if he was trying to bury the green glo-stick or was paddling after it, like a bass tailing a minnow, through the kaleidoscopic eddies of his mind, but it didn’t matter either way: He was obviously tripping, and tripping badly. “Can someone help me?” she called to the frat boys. One called back: “She caught the fish!” Others: “Reel him in!” “He’s getting away!” “Don’t eat the fish!” Finally one of them walked over and said, deadpan, “Is this your fish?” “Just help me get him up,” she said, and together, with awkward grunting difficulty, they lifted Talmadge to his feet, in the process scraping his underwear down around his thighs. “I see fish dick!” one of the frat boys exclaimed.
The crowds parted and hushed, crucifixion-style, as they hauled Talmadge limply through the dust. Hopelessly slack, his legs trailed behind him, his toes leaving curvy snake trails in the dust. Every now and again he would splutter something unintelligible but anxious-sounding, then revert to a blank drooly stare. “Where are we headed?” asked the frat boy, who’d introduced himself as Cooper, and for a long while Micah didn’t answer. She didn’t know. Or rather, she knew but didn’t want to admit it: They were taking him to Lola’s tricked-out camper van. “Over this way,” she told him. “Who is he?”
“The fish? I don’t know. Said he was a Beta from Mississippi.”
“What’s a Beta?”
“Beta Theta Pi. It’s a fraternity. He just kind of stopped by and sat down. Said he’d done a massive bump of Special K and needed to chill. Then he started getting all freaky and took his clothes off. When it got too weird we just rolled him the fuck away. Dude is
out
there. He’s in the K-Hole, man.”
Lola sighed, not unhappily, when Micah appeared begging for help. Micah never needed help—that had long been one of Lola’s issues. “You wouldn’t grab my hand if you were drowning,” Lola had once told her, but now here she was: not drowning herself, but lugging another drowning victim toward her—close enough. She helped Micah and Cooper unload Talmadge onto one of the two narrow mattresses in the camper van and, because she worked part time as an EMT, checked Talmadge’s pulse and pupils. “Ketamine, you said?” she asked Cooper, who waved his hands in front of his chest, to absolve himself of responsibility, before easing himself backwards into the passing herds, shouting “Bye, fish!” once he was safely absorbed in the crowd. To Micah, she said, “They call it the K-Hole. A high-enough dose sends you there. They say it’s like a pit you fall into, separated from your body. Big-time hallucinations, total lack of exterior awareness. That explains the ataxia. We treated a girl at some club in the Castro who was like this. Supportive care, mostly. They tend to pass out after an hour or two.” Without asking too many questions, though her expression suggested distrustful bewilderment, she told Micah to close the curtains, to stay close beside him, to avoid questioning him so as not to induce anxiety, to keep the “environment” gentle and dim. “Like a womb,” she said. “What he needs right now is the security of a womb.”
Outside the van, in the dust-glittered sunlight, Lola paused before shutting the rear doors. “I was hoping you’d come back,” she said. When Micah didn’t respond, she shook her head sadly, staring, then shut the doors, enclosing Micah and Talmadge in that familiar dingy must, with Lola’s Freegan ’zines stacked against the sides, her and Micah’s clothes crammed in cardboard liquor boxes, the light seeping through the red-bandana curtains suffusing the van’s interior with the plummy dimness of a photographer’s darkroom.
“There now,” Micah whispered, as he murmured to the ceiling. She stroked his crusty hair with her left hand while her other hand, palm pressed flat against his bony hairless chest, monitored the slow cadences of his heart.
The crowds parted and hushed, crucifixion-style, as they hauled Talmadge limply through the dust. Hopelessly slack, his legs trailed behind him, his toes leaving curvy snake trails in the dust. Every now and again he would splutter something unintelligible but anxious-sounding, then revert to a blank drooly stare. “Where are we headed?” asked the frat boy, who’d introduced himself as Cooper, and for a long while Micah didn’t answer. She didn’t know. Or rather, she knew but didn’t want to admit it: They were taking him to Lola’s tricked-out camper van. “Over this way,” she told him. “Who is he?”
“The fish? I don’t know. Said he was a Beta from Mississippi.”
“What’s a Beta?”
“Beta Theta Pi. It’s a fraternity. He just kind of stopped by and sat down. Said he’d done a massive bump of Special K and needed to chill. Then he started getting all freaky and took his clothes off. When it got too weird we just rolled him the fuck away. Dude is
out
there. He’s in the K-Hole, man.”
Lola sighed, not unhappily, when Micah appeared begging for help. Micah never needed help—that had long been one of Lola’s issues. “You wouldn’t grab my hand if you were drowning,” Lola had once told her, but now here she was: not drowning herself, but lugging another drowning victim toward her—close enough. She helped Micah and Cooper unload Talmadge onto one of the two narrow mattresses in the camper van and, because she worked part time as an EMT, checked Talmadge’s pulse and pupils. “Ketamine, you said?” she asked Cooper, who waved his hands in front of his chest, to absolve himself of responsibility, before easing himself backwards into the passing herds, shouting “Bye, fish!” once he was safely absorbed in the crowd. To Micah, she said, “They call it the K-Hole. A high-enough dose sends you there. They say it’s like a pit you fall into, separated from your body. Big-time hallucinations, total lack of exterior awareness. That explains the ataxia. We treated a girl at some club in the Castro who was like this. Supportive care, mostly. They tend to pass out after an hour or two.” Without asking too many questions, though her expression suggested distrustful bewilderment, she told Micah to close the curtains, to stay close beside him, to avoid questioning him so as not to induce anxiety, to keep the “environment” gentle and dim. “Like a womb,” she said. “What he needs right now is the security of a womb.”
Outside the van, in the dust-glittered sunlight, Lola paused before shutting the rear doors. “I was hoping you’d come back,” she said. When Micah didn’t respond, she shook her head sadly, staring, then shut the doors, enclosing Micah and Talmadge in that familiar dingy must, with Lola’s Freegan ’zines stacked against the sides, her and Micah’s clothes crammed in cardboard liquor boxes, the light seeping through the red-bandana curtains suffusing the van’s interior with the plummy dimness of a photographer’s darkroom.
“There now,” Micah whispered, as he murmured to the ceiling. She stroked his crusty hair with her left hand while her other hand, palm pressed flat against his bony hairless chest, monitored the slow cadences of his heart.
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