The morning of Saturday July 4th was slow. I got up late, hungover from the accumulated beer of three parties. It was around 11 am and everybody else was still asleep. I decided to go skate around Austin and find some food, so I did, taking Bike Path 31. These bike paths are not actually paths, but lanes, sometimes not painted on side of a road. They are all however very well up kept and labeled, I was so impressed by the city. Austin, after all, is where Lance Armstrong is from.Anyway, I ended up eating a McDonald's and when I was done I decided to keep going downtown and check out the skate parks. I made it to downtown and made a quick run through of the infamous 6th street. Somewhere on 6th and Guadalupe I heard good Jazz coming from a bar and it called me like Jumanji. I stopped, turned towards it and peeked inside. I felt like I was under 21 when I was peeking in for some reason and didn't think I could get in although I wanted to. I don't know why, but I didn't even bother looking at the name. I moved on attempting to find out what else is good in Austin. I came across Wahoo's which I heard from Adam and Carla was a wannabe surf, taco restaurant. The first thing that came to my mind was the good food of Surfin Tacos which went out of business last Christmas. I missed it and had to try so some similar food. It was however, closed that day, but I was sure to be back. I made a run on 6th going as far west as Lamar and as far east as the interstate when I decided I should head north Guadalupe and see what else was good. On my way back to Guadalupe I spotted two BMXers, one with really short dreads and a massive star of David across his chest and stomach, the other looking regular.
"Yo, you guys know where the skatepark is?"
"You are lookin for the skatepark too? We are from D.C."
"Oh, word?"
"Yeah man, we sessioned all night and passed out 9 this morning. It felt like we slept forever but we just slept for half an hour"
"Hahaha, and you are still in search of a session?"
"Yeah man, Austin is an awesome city. Actually we are also looking for a Wal Mart to fix his tube and our car, then the skatepark"
"Damn man, well good luck, Im gonna head this way"
I never found a skate park so I called John M, my other host in Austin and asked if he was down to skate. He was, so I headed to the south end where we met up on S 1st St and went to his house.
The first thing I realized when I walked in was the studio with the righteous DJ equipment. Besides being an engineer and a skater, he was also in a band called Laserzzz and they were legit. The artwork was and I got to watch a filming of one of his shows later on that day and the place was packed. Outside, he had constructed two miniramps, one a little bigger than the the other. The smaller one was smooth but made out of some kind of metal. the problem with it was that If you took a fall, that metal absorbed all the heat of the hot 100F Austin sun, and you got burned like falling on a hot iron. The bigger one was made out of wood, but the coping was uneven and the vert on one of the sides was a little indented. I preferred the bigger one. I laid outside after our session and stared at the sky and the trees. I couldn't believe I was in Austin. I guess it hit me when I was looking at the cactus in the flower beds that were surrounded by pebbles instead of mulch earlier. From here in on out I am in the West I thought. Austin was the gateway to the west. East Texas was too similar to Arkansas, but this was the landscape I longed to see. I cant wait for the desert, the green open deserts of the southwest. I couldn't wait to get this feeling of freedom on those roads. My thoughts were interrupted when John, and his girlfriends parents came and I got up to greet them. In the beginning, it was without a doubt one of the most awkward situations I had ever been in.
Angela, John's girlfriend didn't help comfort me. She reminded me of Kate Siravo, my boss in Surfin Tacos. May God forgive what I am about to say because my only intention is to portray how I felt, when I did, and not to insult or offend anybody at all. My impressions of Kate were always as a psycho white woman. Her father was the health commissioner of all New York state and they lived in Long Island. She told me how hard it was for her growing up in Brooklyn, but her attitude towards material objects and people, which she treated like material objects, made it seem to me that she was always provided with everything she wanted when she wanted and when she didn't get what she wanted she went crazy. And in fact she went crazy on me many times, offending me personally infront of the other employees, my heritage and my ethnicity. But I understand why she did and so I am not angry, but she is just a person I cannot respect. Angela to me, spoke with that same arrogance and although she was well traveled I feel that she didn't really gain any humbleness or understanding through her travels. She talked to me with that arrogance in her voice and I came around her parents and her feeling nervous and scared. What I was wearing didn't help either. All I had were my boardshorts and my ex-white now yellow, sweaty, dusty tanktop. Here I was again, with the situation I feared the most, with these upper class white people in the south with my out of place terrorist brown ass.
