by M. Blake

It worked out the way they planned it, and here they were, the three young friends with their mescal, beer and weed, and the whole night ahead of them. They had a tent set up in a grove of trees overlooking the gravel pit. They could see the trees from where they stood on the opposite side of the huge, steep sided hole, or one part of the pit anyway. The excavation extended into another section where it turned to the right.

The three teenagers stood there at the edge of a fifty-foot drop, breathing hard and laughing. They had been running.

Dave Green had started it by taking off on the other two, suddenly, laughing, drunk and stoned. They had just finished beers, which had chased shots of mescal. They weren't taking it easy tonight; they were out to get fucked up.

The gravel pit was located right behind Green's house, so he was familiar with where he was running, or at least the other two hoped so, for it wasn't a clear night. In fact, there was fog coming in off the nearby ocean. But Green's running off was a challenge to them they couldn't ignore. Finally, he stopped and they caught up with him.

"Jesus Christ, this fog's getting bad!" Terence Dixon said.

Green stood right on the edge of the pit, staring out into the night. His long dark hair hung loose instead of in the usual ponytail he wore in school.

"I'm glad somebody knows where they're going," Steve Jacobs said, bringing up the rear. Of the three, he was the least familiar with the surroundings, having been to the gravel pit only once before, in the daytime.

"You guys still want to take a hike?" Dave asked.

"Yeah, why not?" Terence said. "As long as you don't take off like that. Let's go down to the tower."

"That's what I was thinking," Dave said. "Steve's never been down there before."

"I'm game," Jacobs said. "You got any weed on you?"

"I've got a joint in my pocket," Dave said.

"I wish we had some mushrooms," Terence said. "I've never tripped in a fog like this."

Green led them away from the pit to a path into the woods, a well-worn trail, where the fog hadn't reached yet. They didn't talk as they made their way along the winding route with the dense coastal brush on either side. All three still breathed a little heavily and were thinking that they should have brought some beer with them, or the mescal anyway.

The trail went downward, and eventually they came to water, which was a saltwater pond. The fog was thick again here, though they could make out the tall marsh grass that lined the water's edge.

"You want to see this on a clear night or in the daytime," Green said.

"The next time we get some acid or some 'shrooms, we'll bring him down here," Dixon said.

They did show Jacobs the tower, which was a high, wooden structure (he estimated about thirty feet up) with a ladder and a platform on top of it.

"There's no point in going up there tonight," Dixon said. "Let's stop over at the bunkers and smoke the joint."

They walked away from the point of land that the tower sat on, hearing some slight lapping of the water, and back into the woods where the trail branched off, going south towards an old World War Two runway. Before they came to the runway, however, they stopped at two army bunkers that opened out of the ground. There was a large, crumbling foundation nearby, mostly overgrown with thick bush. One could only see the entrances to the bunkers from trailside; from the other side they were just grassy mounds. They stood in one black entranceway and Green fired up the joint.

"I used to come down here all the time when I was a kid," he told them. "Me and my friends would play war down here. There are all kinds of trails that go off from the runway."

"How deep are these things?" Jacobs asked.

Green lit his lighter and stepped back into the shelter so that they could see further in. It was the size of a large room in a house, with the concrete floor cracked in places. Spray painted words and pictures could be seen on the walls.

"This is one of my favorites," Green said, stepping over to one wall where a black silhouette of a man showed, a figure with long hair blowing behind it. Next to it was written, in thick letters: I Am the Lizard King, I Can Drink Anything.

They all laughed at that, for all three were Doors fans.

"I didn't do it," Green said. "I tried to find out who did, but it's still a mystery. It wasn't here when I was a young kid."

"Some acid head," Dixon said, passing the joint to Jacobs.

Green moved the lighter around and they looked at some other pictures and a couple of short poems.

"I wrote some things in one of the other rooms," Green said. "Some song lyrics. I guess I was feeling really inspired one day." He laughed.

"Tequila and bongs will do that to you," Dixon said.

"How many of these rooms are there?" Jacobs asked.

"There are three more besides these two," Green answered. "They're over on the other side of the runway. One's the size of these two. They're used to be parties down there this time of year, but I think the cops started breaking them up."

"That figures," Dixon said. "They gotta find something to do around here."

"The long arm of the law," Jacobs added, sarcastically.

"The big dicks of the law," Dixon said, laughing.

