The tall, mousy blonde with ‘70s librarian glasses strutted through the living room to have a smoke in the backyard. She was wearing tall black heels and a black lace bra peeked invitingly out of her teal plaid shirt. She seemingly had forgotten to button the top four buttons.

“Hey! Dave! Are you listening? Are you down?”

With effort, Dave pulled his attention to four friends spread around the couches. He had come along with them to their mutual friends’ barbecue, and as usual in situations where he knew no one, he had spent much of the evening in the kitchen getting quietly drunk.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll get involved.”

As Dave had become accustomed to in his experiences in Santa Cruz, the evening had consisted of eating a lot of good hippie food and standing in circles smoking a lot of weed. The owner of the house, a wildly stoned gentleman with a massive red beard, was in the kitchen jumping into conversations with nonsensical remarks and passing multiple joints around. In the backyard, a small group sat around a fire pit, braving the cold with an armament of beer, whiskey and tequila.

Dave had gotten too paranoid to hang around the group outside, so he had returned to the relative comfort of his friends. Before he was distracted by the blonde, the group had been talking about smoking an L, and at that point he wasn’t going to turn down more weed.

“Fuck yeah,” said Rachel, the one girl in the circle he didn’t know. She was also the one he had heard the most about. “It’s twenty bucks a blotter, but you might just want to split one.”

“Blotter? What?” Dave had assumed that they were talking the “L” that Biggie Smalls smoked in limos. Who the fuck is so pressed for time that they shorten “LSD” to “L?”

“Yeah, we’re gonna drop tonight. You’re in, right?”

Dave wasn’t particularly interested, but the blonde walked back in the room. “We getting out of here yet?” He fell in love with her impatience, and discreetly raised an eyebrow at Katie, the one friend in the room who wouldn’t mind him getting sleazy. She just laughed and nodded. ‘Oh well, what the hell. If the blonde’s in, fuck it,’ he thought.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

The group of eight said their pleasantries and left. The blonde, whom he found was named Jamie, was driving Rachel and a girl that had yet to say a word. Dave hopped in with them.

“So, Dave, how many times have you tripped before?” Rachel asked, looking at him in the passenger mirror while she checked out her makeup.

He contemplated acting cool and casual, but a sudden honest streak hit him. ‘Fuck it,’ he thought. “Well, none. But shit, let’s get weird.”

“Oh, now worries. It’s Jen’s too.” Apparently the mute girl had a name. “I’m the right person to be with. I’ve done all kinds of hallucinogens, and I’ve dropped acid at least a couple hundreds times.” Dave raised his trademark eyebrow. “This batch is from one of the original California families that have been making it for decades. I’ve taken it two or three times this week and it’s really clean and lucid. You’ll be fine.”

Dave was suddenly thought of his freshman year of high school and the senior in his algebra class that always prefaced his tripping story by explaining that taking four hits in a year was enough to make someone legally insane.

They arrived at Rachel’s place. The living room was filled with seven men and one woman, all arguing over a Dungeons and Dragons game. All of the guys were similarly monochromatic, with pale skin set off by long black hair and all-black clothing. The smallish girl was primly dressed and, in a more relaxed setting, could have been quite cute. Dave winked at her and she immediately buried herself back in her cards.

The other car of girls showed up and Rachel herded everyone into the kitchen for drinks. Most had decided to take a half dose after having just finished a 72 hour weed and vodka binge. Rachel, as that night’s leader, had initially supported the idea, but it became apparent that she had agreed only to get everyone to agree to drop.

“I’m telling you guys, this is just super clean, lucid stuff. You’re going to want at least a full blotter,” she started.

“Yeah, whatevs. That shit usually knocks me on my ass. I think I’ll chill on a half tonight,” Katie countered.

“I don’t know, I took four hits earlier this week and felt fine. Totally lucid,” Rachel said, slightly more animated.

“Well I don’t give a fuck who does what. I’m just tired of waiting,” Jamie said quietly from the corner.

“I’m so sensitive to acid. I’ll go BONKERS no matter what!” Dana’s trademark high-pitched giggle broke the mild tension brilliantly. Rachel said something like “I don’t know, I still think you all should be taking at least the full blotter. It’s such clear stuff,” under her breath, but no one heard her as they split up the blotters. After hearing her say “clear” and “lucid” so many time, Dave was about to question if those adjectives were completely antithetical to whole point of hallucinogens, but figured she was just looking out for their best interests and let it go. Dana handed him half of her paper, everyone said “Cheers,” and popped them in their mouth.

He was suddenly struck by the thought that there is no image more stupid than that of a bunch of snappily dressed young women grinding on small bits of cardboard. The paper dissolved, he washed the pulp down with the last of a half-pint of Black Velvet he had forgotten in his coat. Grabbing a couple beers, he followed the rest of the group past the loud squabbling over hit points in the living room and into Rachel’s bedroom where the girls planned on getting dolled up to hit the bars.

Not giving a shit how he looked based on the assumption that dinner-plated sized pupils were fashionable enough, Dave busied himself playing with a large rabbit that suddenly appeared from under the bed. He gestured with its ears towards Jamie on the other side of the room, but she only responded with a polite smile. Suddenly, she burst forth in the most assertive tone he had heard from her all night.

