“You said you were tired, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“So why should I go for the chicks?”
“I don’t know.”
“Man, you’re in a fog, you know that? I wouldn’t be surprised you’re turned on already.”
“What?”
“Cool it, man. As Mac Arthur once said, ‘I shall return.’”
Andy watched him leave without replying. He could hear the swish of the rain outside, and beneath that the steady hum of the traffic. The ceiling bored him to tears, and he sat at the nucleus of his boredom and examined it like a man with a duplicate of a rare stamp.
When MacGregor came back into the room, he did not look up.
“You asleep?” MacGregor asked.
“No.”
“Gone. Try some of this, man.”
“Some of what?” He propped himself up on his elbows. MacGregor was extending a cigarette to him. “I don’t smoke,” Andy said.
“You’re a clown, daddy,” MacGregor said. “Who’s asking you to smoke?”
“That’s a cigarette, isn’t it?”
“That’s a reefer,” MacGregor said.
Andy stared at the long, cylindrical tube. “Yeah?”
“Go ahead. Take it.”
“What for?”
“Kill the afternoon. What the hell?”
“The afternoon’s dead already,” Andy said.
“This’ll give it a boot in the back. Come on.”
“Nah,” Andy said.
“Come on, man. Hey, what’s bugging you, anyway? You act like this is poison. Half the cats on this band are hip to M.”
“What the hell is M?”
“Mootah, muggles, miggles, hemp, hashish, bhang, tea, pot, weed, Rosa Maria, Mary Warner, take your choice. It’s all marijuana. Come on, man, it never hurt a fly.”
“Yeah, but does it hurt humans?”
“You’re a real clown, daddy. You want this, or nay?”
“I’ll pass it this time.”
“Whatever you say. You mind if I blast?”
“Do what you want to,” Andy said.
“You never really lit a stick, Andy?”
“Never.”
“Man, you haven’t lived. Well, here’s how.”
Andy watched as MacGregor put the long thin cigarette to his lips. He struck a match and lit it quickly, and then he cupped his hands around it, as if he were unwilling to allow any of the smoke to escape. He took a long, sucking drag on it, air rushing into his mouth around the corners of the cigarette. He did not stop inhaling. He kept sucking repeatedly on the reefer until it was barely a half-inch long.
“There’s more power when it’s down to a roach,” MacGregor said. “You get it all concentrated down around here.” He held the stub between two fingers now, his thumb and forefinger clamped on the white paper close to the burning coal. He sucked in deeply, and the cigarette burned close to his fingers, and still he sucked, until there was almost only the burning coal left in his hand. He dropped the coal into an ash tray then, and it burned out almost instantly.
Andy watched him, and he noticed no appreciable change, except that a small smile suddenly appeared on MacGregor’s mouth. His eyes were very bright, and he studied Andy with calm aloofness, as if he knew a joke and would not reveal it.
“Ah, man,” he said contentedly, “that is the end, the ever-loving end.”
“Yeah,” Andy said blankly.
“Come on, man, try one.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, man, the atmosphere is rarefied up here. Oh, man, this is the unholiest. Come on, daddy, bust a joint with old Dickie-boy. Here goes, daddy, here goes now, oh, man, I’m walking on the walls. Take it.” He held out the second reefer. “Take it.”
“No.”
“Your choice, daddy, but oh, is that rain sweet now, oh, is that rain playing our song? Oh, daddy, listen to that sweet, stinking rain, oh, listen to it, man.”
“What does it feel like? I mean, smoking that?”
“Like nothing ever, man. Like everything. Like strawberry shortcake, like Rita Hayworth in a black nightgown. Oh, daddy, it’s the end of the world!”
“Does it make you sick? Like... like a benny sometimes makes you sick?”
“Benny? A benny? Oh, man, that’s as bad as getting high on juice. Take the stick. Blast, daddy. Come up here with me.”
Andy took the cigarette. It was a fragile thing, and he could hear the crackling of the marijuana beneath the thin paper covering.
“Does it make you sick?” Andy asked again.
“It makes you slick-sick, stick-sick, like when you’re sick with wanting a girl, oh, daddy don’t talk so friggin’ much, just light up and join the marching camels, join the caravan, dad, here come the dancing girls in their pantaloons!”
Andy put the cigarette between his lips, and then he struck a match.
“Inhale it straight down,” MacGregor said. “One continuous draw. Suck in all you can, and keep sucking, ’cause it burns like a bitch and before you know it, it’s all gone. Grab it while you’ve got it.”
He lit the cigarette and then sucked in the harsh smoke, feeling it attack his throat, feeling nothing else but the burning sensation.
“Keep at it, man! Drag! Drag!”
He kept dragging at the reefer, the smoke still harsh, smelling the sickly-sweet aroma of it as it attacked his nostrils, feeling a quickening of his pulse, which he attributed to the excitement of the situation. He sucked it down to a burning coal, the way MacGregor had done, and the last few drags were strong and potently heady, and when he dropped the coal into the ash tray, he leaned back and waited for something to happen.
He began giggling suddenly.
“What is it, dad?”
“Nothing,” Andy said, giggling. “It’s just... it don’t affect me.”
“It don’t, huh?”
“Not at all.” He was laughing uproariously, unable to control the gales of laughter. “It... not at all, at all, at all.”
The ceiling was spinning, and he watched the spinning, and he heard the gentle hush of rain outside, and he smiled down from away up there where he was, oh, how tall he was, he smiled down at MacGregor, and he was allwise and allpowerful and allseeing, and in his majestic splendor he waved his hand limply and said, “Bring on the dancing girls, knave,” and then he collapsed into laughter again, and the laughter sounded as if it were coming from someplace far, far below him, all the way down there, my God, so far down there, and he was all the way up somewhere on top of a mountain, and the air was so very sweet, and he tried to remember what it was that he had been bored about before, but he didn’t feel bored any more, he felt only superior to everything around him, including MacGregor, what was that fat slob doing in his room, anyway?