"I've never had any trouble with them down here," Green said. "I've seen them pull in near the gravel pit to see if anybody's down there. They can't see the tent."

"Speaking of the tent, I think it's time we went back and ate a worm," Dixon said, referring to the agave worms that came in the bottles of mescal.

"That worm really does something to you?" Jacobs asked.

"It's supposed to make you trip a little bit," Green said.

"Visions," Dixon added.

"The drink's nasty," Jacobs said.

"You have to acquire a taste for it," Green said. "About the third time I had it I didn't mind it at all."

"The worm juice grows on you," Dixon agreed. 

 * * *  

They tried going back a different way and temporarily got lost. Green laughed, trying to get his bearings.

"All right, Daniel Boone, I'm getting thirsty," Dixon said.

They came out at the old runway that was badly cracked and in pieces in some places, with long grass growing out of it.

"Well at least I know where I am now," Green said.

"I never knew the army had this place down here," Jacobs said. He had grown up in a nearby town, but had never heard of the ruined runway or the bunkers.

"They had places all up and down the coast," Dixon said. "There's an old fort further south. About fifteen miles from here. My dad knew some guys who were stationed there during the war."

"Who knows how much local history you never hear about," Jacobs commented. "You hear about Roger Williams and the Indians, and that's about it."

"I bet Roger Williams smoked the peace pipe," Dixon said, and the three of them laughed.

"Yeah, you know the Indians turned him on," Jacobs said.

"The Indians turned a lot of people on," Green said, starting off down another path.

"I bet they had fields of pot around here," Jacobs said.

"I wouldn't doubt it," Dixon said. "And I don't think they had anything like dime bags back then either."

Green laughed.

"Yeah, hey chief, sell me a quarter," he said.

"Sell me some of that good bud, chief," Dixon said, laughing.

It didn't take them long to get back on the right trail to the gravel pit, though now they walked close together, as the fog had thickened.

"We'll have to watch it getting back to camp," Dixon said.

Yet even with these words of caution, Dave Green, their scout, still managed to fall over one edge of the pit. They had stopped for a breather by a group of boulders, with Dixon and Jacobs leaning against one of the bigger ones. Green stepped here and there, looking around as if he could see something.

They heard him yell, and a minor rockslide after it, and both Dixon and Jacobs knew what had happened. They moved cautiously to the pit's edge.

"What the fuck?" Dixon said. "Hey Dave! You all right?"

Jacobs almost laughed, but suppressed it. They heard some movement on the sand below.

"Jesus Christ," Dixon muttered. "Dave!"

"Yeah, I'm all right." Green's voice from below. "I think."

He didn't sound all right.

"Are you hurt?" Dixon asked.

"I don't think so." They heard him coughing.

Green hadn't fallen as far down as they thought. He had landed on a lower slope of sand about twenty feet below the edge and stopped in the loose soil before rolling all the way to the bottom. Of course they didn't see this with the fog swirling around them. They listened to Green move around some more, and the sound was closer than they expected.

"I'm all right," he finally said. "Just had the wind knocked out of me. I'm going to have to keep going down."

"Take it slow," Dixon said. "We'll go around and meet you at the bottom."

Which is what they did. Green was still shaken up by the fall. He had gotten scraped up and his shirt was torn, but luckily he hadn't broken any bones.

"I just remember being in the air for a few seconds there," he told them, smiling, but still frightened by the thought of it. "I knew I was close to the edge, but I didn't expect it to break away. A whole chunk broke off." He laughed and shook his head.

"You're lucky you didn't hit your head on a rock," Dixon said. "I can just imagine having to go up and tell your parents."

"Yeah, so much for a quiet night out in the tent," Green said. "I'm surprised the old man hasn't come down and tried to talk us into going in, with this fog."

"He probably doesn't want to find out something he'd rather not know," Dixon said.

"Yeah, you're probably right about that," Green agreed. "He knows we drink, but he doesn't know how much."

"He doesn't know you do bongs every day," Dixon said, and they all laughed. "Speaking of which, why don't we make our way back to the tent and continue the party where we don't have to worry about falling off cliffs."

"Yeah, let me work on acquiring a taste for that worm juice," Jacobs said.

The three of them returned to the large five-man tent, which served as a clubhouse of sorts in the warm weather; a place where Green could get away from his parents' house, with his guitar, his books and his tape player. Dave lit the kerosene lamp, but he was still thinking about his fall, and he let Dixon pack the small blue bong.