When we sat in the living room everybody was focused on John's show so we didn't really do much talking, but when we gathered around the table the questions really started coming. I felt like I was Borat sitting around a table and learning about the culture of upper class Americans in the south.
"So Omar, where are you from?" Angela's mother asked
"Rhode Island" I tried to counter those Borat feelings
"Oh. I thought you were from somewhere more exotic that that"
"Well, I am Egyptian"
"Oh so you're Egyptian then"
Then John's dad jumped in
"So you are a first generation American?"
"Well its kind of complicated, but I guess"
"Have you ever had a burger before, Omar?" he asked
"Haha, yes I have" I answered with a smile
"What about jalapeños? They are really hot" Angelas mom asked
"I actually love jalapeños, I put them on everything and would love to have some"
I guess they were confused by this Egyptian eating hamburgers and having tried jalapenos before.
"You guys can really dance, you should teach me some"
Angela's mother's confused look turned into a big smile "Oooooohh, after dinner we should teach you the Texas Two Step"
I wasn't really serious about the lessons so when she offered, I thought what did I get myself into. I tried to think of a way out but she kept bringing it up on her own accord there was no way. I should just do it. After dinner was done she couldn't wait, she immediately put on the record. When the music played we really started to bond. Her husband would do a move with her and then tell me to do the same. I did well, they were impressed but it was time for me to leave. It was getting dark on this July 4th night and it was time to party. I said my goodbyes to these nice people and headed over to Adam's a couple of streets down.
Adam wanted to eat mushrooms that night and there was no way I could say no. So we went and picked them up. When we got home we both had an eighth to ourselves. We ate them at about
930. When he ate them, he went up stairs and showered and I chilled with John downstairs. Somewhere along the lines of the conversation with John the reflection of the ceiling fan on the TV kept distracting me and I kept turning my head to the left to keep looking at it. Half an hour in I was feeling the effects. John spoke but I was in another world. The ceiling fan also cast a shadow on the wall infront of me that I couldn't take my eyes off of. But most of all there was a silver mannequin across from me on the left and all the reflections off of it were moving, phagocytosizing everything like an amoeba. Jaime came downstairs and when I made a comment about it he asked me something about "poooosy". Our minds were clearly in different places. Adam came downstairs and I guess he was feeling the effects too. He was waving his arms in a swimming motion screaming "aaaaa--ooooo--uu--hh, aaaaa--ooo-uuu-h" with a huge smile on his face. We were both feeling it and it was time to do it. We left and thats when it really hit me.Crossing the S 1st bridge into downtown, I felt like the kids in "Detroit Rock City" when they arrived in Detroit staring up at the big buildings. They had so many lights on them, so many colors. There was a step building with a blue light that went around the top of every step. The was a building shining purple, blue, yellow, green lights from the ground up on its side. The was a building that was the Owl Building, and from a certain angle the big clocks on the top looked like eyes on an owl and they followed me everywhere. Carla's VW Taureg felt like airplane and although there was five people in it, I felt like I was riding first class on a 777 jet.
Carla stopped at the first bar she came across. I had no idea what it was called at the time but the music called and it echoed in my heart and pumped in my head. As soon as I walked in I felt like I was in the jungle. There were banana trees and palm trees on the inside of this open roof bar. I was looking at everything as if I was looking from above with my head tilted at an angle although my head was completely straight. There were mist machines and I felt as tall them, but even if I stretched my arms all the way up I still wouldn't have been able to reach them. I was watching everything, it seemed like, from the lens of a slow motion camera. I heard everybody speak around me and felt everybody's presence.
