Part 10 (2/2)
”I know there's a Berkeley Professor named Alvin Laurel, if that's who you mean.”
”Okay, so you don't know anything about the project or the four-dimensional cube. Okay.” I'm talking more to myself than to him, now. ”Tom, I don't really know how to explain this to you, but . . .”
The look on his face stops me. It's fear. He's afraid that I've gone insane, that I've lost track of reality.
”What?” he says, prompting me to finish even though he doesn't want to hear it.
”Tom, I've had some pretty strange hallucinations, and I'm going to have to relearn what is and isn't real.”
”Okay.” He smiles. ”I'll help.”
”Am I a professor of Herpetology at the University of California, Berkeley?”
”Yes.”
”Have you been trying to investigate a government-sponsored secret project on the Berkeley campus?”
”No.”
”Did you and Pris recently break up?”
”Yes.”
”At Heather's birthday party?”
”Yes.”
”Did I spend the night with Pris night before last?”
”Yes.”
”Did she say anything about this to you?”
”She said you guys talked all night and that she's glad you're her friend. She's very worried about you.”
”Did Felix dump LSD into my beer?”
”I don't know. You said he did. He left right before you had your, um, breakdown.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. ”What happened between you two, anyway?”
”You don't know?”
”No.”
”It's about Pris.”
”Pris?”
”Yes. He and I have been at odds over Pris ever since you broke it off with her. Well, I won, and Felix wanted to get back at me. I think he was high when he did it, because I can't believe he would do something like this to me --- or anyone --- if he were sober.”
”What do you mean, you won?”
”That night I spent with Pris, she and I . . . you know.”
”You made it with her?”
I nod. ”Don't tell her I told you this, she made me promise not to tell you. She didn't want you to know.”
”You and her?” Tom seemed to be in shock for some reason. ”Really?”
”Yes. Didn't you notice how she was hanging all over me the other night, right before the drugs took effect?”
”No.” He stares at me with his camera lens eyes, his face expressing concern. Abruptly he looks at his watch, then stands up. ”I only had a few minutes this morning, and I wanted you to know I'm in this with you all the way. You can count on me. If you need anything, let me know.”
”Okay, Tom.”
”I'll be back this evening, and I'll try to bring someone along with me. Right now I've got to rush to make an appointment.”
”Okay.”
We say good-bye, and he goes walking off. I have a sick feeling as I watch him go, like there are slugs crawling around in my stomach.
Despite everything, he thinks I've been brain damaged by the drug.
What's worse, he's started me thinking that maybe I have been brain damaged.
Felix shows up next. I can't believe he has the nerve, but there he is, dressed in denim and suede and grinning like nothing's happened. I'm sitting on a bench out on the grounds, which is like a large park --- the only difference between the hospital grounds and a park are the 30 foot walls that prevent me from leaving --- and he comes walking across the gra.s.s and sits down next to me. ”I never thought I'd see you in an insane asylum.”
”I never thought you'd try to kill me, either,” I tell him.
He's still grinning, but now I see it's a mask hiding pain. He bends far forward, looking at the ground, and says, ”I don't know where you got the idea that I drugged you. You asked for it, you specifically asked me to get you some LSD and you took it on your own.”
”That is bulls.h.i.+t. You're trying to use my confused state to absolve yourself of what you did, but I clearly remember what you said to me in the kitchen.”
”I don't know what you're talking about.”
”You outright told me you put a megadose of LSD in my beer.”
”No I didn't! I swear to you, you dreamed this up! You specifically asked me to get you some LSD so that you could take it and see the forth dimension. That's what you said to me. Hey, I should have clued in that you were nuts back then, but I went along with it. I told you that I'd gotten you a lot, that you should take just a half hit, but you took it all! It messed up your memory, and now you're blaming me, and you're making everyone hate me --- and all I did was give you the stuff you asked me to get for you!”
I stare at him and he's not afraid to meet my gaze. His voice is sincere, or at least the pain is sincere. It is possible that he's telling the truth, and that this is the way it happened here, in this universe. Or --- what I was beginning to believe more and more --- it was also possible that he was telling the truth and the LSD trip itself has created all these false memories. After all, what is more realistic?
Parallel worlds, or drug-induced brain damage?
”You know,” I tell him, ”I have no choice but to believe you.”
”Seriously?”
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