"A couple shots will calm you down," Dixon said.

Green had plastic shot cups in the tent, and he filled three of them with mescal. This was the first bottle. They had another fifth set aside (for they had planned this night out a few days in advance). They also had a cooler full of beer. It didn't look like Dave's nerves would be giving him much of a problem that night.

Green put a Jethro Tull tape in the player - The Aqualung album. The other two approved of the choice, moving their heads to the first song. All three felt easier being away from the adult world, in their private place here with the fog all around them.

"You better wash some of those cuts off, Dave," Dixon said, noticing the blood on Green's arms.

There were three gallon milk jugs filled with water outside the tent, so Green could do that. But first he wanted to have another shot and a beer before he did anything.

The three high school friends were going to enter the eleventh grade in a couple weeks time. They had been in the same classes since seventh grade, when they had met for the first time. Each had come from a different elementary school.

Green and Dixon had been close for a couple of years, but Jacobs had just started to get to know them better in the past year. None of them fit in with the mainstream school life; they all saw themselves as being outside of things. None of them liked school, although the more easygoing Green adapted to the routine better than his two friends. It was drugs, booze, music and this mutual feeling of being outsiders that brought them together.

Jacobs was the last of the three to try pot and other drugs. Up until the last year or so he had been the "straightest" of the three, and, in fact, Green and Dixon wouldn't have considered hanging around with him two years earlier. Yet Jacobs had made up for lost time, as the saying goes, by plunging into the druggie lifestyle with a commitment he had once reserved for the baseball diamond. These days, he couldn't get high often enough, and he never tired of listening to rock music. He grew his hair longer, though not as long as the other two (a concession to his father) and he had lost interest in getting good grades at school (he had lost interest in school, period, other than it being a place he could meet other "heads" and buy dope). Like the other two, Jacobs had discovered a new world and new ways of looking at things. And he now had more friends than he ever had in his first three years in school. Or acquaintances anyway.

Jacobs was thrilled when Dixon called him up and asked him to join Green and him for a camp-out at the Grove, as they called it. It would be for one night, maybe two, as it was a weekend. Jacobs didn't hesitate to say yes. He didn't have to work at his part time job on the weekends, and as it was the summertime, his parents agreed. He would call if he were going to spend a second night out.

And so here he was. His contribution to the party had been the case of beer that he had gotten an older friend to buy for him. Dixon and Green had their sources too, hence the mescal.

"Ralph will buy for us any time, as long as we buy weed off him," Dixon told Jacobs.

Their friend Ralph lived in town and made his living selling weed, though he had a part time job at a supermarket to make it look good. It was the same supermarket that Terence Dixon worked at. Ralph was twenty, and shared an apartment with a couple guys his age, but there were always high school kids in and out of the place (a large percentage of his customers).

Jacobs had accompanied Dixon to Ralph's place one night when there was a party going on, and he had ended up passed out in his car. It was a night of intoxication that became one of Dixon's stock stories at school, and a good time that had cemented their friendship.

"So when's Ralph gonna have another party?" Jacobs asked.

"There might be something going on there tomorrow night," Dixon said. "I have to call him tomorrow. I'll probably be going over there anyway for some smoke."

"You don't have to work tomorrow?" Jacobs asked.

"Not me," Dixon said. "I told my asshole boss that I had to go to a funeral." He laughed. "I couldn't use the wedding excuse 'cause I used that last month."

They all laughed at that.

"If it wasn't such a tit job I'd tell that idiot to shove it up his fat ass," he added. "Ask Ralph about that guy. He's already had his tires slashed and his paint job scratched. That's how popular the guy is."

"Sounds like he should be thinking about some other kind of work," Jacobs said.

"Definitely. Some job where he sits in a room alone and can't bother anybody."

"My boss is cool," Green said.

Green worked in a record store in town, an easy job that was hardly a job for him, and one that had his friends envious. Any of them would have jumped at the chance to play records or tapes all day and get paid for it. Green had gotten the job by becoming friendly with the owner, a man in his early forties with a long ponytail and beard, and a musician also. When Green came into the store (which was quite often), the two men would discuss music for an hour or so: new tapes or albums released; the merits of certain instruments and brands of guitar strings (which the store also sold); upcoming concerts in the area (the store sold tickets); and music they were working on themselves. Green brought in several tapes he had made at home of him playing guitar, flute and keyboards, and the storeowner was impressed - especially as Dave was only sixteen.

