The Man who took happy pills
I wrote this back in 1971. I’d been working in a fast food joint in Boston called the Deli-Haus. There were a great group of young people there, including two murderers and a morose cook.
I started work at six pm. We kicked the last people out at about three in the morning, cleaned the place and went home. It was hard work. It was a baking hot summer. I was in charge of the dishwasher. It worked on steam. I spend my time rushing back and forth, carrying bins of dirty plates, scraping off food, loading the dishwasher, emptying the dishwasher and rushing the clean plates back. We only had so many plates and I was always rushing.
By the time we got to one am I was flagging and feeling pissed off and put upon. The chef was always shouting and screaming at me to keep up with demand. I could never go fast enough but all the others seemed to be happily coping. Then one night one of them gave me a couple of small white pills and I was happy. The hours flashed by, I had loads of energy and I was having a great time.
I worked there for two months and was exceedingly happy.
I never touched those pills again after I left. I liked them too much.
The Man who took happy pills
Here was the guy who took happy pills;
Pills to make him smile
Pills to make him laugh,
To run, and rush, and work and feel no pain.
Happy pills
Speeding through the day.
Here was the guy who took happy pills
But he also liked to feel
That he was more than just his body,
His moods were more than chemicals
Dictating their synthetic message
And his thoughts were his own
Not an electrical result of a chemical reaction.
Here was the guy who took happy pills
And felt them course through his veins,
Lifting his spirits,
Enabling him to work all day
At the boring life he hated,
Happily.
Here was the guy who took happy pills
And sometimes he sat down
And swallowed his pills
And was very, very sad.
Opher 1971