We get to H---- and there’s this huge long line that I had expected but also, like I said, B--- has that card, and everyone knows C--- and so there’s no problem at all getting all of us in but before we do that I scan the line of guys outside and I recognize most of them because really at the end of the day everyone goes to the same places on the same night and the truth is I’ve slept with a few of them already and I’m sure that I’ll sleep with a few more of them at some point and Jesus I’m coked out of my mind so I start smiling and saying hi to a few of them and then C--- puts his arm around my waist and tells me that we’re going inside so I tell everyone else that I’ll see them in there. The bar’s already crowded inside and I can hear the music – some Avril Lavigne remix – being played from the dance floor upstairs and I start bobbing my head to it and B---- asks me if I want a drink and I tell him sure, sure whatever he’s having and he smiles and says something like “bourbon on the rocks” and I tell him perfect – bring it on and I start looking around and my head can’t keep up with my eyes and I see all these faces and wonder when the last time was that I saw them outside of a bar and in natural lighting and I reach the conclusion that – at least for a lot of them – I’ve never seen them in natural lighting, but only under the dimmed fluorescent bulbs of approximately four different bars around -----.
B--- comes back with my bourbon and it goes down my throat smooth like silk and then he points to the other end of the bar where R--- is standing with the newbie, which is some blonde kid that I’ve never seen before and B--- tells me that the kid looks like a whore, anyway, and that he’s pretty sure he got fucked by O--- and E--- in some threesome at the beach the first weekend he was in town and I tell him whatever, I don’t care, R---‘s a fucking loser, and he’s trash, which I don’t really believe, and which B--- doesn’t really believe, either, and then instinctively B--- hands me the dime bag and tells me that money buys happiness and happiness is Colombian Gold and I take the bag and tell him I’ll be right back and then I start pushing my way toward the bathroom which has got this huge line but I push my way past it anyway and this old guy grabs my arm and tells me I have beautiful eyes and I tell him to fuck off and he gets all offended and he and his old fuck of a friend call me a drugged out bitch and I tell him to stop touching me before I sock him across the face and he laughs and bellows and tells me to give it my best shot but instead I just pull my arm away and turn around and bump into R--- and he gives me this look that’s saying “when did this happen to you,” and I ask him to excuse me and I go into an empty stall and lock the door.
I look into this dirty mirror that’s in the stall and I hear the music from upstairs change from Avril Lavigne to Pink or Lindsay Lohan or something and my pupils have started returning to their normal sizes and I start recognizing the way that they looked a year ago, right before Christmas, so I shovel three key-fuls of blow up my right nostril and it starts burning and the back of my throat tastes like gasoline and that old fuck from before keeps pounding on the door of the stall and I tell him to fuck off again before taking one more bump.
