What I learned from Drugs -- Part 2 (Peyote, LSD, Amphetamines, Opium, Cocaine, Quaaludes, Alcohol)

In May of 1964, having quit my job at Sun Life Assurance Co. Ltd. in San Francisco, I was back in Cheney, pretending to be taking classes at Eastern Washington State College, in order to extort an allowance from my Folks, while, in fact, I hung out, morning, noon and night in the Widow (Toni) Pugh's Rooming House for Truth-Seeking Young Bohemians--mostly sitting at the kitchen table, or in the living room, drinking coffee, sometimes smoking pot, endlessly gassing with Patrick (Joseph Patrick McClelland), an Irishman, artist, musician, linguist, with huge, brown, haunting Spanish eyes ("like Bambi"), the same age and birthsign as me, from Santiago de Chile, who had one of the upstairs bedrooms, while Deacon had the other.  I think it fair to say that Patrick and I had a sort of Schwarm for one another, with no taint of the erotic, but with deep appreciation and delight in one another's wit, breeding, learning, musicality, civilized character--which enabled Patrick somehow literally to read my mind, which was  sometimes embarrassing, but always funny.  Our mutual infatuation was cemented by reading French romantic poetry together, which we both found deliciously, hilariously ridiculous, and whereof we would laugh at one another's solemn, fervid recitations till our sides ached:  

                         Les plus désespérés sont les chants les plus beaux,

                         Et j'en sais d'immortelles qui sont de purs sanglots.

                          
                         N'y touchez pas--il est brisé!