Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

“Just say no, or your arms will fall off. LSD makes you think you can fly and jump off buildings.” Fuck that! I hate when I find out that I’ve been misled into being good for my entire life. TELL ME THE TRUTH AMERICA! I promise I will think about my decisions more rationally if you do.

Good news! My soul mate and I are planning a trip out to Baja, Mexico for the Christmas holidays. Jenifer’s getting restless again and we both need a road trip to instill some sense of our faith in Americana. I gotta get out on the road, read the road signs in different places and encounter people with values that will continually surprise me. It will be our first road trip together. Awww, how fucking sweet.

We’ll be going to Arizona and California and then down to Baja to catch the migration of the grey whales as they head back up the coastline for mating season. It’s supposed to be an incredible experience where they take you out in a boat and you get so close you can actually touch the whales if you want to. That’s the rough plan anyway; we’ll see how it goes. It’s nice to have some sort of vacation plan ahead to give a little excitement to the monotony of our everyday existence. Isn’t that great? I write a lot about how happy I am and then can’t wait to get out of town away from the doldrums. I’m an oxymoron.

One of my managers at work, David, along with his younger brother Gabe are both totally obsessed with doing heroin. Gabe gives Jenifer and I free sandwiches from Schlotsky’s when he’s working sometimes, so we really like him and the strange isolationist groove that he has. I’m sure he likes Jenifer more than me though. It usually works out that way with the guys and her. We are like magnets to weirdos, but mostly good-hearted weirdos.

The smack thing has become some sort of quest for them. They have bought pharmacology books and researched the effects heroin has on the body. I suppose it’s all the glamour and hype that is going on about it lately that has them obsessed, it’s what their excuse would be I’m sure, but I think they really want to try it because we’ve all run out of drugs to do. Everything else is boring or expensive and hurtful (cocaine). I must admit though, that I share some of the same interest that they have to try it. This will be the last drug I ever experiment with. If it lets me down then I’ll move on.

It’s harder than hell to find smack in rural town USA, but I’m sure someone in this college town has it somewhere. Real life isn’t like the movies where you can find people selling drugs on any corner and the first one is free to get you hooked into some drug dealer’s evil scheme. Dammit. I think I’ve located and done about every illegal drug that there is by now, except for PCP, and I’ve discovered that all the textbooks and good fucking Samaritan police officers that came to my school when I was a child to talk about the evils of drug abuse were all full of a big steaming peanut-filled pile of uneducated shit. So I’m guessing that heroin will turn out to be along the same lines, another disappointment.

I went off on a rant there didn’t I? We really are focusing on this trip to Baja now. The whales are an excuse to get out on a road trip and I think my tales of Mexican fun have planted the seed of romance in Jenifer’s brain. I have to find out about passports and car insurance.

Jen and I got our passport paperwork underway even though there is supposed to be some sort of agreement where U.S. citizens can legally drive all the way down into Baja. Some leftover tourist thing from the golden days when big fucking Hollywood money would drive down the coast to Cabo. The picture in my passport is really crazy looking, my hair is sticking up everywhere and my eyeballs are all bugged out. I’m guessing we’re bound to be searched for drugs if anybody looks at them too closely. I borrowed a mummy bag from Jenifer’s cornucopia of parental camping gear to sleep in since I can’t seem to find mine around anywhere.

We’ve got a pocket full of money, a full tank of gas, even a half pack of cigarettes, so our restless spirits are headed to a welcome warmer climate. Both of us are worn out from trying to hump it through the end of semester blues, we’re gearing up for a strong finish and this month or so of holidays will be a real soul quencher. I this will be the first X-Mas where I won’t be going home and I won’t have to be involved in that whole formal ‘spend the day with the family’ thing. I’m stoked, Jenifer and I already opened most of our presents early with the blessing of our families but getting the all clear to go play is the best gift I think I could have received. Even though my parents are not in a position to deny my freedom any longer, the most expensive present I got was something my parents didn’t even know they had given. Freedom.

Jenifer gave my parents a vase fired by her father at my family’s formal present opening party, or ‘present presentation’ I guess. My mom really liked it a lot, thinking it was very thoughtful and touching even though I knew it was an easy and casual gift for Jenifer to give. It made me feel like a stupid bastard for not getting her parents anything, although I have no fucking idea what to get them. I suspect that one day her father’s pottery might be valuable in the same way that people value Van Gogh’s painted madness. Perhaps I should bring up cutting off appendages with him in one of our conversations. I’m a bastard I guess.

I can tell that my sister has accepted the changing of the guard finally and that she really likes Jenifer a lot. Maybe Alecia has identified with an older sister figure during the few times we’ve eaten in Dallas with my family over the past few months or maybe its because Jenifer talks to her like a person. I’ve been watching, noticing their interaction and I respect Jenifer for being so good hearted towards Alecia. This has made me love both of them even more so I’ve been trying to treat my sister more like an adult myself. Alecia’s been having trouble in high school and I remember how much shit I had to eat during that time of my life when I lived at home even though I was an honor student. So I want to be a positive force in her life instead of just another parent.

So anyway, we’re off to escape the drudgery of life by immersion into a world of risk and American road travel. I have my mandatory modest bag of pot (don’t leave home without it), my best girl (I like the way they said that in the 20’s, my BEST girl) and her little Ford Escort that we’ll be sleeping in a lot of the time to make this trip more economically feasible. This…will be…the…ultimate…vaca-tion!! Jenifer’s full of unbridled energy and anticipation con muy porquito coca for the long flat relatively boring drive from Dallas to El Paso.

I think it’s a part of the country that’s pretty ugly. Pretty & ugly? Maybe ugly is too harsh because the land does have a certain raw beauty crafted from untouched desolation and emptiness. The endless miles of straight highway that put your body in a restful state with the perfectly timed rhythm of the road and the cruise control working together. I always enjoy letting my mind wander and envelop my self in the monotony of driving. It’s an addictive love affair I admit, and it’s so crazy to be with someone who understands that. My conversations with Jenifer have been bonding and intimately personal. I find myself telling her things that I don’t necessarily want to share without fear of reproach or misunderstanding. It’s as if the words just spill from me out onto the dashboard like I’m lying back on a psychiatrists couch. Road therapy.

The music we’ve brought is great, just smoking a joint and listening to the Rolling Stones can put me in a state of ecstasy. I’m a little miffed because Jenifer won’t let me drive her car, which is like saying she doesn’t trust me enough yet with something she’s deeply attached to. It’ll make me frustrated and she’s going to be really irritable if she drives the entire two days to San Diego by herself. I really don’t want tension to spoil any part of this due to my bitching but I might say something soon. I’m trying to just sit here writing, letting myself be content to enjoy the journey and Jenifer’s company, confident she’ll let me take the wheel sooner or later. It’s a manly power thing to be the driver for God’s sake!