“The war has begun,” says Hayduke.

The stars looked down. Preliminary premonitions of the old moon already modifying the eastern reaches. There was no wind, no sound but the vast transpiration, thinned to a whisper by distance, of the mountain forest, of sagebrush and juniper and pinyon pine spread out over a hundred miles of semi-arid plateau. The world hesitated, waiting for something. At the rising of the moon.

Death Valley Junk

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, at 1611 hours, Terry and I jumped out of the airplane. Death Valley, like a dream, revolved below us in a web of alkali and phosphorescent chemicals. Years ago.

Unwrapping the small packet of tinfoil, Terry gave me a single capsule containing a bluish powder in a base of white cornstarch. “Three hundred and fifty micrograms,” he said, grinning. He removed one for himself. We broke the capsules open for quicker action and gulped them down with a slug of beer. Except for the beer, our stomachs were empty.

Smoking some California weed, we drove far out on the valley floor, ten miles beyond the end of the pavement, deep into the desert. We found a spot we liked and built a fire of arrowwood and mesquite. We sat down on the sand to wait. Terry leafed through a newspaper—the LA Times. I did nothing, feeling nervous, irritable, uncomfortable. The setting sun seemed very hot, the light a painful glare. Nothing was happening.

Except for this cold grip, this icy hand on the back of my neck. Nobody there, of course; I felt to make sure, reaching back with an arm that seemed fourteen feet long. That first sensation passed, but as the sun went down behind Telescope Peak and the Panamints, I began to feel surprisingly cold. Clumsily, groggily—each movement seemed to require special attention—I dragged myself closer to the fire. I noticed then an extreme sensitivity in my sense of touch. Sitting on the ground, my rear end felt like a cluster of ice-cold needles. My bones squeaked as if made of glass.

From Abbey’s Road (1979)

Our bones are constructed of calcium, I told myself. They could turn to powder at any moment. This experiment, I decided, is not necessary. I swear I’ll never touch another drop. Never drop another touch.

Terry sat on the opposite side of the fire, cross-legged, grinning like an idiot Buddha, staring at nothing I could see. But he was aware of my discomfort. Maybe that’s why he was grinning. He was an old hand at this business, a master of the occult arts, lysergic acid, meditation.

The flies annoyed me; they buzzed around my face as if I were already dead. Nor did I much care for the praying mantis or whatever crawling up my backbone.

Something stirred in my hair.

I raised a slow-moving hand to my head, touched my hair. A huge, glittering butterfly shimmered off into the brush. Butterfly, I thought, startled but silent.

“What butterfly?” Terry said.

“There was a butterfly on my head.”