The music was still calling but I was standing by the bar watching a trailer about "Ice Age". I pointed it out to John and told him "Look man, its the jungle again". I kept hearing "pssshh" sounds like giants pipes emptying steam at 10 second intervals. I didn't know where that sound was coming from. I walked towards the music and there was a projector with intense visuals. I took a seat and watched with maximum attention. Every once in a while though, I would forget the visuals and the music would overtake my full attention. I listened to the music and nothing else around me existed, I was lost on another planet. I started moving in my seat but I found that I had unconsciously gotten up and started dancing. And I danced my ass off that night. It was just me and Adam on the dance floor the whole night but we didn't give a shit. This was music made for the man on the trip specifically. When the bar closed, I wanted to keep dancing, Adam's friend Amber Lee told me they were heading over to the gay bar to keep dancing. I was down.
When we walked outside, I noticed that this place looked so familiar. I turned towards the entrance and remembered that entrance. It was that same entrance I was peeking into earlier. That valet stand looked so familiar and I recalled that I was standing exactly at this spot when I starting feeling the Jumanji call of the music.
"Adam, what is this place called?"
"Belmont"
"Word to Belmont"
The first thing I noticed walking into Rain, the gay bar, was a black shemale staring me down at the door. For some reason it didn't phase me although I was on mushrooms, I thought maybe I would freak out easier, but I didn't and maybe it was because I was coming down. It was raunchy in there. Guys were humping the shit out of each other, grinding up on each other like gear wheels. However, as soon as I stepped on the raised, white dance floor things changed. I felt like I was on top of a cloud. I closed my eyes and danced my ass off again. When we were done I had done some work. My shirt was soaked like I had just skated 40 miles in the middle of the Texas day.
We left and headed home. I don't really remember the details of what happened except me walking around Austin still tripping, but still coming down. I don't know how but I ran into a couple of girls that messed with my tripping mind. None were from Austin and one was from Alfred, New York. Seems like a whatever town to you, but I was so struck by the coincidence that I sort of lost my breath and lost my ability to speak. Without a doubt, the response was made more intense by the psychedelics. Alfred, New York was the town where Peter Jenkins started his walk across the United States. I finished his book A Walk Across America a couple of weeks ago, the book that was given to me by one of the librarians in Arkansas. i never got their numbers or even their names, it was just a random run into in Austin, where the world is made 20 times smaller, but I will never forget looking into the eyes of one of them. I will never forget that face.
When I got home I found that I had a text message from my old friend Sarah B. Sarah was a student at UT but lived in Houston for the summer and coincidentally she was in Austin that weekend. The last time I saw Sarah was in 10th grade when all the international schools of the eastern Mediterranean (EMAC) were at my school in Kuwait for a volleyball tournament. Her school was in Dubai. The last time I saw her I got arrested by Kuwait Police and it was quiet the unexpected adventure. I hoped things would be a little more peaceful nine years later in Austin.
Sunday was a peaceful day. Me, Adam, and his friend amber Lee decided to skate/bike to Barton Springs. Barton Springs is a natural underwater spring that runs underneath Austin. It was a bout a 3 mile skate from Adam's house in the burning hot sun, but after the night before's experience and busting a sweat there was no better feeling that diving into he water. Skating there and jumping into that 60F water with the natural vegetation on the bottom was the closest thing to surfing I had done since last January and it felt fantastic. The water felt like the summer Gansett ocean but even better because the air was hot. There was something rejuvenating about those springs, when I came out I felt like a new man.
I planned to leave Austin the next day, Monday but I had heard about the Austin Longboard Club meets on Monday nights so I decided to stay and check it out. Adam was leaving to San Francisco on Wednesday so I contacted another Couchsurfing host, Jane and changed places that night. Staying with Adam who was at the bottom of my list, turned out to be my best couchsurfing experience yet. I really turned to love Adam, Carla, John S, and even Jaime
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