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If I had been looking for a heavy time, I would have asked Virginia to come to town with me and Joe and Mary’s would have been the last place I went. I wasn’t looking for a place to get the Eden Express rolling again.

Greetings, greetings.

“Mark, this is David.”

“You’ve probably heard this a million times before, but I’ve read everything your old man’s written and really dig his stuff. I’m really a fan.” I just smiled and nodded. Fan seemed like a nice enough kid.

When I met Fan’s woman, Becky, I did a double take. She might as well have been Genie, whose letter was in my hip pocket: the body scaled down a touch, but the same sort of face, hair, and sexuality. Wearing a Triumph t-shirt to boot. She was helping Mary do up what looked to be an ace meal. Lots of mashed potatoes, corn, sausage, salad, rolls.

Joe and Mary’s new place was quite a change from the previous ones. The others had been in town; this one was about eight miles out toward Lund. Their other places hadn’t been what you would call luxurious, but they had a marginal respectability to them, with electricity, indoor plumbing, light fixtures, some furniture. This new place of theirs was more a cabin than a house. It had some electricity, some kerosene lamps, central heating, plumbing—but none of it was very reliable. There was a telephone that didn’t work. The place was all crazy-quilt. Nothing fitted together or seemed to follow.

It went so nicely. I was getting exactly the kind of Joe-and-Mary evening I had looked forward to. A good meal. Sitting around afterward talking, playing with Sarah, listening to music, watching Sarah play with Fan’s dog. Everyone enjoying everyone else. Worrying about going nuts again was the furthest thing from my mind. I felt so relaxed, so unthreatened, so comfortable. I was on vacation.

In a matter of a couple of hours, maybe less, everything changed. Suddenly my life became inextricably balled up with Joe and Mary’s and Fan’s Becky’s and Kathy’s. I started caring about what went on there and with those people as much as if not more than I cared about the farm or Virginia or anything else.

Maybe if Fan hadn’t asked so many dumb questions about my father. Maybe if we hadn’t smoked so goddamned much dope. Maybe if Joe and Mary hadn’t said so many dumb things, if they hadn’t been so all-fired-up enthusiastic about all the new drugs they had been trying and becoming so hip. Maybe if there hadn’t been so much music, or even if the volume had been a little lower or the music a little lighter.

One way or another, things started happening. At some point what was going on stopped being conversation and started being something else. Getting up and saying“It was a wonderful meal and nice talk. I’m tired. I’ll see you in the morning” was no longer possible.

Something real had started happening. Exactly the sort of thing I was trying to avoid by coming to Joe and Mary’s.

They’d want something flashy from me, then it would switch around and they were trying to do something for me. The favors in both directions ran the gamut from pedestrian to profound. Who was doing what to whom was never very clear. It was a cosmic orgy of the deaf, dumb, and blind. We were all in over our heads.

I didn’t want to help them. I didn’t want them to help me. I just wanted to go to bed, take my stupid immigration physical the next day, and go back up to the farm.

A hell of a lot of dope. I remember hoping it would make things better. I remember its making things worse and being unable to stop. I remember wanting to stop.

Fan David was rolling the joints, lots of them. I thought, this kid’s got to run out some day, but they kept coming and coming. I’d pretend to be asleep or sometimes really drift off. He’d shake my arm and make sure I never missed a round. It would look funny if I said no or just passed the joint. Maybe they’d think I was going nuts again. When in doubt, do like those around you are doing. Those around me were smoking dope nonstop. I didn’t want to make a fuss.

I felt sick