Portland Flashback

“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 walls became patterns of squares; and inside each square were twelve smaller squares. And inside these squares, black lines that puffed up out of their space wriggled and went round in circles. The squares themselves, bulging in and out of the wall, convulsed with life. Then came the colors: purples, deep reds, dark blues. I could see that the band roared on, but I could no longer make out the music. Before I could turn back to the colors and moving squares, the vampire was looking at me again.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said and went out to the street. 

No vampires out there yet. Josh followed.

“I’ve got to get home,” I said.

We sat down in my car. I put the key in the ignition, but then balked. I looked up at the tree in front of me. The red and green leaves were coming at me. They pulsated and rotated but did not disconnect from their branches.

“Are you all right?” Josh asked.

“No.”

I took the key out. “We’re not going home yet.”

We wandered the streets for an hour or so. Crossing the MAX tracks we met a gangster on the prowl.

“Don’t talk to him,” I said, hoping I was whispering.

“What’s with your friend, yo?” the gangster asked Josh.

“He’s cool. So, how many people have you killed? Be honest.”

I stifled a shriek and recoiled in terror. Josh looked at me and, with his head cocked back, let out a belly-laugh.

“You guys are weird,” the gangster said, and walked off.

“Jesse, where are you going?” Josh asked.

“I’m getting out of here, man.”

Josh caught up with me and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll get my roommate to come pick us up.”

Fifteen minutes later we were in the roommate’s car headed back to Josh’s house. For the next few hours we played video games and Josh smoked incessantly.

“Man,” I said, “you’ve got to take me back to my car. I can’t leave it downtown over night.”

“Are you serious? I can’t drive right now.”

“Come on, man. Just try.”

We got into Josh’s beat-up hatchback. Josh’s hands shook.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s okay. I just need a cigarette.”

“Hurry up, man. I need to get my car.”

Josh drove the car slowly down the freeway. The incandescent lights along the road burned my eyes. We yelled at each other. Josh smoked cigarette after cigarette while saying, “I shouldn’t be doing this, I shouldn’t be doing this.” Something underneath the car popped. The street-lights glowed brighter and then emitted fuzzy waves of yellow.

Downtown, near Ankeny Square, the early morning sky issued small cold drops of rain. Red, yellow and amber leaves cluttered the sidewalks. I got into my car and drove away without a word to Josh. Later I pulled into my parents’ driveway just as my dad was coming out of the house. Shit. He knows I’m frying.

“Late night, eh?”

Say something quickly; don’t let on!

“Uh, yeah. We were just playing video games till super-late, and so I crashed there.”

“Hmm. Well, I’ll be back in a bit. You’ll be around for dinner?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

Straight upstairs to bed. But sleep did not come. Three hours later I got up. I went to the junior college to play basketball. And in that holy space I channeled the gods of sport. I dropped in hundreds of three’s, some from half-court; I stole the ball from every sorry motherfucker there at least ten times. Three guys broke their ankles trying to guard me. Sirens wailed, sweat poured, cries of agony went up to said gods. As I left the court I saw that my last name was now emblazoned on the ceiling of Mt. Hood’s gym, along with my jersey-number, in bold flaming print. 

But the glory was short-lived. Back home I showered and laid down again. It took another fifteen hours for me to fall asleep, for my eyes at last to stop spinning.