I was reading about Hunter Thompson and the subject of absinthe came up. Which, naturally, led to me thinking about a party in 1967, “White Rabbit” blaring from the stereo inside, the spring night lit with party lanterns, me in my shorts exposing a mondo hickey on the inside of my right thigh, a friend with a bottle of smuggled absinthe.
Being an avid reader, I’d run across absinthe many times on my literature travels. It was inconceivable that I wouldn’t be allowed to sample it. Which was why my husband goaded me to show the hickey to the absinthe’s smuggler. Men suck.
Oh, wait, that was a Freudian slip. Just ignore it.
The absinthe smuggler had just returned to the US from Nam where he flew for Air America. I was the only person with whom he shared his precious smuggled “liquid gold.” And everyone resented that…a lot. Did I care? Of course not. I was going off on an adventure of great literary proportions. With any luck, I’d instantly become an absinthe addict and spend my life roiling in the bowels of drug-induced poetry writing frenzies, alternating with really interesting life events. Ahh, such are the dreams of youth.
Well, since I was there and you weren’t, since I know what came before and what came after, let’s just savor the fine spring night together, a crowd of young men imploring me not to dangle my toes in depravity while the smuggler went off to get his secreted bottle. Someone kept playing “White Rabbit” over and over, not allowing any of the other songs to intrude on party madness. It was the best of times.
The smuggler returned with a tall iced tea glass half filled with some milky stuff and asked for ice. Clever man knew I’d want ice. I don’t know how much he’d cut it with water, could have been a lot, might have been a little. From events that transpired over the next year, I’d guess that he cut it little. However…things began to slide.
He asked if I liked licorice, and I said I loathed it. He seemed disappointed and said to gulp it down quickly. That drew protests from the crowd, which told me to sip slowly. There ensued much discord of the “young male” genre. The smuggler grabbed my thigh for another look, my husband grabbed the smuggler, a couple three others piled on…and I stepped back, turned away, and gulped.
I freely admit that I was already stoked and lit and lubricated…it was a party for goodness sake! But I was still appalled at what happened next. As the nausea rose and I tried not to vomit, I was thrown back many years, to early childhood.
Small town in Oklahoma, I’m five, we’ve just left the grocery store, I’m standing on the concrete sidewalk and some nice man is offering me black candy. I loved candy as a child. I really wanted to take it but…. I told the man I couldn’t take candy from strangers. He insisted. He was wearing me down. I really really loved candy.
My mother finally appeared and acted motherly. Eventually the man convinced her that he and his candy were harmless, so she said I could take it from him. Oh joy! Candy!
I stuck the end of the floppy stick in my mouth and bit off a piece. I began chewing, anticipating the delicious sugar rush to my taste buds. My mother and the man chatted about what a pretty little girl I was. She should have been paying attention to me because I had been poisoned!
I leaned forward, opened my mouth, a black lump covered with teeth marks fell to the pavement, followed by a river of black spit, as I gasped, choked, began to cry, and flailed at my tongue trying to get the poison out of my mouth. Okay, that got my mother’s attention. And how did she react?
She started yelling at me. I’m 50 years down the line now and know what she was upset about, there was an icky puddle of black spit and licorice on the sidewalk, which had come from her little princess, the one who’d vomit if you looked at her crossways. And the little princess was gagging and heaving as the river of black spit continued to flow copiously from her mouth. Well, I was embarrassing her, plus I was making a mess, and if I held true to form, there’d be black vomit soon to come. It was the worst of times.
Flash forward many years to “White Rabbit,” the smuggler watching me as everyone grew quiet. I was heaving. I was in shock, how could this have happened? My dreams were dust. This absinthe stuff wasn’t a psychedelic ride to 19th century literary greatness and bohemian freedom, it was licorice!
It all seemed as surreal as the album that provided the soundtrack. My husband went rushing off to get me water. The smuggler moved in for the kill. A couple of friends placed themselves between him and me and somebody took me inside to dance. I danced with several nameless, faceless somebodies.
Eventually my husband showed up with a glass of water and insisted that we had to go home. The smuggler had been run off.
Suresh Murjani followed us home that night and stood outside our door listening. My husband somehow sensed him out there and ran him off.
I never heard a thing. We had “Surrealistic Pillow” cranked up to nine on the stereo. I don’t know how my husband knew Suresh was there. I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now. Eventually I came to understand some stuff about myself, about the world.
The moral? Oh, that’s easy. Don’t take candy from strangers, or absinthe from “friends” who are independent contractors for the US government. They never give up, you know.
I still like “White Rabbit.” I still violently hate anise. And I lied about not hearing anything on the stairs. Suresh wasn’t alone.
