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| I'm a-pickin' and she's a-grinnin'. |
I’m listening to Orbital’s remix of “Bedtime Story,” waiting
for dishes to wash themselves, and unwinding after a hardcore weekend:
Orbit, a rave (party? I haven’t learned the difference, if
there is one) scheduled for Friday in Louisville is canceled because the
promoters “couldn’t find any place to hold it.” This probably translates to the
promoters “blew the venue deposit on coke.” I have driven all the way down just
for this party, so you can imagine my disappointment upon hearing the news.
F_____ and I go to the club instead, but it’s lame. We’re both fiending for
some X, which seems to have become our usual state of being, but there is none
to be found, which seems to have become its usual state of being. Todd, now our
pharmacist, isn’t there because he’s driven to Nashville for another rave,
Heartbeat, which is to go down Saturday night. In order to salvage the weekend,
and to track down our goddamned dealer, we decide that we are just going to have
to drive to Nashville. I’ve already been on the road an hour and a half to get
here today; what’s another two and a half tomorrow?
It’s exactly half a pack of Marlboro Lights, that’s what it
is.
So, the country music capital of the world is not really the
first place that comes to mind when one thinks rave. Images of a warehouse full
of shoeless, toothless hillbillies blowing whistles and twirling glowsticks to
the latest Josh Wink come to mind. F_____ and I have dressed the part; we’re
both wearing loose denim overalls. Now, if she could just scare up a washboard
and I, a corncob pipe, our costumes would be complete.
God, I hope there’s moonshine.
As it turns out, these fucking hillbillies know how to
party. Great venue, great crowd, great music. We look around for Pharmacist Todd
when we arrive, but he’s not here yet. Something like a thousand other people
are, however, and they have the drug jump on us. When Todd does arrive, a
tad late, he promptly fills our prescription for not moonshine, but instead Orange Sunshine:
potent X in an orange capsule. It’s the first time I’ve rolled at a real party,
rather than just a club, and now I think I understand what this is all about.
We hit the dark dancefloor a little after midnight and then the next thing we
know, sunlight is streaming in through the windows. We leave at 5:30 in the
a.m., having danced nonstop, but the party is set to go on until 7 without us.
After catching four hours of “sleep” at a rest stop, we change clothes, brush
our teeth, and make our way to Bowling Green for lunch.
My lungs are on fire. After chain-smoking on the drive down,
and then chain-smoking at the rave, and now beginning my third course of
chain-smoking on the drive home, I realize that one or more of my habits is
going to kill me. I’m going to have to stop
drinking, stop doing drugs, stop smoking, stop driving hundreds of miles
half-asleep, half-lit, half-stoned to find a party if I want to keep up the
breakneck pace of my current lifestyle.
Wait, what am I saying? That IS my lifestyle.
Weighing my situation and the current damage felt by my
exhausted immune system, I throw out my remaining two cigarettes. That oughta
do the trick, right? Now, when’s the next party?
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