After The Big One
It was a tough night on the club kid money laundering glow face paint front. Business was lacking, meaning no party favours were dropped in the tip basket, and not much cash either. It’d been about two months since the quad dip incident and I was at the beginning of an all new girl. We closed up shop at around midnight, my drug slinger jail time boss grumbling about how lame the whole event had been. As we packed up, a friend of the boss invited us to his pad with a bunch of other Shambhala psycho hippies adorned in spirit hoods, rose quartz, face paint, feather earrings, to do LSD. The boss declined, I did not.
I hadn’t exactly been scared straight by my semi recent experience and had done acid a solid handful of times since, feeling totally emboldened by the whole affair. Suffice to say, I’d been an insufferable snob the past couple of months. I told people I couldn’t have bad trips anymore, that every experience was a blessing.
*
I kept to the back of the group as we all walked to buddy’s apartment in Yaletown, which is by no means a poor neighbourhood. I didn’t really feel like doing the whole getting to know everybody routine while being this sober but would respond passive-pleasant when occasionally asked questions. We arrived at the entrance of one of the big blue glass skyscrapers overlooking False Creek, prime real estate, doorman and all. All fifteen or so of us crowded into the polished mirror elevator, everyone nattering away while I wiped mascara sweat from under my eyes. We all got off at the 16th floor, moseyed down the hall to the door at the end. The apartment is massive, with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the water; I asked our host what he does for a living, he says he’s a “flow artist.” He has a scruffy compact gruff little Australian Shepherd named Dub — I am all about Dub and knew he would be my friend for the evening.
Everyone chose a spot to settle in, some on the couches and the big reclining chair, some cross legged on the floor like me. The Yaletown flow artist gave us each two tabs from a sheet that he took from a ziploc bag kept in the top drawer of his desk. While I waited for them to disintegrate under my tongue, I thought about how to get out of here as quickly as possible — I didn’t really want to hang out with these people for the next eight to twelve hours. No hard feelings, no ill will, I just really felt like walking around the city with my headphones in.
I killed some time by getting down with Dub, who had at some point come to lay down in front of me, caressing him and maintaining deep eye contact with unblinking blue peepers. After what felt like an eternity but was probably closer to twenty minutes, I looked up to find that half of the party was long gone. The ones still there were going totally ape, freaking out bad trip style — some crying, some screaming, some rocking back and forth silent and sweaty. Good time to dip, bank on the distraction of chaos, pick my stuff and myself up off the floor, creep slowly to the exit. As soon as I started to turn the doorknob, our host slammed his hand on the door, stared at me wide eyed-imploring, sweating-scared, “you gotta stay and help me,” before steering me by the shoulders back to the heaving mass.
I moved around trying to reassure people that I’d only made vague acquaintance with two hours ago. What does one say to seven strangers to bring them out of their own private hells? I’m not even all that good at it in better circumstances with people I care about. I generally veer towards humour, which doesn’t console as many people as one may think. When in doubt, I talk about the things I love about the person breaking down in front of me, but I didn’t know anything worth loving about any of these people.
One big round bald guy with tiny glasses tried to open one of the windows in the bedroom, screaming “I’ll fucking jump, I don’t give a fuck, I can’t fucking stand living anymore,” and whatnot. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Who the fuck are you to laugh?” he screamed red faced, “no one man, but you really shouldn’t do it” I bantered back. It was some variation of this with each person I talked to, one chick demanding “who the fuck even are you, what are you even doing here?” I told her that’s a good question.
*
I don’t know how much good I did really. I barely spoke to anyone, just sort of sat in different places and felt smug about the fact that this wasn’t happening to me, roughing up Dub occasionally. When I did speak to someone, it often wasn’t received well or, at best, blankly. That worked for me.
The sun started to come up and everyone had more or less cried themselves out, laying listlessly on the couches, on the floor, one girl in the empty bathtub. In the quiet wet hum we heard a hushed phone call being taken in the other room by the big guy with tiny glasses. We heard him call the other caller mom, we heard him start to cry. It finally felt like I could justify leaving. I figured there was a good three or four hours left of the trip and I wanted to go to the beach by my parents’ place. I got up to leave and our gracious host quietly joined me to walk me to the door.
“Thanks for everything.” “Don’t mention it.” No need to mention that we have only passing hours to thank for the relatively smooth ending. He told me to open my hand, that he has a gift for me. I did just that and he placed what seems to be a piece of quartz with tiny pieces of green sea glass embedded throughout, bottled stars, in the middle of my palm. He told me his best friend found this rock while they walked on the beach in Malibu and gave it to him the same way he just gave it to me. I’m touched until he added “she’s been missing for almost five years now.” I no longer wanted the cool rock. “I don’t think I should have this, man…” he closes my fingers around it. “She would totally, totally, want you to have this.” Too tired to argue with the wishes of a missing maybe dead girl, I tucked the cool rock into my purse and said “goodnight, or good morning, I guess” as I finally made my exit.
*
I took the stairs all the way down to the lobby, told the janitor mopping the entrance to have a good one, and started my walk to the beach. Walking across the bridge felt dull — the view, while spectacular and certainly still psychedelic, didn’t do much for me. Every song I idly skipped past only sounded ok, nothing hit me the way I wanted it to. I dug within various parts of me to find some profound realisation but it all felt contrived.
Was I moved by something in one of the bad trippers? I searched for some meaning as I reached the end of the bridge and continued on towards the beach. The searching grew more hectic the closer I got to the beach, frantic by the time I found a suitable place to sit and look out at the water. Finally, the big realization was that there wasn’t one. All of that was just a thing that happened. I don’t feel good about my conclusion. I was cold — I hadn’t brought a jacket the night before. I was tired — I didn’t feel like being high anymore.
*
I’m a superstitious person, so the Malibu missing girl’s cool rock has come with me everywhere. It moved out of my parents’ place with me, lived wherever I lived in Vancouver, flew across the Atlantic with me, and now sits vigil on the shelf above my bed in a mid-sized French city near the Spanish border. I feel weird when other people touch it, as if too many hands could reduce the chance of her being found alive. I still don’t feel like I’m supposed to have it but I imagine I’ll continue to carry it from place to place.
