Tripping in the Graveyard
my friends and i used to hang out in a graveyard on university avenue in between ithaca and the cornell campus. it was a great place to hang out. the cemetery is full and the graves are relatively old so it assures no bereft relatives of the deceased will show up and complain.
the place is full of really cool stones and mausoleums. there is this amazing celtic knotwork with all these masonic temple icons. it stands about fifteen feet tall and overlooks the north side of town and cayuga lake. i believe it was carved by a man with the initials ihs because these initials appear on a few similar, but smaller, crosses.
there is also a crypt with the word/name wait on it. years ago a friend of mine added ".....there's more" to it causing laughter to many for years.
in the middle of the tomb garden is a bough of fir trees with a small bench, it is well covered and serves just fine as a place to have sex in the middle of the day. and a grave on which the name blood is etched in is always a cool thing to show newcomers. being on an ivy league school campus, it has a large amount of masonic phallus that bear resemblance to the washington monument in dc.
to the Northwest exit of the graveyard is an overlook that offers up the most beautiful view of the lake and the town, this is about fifty feet from the cross and on the other side of the fence from the wait is the turret, from the street below, it almost looks like steps leading to some medieval gothic castle. i have spent many a summer afternoon lying on one of its walls tripping on acid watching the clouds roll by,seeing all sorts of different things in the patterns in the clouds, almost like a beautiful rorschach inkblot test.
one night in particular, sometime around or on halloween, my friends and i took some extremely strong liquid acid and went to the graveyard.it was a creepy night, very dark with no moon and the sky was full of dark, ominous clouds. some guy drove by cranking the hanging garden, by the cure and it gave everyone the heebee geebees.
one of our friends, clit-eye, showed up with some kids who wanted to buy some liquid. being extremely high i gave them more than they paid for, by dripping it straight into their mouths, oops sorry fellas. clit-eye's friends left feeling very spooked coming to a cemetery to buy acid.
as the acid trip peaked, the temperature dropped, and we were walking through 'our' cemetery, we came across a group of college kids cutting through the graveyard. looking like a bunch of ghouls from night of the living dead, a bunch of leather-clad in the light, the group got a little scared.
"uh, hello?" greeted one of 'them' uneasily. no one answered them, we just kept walking towards them. being high on acid we could feel their fear and we played on it continuing our approach. "hello??" he asked again, even more nervously. as we got about ten feet from the party, the tension in the air thickened and one of the girls screamed, " say something, please!!!!!!" i walked up and asked, "what would you like me to say?" a big cheshire grin on my face. she begged "please don't hurt us". and we all laughed. " hurt you? now why would we do that? you've not tipped any stones, have you?" in unison, they all answered in the negative. and, in perfect sync, we parted, and i added "you may pass, this time." and they high-tailed it out of there, one of the fellas mumbled "fuckin' assholes". i agreed, i am an asshole, i still smiled about it though.and so did the great cosmic joker in the sky.
we headed for the wait, and the turret, we called it- the top of the stars that looked like a turret of a castle. as we approached this arctic breeze blew up from the very depths of hell, in its acrid breath. i felt ice forming on my soul. just then, we noticed a group of people had built a small, perfectly round fire in the middle of the turret. there were six people, three men and three women around the fire. they had formed an odd sort of chain, each with their head in the one on the rights' lap, alternating man-woman-man-woman-man-woman. another woman sat on the wall to the east and another man at the base of the wall to the west. the man sat cross-legged reading aloud from a book.
the group laughed again and another frigid blast from the bowels of hell blew through our fragile souls. it scared the shit out of me , and everyone i was with.we decided they were the source of our fear and the icy winds blowing through us.we approached them and my friend judah and i kicked out their fire. these people did not fear us, yet they allowed us to kick out their fire. it was as if they knew why we were doing what we did. one of the men from the circle looked up at us from the ground and said, quite calmly, "your souls are on fire." this caused me only a mild concern, i hadn't really processed what he had said, however judah looked at me with absolute terror in his eyes, "tones... our souls are burnin!..." he was terrified. the guy looks up and says, "uh, on your shoes...?"
that was enough, we got the hell out of there, practically knocking each other down the stairs. the stairs go it intervals; ten or fifteen and then a turn to left, ten more then right, then down twenty or so, then left, eight or so and then to the left again down to the street. at the second turn i noticed a woman in the shadows of the corner of the stairwell, i just about jumped out of my skin. "hello" she said smiling, confidently. i looked closer and noticed there were women and men, alternately in each darkened corner, hiding in the shadows. like the people we scared earlier in the graveyard we left with our tails between our legs, when we got to the street i mumbled.... "fuckin' assholes".