“I think we need some blow. Anyone interested?” She scanned the room and received a few nods. Eventually her eyes settled appraisingly on Dave.

Forgetting the rabbit, he was suddenly forced into a severe moral dilemma. Saying no would surely eliminate any small chance at getting frisky with Jamie, and he had already said yes to the acid on that same premise. On the flip side, he was pretty drunk, had no idea where said LSD was taking him, and figured that cramming coke up his nose would most likely guarantee a limp dick for a week. ‘Fuck it,’ he thought for the umpteenth time that night. ‘Hopefully acid gives you boners.’

“Well, if we’re jumping down the rabbit hole, might as well go all the way.” He fired back Jamie’s tough look and she smiled.

“Alright, I’ll try and get an eight-ball,” someone said, but he didn’t notice. The bunny had quickly become far more interesting than before. It was the biggest rabbit Dave had ever seen. And the ears! They were fucking huge!

Rachel came back in the room snapping a small baggie between her fingers. “Anyone got a tampon?” The room burst into disbelieving laughter. “No, you fucking idiots, I’m not on my period. I need it for this,” she said, gesturing at the lines she was chopping up on a mirror.

Hunched over the floor with a goddamned tampon shoved up his nose, Dave couldn’t help but wonder why anyone at that moment would want to look at themselves in a fucking mirror.

The girls gathered up their myriad items and they headed out to a bar. Walking in surrounded by women in fur coats, Dave couldn’t help but feel like a respectable, even envied, member of society. He even stood up straight. The bar lit only by red lights. It opened up into a room with booths around the walls and comfortable, desk-like tables on rugs in the middle. One group was circled around a fireplace in the wall. Every person in the Victorian room was smoking, a refreshing sight in a lung-obsessed world. Feeling the gentleman, he ordered a whiskey soda and slid into a booth. Jamie had just snuck a bump, and lightly rubbed her finger under her nose while her nose twitched. It was so adorable he almost passed out.

Conversation in the booth carried on in the booth as cigarettes were rapidly finished and stamped out in a candle on the table. Dave was mostly distracted by the groups around the room. The guys around the fireplace all crossed their legs like grandpas and pontificated with their smokes to an excessive degree. None had drinks, and he figured the bartender hated them. At one of the tables in the middle of the room a big guy and a tiny girl were laughing their asses off and talking shit to one another and no one in particular. They had plenty of empty glasses around them, and seemed like excellent folk. On the far side of the room six guys sat crammed into a regular booth, rather than grabbing the open corner. They were drinking designer beers and all had the clean cut, vaguely fashionable, guilty look of cheap European travelers trying to look like rich Europeans to impress women. Or, considering their seating arrangement, maybe they were hustling for men.

Someone nudged him and he realized that it was time to leave. As they were heading out, Jamie bustled over to her car and drove off. Rachel explained that Jamie was having some personal problems and just wanted to go home, but not to worry, they could easily walk to where they were headed. The other girls offered a mix of supportive comments and questioning of why she would take acid when she was stressed, but Dave just wondered how often it was that a blowed-out broad in a fur coat and derby hat was flying around on the road in her fashionable car. Probably pretty regularly, he decided.

The next bar was a classy affair with dim lights and a DJ in shirt and tie spinning jazz. Jen and Rachel grabbed a small table while Dave picked up drinks. He was too fucked up to read the names on the taps and, for some reason, found himself having trouble putting words together, so he just pointed at one. The bartender raised an eyebrow, Dave shrugged, and the beers appeared without a word exchanged.

“Oh, nice choice. I love that beer,” Jen said when he came back. He couldn’t be sure if she would have said that to anything he brought back or not, but it was nice to hear nonetheless.

“Yeah, top notch,” Rachel concurred. “So, you want to go in the bathroom?” Dave’s eyes must have gone wide. “No, you horny jackass, I’m not fucking in a bathroom,” she laughed. “We were going to go powder our noses.”

“Oh. I mean, I knew what you were talking about. Let’s go.”

There was nothing awkward about talking to Jen as she peed and Rachel fed him a bump off of a car key.

In one of those bits of time travel that tend to sneak up on you, Dave found himself in a house surrounded by yelling women. The original group had drifted all over town over the course of the night, but had reunited at Dana and Katie’s place. It’s surely impossible to find a group of nine half-drunk, extremely high women that’s calm and quiet, but as the rest of the cocaine was quickly stuffed into faces, things quickly devolved into chaos. Dave only realized he was yelling when the rest of the sound in the room shut off.

“Jesus, guys!” One of the other roommates was standing in the living room with crossed arms, wearing pajamas. “It’s four in the fucking morning on Sunday and you guys have been screeching for over an hour! I’ve got to work tomorrow! Shut the fuck up!”

Dave was in the backyard when she came out, but a few girls were in the kitchen and couldn’t see that the roommate was still in the room when one yelled.

“Fuck that shit! I’m too fucking high to be quiet! Hasn’t that bitch heard of ear plugs?”