POISONOUS FRUITS
Greenblatt, as Nick and his friends all implicitly knew, was not the name of any particular person at the party that night. The name (a pun on the German word “blatt,” or “leaf”) was more of an inside joke. It applied to any number of mutual acquaintances, who sometimes became the focus of interest during certain sly, knowing exchanges that took place on nights like this.
Tonight Nick recognized Greenblatt as Gary, or Gary the Hippie, whom as far as Nick could tell had also arrived sans costume tonight, although he couldn’t be too sure on that point since Gary’s regular wardrobe consisted mostly of thrift shop clothes that had originally circulated in the 60s and 70s anyway.
Nick liked Gary. Not only because he was generous with his weed if he liked you, but because he was affable and easy-going, with a mischievous streak that made his company more pleasant than some of the other Greenblatts, who were sometimes on the paranoid and short-tempered side.
Gary greeted Nick’s arrival with a broad, crooked grin.
“Hey, Nick—good to see you, brother. You showed up just in time.” Gary offered Nick a pipe with a freshly packed bowl full of pungent-smelling, hydroponically grown marijuana. “When was the last time you saw bud like this man? This is pure White Widow. Picked up an ounce of this stuff a couple night ago. It’s choice. Barely even remembered to drag my stoned ass off the couch to come here tonight. Go ahead. Spark it up. Take the green off it.”
The abrupt transition into the thick, smoke-filled air had left Nick slightly off balance. He caught a look on the one or two faces he could distinguish as he scanned the dim-lit room that struck him as unnaturally spaced out and distant, even for stoners.
Finally re-acclimating himself, he became painfully conscious that the others were probably anxious for him to take a hit and send the pipe back into circulation. So he grabbed the pipe and lighter Gary had offered him without further hesitation, and took a deep hit, retaining the harsh smoke that filled his lungs as long as he could.
The familiar feeling of release came almost instantly. As he finally exhaled, a soothing, numbing warmth settled instantly over his body, and his mind’s grip on itself eased ever-so-slightly, like a fist unclenching.
Nick passed the pipe off to the next smoker in rotation, a skinny blonde girl he vaguely recognized from other parties he’s attended here. Her skin looked blotchy and pale in the flare of the lighter’s flame as she put the pipe to her lips and took her turn. Her face bore the same peculiarly vacant expression that Nick had noticed on the others. He found that look vaguely unsettling.
Gary had sidled up beside him now, still grinning.
“Told you, didn’t I? Quality bud like that doesn’t seem to make the rounds much anymore. Neither do you, I notice. So where’ve you been holed up anyway? It’s been awhile.”
“I haven’t been getting out much lately. No real reason—well, no, now that you mention it, I guess rehearsing for my MFA audition was taking up most of my free time for a few weeks. But that’s all over now.”
“Good, good,” Gary said approvingly, ignoring the undercurrent of desperation in Nick’s tone. “So it’s time to put all that stress behind you now, and I think I’ve got just what you need for a proper celebration of the occasion.”
Nick thought he anticipated where this talk was leading. He quickly drew Gary aside, out of ear shot of anyone else who might listen in on their conversation.
One of the earliest lessons Nick had learned in his life as a pot head was that within the subterranean marketplaces in which the Greenblatts of the world set up shop, the normal principles of competition are inverted, with customers falling over themselves just to be let into the store. So it was best to be discreet about it, if and when you happened to find a store open for business.
“Sure, Gary, sure. What have you got in mind? I could probably spring for as much as an eighth, but this stuff’s probably a little pricy for me right now, so no more than that. I can’t swing more than an eighth right now.”
“No way, brother—you’ve got it wrong. I’m not looking to do business with you tonight. I’m not selling you anything.” Gary must have registered the look of discouragement that flashed across Nick’s face because he quickly elaborated: “Wait, I didn’t mean it that way either. Listen, I know all about the music school thing. Got the word from Eric. It’s a shame. What are you going to do?”
Eric was a music school grad student and teaching assistant who also traveled in Nick’s loose social circle. It wasn’t hard to imagine where he’d picked up the news; the efficiency of the music school’s rumor mill was itself the subject of endless gossip.
“That’s got to hurt. Don’t lie.”
Nick avoided eye-contact, nodding abstractly.
“But not tonight. Tonight’s a pain-free night. And it’s on the house. I’ve got a nice little sack of Widow just for you right here.” As Gary spoke this time, he pulled a compact but dense bundle from his pocket and proffered it to Nick, who stuffed it into his own pocket unhesitatingly. “And that’s just an appetizer. Hold on. You’re up again.”
Gary broke away from Nick to accept the pipe as it completed its wobbly orbit around the room. But he didn’t take a hit himself, gesturing instead for Nick to take another, which he did gratefully.
As Gary continued his speech to Nick, he extracted a carefully folded square of aluminum foil from his shirt pocket. “Like I was saying, the weed’s just an appetizer. Tonight, this is the main course.”
“Is that what I think it is?” Nick said, paying close attention now. This, he realized, probably explained the strange expressions he’d noticed on certain faces in the room. They weren’t high, they were tripping.
“Interested in taking a little trip tonight?” Gary unfolded the square of aluminum foil, which enclosed about a dozen small irregularly shaped squares of white blotter paper.
Nick was past playing it cool. The local supply of acid had all but evaporated over the last couple of years; he hadn’t dropped in nearly a year.
“Goddamn it, Gary. I love you,” he said.
Gary flashed Nick his familiar crooked grin again. “Here. These three hits are all yours. Believe me, you won’t need more. It’s clean stuff, too. So you won’t get any twitchy side effects like you get with the strychnine-cut stuff.”
Nick wasted no time in shoving the tiny white paper squares into his mouth, tucking them under his tongue to ensure the most efficient delivery of the chemical agent.
Nick wasn’t sure what to say next. He sensed it would be ungracious not to at least make an effort to offer Gary a few more moments of conversation, but in fact, he’d never had a real conversation with Gary before, so he had no idea what subjects, apart from drugs, interested him. And the effects of the two hits of pot smoke were already starting to frustrate Nick’s attempts to marshal his thoughts enough to make intelligible conversation. Once the acid kicked in, of course, all bets were off.
But then, for a second time, Gary demonstrated an almost supernaturally keen intuition for what Nick was thinking, letting him off the hook with a quick pat on the back to signal an end to their exchange.
“Well, it looks like my date’s getting bored,” Gary gestured toward the blonde with the bad complexion that had caught Nick’s eye earlier. She had withdrawn to a far corner of the room, where, absurdly, she stood staring intensely at a damaged section of the wall, tracing the paths of cracks in the plaster with her fingers. “Good to see you here tonight, Nick.”
Nick thanked Gary what must have been a half dozen times, making what he knew was likely an empty promise to get together for drinks before he left town or whatever it was he ended up doing next.
Then Gary strode easily away and, in what may have been the first real sign of how strange the evening was going to get, literally melted into the crowd.