Of course, all of Green's high school buddies knew he had talent. All they had to do was hear him play once on just about any instrument (he was in the school band, and a natural on the sax too). Other guitarists in high school bands usually stopped playing and just watched Dave when they got together for jam sessions. Dixon was after him to start his own band (with Dixon on bass of course) but Green wasn't in any rush to do that. He wanted to continue solo for the time being and develop his skills, and perhaps go on to further schooling after he graduated high school.

"When I think I have enough songs to start a band, I'll start one," he told Dixon. "I don't want to just do covers."

"Well, we wouldn't have to do all covers," Dixon said. "We could mix it up."

Terence played a horn in the school band too, and he knew how to read music, but he had to admit that he wasn't the natural that Green was. Still, this didn't dampen his enthusiasm for making loud noise on his electric guitar and bass, to the point where his father made him play out in an old storage shed that Dixon converted into a clubhouse.

Steve Jacobs had joined the school band for a year, basically to get the automatic B grade that went with it. The teacher had given him a big baritone horn to play, and the thing was almost as big as Jacobs. He never learned more than some rudimentary things, and by the second semester he was milking it for the grade, which the music teacher realized. He suggested that Jacobs move on to something else.

The only other time that Steve picked up an instrument was at home, where his younger brother had an acoustic guitar. His brother had taken lessons years before, and the guitar hadn't been used since then.

In the privacy of his room at home, Jacobs tried to pick up a few things based on what he had seen musicians doing with their fingers. Yet it didn't take long to realize that he didn't have the patience for it; it was easier to play a record.

"I could show you some things," Green offered, when Jacobs mentioned it that night. "Save you some time."

"Yeah, Steve, if you learned the guitar, you could be in a band with us, right Dave?" He liked to kid Green about this, talking about a band as if it was something to be taken for granted in the near future.

"Yeah, all we need is a drummer," Green said, going along with it this night.

"We'll get Dave Higgens," Dixon said. "He already told me he'd like to hook up with somebody, and that guy kicks ass on the drums. You know sooner or later he's gonna end up playing with somebody."

"Yeah, but I know what he listens to," Green said. "You know what kind of stuff Higgens will want to do. Sabbath covers. Iron Maiden or Judas Priest or something like that." He laughed and sucked down some beer, and some of it spilled on his shirt.

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to throw in some metal," Dixon said, for he listened to those groups, particularly Sabbath. He had been to see Ozzy during the previous school year. If you rode in Dixon's car you could expect to hear War Pigs or Crazy Train, while Terence violently moved his head or, if the car was parked, played blistering leads on his air guitar.

"Higgens will find a band because he is good," Green said. "But I just don't see him and I getting along."

"Dave's pretty cool," Dixon said. "He likes to smoke a lot of dope, I know that." He grinned at them, with the blue bong smoking in his hand.

"Well that's a good reason to start a band with him," Green said, with a little smile at Jacobs.

"Ralph plays drums too," Dixon said, "but he's not as good as Dave. He could be a lot better if he took it serious."

"That guy doesn't take anything serious," Green said.

"That's what his girlfriend, Lisa, is always telling him," Dixon said. "But Ralph doesn't give a fuck. He says: You don't see any goddamn ring on my finger." The three of them laughed, for Ralph was older and more experienced in things, and that was enough for their respect. At sixteen, twenty seemed a long way off.

 * * *  

"You're gonna eat the worm, aren't you, Steve?" Dixon asked.

The first bottle of mescal was gone, and there were two worms left in the bottle, each about an inch long. Light brown agave worms that fed off the agave plant in the desert, and because of this their bodies purportedly contained a hallucinatory property, adding a trip-like quality to the drink. It seemed that Dixon and Green didn't know for sure, but wanted to believe it anyway.

By then, Jacobs was ready for just about anything and he quickly washed one of the worms down with beer. Dixon swallowed the other one (there were two in each bottle). Green said he would wait until the second bottle was finished before eating one; he was feeling just fine then.

Green had washed his arms off and could see that the scrapes weren't too bad. He would be bruised and sore for a few days, but that was the extent of it.

