Lysergically Yours | Page 3

him straight off: The punker with the
green mohawk sitting just to the left of centre in Convocation Hall,
where PSY 100 was held. It was a 9am Monday morning class, the first
university class in the lives of most of the students. Yet Lyle did not
have the same air of trepidation about him that hovered over the rest of
those in attendance. He sat calmly with his Docs up on the back of the
seat in front of him, knitting. Whereas almost everyone else in the hall
(Johnny included, he was embarrassed to later recall) had brought with
them a shiny new binder bought at Wal-Mart (or Grand and Toy for the
rich kids) and a pencil case with not only pencils and erasers but pens
in blue, black and red, Lyle had three sheets of folded paper which had
clearly been pulled from his pockets minutes earlier and a red Bic pen

without a cap sitting on his fold-down desk.
The instructor was a frightened looking graduate student named
Mohammed Haj-Mosawi who spoke English with a very thick accent
and did so in a voice that would have been rather too quiet for polite
dinner conversation, never mind lecturing to 800 students. He did
however, come armed with some pretty serious PowerPoint slides. By
about the third week some combination of the nearly inaudible and
indecipherable English and the Monday-morningness had driven
attendance down to the point where Johnny was able to permanently
stake out a seat in the front row. Soon afterwards, Lyle migrated
forward as well. From that vantage point, both were surprised to
discover that Haj-Mosawi was quite a compelling speaker once you got
used to the way he pronounced all his soft 'i's as hard 'e's.
It was an unseasonably warm day in mid-October when Johnny
actually talked to Lyle for the first time. Johnny had stayed around for a
few minutes after class to ask Haj-Mosawi a couple of questions about
the lecture. When he stepped out the doors of Con Hall and started
down the stairs a voice called from behind him: "Nice shirt."
Johnny spun around, met Lyle's grinning eyes and asked: "You're a
fan?" Johnny was wearing an old Doors t-shirt, a veritable antique. It
had belonged to his father. The words "The Doors" had faded entirely
from the back and Jim Morrison's grim visage barely continued to peer
out from Johnny's chest. The neckband had frayed to the point that it
hardly existed and the sweat stains in the armpits were the kind that
didn't wash out. Band shirts weren't really in fitting with Johnny's usual
style; in fact this was the only one he owned. He generally wore a plain
black hoodie and blue jeans just about every day of the year, but the
sun blazing in through his dorm window that autumn morning had
dictated an impromptu wardrobe re-evaluation.
Lyle was leaning up against a pillar smoking a cigarette. His pants were
a patchwork of leather, denim, plaid flannel and various faded patches
for bands Johnny had never heard of. The pants fit Lyle's long legs
snugly and were tucked inside the tops of his Docs at his ankles. There
were zippers and buttons, which seemed to serve no fastening purpose,

set into the pants haphazardly across their surface. Lyle's lower half
was always clothed in this way and Johnny suspected from observation
that Lyle had three or four similar pairs of pants, but wouldn't be
willing to swear that the pants weren't completely different every day.
Lyle was also wearing a stained white Sex Pistol's t-shirt on which the
printing job was so smeared that it was almost certain that he had done
the silk-screening himself. There was a long slash as from a knife
running diagonally across Lyle's chest and the dirty white cotton curled
outwards around this wound. Through the tear Johnny could see that
Lyle's right nipple had a safety pin through it. There was a single thick
black line of tattoo ink running down the inside of Lyle's forearm from
the divot of his elbow to where it disappeared underneath a black
leather bracelet bristling in steel spikes, several of which were rusting.
In all, he looked as though he had been fashioned by God for rich girls
to date for revenge against their parents.
Lyle spat onto the ground and, ignoring Johnny's question, asked:
"Know where I can get some acid?"
Johnny was visibly surprised: "Why are you asking me?"
"I saw you reading 'Doors of Perception' during break."
"Sorry," Johnny said, turning to leave, "but you've got a wrong
number." Johnny hopped on his skateboard and sped off in the direction
of McLennan Physical Laboratories. He didn't look back, but if he had
he would have seen Lyle watching him with