Former Miss Teen Indiana

Monday, April 24, 1995 2:35 a.m.

I arrive at the club late Saturday night with the intentions of scoring a couple of hits of ecstasy for F_____ and myself, only to find that river all dried up. No one has any, knows where any is, or when it will be back in town. Everyone seems to be having a good time without it, though, so I get a CC and 7 and sit at the front bar for a while listening to some deep London house filtering in from the back dance floor. Around 1, V_____ comes up behind me, puts an arm around me, and slides a plastic baggy into my shirt pocket, "Last hit's for you."

Not ecstasy. Acid. Tempting. But it's 1 a.m. A little late to start that. But then I realize it is why everyone I know is having a good time at the club tonight. What the hell. Drop.

Wouldn't you know, I peak at about 4, just as the bar is closing. With nothing better to do and trying to avoid going home with B_____, I stay and help clean the bar with a few friends. I've got energy for days, even though I have no idea what I'm doing. Hell, I may not even actually be cleaning. But it feels like I am, so I go with it. Around 5, things are apparently spic and span, and I find myself walking to my car.

"Aren't you riding with us?" C_____ yells from her car as four or five other people are climbing in.

Assuming she is DD and going to have to make more stops than public transit, I decline, thinking I won't get home until the late afternoon if I have to wait for everyone else to get dropped off, "Thanks! I'm fine."

She seems a little puzzled, "Well, okay. Be careful."

At home, J_____ is passed out with Kelly or Kerry, or Carrie or something, new girlfriend of the week. Maybe that's his sister's name. Well, he has the same old girlfriend, really, so I should call this one his side dish for the week.  It disappoints me greatly that they aren't awake to keep me entertained, because it is going to be a few more hours before I get to sleep. What am I going to do with myself? I shower, a favorite activity while tripping, and try getting into bed, but that doesn't work. I'm just getting back out when the phone rings. 5:30. I think of letting it ring because, at this hour, it has to be one of J_____'s ladies. But, I'm bored, so I pick up.

It isn't a side dish. It's Peanut, "Why did you go home? We're all over at V_____'s for the after-party."

"What's happening?"

"Nothing. We're just sitting around. You should join us. D_____'s brought some Special K."

Never done that, and I'm bored, so, again, what the hell. V_____ gets on the phone and gives me directions to his place.

They're a little vague, or maybe I write them down wrong, or maybe don't write them down at all. I have no idea-- I'm still out of my gourd. I get to what I think is his neighborhood in the Highlands, park the car, and start walking around. Eventually I find it. Right where I parked.

Besides V_____ and Peanut, C_____, S_____, and D_____ are there, all very animated and chatty. D_____'s wearing a mitt and checking the oven every couple of minutes. I hope it's cookies. I could really go for some right now.

"You know, C_____ is a former Miss Teen Indiana," states Peanut, matter-of-factly.

"Really?" I'm not sure what to do with this information. Or why it is being delivered at just this time.

C_____, née Miss Teen Indiana, is shaking her pretty head in acknowledgement when D____ pulls a baking sheet from the oven.

It's not cookies. It's a white crystalline mess stuck to the pan. "You should have used parchment paper and Pam," I think I'm fucking hilarious, but no one laughs. Everyone is silently transfixed on these baked goods.

Special K. Ketamine. A tranquilizer for small animals that, when baked down to solids, crushed up, and inhaled, puts one into a state commonly referred to by those in the know as a "K-hole."

I, being the only virgin in the group, am offered the first couple of bumps. I'm handed a Fiestaware dinner plate piled with the powder and a bendy straw that's been downsized to nothing but a nub. I've never done anything like this before, so Peanut warns me, "Exhale away from the plate, or we'll be doing bumps off the floor."

It doesn't take long for me to become motionless, speechless, and thoroughly amused. There is a total loss of control throughout the apartment. The plate is passed around, more K is cut and bumped, and I sink into what I can only describe as dumb euphoria. Eventually, the plate comes back around to me and I stutter, "I c-can't have anymore." Everyone finds this statement funny. Frighteningly funny. No one laughs at my baking joke, but I just say no and it's belly-laughs and guffaws.

"Sure you can," smiles Miss Teen Indiana, "I'll hold the plate for you." I decline, again, stating that I have to work at 4:30. I have no idea what time it is. I never know what time it is.

"I work a double... have to be in at ten-thirty in the a.m." declares Teen Indiana, before doing another bump and passing the plate on. The sun is up, fighting its way through the heavy curtains V_____ uses to keep it out. I find a comfortable spot on his futon to sit and watch the Fiestaware passed around faster than an offering plate at church. No one seems to care that I'm not participating anymore. They don't seem to care about anything; this is complete disregard for responsibility. We're somewhere outside of time.

By 8, though, time is back for revenge and we've all moved to V_____'s bed to ease the coming down.

Indiana is the first to leave the pile, at 9:30. One hour until work for her. Hope she makes it. I soon follow, but once I am outside I wish I hadn't. The sunshine is unbearably bright. Even in my car, it's bright, so much so that I feel like I have an open sunroof overhead, but there is none. I'm not swerving, but the road is, determined to keep me from finding my way home.

Once back, I still can't sleep. My mind is racing. I truly don't believe that I am going to come down. My throat is dry-- the kind of dry that no amount of water will quench. Right up to the moment of unconsciousness, I think that if I ever do get to sleep, I am probably not going to wake up. If I do wake up, I am probably not going to want to work. If I do work, I am probably not going to remember it.

2 p.m. alarm. Snooze. snooze. snooze. snooze. snoo unplug

3:30 J_____ wakes me, a phone call from F_____. Unintelligible and unremembered conversation.

3:45 I have to be at work in 45 minutes. Groggy, I shower. Again. I pour myself into the all-black dress clothes that serve as my work uniform. I look like a member of Kraftwerk, I muse as I finish the knot in my tie in the bathroom mirror. Time to sling drinks.