"I still can't believe how lucky I was," he said. "It happened so fast, but for a moment there it seemed like I'd never stop falling."

"You're still falling, Dave," Dixon said. "You only think you've stopped." He laughed and looked at Jacobs. "You've fallen into the abyss."

"He's fallen into another time," Jacobs added.

"The question is, can he get back to the Enterprise?" Dixon said.

"Yes, I must get in touch with the Captain," Green said. "I've landed in some foggy, prehistoric world."

"Yes, who knows what monsters lurk in that pit?" Dixon said. "You better beam yourself up with another bong."

"Thank you, Spock," Green said. "Don't mind if I do." He picked up the white Frisbee to see how much of the cleaned weed was left. "I think we'll need some more."

Dixon took his baggy out of his pants pocket. It was his contribution to the party. Terence prided himself on almost always having weed on him.

"I thought I was a smoker," Jacobs said. "But you guys do more bongs than anybody I know."

"Don't tell me you've had it, Steve?" Dixon said.

"No, I think the lungs will handle a little more smoke," Jacobs said, grinning. Being asthmatic, Steve often found himself short of breath these days, and sometimes, when breathing was really difficult, he had to cut himself off for a couple days.

"I had faith in you," Dixon said.

"When's the last time you had to go to the hospital, Steve?" Green asked.

Jacobs had told them about some early morning visits to the emergency room when he suffered bad attacks, when the only thing that would help him was a shot of adrenalin. Two shots actually: one a fast acting boost that got his pulse racing; and the other a long acting medicine to get him through the night.

"It's been about a month," he told them. "I went to a keg party and smoked bongs all night. And the next day it was rainy and damp, and I don't do too good in that kind of weather."

"It's probably going to get a little damp around here tonight," Green said. "If you have any problems, just let me know. We don't want you getting sick on us out here."

"No, I'll drive you to the hospital if you have to go," Dixon said. "If I can drive." He laughed, as he cleaned more weed on the Frisbee.

"After that second bottle, I don't think anybody's going anywhere," Green said. He put a Pink Floyd tape into the player.

"I told my old man not to expect to see me until Sunday," Dixon said. "He wanted me to help him around the house tomorrow but I told him I had to work. I told him I'd help him Sunday, but by then I'll come up with another excuse." He laughed. "The old man's been trying to get me to help him with this clean-up project for weeks. He tells me the same thing every Friday, and I nod my head and say: okay, Dad, that sounds like a plan."

"That sounds like me with my dad," Green said. "He's always saying: Don't tell me you work so hard at that record store that you can't help me around here sometimes. I let him go on for ten or fifteen minutes, and then he shakes his head and walks out of the room." More laughs.

"My dad doesn't bother me too much anymore," Jacobs said. "As long as I don't get in any trouble with the car. But I know he'll give me some shit about my grades again this year. That's one thing he won't let slide."

"Yeah, I heard the same thing last year," Dixon said. "My old man made a point of talking to all my teachers, and he gave me hell for months. I thought he was going to take the car from me."

"I didn't have to worry about that," Green said, grinning.

"No, you're a pothead and a drinker and you still get good grades," Dixon said.

"It's not that hard," Green said. "If you do a little work every night. Maybe an hour or so, hell, it's hard not to pass."

"Yeah, I wish I was as dedicated as you," Dixon said. "But every time I open the books, I'm either seeing double or I'm falling asleep." He and Jacobs laughed.

"That's what I'm saying," Green said. "You look at the books first, for an hour or so. Then you do whatever you want for the rest of the day."

"That would work if I didn't get high right after school every day," Dixon said.

"I bet you could get on the honor roll if you tried a little, Terence," Green said. "You used to make it without even trying."

"I suppose I could," Terence said, packing the bong and handing it to Green. "It would get the old man off my back, that's for sure."

"It would get the teachers off your back. Your counselor. They wouldn't care how much dope you smoked." Green smiled and then lit the pipe.

"I'm going to switch counselors," Dixon said. "I can't stand that bitch I got now."

"Who's that, Rizzo?" Jacobs asked.

"Yeah, the fat ass bitch from hell."

Jacobs laughed.

"It must be tough sitting at her desk first thing in the morning," he said.

