosis. I come down a little and carefully creep downstairs, secure all door and window locks, double-check same, and then watch a Pee-wee Herman flick on HBO, all the while standing on the balls of my feet, filled with terror and great apprehension.

June 13. Find tongue under the Citroën. Superglue it back on.

June 14. After stocking the shelves of my pharmacy I make for the health food store to pick up a few bottles of vitamins and snake oil remedies:

a. Vitamins: complete 50-milligram Bs, vitamin C, folic acid, dissolve-under-tongue B12, pantothenic acid, vitamin E (natural mixed tocopherols), biotin, and vitamin D. b. Minerals: selenium, calcium citrate, magnesium, biocitric copper, chromium, and Kreb’s “Transported by the Fuel of Life” zinc. c. Antioxidants: alpha lipoic acid, lutein, lycopene, grape seed oil, pine bark extract, Q10, Essential Greens 3000, curcumin, etc. d. Herbs: saw palmetto, hoodia, pau d’arco (I can’t remember what it’s for), hawthorn berry. e. Amazon River tropical frog skin.

Have I already mentioned that my memory is shot? I don’t remember.

June 15. As a kid I experienced instances of natural fun whenever the Gypsies came to town. My grandmother saved the burlap bags potatoes came in and each year gave them to the Gypsies, who in turn sharpened all her butcher knives and fixed a coffeepot with a broken handle. What a life! Roving caravans, dancing around a campfire to accordion and violin music. Crystal-ball visions of the future. One of the Gypsy elders took a shine to me and invited me to join up.

“Join up? Tonight? Let me think about it. I’m only five years old.”

“Yes. Escape the ball and chain and come with us. It’s a slacker lifestyle. The women do all the work.”

I didn’t go. I should have. Every time I think of it I kick myself in the ass.

My grandmother paid the fortune-teller fifty cents to tell her where she misplaced a cigar box filled with cash. The fortune-teller hit the nail on the head. It was a two-for-one deal. While my grandmother retrieved the cigar box, the Gypsy told me I would be jailed four times, fired from a number of jobs, mental hospitals, ambulances called, squad cars, and ultimately twenty-two years as a custodian. Boy, did she ever hit the nail on the head.