Magic Pills Redux

On the walk from the commercial district of Wicker Park to the apartment of Charles and Spencer, Luther stated his motivations for seeking out hallucinogens on what ostensibly would be his last day of life:
“There are only so many days in a life,” he began, “What, if you live a full life, if you live until the age at which are you are supposed to die, you have maybe 30,000 days. At this point, I am close to 1/3 of the way through that. So I have had 10,000 days of life. I can count on one hand the number of days I’ve spent entirely under the influence of a hallucinogen—four. This will be the fifth. And my reason is, for the 9,995 other days I have spent free of the laboratory created buzz, nothing truly life changing has happened. Each time on hallucinogens, however, something came up. The first time, it was beautiful. The second time, it was still beautiful, but slightly horrifying. The third time, I fixed everything that was wrong in my life. It was like I was finally able to clearly see how I was responsible for all the mistakes I had made. But also, I was able to clearly see how to repair every mistake. The next day after the last time I tripped, it was like a clean slate. Nobody was mad at me anymore, all of my personal conflicts had been resolved, I had made serious decisions about the courses I would take for the rest of my college career, and it seemed like everything was going to be perfect from there on in. Now, I know I’m dying tomorrow, and I need that special skill again, that ability to make everything clean again.”
Rory said, “Whatever dude, I wasn’t trying to influence you negatively. I’m gonna trip right alongside you.”
At this point on their Luther and Rory’s trek (about ¼ a mile from the apartment they sought), Charles sat in his bedroom alone with his laptop on his desk, attempting to begin the next section of his personal history. He wrote freestyle, incorporating his current thoughts as he was writing. He felt it helped to open up the creative process.
I was going to provide you with a transcript of the section of Pure Possibility that Charles wrote that day, but instead, it comes into play later that day. I could put it in twice, but that would bore you. I could put it in here, to represent the chronological truth of when he wrote it, but I feel it makes more dramatic sense to include later on in the chapter, when it comes into play in a way begetting more than just a solitary reaction.
The apartment buzzer sounded and Charles got up from his desk. He opened the front door and let the two in. He correctly inferred that they had come in for drugs. Spencer came out of his room to see what the commotion was all about. He had been napping.
“So, just two magic pills for you then?” Charles asked.
“One each,” Luther said, looking at Rory.
“Do you want a glass of water?” Spencer asked them.
“Please,” Rory said, “We need to do this now.”
Luther handed Charles $40 and Spencer came back from the kitchen with the water.
Luther held his glass in his right hand, the magic pill in his left, and he said to Rory, “Cheers, to conscious last days of lives.”
“To doing what you want before you die!” Rory shouted.
They threw their pills in their mouths rapidly, and slammed their glasses of water.
“Do you have any idea what you want to manifest yourself as during the trip?” Charles asked.
“I’ve thought long and hard about this for the last fifteen minutes and I’ve decided I would like to be reincarnated with the soul of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,” Rory answered.
“Who cares about manifesting as something else?” Luther challenged, “Why not just be yourself, tripping? There’s nothing I want to be that I haven’t already tried to be.”
“You could be the Sun,” Charles suggested, “That’s a fun one to try.”
“No, you’re the Sun, because everyone obviously revolves around you. If it weren’t for you, there would be no hallucinogens. No, I am the same Lu you’ve always known, only I know I’m going to die tomorrow, and my mind won’t ever be the same until the moment arrives.”
“It’s your death trip!” Rory shouted. “Death trip!”
He grabbed Spencer’s face with both of his hands and shouted, “Stooges!”
“What, you mean Raw Power?” Charles asked.
“Stooges!” Rory shouted at the ceiling, at no one in particular.
Spencer went over to his iPod and put on “Death Trip” by the Stooges, the last track on Raw Power.
“OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Iggy Stooge screamed.
“So are you ready?” Luther asked Rory.
“Ready for what?”
“We go to Uncommon Grounds, we have to see Penelope, get her off work early, we have to do something crazy.”
“We’re going downnnnnnnnnnnnn,” Iggy sang.
“Just wait until the song is over,” Rory said, “Don’t mess with my Stooges.”
They waited out the song, and then the four of them left the apartment together. Outside the air was still cold, but the near freezing temperatures of the day before had given way to a mild early November day, temperatures in the mid 50’s at this time of premature dusk, just one week after daylight savings time had ended. They walked down Wood, and then they walked down Division, and they went to a station and they boarded a train and they rode it two miles north and they exited and everyone that walked past the four of them on the way to the coffee shop stared.