"Oh, it's a bunch of laughs, believe me. Every time I go in there she's on my ass about something. I'm lucky if I get a hi out of her before she starts in. I don't know how many times she's talked to my old man on the phone. He keeps saying what a nice lady she is, and how she just wants what's best for me, and I just want to puke. Every time I go in there she's got food on the desk. Like she really needs that, right?"

Jacobs and Green laughed, and then Dixon did too. He took the bong to pack it again.

"She's only so fat she can barely get out of her chair, and she's eating pizza or grinders. The last time I talked to her, I was stoned of course, and all I could focus on while she talked was this spot of tomato sauce on her cheek."

They continued to laugh, all of them being familiar with Ms. Rizzo's heavy, pockmarked face.

"The only reason I got her as a counselor is Bronson retired, and she took some of his students," Dixon said. "Bronson, I didn't mind. He was on his way out so he didn't give a shit. I don't think I ever talked to him more than ten minutes any time I was in his office."

"I've heard Rizzo was pretty good," Green said.

"She's a pretty good pain in my ass," Dixon said.

They listened to Pink Floyd sing about money, singing along themselves, moving their heads.

"What do you got planned for tomorrow, Dave?" Dixon asked.

"Not much, other than calling Hillary."

"Does she know you're not working?"

"Not yet."

"Don't tell her. Hell, she'll want you to spend the day with her."

"Either that or come over here and spend the day," Green said, smiling.

"Exactly. So what you have to do tonight is come up with a good excuse to tell her."

"She's good at knowing when I'm lying," Green said.

"Tell her you're going over to my house to help me and my old man. Tell her you promised to help me and you can't back out of it." He laughed and looked at Jacobs. "That sounds good, doesn't it?"

"Sure," Jacobs said. "She doesn't know your number, does she?"

"I don't think so," Dixon said, looking at Green.

"No," Green said. "But she could get it from my mother. It would be just like her to call about something."

"I'll tell my old man to cover for us," Dixon said.

"Your old man thinks you're going to work, doesn't he?" Green asked.

"That's right, I forgot about that." He laughed. "Well, we'll think of something. Hell, Steve finally got down here to party with us this weekend, so we got to keep it going. I say the three of us go over to Ralph's tomorrow and see what he's got going. You know it won't be too quiet on a Saturday."

"That would be something to do tomorrow night," Green said. "But we could do something outside in the afternoon. Go hiking somewhere. We could show Steve some spots in the park." Meaning the big state park located just five miles down the road from Green's house.

"I'm all for it," Dixon said. "I haven't been out there in months. You like hiking, Steve?"

"Sure. I hike in the woods all the time. Whenever I can't stand things at home I head for the woods."

"I go to the beach a lot," Green said. "But I know what you mean. There's nothing like getting away from everything out in the woods. I mean this is all right here, but I never know when the old man's going to show up. It's practically in the backyard."

"Remember that one night a few weeks back," Dixon said. He looked at Jacobs. "We're sitting here getting high, and the tent is full of smoke, and of course we have the music cranked. And the next thing we know, Dave's father is yelling at us and shaking the tent." He and Green laugh at the memory.

"Was it an emergency?" Jacobs asked.

"Hell no," Green said. "They lost the power for a while at the house."

"I guess with the lights out he had nothing better to do than hike down here," Dixon said.

"That's what it was," Green agreed. "It's a good thing we had the flaps closed."

"He's never caught you smoking?" Jacobs asked.

"No. He's come close up at the house. I think he might suspect something. He knows I smoke cigarettes once in a while, but I don't know if he knows what pot smells like. He and my mom are pretty straight."

"My parents too," Jacobs said.

"You're lucky," Dixon said. "My old man tried it in the army. He never smoked a lot of it but he knows what it smells like. He caught me smoking it out in the clubhouse one day and told me he'd rather I didn't do that on his property. He said he didn't care what my habits were somewhere else, but he didn't want it around there. I told him that was fair enough, and as soon as he went back in the house I lit up again." He laughed. "But one day he found a few of my bongs and pipes out in the barn and he threw a fit. He threw all of it out, all these nice bongs I'd picked up in the last couple years, some good pipes, just about everything I had. Needless to say I was very disappointed. I was just glad that he didn't find any of my weed. But ever since then he's had his eye on me. He just doesn't trust his pothead son."

All three laughed.

"I wonder why," Green said.

