Beneath the shimmering surface of the pool, the sky-blue walls billow. Rays of pool light separate into incandescent jiggling jellyfish. Tinsley dries her hands, places two cigarettes in her lips, lights both, and hands one to me. Multiple glowing-red afterimages follow. The red tracer tip pulsates when I inhale. The Federal Trade Commission orders the zillions of tiny red roses in my lungs to fold closed until further notice.

This acid is amazing. As pure and unadulterated as any I have ever experienced. It came from the small glass vial Red-Eyed Clyde placed in my hand after the Led Zep concert. Yesterday, when Arno gave me the vial, it appeared empty except for the faintest dusting inside. Arno told me to wet the base of a paper match, make one small swipe along the inside of the vial, then eat the moistened paper.

An hour ago, when Tinsley and I took the acid, we couldn’t even see the chemical clinging to the wet match. But Arno had warned that if there was enough to see, it was far too much to take.

On the lounges beside the pool, Tinsley and I are pupae in white cocoons, smoking glowing red-tipped tracerettes. For the first time in astronomic history, waves of green, yellow, and purple northern lights wash across the dark night sky above Long Island. The gurgling pool filters are witches’ bubbling cauldrons. The outdoor lights are swirling pastel funnels. The lounges are life rafts on a boundless sea of phantasmagoria.

When I reach over to take Tinsley’s hand, she squeezes and then lets go. I’m hip to that. At a trip’s apex, touching is dangerous. A hand becomes a spider and crawls up an arm. Fingers blend together and become inseparable. It was Tinsley who suggested skinny-dipping. Thoughts of sex have periodically skipped through my acid-infused synapses, but it’s out of the question right now. We can’t even hold hands without it getting mucho weird.

Far above the Arctic Circle, lonely Robin shivers in an icy igloo. Samuel of the North in his caribou parka and polar bear chaps has been gone for weeks, plodding among icebergs, clubbing baby seals to death. Lucas the Narwhal swims under the ice pack beneath Robin’s igloo, wishing his unicorn tusk could break through to save her from her frigid solitary Canadian existence, but the permafrost around her heart is too thick.

On the lounge beside me, a tear slides out of Tinsley’s eye. A real tear, not pool water. “I’m okay,” she says.

I appreciate that she knows to reassure me. That she’s handling whatever is causing the tears. She’s a good tripping partner. It’s like getting on a tennis court with someone you’ve never played with before and discovering that you’re well matched.