It’s hard to talk about just how poor I was in college, as the fact that I was a middle-class white kid getting to experience such a thing suggests that I wasn’t poor at all. And sure, I didn’t grow up poor, but just a year before I made the plunge into higher education my dad’s trucking business, already on its last legs, gasped its final breath. The tentacles of this implosion robbed us of the house, the car, any notion of savings, and most importantly, my family’s greater self-esteem. My parents were suddenly thrust, midlife, into the ranks of the paycheck-to-paycheck working poor, just in time for me to go to university.
The result, of course, was a mountain of stress and economic insecurity while I was supposed losing/finding myself in a hurricane of study, sex, and self-indulgence. Isn’t this what defines this overinflated rite of passage? And while I participated in all three with abandon, I sweated rent every month and learned, firsthand, what real hunger was. I was so broke that I often had no money for anything at all. This meant that there were days when I had to eschew the bus in favor of a bike, coffee wasn’t an option, and one “meal” was all I got.
Now of course the faculty at Cornish—the expensive little arts college that had offered me a one-year scholarship—tended to frame such poverty as a challenge, as if I could prove my mettle as a “serious artist” by enduring deprivations while my more moneyed classmates ate well and never once pondered the idea of eviction. But I quickly grew sour on such platitudes offered up by Boomers who hadn’t known a single day of privation in their lives (let alone student debt) and soon found myself in the counselor’s office asking for help. I was hungry, and it sucked.
Bill, the counselor, pointed me in the direction of a free meal for street kids in the U-district run by a church group. It was called “Teen Feed” and had a reputation for serving up good food without the unwelcome bonus of obnoxious proselytizing. They fed poor teens and asked no questions, and soon I was gracing their tables on Friday and Saturday nights.
Teen Feed took place right off “The Ave,” the strip of restaurants, coffeehouses, and record stores next to the University of Washington that was a kind of international/bohemian melting pot at the time. You could grab an espresso, take down a bowl of pho’, and then smoke weed in a parking lot with a pack of crusty anarchists. Despite the fact that I spent most of my time on the “cooler” confines of Capitol Hill, I immediately found the U-District to be the most interesting place in town, and tended to hang out there when I wasn’t up at Cornish.
I was also underage, so bars were off limits. The U-District and the Ave offered up a number of great coffee shops where I could sip caffeine, smoke rollies, listen to fuzzy guitar rock, and meet girls, those Seattle girls of the day with their dyed hair, nose rings, cut off jeans, black tights, and big leather boots. I was young and clumsy and not super successful in my endeavors, but those early years in coffee shops showed me just what kind of girls I liked, and how to talk to them, which, more than often, just meant putting yourself near enough to them until you caught their eye.
Now I always felt guilty going to Teen Feed, since pretty much everyone else at the table was worse off than I was. After all, I was attending a very bourgeois arts college on scholarship, while most of my compatriots were runaways who had never even gotten close to finishing high school. I daily mixed with rich kids and some of the city’s elite (Cornish was and still is underwritten by big Seattle money) while these guys eating with me were rejects, abuse cases, and addicts, definitely representing the lowest strata out there.
I sensed that the shiny happy young Christians who were feeding us all felt this as well. Behind the Jesus smile there was always a sense of, “What are you doing here?” but the fact was, despite any trappings of privilege, I had no cash half the time and was straight up hungry. This was one of those strange situations where I was poor in an environment that was the opposite of poor, and at the end of the day we all need to eat.
Over the months I began to befriend a few of these Ave kids, and for a few weekends in a row I dined with a dude who went by the name of “Zoobroo,” and his girlfriend Ariana, an emaciated goth chick with white pancake face makeup so thick you could take a putty knife to it. Zoobroo’s real name was Adam, and while he also was deep goth, he always wore a brightly covered do-rag on his head that acted as a kind of counterpoint to his baggy black pants and black coat.
Now Zoobroo claimed that he had received his name after doing eight hits of acid. During the trip a demon appeared and gave him his “sacred name,” which he had since adopted. Given Zoobroo’s wild eyes and tangential way of speaking, it occurred to me that he had yet to fully come down from those eight trips. But he welcomed me at his table at Teen Feed as was the exact opposite of most of the pampered suburban wannabe actors that I dealt with every day at Cornish.
While I was indeed hungry, one of the things that kept me coming to Teen Feed were the “teens” themselves. It all felt dangerous and weird and so much more interesting than my regular Seattle life at the time. Perhaps I was slumming, but if you really have no money, how do you know if you’re really in the slum or just a tourist?
It was mid-April and a Saturday night. Teen Feed served up roasted chicken, potatoes, and salad, washed down with paper cups of Hawaiian Punch. It was a nice meal, and Zoobroo and Adriana invited me back to their place to hang out after dinner. As we walked past the party and frat houses that surround the university like a layer of blubber, Zoobroo laid it out there:
“Hey dude. You wanna dose?”
