Chapter 31. The Amusement Park

Ted and Kenny cruised the park for potential customers and come back to me at the car for the exchange. The acid we had was pure two-hundred-fifty mics of blue microdot tabs. Word got around that we had some good acid and people came to us as soon as we showed up at the park. I stayed at the car in the parking lot holding on to the money and the product.

Freaks began coming out to the car and, at first, I turned them away.

I complained to Ted after the first night, “I don’t like it. Don’t send them out to the car, dammit.”

“I’m not sending them,” Ted shrugged, “Kenny only sent one.”

“One? Shit, word’s out now!” I lamented. “I didn’t come up here to get busted for holding.”

“Lighten-up, Max, we can see cops comin’ a mile away.”

“Just tell Kenny not to send any more. We’ll have it all gone soon enough.”

After a few days I let down my guard and dealt from the car. This was against my better judgment about this arrangement but figured the way it was going it wouldn’t be long before we got rid of what we had, and I’d be out of there.

“Yeh, I know what you mean." He looked back over his shoulder at a lanky dude in a Peterbuilt cap lopping across the lot towards the car, "But hey, this guy, Duggie, says he can hook us up with some girls. I ain’t had no pussy since Moses built the ark. He knows about a party going down in Destin. It’s just over the bridge to the east.”

Ted and Duggie shook hands, then Duggie took mine, “Call me Duggie. I got some connections all around this place.”

The ass-hole glad-handed me with a harder than firm handshake… the kind that grinds knuckles… painful and more of a challenge than a greeting.

I said , “That's Noah, Ted. Fuckin’ Moses didn’t build the fuckin’ Ark." 
While I was locked in a face to face stare-down with Duggie, I added, "Hope you're right about this guy, ‘cause you’re sure as hell got it wrong about Moses.”

I had a bad feeling about Duggie. He was hyped up on crank and just acted a little too jailhouse-snitch-friendly to me. I had developed good instincts about jailhouse snitches in the past few months in Miami. My evolution, or de-evolution, into the world of petty drug dealing, and contacts with the shadiest of characters, groomed some instincts I thought I’d shaken back on the beach in Waikiki. I knew how these walking turds acted because, in my heart, I was then becoming as shady as any of them.

Duggie didn’t know what we were talking about and ignoring my comment said, “Hey dude, bring some of that saweeeet acid ya got with ya to this party.” His eyes were darting around like a rabbit’s from a hawk, “Man, there are chicks there that will blow your mind… hey, they’ll all put some that action on your dick too if ya want.”

By the time we’d arrived at the party it was going down. I forgot all about the gut feeling and went with the rhythms of the acid and, of course, the ratio of women to men was better than two to one because half the dudes were so fucked up they just sat and stared at kaleidoscope patterns flashed in the vacancy between their ears. There must have been about fifty people hanging out at the house and most of them were tripping on the acid we sold.

Since the beach in Waikiki, I wasn’t the kind of tripper that spent most of my time navel gazing. No longer interested in acid alone, as there were a couple kegs of beer for the non-trippers, I preferred getting fucked up and getting laid. These small-town southern kids had a different take on drugs, booze, and the law. They’d grown up together, been in jail together, and turned State’s evidence on each other too. The cops were more likely members of their own families… an uncle, a brother, or a brother-in-law. Two of the girls took me aside. One was a golden-haired-braless goddess with nips pointing out from a gauzy tie-dyed tee-shirt exposing a white-belly-down-to-her-pubes in-hip-huggers… an attractive lean young thing. Her friend was a frumpier-roundish girl, who let me know in no uncertain terms that she wanted to get down and dirty. I was going for her too but wanted her hip-hugger friend more.

Hip-huggers said to me, “You came with Duggie?”

“Yeh, what about Duggie.”

She warned, “You do be careful around him.”

I didn’t pay any heed to her warning because the words just melted out past her lips with that southern belle accent.

The night was winding down and the trippers were leaving or sacking out in the other rooms. The two girls shared a room though there were two beds. Frumpy and I went to bed together first thing and did the deed. I noticed that Hip-hugger was watching in the dark from her bed as I ground away at Frumpy. After we had done our deed and Frumpy went straight to sleep. Hip Hugger was still awake so I seized the opportunity and I went over and crawled in bed with her.

“What are you doing, Max?” she protested.

“Oh, hell, I wanted you all along… you knew it?” I could see that she was confused. Not too many of the boys from her experience crawled from one bed to another as fast as this was happening.

“Okay,” she whispered, “but what about you two… I mean, you were just getting it on a few minutes ago.”

“Yeh, it wuzza mercy fuck…” I was drunk enough that I just didn’t care, “She’s fat. I like your body better.”

My answer was good enough for the moment. We must have rolled around for an hour before I fell asleep.

Ted shook me awake, “Max, c’mon… we gotta get goin.”

“Yeh, what’s goin’ on?” I was upright but only half-conscious. “What’s the rush, man.”

Hip-hugger walked me out to the car… she pulled me off to the side, “I thought you’d stick around a few days.”

“Oh, baby, I’d like to but we gotta go…” I turned to pull away.

“I should have known… like after what you said about Melissa.”

“What did I say about who… what? Who’s Melissa?”

“My room-mate… you were in bed with her before me… Remember?”

I didn’t… not really… it was like a vague dream to recall, “Oh, yeah… I remember now.”

“You said she was fat. It was a mercy fuck!” at her pause I scrambled around in my head for an out and tried to remember… Hip-Hugger was relentless, “Do you remember my name?”

“Draws a blank, sorry…. the booze…”

“We’re all in this together, Max… like the Beatles song, you know? ‘I am he and you are me and we are all together…’”

I realized by the daylight and her remarks she was just a teeny-bopper… “Okay, I get it… I get it. I gotta go now…. I won’t do it again.”

“You’re fucked, Max… I don’t want your karma around me.” She turned and stomped away.

I yelled to her back, “I’ve been cursed by pros. It’s no big deal.”

Again, I’m cursed. I thought… Hoss Bozz and a girl whose name I didn’t know.

Guilty of that, I called out, “What’s your name anyway?”

She kept walking without turning around.