Tripping in the Rockaways
Taking shrooms at the beach sounded like a good idea at the time.
Illustration by Ally Hart
The bag was empty, outside of the dust that stuck to the folds in the plastic, which Joe carefully extracts with his tongue. Each set of hands had already scooped out their share of mushrooms, finely chopped in our kitchen that morning, and eaten them raw with a side of fresh fruit and potato chips. The dirt that speckled the shriveled fungi stuck to the roof of my mouth. I took a swig of water to wash away the grit from my teeth, creating a mudslide down my throat and into my stomach, where the mushrooms boiled in butterflies and acid.
“Now what?” I ask. I shield my eyes to get a better look at throngs of people trudging onto the beach. They sink their umbrellas and coolers into the sand, children and canines in tow; a perfect summer day at the Rockaways.
Joe was already digging through his Burberry clasp. “We smoke weed, sis,” he replies. He tosses aside a box of Newport 100s and a polished piece of labradorite, flashing peacock blue in the sunlight before landing in the shade of our wobbly umbrella. At the bottom of the bag, he finds a tightly rolled joint. He pops it between his teeth and lights it effortlessly, despite the sea breeze. He inhales deeply until the crackling cherry harmonizes with the sifting sand beneath us. He passes it to me.
I took a swig of water to wash away the grit from my teeth, creating a mudslide down my throat and into my stomach, where the mushrooms boiled in butterflies and acid.
Later, I find myself fixated on the hollowed shells and tumbling sea glass that wash up on the shore at my feet. The waves bubble between my toes and deliver these treasures to me, salted and sandy. I scoop them up one by one, tossing back those that disinterest me, until I am cradling a haul of misshapen artifacts.
I sway along to the ocean’s hum, its waves penetrating my pupils with pulses of green and purple. The beach’s inhabitants gargle and shriek at each roaring surge, their voices carried to my ears on shockwaves of foam. I spot Joe and Andrew floating out into the shaky horizon, heads bobbing like apples. They wave at me with gelatin arms, and I wave back, dropping half of my loot. I bend over to pick it all back up, but quickly grow distracted by the new arrivals tickling my toes.
I skip away from the water and into the crowd of beachgoers, their overlapping conversations flicking my eardrums and reverberating back into the Atlantic.
“Who the fuck wants a opal engagement ring?” I crunch my “I do” into the ground and keep walking.
“Nutcrackers, Nutcrackers!”
“Ezra! Your mother and I are trying to relax. Put the bucket down.” I hear Ezra dump the bucket of mud onto his father’s lap with a putrid giggle.
“You want some sunscreen?” “Nah, let me burn. I’m practicing for hell.” The man’s skin boils and bubbles, coated in scarlet. I turn away and drop my stones onto our beach towels, where I nervously examine my skin for signs of hellfire. I watch in fascination as it sizzles and squirms in the sunlight, stray water droplets evaporating off my legs and into the sky like soap bubbles. I look up and realize our umbrella is missing.
“You want some sunscreen?”
“Nah, let me burn. I’m practicing for hell.”
A man with a crooked nose shouts at me from across the beach. “Hey! Is that yours?” He points to our rainbow umbrella, which is dancing into the depths of the ocean, playfully peaking over the waves.
Andrew looks like Poseidon as he wades out of the water, the umbrella his trident, held triumphantly above his head. We manage to shove the soggy umbrella back into the ground, where it drips onto our heads like a broken faucet. We settle into the sand beneath our colorful rain cloud. With my ear to the ground, I hear the footsteps of a family playing frisbee half a mile down the beach. Andrew touches the sand between us and I listen as each grain is displaced around his shriveled palm. I knock on the entrance of the earth, listening as the thud of my knuckles travels through microscopic tunnels and cracks in the bedrock. I was disappointed when nobody let me in.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I tell Joe and Andrew, who are gawking at the sparkling sand that sifts through their fingers. They nod mindlessly at me. I slip on my sandals and float over to the boardwalk, where I am consumed by color. The soaring roller coasters and neon signs from the hotdog and ice-cream stands create fireworks across the dark planes of my pupils.
People rush around me in a flurry of flaky skin, but I continue to drift methodically across the pulsing boardwalk until I reach the women’s restroom, where the pinks and blues are drained from my eyes, leaving only a stale gray. I stand in line and count the freckles on my arm until the bathroom attendant shoves me into a slippery stall.
By the time I emerge, the line has doubled and so has the muddied water that coats the tiles and sloshes around in my sandals. I wash my hands at the sink and the grime hisses at me as it’s inhaled by the drain. My fingers drip off my hands with clumps of loose hair and sunscreen. I turn off the faucet and watch the dirtied water spin dizzily down until it burps in satisfaction.
I look over my shoulder at the growing line of women, where every eye duplicates and turns its attention towards me. I wonder if they know I’m tripping. A chubby pre-teen in a pink bikini folds her arms and glares at me, her whole body squirming with grains of sand and disapproval. She knows.
I look up at my reflection in the mirror. My face flirts with me, splits in half, and merges together again. I blink and watch my eyelids peel back, exposing veins that swim in pools of eggshell. I blink again. My eyes have shrunk to the size of peas, engulfed in patches of sunburn. Dead skin and freckles crawl around my face. I bring my hand to my cheek to stop the migration, but the rosy skin twists around the pads of my fingers. I open my mouth, where calcium deposits quiver to the beat of a boardwalk boombox. The splotches of white dance across my yellowed teeth.
I lean forward and my reflection leans back. “NEXT!” screams the bathroom attendant, pulling me out of my descent. I quickly dry off my hands and take one last look at my reflection.
She winks at me.
