by Mitch Goth
Outside, Ben’s Cadillac still waited patiently. Rain got into the car silently and looked straight ahead. Nobody else in the car made a sound, they were waiting for her to say something. But impatience quickly set in on the trio.
“What’d he want?” Ben inquired.
“I see you’re not dead, that’s a good sign,” Dando joked.
“We just talked some more,” Rain said, still staring out of the windshield. “I drank his whiskey and smoked his cigars.”
“That’s it?” Joe scoffed, not believing Vin would offer his house to anyone for such a simplistic reason.
“He also gave me this,” Rain brandished the bag with the single orange pill in it.
“No fuckin’ way,” Joe was struck breathless by the sight of the pill.
“Is that Vin’s new stuff?” Ben wondered, equally shocked.
Rain nodded.
“It’s beautiful,” Dando said, entranced by the bag.
“Why would he give it to you?” Joe asked.
“He said he needed someone to test it and tell him how it was, and to advertise it to people when you start to sell it. He told me that I can leave any time I want if I do that for him,” Rain explained, finally turning away from the windshield to address them directly. It was at this point she finally saw just how amazed they were. “Is it that big of a deal?”
“He’s been working on that formula for two years now,” Ben replied.
“Two years and some change,” Dando corrected. “I can’t believe it’s finally done.”
“So what do I do?” Rain looked at the three of them.
“You take it,” Dando shrugged.
“Hang on,” Ben stalled, “we were gonna go to a rave on the roof of an old apartment building, save it until then.”
“A rave? Why?” Rain inquired.
“To celebrate you surviving,” Ben answered comically.
“We probably would’ve gone either way though,” Joe added humorlessly.
“So, yeah, you want the full experience, wait until we get there,” Ben started up his car and pulled out quickly, now far more eager to get to the party.
“Man, I can’t wait to see this,” Dando said almost giddily.
“Chill, Dando,” Joe sighed.
“I’m just sayin’, the party ain’t that far away,” Dando pointed out, “if the pill is as good as its supposed to be, it’ll last a long ass time. What could it hurt to do it now? Drivin’ around on it could be pretty awesome too.”
“I hate to admit it, but the man has a point,” Joe shrugged. “If we gonna test it the right way, we ought to do it anyplace people could get high on it. A car included. Plus, he probably won’t shut up about it until you do it.”
“I probably won’t,” Dando nodded with a chuckle.
“If you don’t mind,” Ben looked to Rain, “I really wanna see it too.”
Rain looked down at the bag. The pill was far more terrifying now. It was different than her other first times with other drugs. This was a completely dark zone. There wasn’t anyone telling her what it was like, how fast it’d come on, what the come down would be like, what it would do and when. She was on her own.
She looked at the eager faces around her. After a moment of racing thoughts, she finally figured she’d have to take it soon anyway, and sooner was better than later. She opened the bag and slid the little orange pill into her palm. Her hand shook as she looked down at it.
“Well?” Dando leaned over the passenger seat to get a look at the pill in her hand.
Clearing her mind for an instant, Rain threw the pill into the back of her throat and tilted her head up. In a flash it was gone and she leaned slowly back down. She looked around the car, the three were still watching her every movement. Finding their stares odd, she looked straight out the windshield once again and waited anxiously.
At first all was normal, apart from her crippling nervousness. But then, the nervousness seemed to fall away for a reason she couldn’t quite pinpoint. This caught her mind immediately, and Rain instantly began thinking as fast as she could for a reason she’d lose her nervousness. Throughout this intense thought session, she seemed to forget about everything else around her, it all fell into blackness against her internal conflict.
By the time her eyes finally readjusted and focused, the world outside the car was a different place. Every car that drove around them left long capes of red illumination behind them, their lights were paintbrushes creating an oddly artistic amazement against the jet-black backdrop of the Kansas City night.
Stunned by the beauty the car lights created, Rain lifted a hand up to set her face into, only to find her arms were strangely heavy and partially numb. She had to watch carefully as she set her head into her hand to ensure she didn’t miss the target.
“Christ almighty,” Dando’s voice came distantly in, as if he were speaking through an early phonograph.
“It’s hittin’ like a ton of bricks,” Joe’s voice came next, hardly audible in Rain’s ears.
“Rain, you alright?” Ben wondered, he voice was accompanied by a mysterious static, as if he were calling to her through a snowy channel on an old TV.
Rain tried to respond, but her jaw, teeth, and tongue all weighed a ton. She opened her mouth slowly and carefully, needed the utmost precision to produce even a single competent tone.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, or at least she hoped that’s what she’d said. It came clearly in her mind, and that was good enough for her.
“You want a cigarette?” Ben offered distantly.
“Nope, I’m peachy,” Rain giggled at what she’d just said. She’d never used that expression before in her life, but found it perfectly fitting in this situation. That fact she found hilarious. Her laugh wasn’t booming or overly noticeable by any means, but it was there all the same, and seemed to be ever-present. She couldn’t even hear the chuckles she produced, but somehow knew they were still audible. The others could probably hear her low laughter, but she didn’t care in the slightest.
“You sure you’re fine?” Dando asked from some direction.
“Don’t you worry about me,” Rain replied slowly. “Don’t worry about yourself either. You won’t have to worry about a thing when you start sellin’ this. It’s gonna make you all billionaires.”
“Vin ought to be happy to hear that,” Dando’s laughs echoed and boomed through the cave-like interior of the car.
Rain hadn’t noticed the size of the Cadillac interior until this point. To her, the back seat extended for miles and the ceiling was high enough to have stalactites dangling off of it. Its abnormal size was foreboding, and the echoing snickers only enhanced its perceived size.
Wanting to have some opening to free herself from this oddly constricting expanse, Rain reached one of her heavy hands towards the window button. She fumbled with the button for several moments, nearly opening the door in the process. But her mark was found soon after that and the window slid down swiftly, exposing the outside world as well as the whipping winds.
Rain stuck her hand slowly out the window, being careful not to get too close to nearby cars, despite the fact she had several feet between herself and the closest of the close. As soon as her hand contacted the wind a new euphoria took over her. The wind caressed her skin like delicate feathers, with just a hint of electric tingling. In no time she was leaning her other arm and then her head out of the car and into the endless stream of electric feather wind.
As the wind flew through her hair, the euphoria reached a peak. The fine touches hugged every follicle, and she could feel every single one. The electricity sent a shocking pleasure straight into her brain, clearing her mind of anything other than the feeling of it all.
Needing to move to express her elation, Rain chose to grip hard against the exterior metal of the car. She kept gripping hard and harder as the wind came whipping, no doubt scratching away some paint as her nails pressed against the cold steel.
She hadn’t felt anything
like this since she was a child and the lightest of light drizzles came through her neighborhood. The water that fell was as fine as sleet and warmer than any other storm she’d experienced up to then or ever since. The feeling of that calmingly warm, impossibly fine drizzle engulfed her entire body as the electric wind slid gently across her.
“What’s it feel like?” Dando’s far away voice came back into her head.
She leaned slightly back into the car and was sure to speak loud enough for everyone to hear, “delicate rain.”
9
