3,4 Methylenedioxymethamphetamine

12:30 P.M., Saturday, September 5, 2015

Somewhere in Washington, the State

Ted Michaels knew that he was jeopardizing his custody of the children, Paula Akron and Paul Macon. In fact, he was jeopardizing his own liberty, because what he was doing could land him in jail. Prison, actually, and he wondered briefly if it would be a prison in Hawaii, Washington, or some federal place. Maybe it would be El Reno, Oklahoma, where Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber, had done time. Ted knew people in El Reno, though not in the Fed Pen.

Not that Ted was planning to bomb a federal building, of course. No, he was merely crossing state lines to give illegal drugs to children. But he was determined to do what must be done to help these kids.

Ted wasn’t a psychiatrist or psychologist, but he had known people with post-traumatic stress disorder, and he thought he saw signs of it in the kids. His cousin Rosi had a bachelor’s, not a doctorate, in psychiatry, and she was an MD. She had referred plenty of people with PTSD to those more qualified to deal with it. She, too, saw signs of it in both children.

And, Rosi knew two doctors in the state of Washington who, state and federal drug laws notwithstanding, practiced MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

The prevailing wisdom was that PTSD was a condition without cure. The most that could be done, the view held, was to manage the condition. But in FDA-approved double-blind studies, 83% of those treated with a combination of MDMA and directed psychotherapy were in fact cured. They no longer had PTSD. Of those 17% not cured, most were helped from a little to a lot, and their PTSD more manageable than before. Though MDMA remained a Schedule 1 drug under the law, some therapists used it for non-recreational, therapeutic purposes, and this had to be done in secret.

Paul & Paula 21 had just opened for Michiko Takahashi in Seattle last week and would be opening for her again in San Francisco next week. That meant that there was an excuse for them to be in the area, and what was more natural than for their new legal guardian, a millionaire who loved to travel, to show the kids sights all up and down the West Coast of the American Mainland? And if he took them to a few out-of-the-way spots while he was at it, well that’s where you find the beauty of nature.

That’s also where he found ... let’s call them Dr. X and Dr. E. This male/female team had been working together for five years. Now, MDMA is the active ingredient in the club drug ecstasy, or E, or X, or XTC, or Adam, or Molly, or any of several other names. The Molly you got on the street or at clubs, in addition to being illegal, was also unreliable. It could be anything from pure MDMA to some toxic mixture no molecule of MDMA had ever been near.

But the stuff Dr. E and Dr. X used wasn’t from the street. Dr. X and Dr. E knew a chemist who could make them precise doses of pure MDMA. One didn’t have to worry about it being contaminated, or about the pill containing a different dose than was advertised.

Paula noticed that Dr. X was mildly handsome; Paul was aware that Dr. E was a little bit pretty. The two doctors explained to the children and their legal guardian how this would work: the five of them would get to know each other for about ten minutes. Then, if the doctors felt it would help, the kids would take their pills, dosed to match their size. Paula and Paul would then be left alone for about half an hour, during which time they could listen to music, talk or play together, or nap. Once the MDMA had kicked in each doctor would work with one child, each in a separate room. This could last anywhere from one to three hours. Then the two children and two doctors would all gather in the first room again and, for an hour or so, all work together. After that the children would again be allowed to talk, play, nap or whatever alone, while the doctors consulted with their legal guardian.

The ten minutes expanded to almost fifteen, in part because the kids revealed for the first time outside of a courtroom that they had tried marijuana. While this fact had come out in the trial of their parents, it hadn’t gotten much attention, and this was the first Ted Michaels had heard of it. The two doctors hadn’t known either, and some time was spent examining this experience. Some more time was taken discussing Ted’s relationship with Michiko Takahashi and other teenage girls, and how the children felt about that.

In the end the result was the same: the kids took the pills and were let into the playroom. The room had toys and coloring books, and selections of music ranging from classical to psytrance. It pointedly did NOT have any Paul & Paula 21 songs.

Or at least, there weren’t supposed to be any. Two songs by the Monkees were available, and one of them, “Papa Gene’s Blues,” was one the kids were preparing to perform in their next concert. They thought it was quite funny that it was there. The other song, “For Pete’s Sake,” the kids didn’t notice in the collection.

The children realized that the drug was taking effect when they began to run their fingers over the wall, and noticed how wonderful the texture felt. Then they discovered deeper complexities to the music they were hearing. They felt very warm and loving towards each other, but that wasn’t any different.