They entered, and Penelope and Ted both saw them within minutes of their entrance.
“Gimme a Cosmopolitan!” Luther screamed at Penelope. “I want a Cosmo” “Do you have any fine wines?” Rory asked to no one in particular. “I would like a glass of your finest wine.”
“I do not see any freedom in this restaurant!” Charles shouted (as the song had ended, Charles had spontaneously decided to take another magic pill himself), “Where is the freedom? I would like some freedom!” Spencer was the only voice of reason. “Calm down, calm down, relax, you can’t just shout your orders and expect people to listen to you, you have to wait until we are seated.”
“But this restaurant fucking sucks for seating you!” Luther shouted, “They are so weird when it comes to seating you! It takes forever, and they act like we are at the Ritz-Fucking-Carlton. It is a shitty weird coffee shop-slash-bar-slash-musical performance space. This is not a fancy hotel!”
“Shhhhhhhhh,” Spencer said, “You want us to get thrown out or something?”
“Let them throw me out!” Luther said, “I have no interest in supporting their evil machinations of trend culture.”
Penelope walked up to them.
“Hey,” she kissed Luther on the cheek, “Do you guys still need to be seated,”
“Yes, we are perennially ignored,” Charles said.
She led them to a table almost immediately. She took drink orders from them and returned to the counter, where Ted was waiting.
“Okay we need a Cosmo, a glass of Jordan Cab, and two Maker’s Marks on the rocks,” she told him.
Ted began making the drinks. “What are they all doing here anyways?”
“Lu thinks he’s going to die tomorrow, so I guess he is trying to have a sort of party.”
“Die? Why would he die?” Ted asked facetiously.
“He says he has spinal meningitis.”
“Interesting,” Ted said, “I would have thought if one had spinal meningitis, they wouldn’t be in such high spirits.”
“Yeah I don’t know if he’s telling me the truth or not. This could be an elaborate ploy. Maybe he wants to fake his own death so he can get rid of me,” she said jokingly.
“Well then he’s clearly no match for you,” Ted added seriously, “Why anyone would ever want to avoid you is a total mystery. You are a true sweetheart.”
“Oh! So are you, Ted!” she said, and she kissed him on the cheek.
Ted’s heart fluttered. He handed her the drinks he made. She brought them to their table
“What are you doing after this, Penny?” Luther asked.
“I don’t know. It’s Saturday night, what are you guys doing?”
“Oh, you don’t even know what we have planned,” Luther said.
“Would you have any interest in attending a night of spoken word performance at a bar not too far from here in order to support a college student group’s ambitions towards art?” Rory asked.
“It sounds fun,” Penelope said.
“By the way, you should know you are talking to the one and only J.W. von Goethe,” Rory said, “You might take this opportunity to ask some rather personal questions of a god.”
“Oh, wow,” Penelope said, “What did he do again?”
“Do you dare talk about me in the third person to my face?” Rory said.
“You’re just acting fucking creepy, man,” Spencer said, “You just naturally assume everyone knows who you’re supposed to be?”
“I am a poet, novelist, scientist, essayist, playwright, and a philosopher. You might say my genius has never been equaled,” Rory said.
“Did you do anything famous?” Penelope asked.
“I am remembered for Werther and Faust.” Rory explained, “Unfortunately, these will never be read again, except by college students in liberal arts programs, because no one will ever care about me again. I was a god, and now I am no more immortal than the peasant buried not fifteen paces from my eternal resting spot.”
“Look can we cut the bullshit role-playing,” Luther said, “Penelope there is something you should know. The two of us are tripping our balls off.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, “Now it all makes sense,”
“Right, it makes sense that they’re tripping,” Charles said. “So are you going to come with us, or not?”
“What time is it at?” she asked.
“9:30” Spencer said.
“And right now it is…” she looked at her watch,”8:00. Yeah, assuming I’m cut by 9, I should be able to go.”
“We have to kill another hour and a half here?” Rory said, “I’m getting restless, I need stimulation. I can’t stay in this same place forever.”
The bell on the front door of the coffee shop jingled. Ted looked over towards it, and he saw me.
“I’ve come for your blood,” I said to Ted, “Are you ready to hand it over?”