"My old man knows I drink," Jacobs said. "And he's asked me about drugs, but he doesn't know anything about them. One time I saw him reading a magazine article on marijuana, a medical study. He said to me: I hope you know enough to stay away from this stuff. He said: "I know you like your beer; I smell that on you. But please don't get into drugs." I didn't say anything."

"Just tell him you like to dabble in mushrooms and acid once in a while," Dixon said, laughing. "No big deal. Just a little trippy stuff to spice up the high school years."

"Yeah, dad, I just want to put a little color in my day," Green added.

 * * *  

The Doors played now, and Jim Morrison talked about when he was in seminary school and someone put forth a proposition. The three friends listened to this - one of their favorite Morrison moments - with smiles on their faces, clutching beers, their eyes glazed. They had gone through almost all of Green's tapes and had done a pretty good job on the beer and the second bottle of mescal. They were just about talked out and were content to let Jimbo take over. It would cap off the night just right, and they could pass out to something like Riders On the Storm.

Green had played a tape of his music that the other two were enthusiastic about, particularly Jacobs who heard these new songs for the first time. He knew Dave was a good guitar and sax player, but he didn't know he was a songwriter too until he heard these four unfinished pieces. It was Green doing everything: the guitar, the keyboards (he had a synthesizer in his room), the horn, the flute, and even some bongos thrown in. Green was in the process of making his little basement studio soundproof, so that other musicians could join him.

Jacobs, who liked to write poems, suggested a collaboration on something; seconded by Dixon, who had a notebook of lyrics at home. Feeling good, they started talking about a project that the three of them could work on and, for a short time, it seemed that they would begin the creative effort the next day (if their hangovers weren't too bad). They felt as if a bond had formed between them; they weren't just classmates anymore. Each had shared something with the other two, and this didn't come easy for any of them. All three were solitary by nature, shy even, when sober, conservative with what they shared about themselves. Yet they seemed to understand this about each other; mutual respect had been established. They had the feeling that this was the beginning of something good for all of them, knowing that they were young and had time on their side.

Dave Green had a girlfriend, but he didn't talk to her in the same way he talked to these guys. He was more guarded with Hillary, though they'd had sex. In fact, sex was the thing with Hillary, and Green had the feeling that it wouldn't go much further than that. Hillary was the kind of girl who wanted to get married after high school and start a family, and Green knew he didn't want that.

Dixon and Jacobs had never had steady girlfriends, and they admired Green for being the first of them to succeed in this area, though they never said anything about it. Both young men had their eyes on certain girls at school, but they hadn't figured out how to approach them when they weren't stoned. Of the three, Green was the most natural at talking to just about anybody. He was so easygoing, and on the quiet side, that he didn't present a competitive threat to the other guys at school, or make an ass of himself trying to be cool with the girls. It was a personable quality that Dixon in particular envied, perhaps because, being Green's closest friend, he had seen more evidence of it.

The friends had touched on the subject of girls that night, with each offering comments on who they considered to be lookers in their class, and then the bitches, the dogs, those who were stuck up or too good, and those who were loose with their charms. The comments provided laughs, though none of them made any serious remarks concerning girls they might really want to pursue. None of them were going to expose themselves in that way. Not yet.

For now, it was enough to knock school in general, complain about people at work, listen to music, and talk records, drugs, books and movies. It was enough to be young, high and drunk in the summertime, on this fog thick night (out of which Mr. Green thankfully didn't appear) that produced a humorous, horror movie effect, commented upon as they pissed in the bushes. It was a "piss on everything" kind of mood for a while, and words were slurred and beer spilled. The end of the good time closed in on them like the fog outside the tent.

Suddenly, Dixon was out of the tent, and with good reason. They heard the sound of his heaving over King Crimson, which had just gone on.

"This happens all the time," Green said, shaking his head.

After a few minutes, Jacobs stepped outside to relieve himself in another way and, in the lamplight, saw his friend on all fours, spittle and puke down his chin. Dixon looked up at him with watery eyes and tried to smile, but the sickness wouldn't let him. He was wracked with another spasm, and Jacobs left him alone, hoping that he wouldn't have to go through the same thing.

"He drinks too fast," Green said. "And knowing Terence, he probably didn't eat anything all day."

"That's not good," Jacobs said, shaking his head, but he almost laughed at the image of Dixon on his hands and knees. He looked at Green, and then the two of them laughed. They laughed long and hard, and the two of them felt closer than they had all night.

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