Now I’d only done acid once before. It was with good friends in a safe environment and one of the seminal experiences of my life up to that point. And while I was keen to trip again, I was hesitant to repeat the ritual with a couple of semi-random street goths. But that didn’t stop me from going along, and soon we were back in their room in the boarding house they called home, and Zoobroo was breaking out the gear.
The first thing I noticed was that squares of LSD were much, much larger than what I had done before. We’re talking almost postage stamp sized. Still, that didn’t stop me from letting Zoobroo place the massive paper hit on my tongue, and soon we were out the door to a warehouse party he knew about.
It was only about a ten minute walk away, and before we knew it, we were in a big space decorated with black lights and purplish glowing tapestries wrapped in the squelchy, pumping beat of acid house techno. It was a kind of wonderland for anyone under the influence of psychedelics, and as the drugs began to kick in, I knew I was in the right place.
The problem was we were dreadfully early. This was obviously the kind of party that only really kicked in after midnight, and here we were, pretty much the first guests, at 10 pm The place was empty and echoey and it didn’t take too long before the acid was calling the shots.
This is the thing about taking monster doses of psychedelics. They come on like an avalanche, burying your normal senses under a mountain of electricity and tangents that can totally overwhelm, resulting in overwhelming anxiety. The drugs were hitting fast and hitting hard, and we quickly became way too high to be anywhere where people not exactly as high as us happened to be.
Eyes like inky saucers, Zoobroo approached me, with a grinning Adriana at his side. I could see her chest heave as she drank up huge breaths.
“Duuuuuude…” he said.
“Duudde…”
“Fuck, dude. I think I’m too high to cope, you know?”
“Yeah…”
“Let’s go back and chill at our place. I can’t deal here.”
“Cool, dude.”
We blasted out of the cavern of a techno party, gulping down the cool night air. Zoobroo and Adriana lit up clove cigarettes; their sweet, cinnamon aroma hit my nose hard as we ambled towards their boarding house. The whole neighborhood was alive with the sounds of music, voices, and revelry. This all weaved together into a warped sonic tapestry, punctuated with the barks of dogs, thump of feet on pavement, and revvings of car engines. These sounds all warped and warbled and enveloped us as the acid washed over our world like a crystalline wave. Everything had now kicked into 5th gear and we were officially high as fuck, just an hour in. It was going to be a very long night.
We were now on a side street, and Zoobroo began to lope like a happy sasquatch. Adriana giggled out loud and I let out a breath that went down to the center of my groin, releasing electric tendrils of relaxation that worked their way through my muscles and let me know, for the moment, that everything was going to be okay.
“Whoooooaa,” I said, getting in synch with my breath.
“Yeah? I know,” said Zoozbroo, arms out, tilting back and forth as if walking on a tightrope.
Just then a small car zoomed by, a compact, Japanese make. Someone shouted something from the passenger window, and Zoobroo reacted with a figure skating spin and a loud “FUCK YOU!!!!”
The little car screeched to a halt a the empty intersection just above us, and four dudes poured out.
“Yo!” Screamed one of them. “What the fuck you sayin’, nigga?”
It bears pointing out that all four of these guys were white dudes done up in baggy hip hop clothes and blue bandanas—wannabe gangsters. They were all big and chunky and swung their arms to and fro like offended apes. They radiated pure malevolence—a group glow hatred and psychopathy just looking for an outlet. Given our current state, their state of extreme antipathy hit us like knives and we now had to suddenly contend with the fact that a pack of jacked-up fake gangbangers had now found a target in us.
“Wassup nigga???,” their leader continued, zeroing in on Zoobroo.
“He’s a fucking skinhead!” his buddy shouted.
“You a fucking skinhead??? Fuck you, fucking skinhead!”
“I’m not a fucking skinhead!” replied Zoobroo, who had managed to collect himself over the course of seconds.
“FUCKING SKINHEAD!!! FUCK YOU!!!” chimed in another.
‘I’M NOT A FUCKING SKINHEAD!” Zoobroo ripped off his do-rag, revealing a mop of brown hair to prove the point, but they were now all convinced that they wanted to kill this guy.
“FUCK YOU NIGGA! FUCKING SKINHEAD! STEP NIGGA! I’ll MUTHAFUCKING KILL YOU YO FUCKING SKINHEAD!!!!”
All four of them went into a kind of posturing berserker mode—bellowing, pounding their chests, and swinging their arms. It was primal, naked aggression that had seemingly come out of nowhere, but for three people frying balls, it was like a tsunami of distilled negativity.
“Let’s the fuck out of here,” said Zoobroo.
He dashed across the street into a dirt road alley between houses. Adriana and I sprinted after him to the reverberating soundtrack of the evil wiggers threatening our lives. We then heard their doors close and the car start back up. By the time we made it to the next block they were rounding that intersection as well, coming straight at us, but Zoobroo knew the neighborhood and led us across the lawn of a house and into another alley, which soon led to the back door of their boardinghouse. We could still make out the grind of their engine and screams of “FUCKING SKINHEAD!!!!” through the night air as we ducked into the house.
