Picking Mushrooms
Did you know that psychedelic mushrooms grow in the wild, in shit, on ranches here in Texas?If you are willing to do a little bit of trespassing reconnaissance
you can get your bent for free.
I found this out my freshman year of college.
There was this guy that lived down the hall from me at Simkins dormitory at the University of Texas. His name was Jackson and he was a major hellian. He was one of those kids that got sent off to military school pretty early in his education. He had behavioral problems. You could tell that the amount of evil, nefarious, thoroughly rebellious information that he gleaned from the military academy far outweighed any actual constructive life skills that I'm sure his parents had hoped would straighten him out. We were acquaintances, possibly associates, hardly friends. He was one of those guys that I kept my eye on because I felt it would be advantageous to have him as an ally rather than an enemy in most any given situation.
It was his idea. Oh sure I was in on the planning and collusion as soon as I heard the basics of the scheme but the inception was his. Jackson led me to believe that just outside of town, on any ranch with grain fed cows, on any moist warm evening, one could easily pick the rudest of psychedelic shrooms armed only with a flashlight. He claimed to have done it many times. The hard part is of course the trespassing issue. The issue of not getting caught. The issue of not getting shot. The plan was laced with danger but the payoff seemed to good to pass up. A free buzz, it sounded so sweet.
Jackson had the knowledge but no method of transport. I didn't know where to go or what to look for but I had a Chevy Beretta. We agreed to a limited partnership. We agreed to go together to pick mushrooms. We agreed that since I would drive and he would show me how that whatever we picked we would split on our return to town. He thought we should take 290 out toward Bastrop and look for the ranches that had grain elevators. Turns out that only the grain fed cows would produce the proper refuse that is conducive to growing mushrooms that contained psilocybin, or the shit that gets you high.
So we set out. We waited till after dark. We found a suitably non-descript farm to market road about 25 miles south east of town. We turned down that road and started looking for grain storage. We found a pasture with a structure that we thought was for storing grain. I parked as far as I could off the road. We got out of the car with our flashlights and bags for transport and we jumped a barbed wire fence and began our mushroom hunt.
The first thing we did was get off away from the road so our flashlights couldn't be seen by any passing vehicles. Then Jackson gave me a lesson in telling the difference between the kind of mushrooms we were looking for and a kind of mushroom that looked almost identical but was poisonous without the visuals and euphoria. He also tried to show me the best places to look. He had obviously done this before because within a few moments of searching around these pastures he had picked quite a few shrooms. I on the other hand was having a difficult time locating the right specimens. I was also pretty preoccupied with keeping tabs on Jackson. If we got separated and I had to leave him out in the middle of nowhere it might be a bad scene. So I sort of followed him since he knew what to do and what to look for. After about half an hour we decided that we should go back to the car and get off this fella's land.
Back at the car it became apparent that Jackson had picked almost a whole trash sack full of shrooms. There was only four or five mushrooms in my sack but that didn't concern me because the agreement had been one of fifty fifty partnership. I drove he picked, we would split the bounty evenly in accordance with our agreement. We headed back to town.
As we drove Jackson began to inform me of what he planned to do with his sack of shrooms. I reminded him about the agreement that we had hammered out before we even got in the car to go on this mission. His memory suddenly drew a blank and he was unable to recalled said agreement. As far as he was concerned he was going to keep his full sack because that's what he had picked and I would be left to my measly four or five small shrooms probably not even enough for a solid buzz. I reminded him that there were no busses that dropped off passengers on unmarked farm to market roads in the country and that if not for me and my ride he would have not even had the opportunity to pick any damn shrooms. A heated argument ensued.
I hate cheats and liars. All of the sudden I was pissed. I felt a show of force would be necessary to remind my associate about the particulars of our agreement. I thought about pulling over and just dropping his ass off on the side of the highway. That however seemed too cruel. I considered just kicking his ass. That however may have been easier said than done as he was quite a bit bigger in stature than I and he had attended school at a military academy which was notorious for producing hard dudes. Instead I chose the hostage route. As we were arguing he had the sack in his hand. I quickly made my move. I grabbed the bag of goods and held it stiff armed out the window of the speeding car. I told him that if he didn't assent to the terms of our original agreement that I would drop the bag onto the highway and just keep on truckin. I ransomed my portion of the bounty for the assured safety of all we had collected. I guess I must have looked serious cause Jackson soon changed his tone and suddenly remembered the stipulations of our partnership. I pulled the bag back inside feeling relieved that I didn't have to follow through with my threat. I kept the bag at my feet until we got back to the dorm.
When we returned we went straight up to Jackson's room where we split the spoils equally. He made the piles and I picked. It was late. I gave Jackson my best stink-eye and said goodnight. I would never trust him again. He thought he could hornswaggle me. You gotta keep your eye on some folks. People will try to put in on you. Jackson got kicked out of the dorms just a few days later and I never saw him again.
With my portion of the mushrooms I made a terrible tasting tea. A lot of my pile withered in the night and when I got a chance to make the tea the next day there weren't that many left. I made the tea and drank it all myself and didn't really trip hard at all. I thought that maybe that little adventure had been a mistake. That happened ten years ago next month. I hadn't thought about that event in ages. And since I have entered it into the annals of my blog I won't ever have to think about it again.
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