MDMA was given the name “ecstasy” by early experimenters who found that the closest comparison they could think of was the state of religious ecstasy some of them had occasionally experienced. To the lay public, though, the word “ecstasy” suggested sexual excitement and orgasm. Thus, there was this idea among many that “ecstasy is a drug that makes you horny.”

It does not. What the drug does do is it heightens trust, reduces defensiveness, tunes down the amygdala, and increases serotonin. It also tends to make people feel lovey-dovey and often there is a desire to dance. Under its influence, you’re much more likely to want to hug people than to screw them.

The amygdala is the part of the brain which handles the fight or flight response, panic, and a few other things. In people with PTSD, the amygdala is over-active, so that small, ordinary things will trigger full emergency reactions such as aggression, production of adrenaline, and hyper-awareness. This makes psychotherapy difficult, as attempts to process the traumatic event can trigger defensiveness, a flashback, or even a full-blown panic attack. But thanks to the action of MDMA, these traumatic events can be approached, can be examined, can be dealt with.

The two children were dealing with things now.

Paul Macon didn’t like to cry, and he especially didn’t like to cry when anyone could see. But he was crying now, and it didn’t matter that Dr. X could see. There are a few people it’s OK to cry in front of, and thanks to the chemical Paul had taken Dr. X was, temporarily, one of those few.

“The worst part is there wasn’t anything I could do,” Paul was explaining. “I mean, he’s not just a bigger kid; he’s a grownup. A full-grown-up man. I can’t fight that; I’d have to be like Jackie Chan or something. I don’t think even Jackie Chan fights guys that much bigger than him.”

“Bet he doesn’t in real life,” Dr. X nodded. “Maybe in a movie he does, but real life isn’t a movie.”

Paul wiped away a tear. “Yeah. So, he slapped me around any time he wanted to. The other boys too, and we couldn’t do anything.”

“Nobody expects you to fight a grown man,” the doctor pointed out. “Even a lion doesn’t fight an elephant. What you do is you get through as best you can.”

But the little boy wasn’t finished.

“And then I found out Genkins was molesting Paula. And I couldn’t do anything about that, either. I mean, I’m her boyfriend; I’m supposed to protect her.”

“But you did do something: you ran away. Both of you, you ran away and survived in the woods together. She couldn’t have done that alone, right?”

Paul Macon gave the doctor a little grin.

“I don’t know, man. She’s pretty smart; tough too. But yeah, it was easier with me there. Oh, and I did help get that tree off her when it fell on her and I got rid of the spider.”

“Sounds to me like you did protect her after all. You helped her escape and you protected her in the outdoors.”

“Well, I guess so,” the little boy agreed. “Yeah, and when Ted showed up and we didn’t know if he was a bad guy or not, I grabbed a knife and told her to run for it. She didn’t run, of course. She protects me as much as I protect her. But I guess that’s what people do when they’re in love.”

Dr. X nodded. “Among other things. How did she protect you?”

“Oh, well,” Paul shrugged, “when the tree fell on her my ankle got twisted. I couldn’t even walk by myself. She holded me ... held me up on one side. She called me a prince and a hero. She picked fruit and stuff until I could get around again. What’d I do, if I was all by myself and couldn’t walk?”

Paul grinned. “And then the sex, you know. I mean, talk about against the rules! Madsen woulda beaten the holy fuck out of me if he knew about that. Probably Genkins, too. But I was doing it anyway. They think they’re so big, hitting and molesting little kids. Well guess what, assholes? Those little kids are having more sex than you are. Get this, Genkins: I’ve gone further with her than you have. Yeah me, a kid. And she LIKES it with me! Guess what, Madsen? Her blowjobs feel more good than your bullshit hurts.”

The child almost instantly moved from furious to sad again. With a sniffle he began to speak more softly.

“There’s something wrong with them, Doctor. It’s gotta be awful to be that fucked up in the head.”

With Paula, the conversation was more chaotic: she would change the subject frequently, seem to suddenly change her mind about something inconsequential, and then get back to the problem at hand before opining on the relative merits of different Scooby-Doo series.

Not that she didn’t talk about her trauma; she did. It all came pouring out: the fear that other men would turn out to be like Genkins, that maybe Ted Michaels, who had been fine so far, would turn out to be another molester. Didn’t he screw teenagers after all? There was the fear that Paul, as wonderful as he had been, would somehow still resent her for being with somebody else, even the fear that, somehow, it was her fault.