Zoobroo and Adriana sat on the edge of the bed in the tiny room chain smoking clove cigarettes in silence. I took a seat on the one chair near the door, doing my best to not fall off the end of the earth. Eventually the screams of our pursuers evaporated, and we were just left with each other in a room the size of a glorified closet.
Now, not only had we done quadruple hits of acid each, but we had just been chased down by terrible fake white Crips, and nothing kicks acid into high gear more than physical activity paired with deep fear. The adrenaline coursing through our veins also carried the LSD to the four corners of our bodies and the deepest recess of our brains, and all three of us were doing our best to not disintegrate into meaningless piles of goo. I suspect ol’ “Zoobroo” was similarly high when he got his name.
Once we figured out that we weren’t going to die by the hands of the worst white men in the world, Zoobroo decided it was time to put on some music. Now at this point I could have used something calm, hippyish, and reassuring. The Grateful Dead would have totally put me on the right track, but Zoobroo instead chose to feature Canadian darkwave pre-industrial luminaries, Skinny Puppy.
Now, Skinny Puppy is a band that, over the years, I’ve come to appreciate, but their music is jaggedy, austere, and unsettling, and synthetic. It’s the very opposite of reassuring, and can sound a bit scary when you’re totally sober. To a 19 year-old kid, tripping balls, with a melting down soul, just one Skinny Puppy song may be to much, let alone several albums worth.
Zoobroo and Ariana loved it, lost in their gothic trippiness while Nivek Ogre’s distorted vocals screeched out over evil-sounding synth lines, but as the hours bled together, I became convinced that I had been lured to their tiny lair for a reason. As I looked at their blanched faces, I saw hunger in their eyes. They had met me at Teen Feed and then invited me to their den for their own feed. These two were ghouls incarnate, and before the sun came up, I was to be their meal.
I cowered next to the door as the great fear poured into my marrow. What had begun as a nagging suspicion had now blossomed into full icy terror. They were going to eat me, and each Skinny Puppy composition crackling from the boombox only served to drive home this self-evident truth. So I stood up, told them I needed to use the bathroom (across the hall), cracked open the door, and made a run for it.
I managed to make it back to the Ave, unmolested by fake gangbangers; it was now four or five in the morning and the streets were empty. The traffic lights hung in the pre-morning air, but there was just one problem. I had no idea how to get home. I couldn’t tell north from south, up from down. The whole Ave was one distorted, heaving road that appeared to embody every direction at once. I was rudderless and just sat down on the pavement and sighed.
Just then a man on a motorcycle pulled up. He was a thin black guy with a moustache.
“Where are you headed?” he asked.
“Uh, near First Hill,” I answered. “Home.”
“Hop on back, I’ll take you there.”
I jumped on and he hit the throttle, rocketing us down the carless street. The wind whipped my cheeks and despite the breathing trees and streetlight chasers and vertigo of it all, I found myself coming back towards earth.
“Where do you hang out?” he asked.
“Oh, here and there.”
“Do you ever go to Neighbors?”
I had never been been to Neighbors, but knew it was a famous gay club near my place that straight people also went to on the weekends. But I lived next to Capitol Hill, where half the bars were gay.
“Uh, not really.”
“You ever go to The Eagle?”
“Actually, I’m underage.”
“I don’t believe that. So where does a cute boy like you go?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not gay.”
He suddenly pulled over to the side of the street.
“Get the fuck off,” he said.
I obliged his request and watched as he puttered away. I sighed, put one foot in front of the other, and began the long walk home.
This walk ended up being the best part of the night. I had the streets to myself and was allowed a view of the city I lived in devoid of other people, while also super open to notice the details. By the time I approached my neighborhood, the terror that had once gripped me to the bones had completely ebbed.
I cut through the campus of Seattle University as I got near my place, just as the sun peeked over the ridges that define the town. It was a gorgeous Sunday spring morning—Easter Sunday to be precise—with birds singing and the heavy perfume of blossoms hanging in the air. I was suddenly overcome with warmth and felt my body relax as a deep peace settled in. No one was going to beat me down. No one was going to eat me. The world was beautiful and I was going to be alright.
When I finally got home, I crawled into bed and slept like a kitten. When I awoke that afternoon I called my parents to wish them Happy Easter and ask for money, which they did their best to supply, though I’d know plenty more hungry days ahead.
And I never went to Teen Feed again.
Originally published on 11/1/20 at Rant Alley.
Wonderful piece of writing, thank you.
I was with you until you made that dig at Boomers. As a boomer, I have to take issue with your remark. When I attended college in the early 80s, I was poor but didn’t realize it. My family was working class and I attended Temple University. Despite it being a state university, my expenses were high. I had some financial aid but worked three part time jobs and had student loans (because Republicans cut most financial aid programs that was the only alternative).
So, I can understand what you and other students went through and are currently experiencing. This has been a problem for at least forty years. Even so, I knew students who were in worse shape and dropped out of college or dropped off the face of the earth.
The health and wellbeing of college students is concerning but don’t blame Boomers. Instead blame those in politics and government who diminish the value of college and dismiss and diminish the needs of those trying to make a better future for themselves and others. Our country needs to fully fund and support education at all levels.