I followed Patrick down the pier, past about a million restaurants and candy stands mixed in with gift shops. He turned down a small opening between buildings that was really too small to be considered an alley.
At the end of it there was a set of old, wooden, barnacle ridden stairs, which we also went down. We were now below the pier, walking across slippery rocks to a group standing around a fire laughing way too loudly.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, the smart girl in me peeking through.
“Showing you Bayside’s true colors,” Patrick said with a sly smile. My pulse speed, and my hands were sweating. I wiped them on my jeans as we got closer to the group, then I smelled it.
It wasn’t a scent you could forget, in fact, those exposed to it
were often more susceptible to that scent. I and was one of them.
“Are they smoking pot?” I asked.
“That’s not all they’re doing,” Patrick answered, smiling again.
Not only was the smiling getting annoying, but it was beginning to freak me
out a bit.
“What else are they doing?” I asked.
“I’ll get you a menu when we get up there.”
“A menu?” I said skeptically.
“Of course, this is Rick’s place.”
“Rick’s place?”
“Best restaurant in Bayside.”
This dude had to be kidding.
“Oh my god,” I said under my breath.
“Scared?” Patrick asked.
“More curious,” I said.
A guy dressed in a black tee-shirt and jeans walked up holding
a piece of paper in his hand.
“Hey Rick,” he said, “new chick?”
“Yup,” Patrick… ‘Rick’, said, “set us up.”
The guy led us to a rock near the fire, right in the middle of the
crowd, and oh my God, it was a druggies paradise. I wasn’t a druggie, by
any means, but I could still appreciate the sheer brilliance in the whole
idea. It was the kind of thing my mom would have loved. And I would have
resented it.
I looked at the paper in my hand, it had every conceivable drug
listed, all with obscene prices and sizes I didn’t quite understand.
“What’s with all of this?” I asked.
“The best damn thing in the world,” he answered.
“Fuck,” I said, shaking my head.
“What?”
“Heroin? Meth? This is some messed up shit,” I answered.
“You ever had it?”
“No,” I answered, “my mom did though.”
“Oh, bad times?”
“You have no idea,” the guy we’d seen earlier came up and
dropped a bunch of stuff in-between me and Rick, “then again, maybe you
do.”
“There you go dude.”
“Thanks,” Rick said.
“I’m not doing any of this,” I said, motioning to the pile
between us.
Rick smiled again, the next thing I remember I was puking up
my organs, Rick was laughing in the background.
