“Put this under your tongue,” Josh said, handing me three small circles of thin white paper. The club’s owner, a dubious character, not because of his whittled-away teeth or the stringy, wet hair plastered to the sides of his head, but because of the sheen over his dark pupils, had offered the goods to Josh. I hesitated, but then this sickly looking man gave me a friendly salute. And so, already three sheets to the wind, I placed not one but all three under my tongue. They were tasteless and dissolved in seconds. While I waited for the fun to kick in I scanned the room. Halloween: goth kids dressed up as vampires. Or — wait a minute — were they vampires disguised as humans? The room was changing. I looked over at Josh to make sure he was still there. The pudgy motherfucker, with a serene grin on his face, was lost in the screeching music. All of a sudden I caught the hungry gaze of a vampire, its eyes comically wide open. Don’t look at me! Averting my eyes I watched as the wal
Excerpts from bygone days abroad