“Blaine,” I say. “Hi.”

“What’s going on, Blaine?” she asks.

“Not too much,” Blaine says.

“Great,” she says.

“Where have you been?” Blaine asks.

“Nowhere. Palladium,” she says. “How about you and your friend?”

“Just hanging,” I say. The bartender places the fresh new drink on the bar. I nod.

“This is going to sound really stupid,” she says.

“Go ahead.” I bet it is.

“But, is your friend Michael J. Fox?” she asks.

“Uh, no,” I say.

“Are you two g*y or anything?” she asks, steadying herself.

“No,” I say. “Are you and your friends dykes?”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

Blaine thinks: forget this girl, even though he wouldn’t mind sleeping with her, but she smokes menthol cigarettes and looks a little overweight.

Michael J. Fox comes back and gives the girl a f**k-off look and he whispers something in my ear and hands me the vial. I tell him to deal with this girl and whisper back to him, “She thinks you’re Michael J. Fox.” I leave, head for the bathroom. “So, did you see Back to the Future?” he asks.

In the men’s room I sit in a stall and flush the toilet whenever I do a hit. I come out of the stall feeling better, actually feeling pretty good and I go over to the sink to wash my hands, make sure my nose is clean. I can hear someone throwing up in one of the other stalls as I stare at myself in the mirror carefully, wipe whatever residue there was under my nose off. I go back to the bar.

Michael J. Fox has talked the girls into coming out with us. So we take them to Palladium where we leave them on the dance floor and split for the Mike Todd Room where we hang out and get even more wasted. Somewhere along the line I lose my Concord quartz watch, make a rude comment about Bianca Jagger’s br**sts to her face, and end up with some bimbo back at my father’s place at The Carlyle. Robert’s in the next room with some other bimbo, some Camden drop-out named Janey Fields, who I think he had an affair with. It always ends up this way. No Big Surprise.

LAUREN End up with Noel tonight. Cute, long-haired post-punk, neo-hippie whose girlfriend Janet is in New York for the weekend and who’s really seeing Mary, this girl from Indiana. I had seen Janet’s old boyfriend Neal for a little while before Noel, who was Neal’s best friend, started seeing Janet. After driving to a Chinese restaurant in town in the snow in Noel’s dark blue Saab, and after ordering food with all MSG removed and after checking out a bad party in Fels we go to Noel’s room, where he puts 2001 on the VCR that sits on a milk crate at the foot of his futon. Then we split a hit of Blue Dragon and watch the movie, waiting to trip. All I can think of is the night last term when Victor and I made out in Tishman while they were changing reels for the movie, and how it snowed so hard for April and we were drunk on sake and “The Unforgettable Fire” was playing and he smelled like Chap-stick…. But Noel gets excited and won’t stop leaving me alone, and I want to watch the movie which I can’t really concentrate on anyway—it’s too long and slow and scenes and shots go on forever. I need something clear and fast, and I’m not even sure if the acid is taking effect. Don’t understand what’s going on. Noel’s kissing my neck and rubbing the inside of my thigh and even though I have this urinary tract infection and have been taking horse pills to get rid of it, I let him do what he wants. When the movie snaps off, and he rolls over to put music on, I say, “But I hate the Beatles.”

He looks at me and he takes his Grateful Dead T-shirt off revealing a beautiful body I cannot resist, and pulling off his Reebok tennis shoes, says, “Hey, I hate the Beatles too.”

SEAN I drive to New Hampshire and find myself back on campus, looking for Lauren, remember my mouth on her neck, her arms around me. I go to her room but she’s not there. Roxanne’s in the living room of Canfield and tells me that Rupert wants to talk to me, that he’s after my ass. I end up in The Pub but she’s not there either. Neither are too many other people, most of them probably at a party somewhere. I order a beer. There are around fifteen people in The Pub tonight, either sitting at tables or standing next to the video games, a couple of girls standing by the jukebox, two Freshmen sitting by themselves in the corner discussing movies. I pay for the beer and sit at an empty table near the video games. I realize with depressing crystal clarity that I have slept with three of the girls in The Pub tonight.