The next morning Margold worked on several paintings. The peyote ceremony was not scheduled until around sundown, and would continue through the night, so he had some time. Since not eating or drinking booze for a few days he was thinking clearer than he had in a quite a while, i.e., since he was about seventeen. He was even losing a little weight. Although he could have used a nice big steak, he felt surprisingly good.
He lined up five canvases on which he intended to paint a Francis Bacon-like set of self portraits, something along the lines of the Screaming Pope. That’s it, he thought, the perfect setting. He would paint
portraits of Margold the atheist dressed as the Pope, sitting in his Pope chair, wearing a Pope’s hat, screaming his Pope head off, only it would not be the Pope, it would be Margold. That’s what he wanted to do, scream. Up to now he had been very calm about the whole thing, going about what he planned to do with a certain resignation. Now, he wanted to scream to high heaven, as the cliché goes, and the next time he saw Death he would put his brains on the wall with a caliber of shotgun most high.
He took some black paint thinned with turpentine and sketched an image on the first canvas. He had improved at his drawing sufficiently to be able to make a reasonable likeness by looking in the mirror and sketching it rapidly on the canvas. Anyway, it did not need to be all that good a likeness, as he intended to make it a bit abstract.
On the next canvas he did the same thing, but with a different variation. He drew the features as accurately as he could, then went over them again, distorting some of them, and adding white, painting in some of the features with white and gray.
He continued this process in one form or another for all five canvases, the painting growing more abstract as he went, until in the end the last canvas was totally abstract with no real human features. He tired, and thought that six or eight beers would go down pretty good right about then, but he refrained, showing more self control and discipline than he had in decades. The time for the peyote ceremony was nearing.
#
Bill arrived with Indian Jim and the drummers. The ceremony had traditionally been performed in a tipi, but as this was Jim’s bastardized version of the ceremony, and he had decided to do it outside. They could not use the sweat lodge because they needed a fire, and the sweat lodge was low and could not support a fire. The important thing, anyway, was to get peyote in you–the surroundings didn’t matter that much.
Margold had the fire going by they time they arrived, and Jim brought the peyote and some sage. Sage is an important part of these ceremonies because it has a purifying effect. The peyote had been dried and was about the size of a quarter, brownish-green in color. According to Jim, Margold would need to eat about twenty or thirty of them. Jim also warned him that they tasted like shit, and that there a reasonable chance he would puke. That, however, was all part of the purification started in the sweat lodge the previous night.
Jim lit the sage stick and walked around everyone fanning the smoke toward them, and each person pretended to wash themselves in the smoke. The drummers started to beat a rhythm on one large drum situated between them, and to chant as they had the previous night. Jim then repeated the sage walk using a big cigar this time, fanning the smoke as before, and the others washing themselves in it. He then produced a basket filled with peyote buttons.
“This is a very solemn ceremony, and will last until sunrise,” Jim said, as he went on to explain that the ceremony was a religious experience, not just a reason to take hallucinogenic drugs. Once Margold tasted how horrible the peyote was, he would realize that there are more pleasant ways to have hallucinations. The peyote would take him into the spirit world where he would hopefully find his spirit guide who will help him with the problems he’s having. The guide would show him how he has erred in his life, and what to do about it. If there was anything specific he wanted to deal with, he should pray about it before eating the peyote.
“And as I told you before, you will need to eat twenty of thirty of these buttons.”
“All right,” Margold said.
“They are difficult to chew, and they are very bitter.”
“Got it.”
“And you may get sick from it.”
“I understand,” Margold said, “let’s get to it.”
Jim handed Margold several peyote buttons, and he put one in his mouth and started to chew it. After about two seconds he started to cough, and spit the thing out.
“Oh my God,” Margold said, still choking and spitting.
“I told you,” Jim said.
“Yes you did,” Margold said, “but I had no idea.”
“You wanna keep going?”
“Of course. Now I know what to expect.”
“Good, take another one.”
Margold took another button and started to eat it. He screwed up his face like a kid eating a lima bean, but this time continued to chew it until he was able to swallow it. He drank some water to wash it down.
“How do you feel?” Jim asked.
“I feel okay,” Margold said, “but it will take a lot of gin to get the taste of this out of my mouth.”
“Good, take another, and keep going until I tell you to stop.”
“How long will it take before I start to feel the effects of it?” Margold asked.
“About half an hour, forty-five minutes.”
“All right.”
“If you start to feel sick, just get up and go over there so you don’t puke on us.”
“I will.”
Margold continued to eat the peyote buttons, the drummers drummed and chanted, and Jim shook a rattle in rhythm to the drumming. After a few buttons Margold felt a little nauseous, and got up and walked to the edge of the yard, but the feeling passed after a moment. He returned to the fire and continued to eat peyote. Shortly, the peyote started to have an effect.
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