Hard Cuddles. James Harding

forever. We lost our innocence in Park St, Ormond that night. The innocence of youth was torn out of our hearts by a revenge-stricken adolescent and his father, all over a song on a juke box. Carlos and I became suspicious of people, less trusting. We began to think everyone had an angle and was trying to harm us. It is awful to think that way and it took me years to understand the significance of the experience. Then even longer again to gain closure on the guilt I carried with me. I internalised the situation and made it my fault. After that I felt responsible for Carlos’ scars and for Carlos going forward.

      The positive was that we became blood brothers over our dance with the devil and for years we became a team that was unbreakable. This was only the beginning of a wild ride; Carlos and I were like two bandits with the pedal to the metal.

      Not long after this we both started experimenting with acid, which to me now was a good indicator of the effect this incident had on both of us. We longed to escape. The truth was we felt as though we had both been let down and violated by society. We were young and didn’t understand how to deal with our emotions, so we began to self-medicate. Acid was our first port of call. Most kids experiment with smoking and the drinking, not us, we went straight into the mind-altering world of LSD.

      I have heard if you take more than ten acid trips in your lifetime you can be considered legally insane, acid never leaves your body like other drugs and this is why you have flashbacks. I once took ten tabs in two hours, there is no other drug like acid in my opinion, but it’s not for everyone. There are certain people who completely lose the plot if they dropped one. Carlos and I had lived a nightmare; we weren’t really scared of anything from there on in.