Sketchy Bill 6: Razor

After I was formally introduced to Coco, she sat up and took a hit of the (e) of which Bill apparently had an unlimited supply. Luckily, I'd managed to scrape loose the duct tape from the inside of my boot before sitting down, so her first vision of me wasn't digging around in some gnarly old combat boot.

No one else in the room wanted any acid, initially, so I just tore it in half and ate five, giving the other five to Bill. These he gobbled with aplomb. However, he was more than willing to spit them out and tear off 2 hits to give to Coco, when she decided she'd slept long enough and wanted to get on the same ol' roller coaster upon which I was embarking. She'd never taken acid before, she said, and since this was a couple years before Francisco tried to kill his wife and baby while on (e), I was still willing to induct a newbie into the greater wonders of psychedelia.

The whole spitting out acid, tearing off two hits, then casually handing it to another person didn't really bug me (I mean, if it was beef jerky, that would be kind of gross, but acid?), but it set Sheryl even more aquiver. Bill noticed this (everyone in the room realized this was fucked up, but me), and practically threw Sheryl over his shoulder, headed, we soon discovered, to the boudoir.

Bear in mind, ladies and gents, that I'm rolling along, completely lost in my own fog of Okie simplicity, drugs, and bemusement at my current situation. The whole thing may be obvious to you at this point, because I've written it this way, but as it stood at the time I was blissfully ignorant of the reality of the situation.

Some would argue that this is my normal modus operandi, but that's not the point.

After a brief Q&A in which Coco treated me like Timothy Leary, and I (I'm sure) waxed serious and expansive about the joys and terrors of both LSD and MDMA, I had the presence of mind to ask her if she'd like a glass of wine. Which, of course, she did (for the uninitiated, LSD is like chewing on tinfoil). I entered the kitchen to retrieve yet another bottle of wine, turned around, and was face to face with the adam's apple of Razor.

If the sun had been quite up yet, the light would have been blotted out. Or maybe it's that my heart stopped for a second. Immediately I realized that it was ridiculous to think that Coco could be here alone, and also to think that "Coco and Razor" was probably a cool thing to put on your invitations to yacht club parties. I resigned myself to a brief but painful drubbing and probably some asphalt rash as I was thrown out the front door.

Razor said, "didyougotoburningmanthisyear."

My jaw sort of dropped. I couldn't help but think that his murmuring speech was merely a ploy to get my ear closer to his head, so he could bite my entire head off, but after considering him for a second, I realized this wasn't the case. I bit.

"Yes, I was camped next to Bill. Were you out there?"

"iwaswiththepeoplewhohadthefirecannons."

[Brief note: Those fuckers are crazy. I mean, I'm all about fire breathing and such, but the whole idea of setting off a 300' column of kerosene fueled flame out of the back of a pickup, wearing a fireproof suit, is a bit out of my league. And they had SIX of them, I think.]

"Wow, uh, did I see you out there?"

I was resisting the urge to talk like him, and also rapidly running out of things to say. There was no conversing with Razor, really, although I could tell he sort of wanted to. It's like he was trapped in a huge Samoan body with the mind of Walter Mitty and the voice of Steven Wright in the middle of a Xanax and red wine bender.

"ilostmyassinthestockmarketthisyear."

See? I told you he was trying. But since I'm lucky enough to keep my money til next payday, it was a conversational non-starter. He tried again:

"whatdoyoudoforaliving."

Well, as you all know, I'm a landscape maintenance guy, with a little bit of design and a lot of Spanish cursewords.

"youcoulddoreallywelloutherebillcouldgetyoualotofwork."

After sorting this out, I responded, "Bill and I are just friends. I didn't come out here to put the make on him."

Surprisingly, this seemed to make up his mind about me. He nodded, kind of, then glided back into the living room without a sound. Patty was screeching with laughter, and as I returned to the living area with a bottle of wine (shaking ever so slightly), I heard the unmistakeable sound of bedsprings being rocked upstairs.

We all smiled, and Coco looked over at me in a fashion I could only describe as coy. I poured her a glass of wine. The bedsprings stopped. She leaned close, as I heard footsteps descending the staircase behind me, and pressed her breast against my arm. It was warm, but since I was currently engaged in counting up exactly how many different colors of brown her eyes were, I didn't notice. Her eyes flicked past me briefly, then she was snuggled fully in my arm. She whispered, "is this the way you see things?"

Her pupils were dilated. My head felt like it was about to explode, and the only thing keeping my entire body from doing so was her warm hand on my arm, and the nagging feeling that all was not as it seemed.