. . . my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels . . .
— Romeo, Romeo and Juliet, I.iv.106
Willie and Todd sat cross-legged like monks before an image of the Buddha, meditating on the mushroom.
“Cubensis,” Todd said. “Biggest I’ve ever seen. Probably thirty grams. One shroom, dude, thirty g’s!”
“Should we dry it, or . . . ?”
“No need. We could just eat it, if we had a party. It’s enough to get ten people ridiculously high.”
Willie considered the group. Another couple of Todd’s friends had arrived. One, an older-looking guy with a mustache and long black hair, knew Dashka from high school, and they were making small talk about mutual friends. Willie’s roommate Jojo was lying on the blanket with André, giggling; they had found some mushrooms of their own.
“I’m already plenty high,” Willie said.
“We could sell it,” Todd said. “Piece this big, fresh . . . it’d bring top dollar, man. It’s like a collector’s item. Bragging rights. Tell you what, I could set up a deal, and we could split the dough.”
Todd lived in the student apartment above Willie’s. He was the drug dealer for most of the east side of the campus. He had fine, angelic blond hair that almost glowed on the rare occasions it was clean, and glistened when it was greasy. He had pale, almost translucent skin that turned a little ruddy around the cheeks in cool weather. He claimed to be a grad student in philosophy, though Willie had never seen him with a book. He had a huge record collection, and mostly stayed in his room blaring prog rock and Grateful Dead at weapons-grade volume and making a nearly incessant thumping sound on Willie’s ceiling as if he were rolling a sofa back and forth across the floor. Willie had finally asked him what that sound was, and Todd had answered, “Rolling the sofa, man.”
Every few days Todd would emerge from his room and go around the graduate student residences and Kresge College, knocking on doors, bam-bam-bam-bam, “Gotta pay my tuition!” or bam-bam-bam-bam, “Gotta buy books!” or bam-bam-bam-bam, “Gotta date tonight, who’s paying?!” He’d dole out bags of crappy shake, an ounce for ten bucks. It was nasty, guaranteed-headache stuff, but at ten bucks a lid you could smoke it all night — and pretty much had to if you wanted to get high. Occasionally he’d have more exotic stuff. Blond Lebanese hash was common; mild and sweet-smelling, it crumbled easily in your fingers and left a flowery mist behind in the air. You could smoke a half a gram and still translate Latin, probably better than if you were straight. Black Afghani hash, sticky and oily like an extra-rich truffle, was less desirable: smoke that shit and don’t plan on moving for at least two hours. And then he could sometimes get his hands on higher quality sinsemilla buds from Mendocino, and upon request, Ecstasy or Quaaludes. Once or twice a quarter he had blotter acid, the best being Mickey Mouse brand, each sheet comprising a hundred perforated tabs on which were replicated the classic image of Mickey as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Fantasia, a stream of stars doing Mickey’s magical bidding between his fingertips.
Willie had never sold drugs before, but now he considered it. He was almost broke, and there would be no support check from his dad for another week or so. He had exactly nine dollars in his pocket. “How much can we get?”
“I know this guy. He’ll be perfect, man. I bet he pays two hundred for it. He’s outta town, though. You’ll have to run it up to the Renaissance Faire.”
“The Renaissance Faire?! That’s in Marin County, isn’t it? Why don’t you go?”
“I got other biz. You’re going up to Berkeley anyway, right?”
“Well, yeah, but — ”
“So you’re halfway there. I can get you on the pass list. You’ll get in for free. Come on, dude, it’s free money.”
Willie tried to get his thoughts together. It seemed like easy cash, but even high on shrooms, he suspected it was a bad idea. He should probably, to quote Nancy Reagan, just say no. “I don’t need the money.”
“Everybody needs money. Plus you’ll be at the Ren Faire, dude. You’ll probably get laid.”
Willie felt a little jump in his pants. His heartbeat quickened again, and as it did he felt another wave of the mushroom high. Todd was looking at him with a devilish grin, the cold starlight giving his face a ghastly cast. Todd was right. He probably would get laid at the Faire. He’d been to a Renaissance Faire once before, near L.A., a few months ago — May, was it? — and he’d gotten lucky, way lucky. Jesus, he’d fantasized about it dozens of times since. There was this game, Drench-a-Wench, that involved sling-shooting a wet sponge at an array of wanton maids sitting on a little bleacher of hay bales. If you hit one, you got a kiss. He’d wondered how long that game could possibly last with a new STD being discovered every day. Just for fun, he’d played. He hit a buxom bleach-blonde, and she gave him a good if too-professional kiss. He turned around to go, and there was another girl watching him — was her name Joan? Juliet? — something Renaissancey that was at odds with her exotic looks. Some sort of Asian or maybe island blend: tall; long wavy black hair; slim hips.
“Truly, I am shocked, sir. Paying for thy kisses when thou couldst surely get them free.” He suspected she was just a paid Faire shill playing street theater with him, but when he moved toward her ever so slightly, smiled, and said, “Verily a fool and peasant knave am I,” she swooped right into his arms and took his lips into hers in a passionate yet light-touched French kiss, running her hands through the thick curls of hair around his shoulders.
“Mmm,” she said dreamily, “I never do that.”
“What, kiss a man?”
“No, kiss a stranger.”
Half an hour and a couple of cold pints of ale later, he was on a blanket in the woods behind the jewelry booth where she worked, deep inside what was surely the caelestissime strictus cunnus caelorum. She was still wearing her Faire costume, skirts hiked up around her waist, one small breast peeking from her bodice, almond eyes closed, murmuring things that weren’t quite audible but, Willie was certain, were not G-rated.
Now, as Willie sat cross-legged on the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains, tripping on mushrooms and reliving that searing sweetness in his loins, a strange thing happened. To say he thought deeply about Shakespeare, or felt a sudden empathy with the Bard, doesn’t describe it. It was more than that: a synapse somewhere fired across a virginal neuron, and for a brief instant, he could feel a coolness on the back of his already thinning pate, his black locks brushing against his face as he thrust in and out of that heavenly, glovelike cunt, zounds and marry, a triumph of a cunt —
And then, in a flash, as quickly as the vision came it went.
“Jesus!” Willie said with a sudden shudder that came, not from the cold, but from somewhere inside.
He still sat cross-legged, looking at the glowing blue mushroom atop its excremental altar. It looked entirely alien to him, and a little scary. The hallucination, if that’s what it was, freaked him out. He felt sudden tension in his shoulders and his back, the feeling of a good trip about to turn bad.
“So what do you say?” Todd asked.
“No,” Willie said vaguely. “No, I’ve really got to work on my thesis this weekend. I’m not a dealer. I’m not into breaking the law.”
“Dude,” said Todd. “You’re already breaking the law. Sometimes the law sucks. You gotta stand up for your right.”
Willie stood up, but it was only to walk away.