Just a Little Junk Read online

  She finally got out of the vehicle and jogged after him. They were heading towards a warehouse of some sort. Barren, crumbling apart in a few places. Birds flew around exposed rafters in one corner.

  It looked like no one had been there in years, and when they walked through a broken doorway, the whole place just appeared empty and dirty. Yet from somewhere within the labyrinth of rooms, they could hear a beat. Pumping bass. As they worked their way towards the sounds, they started to hear people. Laughter, shouting, a couple moans.

  “Have you ever met this Reggie guy before?” Jo whispered, staying close to Archer’s side. She’d never been to a rave before, and she wasn’t exactly in the mood to party. Her nerves were hanging on by a thread.

  “Once, at a rave a year or so ago,” Archer said back. “But people I know have partied with him a lot. He’s … kind of weird.”

  “How so?”

  “Just … weird. He’s been on the party scene for a long time. Maybe too long. Done a few too many drugs.”

  “Then should we really be selling him more?” she asked. He snorted.

  “Do you want to go through this weekend carrying an ounce of coke, or not? This was your idea, technically. We can go back outside if you want.”

  “No. A druggy weirdo, got it. I’m ready. I can do this,” she hyped herself up as they came to a stop in front of a large door.

  “You sure? It’s gonna be crazy in there,” he warned her, his hand on the knob. She nodded her head.

  “Totally sure. Let’s sell some drugs.”

  The music had been loud before, but when Archer opened the door, she thought the sound was going to knock her over. The bass was disrupting her heartbeat. He looked like he was laughing at her, but she couldn’t hear it. She just moved forward when he put a hand on her lower back and pushed.

  There were no real lights in the big space, just a bunch of Christmas lights wrapped around support beams, and of course glow sticks. Glow sticks EVERYWHERE. There were also people covered in all sorts of LED lights, and foam light sticks were being waved around throughout the crowd. Together, it all created a sort of technicolor ambient glow.

  And of course there were all the people! Bodies packed tightly together, all of them moving. Some to the beat, some not to the beat, but everyone smiling and having a good time. There was a lot of skin showing, and even more sweat. She saw two girls and guy making out in one corner, and when she turned away, she saw a daisy chain of people giving each other massages on the floor.

  “Hey!” some girl walked up and shouted at them. “You guys want your faces painted?”

  Jo stared at her for a moment. The chick had her hair in pigtails, gold glitter coating her lips, and a flower painted around one eye. She held a paintbrush in one hand and an actual palette in the other.

  “No thanks, we’re good!” Archer yelled back. The girl smiled, kissed Jo on the cheek, then skipped off.

  “I don’t think I like raves,” Jo said, and Archer just laughed and moved her along.

  She didn’t really get it. Maybe because she was from humble beginnings, or liked punk music more than techno, but she preferred a good old fashioned bar or night club. She couldn’t hear anything anyone was saying, it smelled overwhelmingly like cheap perfume and B.O., and worst of all, there didn’t seem to be any alcohol. Large garbage bins full of ice and water were everywhere, there were some sodas floating around, but no booze. What kind of party could it be without alcohol!? Someone offered her a Fanta, and when she grudgingly went to accept it, Archer grabbed her hand.

  “Do not drink anything here,” he instructed, leaning in so close to her ear, she could feel his lips against her skin.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because it’s probably laced with all sorts of shit.”

  “What kind of party is this!?”

  “Everyone is here to like ex-out and dance and PLUR and all that bullshit – if you’re here, it’s assumed you’re into it all,” he told her.

  “Are you speaking another language?” she asked. “I understood almost none of that.”

  “You’re so innocent, it’s adorable. C’mon, let’s go find this dude.”

  After asking around for a bit, they were led behind the makeshift DJ booth to another door. Some girl in gigantic fuzzy boots and a bikini led the way inside, babbling on and on about something, even though no one could hear her over the music. They went down a hallway, then entered an abandoned office.

  The first thing Jo noticed were the walls – someone had covered them all in egg crate mattresses. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw that even the inside of the door was coated in them. When the door was shut, all that padding very effectively blocked a lot of the music.

  The second thing she noticed was the man sitting against the back wall, and how absolutely ridiculous he looked. Like he was auditioning for a Panic! at the Disco cover band. He wore a top hat at a jaunty angle and had black eyeliner on his left eye. Not only on the lids, but also curling around the side of his socket in an intricate design. He was sitting down, yet she could tell his jacket was long, almost to his knees, and double breasted. He’d completed the look by tucking his pants into a pair of combat boots.

  “Where did I go wrong in my life?” she whispered to herself, and from beside her Archer coughed out a laugh.

  “Probably right about when you decided cutting class and getting stoned in high school was more fun than actually going,” he replied, and she gasped.

  “How did you know I used to do that?”

  He wasn’t given the chance to answer, though. Bikini girl had finished talking to the circus master and the strange man clapped his hands together.

  “Butterfly tells me you wanted to speak,” he said in a very obviously fake British accent.

  “Butterfly?” Jo couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing. Everyone stared at her and she cut it off with a cough.

  “Peace,” Butterfly said, smiling big before sashaying out of the room.

  “Hey, Reggie,” Archer said, waving his hand. “Remember me? We met like … last March? At that thing out in Riverside?”

  “Yes, yes, yes, of course,” the weird guy, Reggie, said. “Archer! Known as Sagittarius to the other zodiac signs. Orion in the constellations. Katniss in the Hunger Games.”

  It was so hard for Jo to hold in her laughter that time, she thought she was going to have an aneurysm.

  “Uh, yeah. Sure. Arrows, whatever. So, cool rave you got going here,” Archer steamrolled right through the weirdness.

  “Yes, thank you. We strive to provide a good time,” Reggie said, nodding his head in what she guessed he thought was a regal gesture.

  “I noticed that, and we were hoping to maybe make it a better time,” Archer offered.

  “Really? And what, exactly, did you have in mind?”

  “Uh, could we talk about it in private?”

  Everyone looked at the corner. Two girls were sitting together, their legs intertwined. Neither of them were wearing tops and they were painting their breasts with what looked like shoe polish.

  That’s gonna be a bitch to get off.

  “Trust me, we’re in private. What have you got for me?” Reggie asked, and his British accent was magically gone.

  “One ounce of the purest cocaine you’re gonna find this side of the Rio Grande, at the cheapest price,” Archer stated. Jo was impressed – he actually sounded like he knew what he was doing.

  “He comes bearing gifts!” Reggie belted out, throwing his hands up. “But why, one must wonder.”

  “We need the money,” Archer said simply. “You probably want a little pick me up when this rave enters its eleventh hour. Let’s help each other out.”

  “Alright. How cheap is cheap?”

  “Six hundred dollars.”

  “You said cheap, not full price. I’ll give you two hundred.”

  “Ha! Whatever you’ve had today must be amazing. Five hundred,” Archer countered.

  “Thre
e hundred, and not a penny more,” Reggie stated.

  “Four hundred. You know you’ll never get a price that good ever again, and this is good shit. Take it or leave it,” Archer said, standing up tall and pushing his shoulders back.

  “Hmmm, four hundred is very steep, considering I hadn’t planned on buying anything at all,” Reggie sighed.

  There was a long silence. Jo glanced between the two of them, but the men just stared at each other. Finally, Archer nodded his head and turned to her.

  “Right, we’re out of here. Skid Row, here we come.”

  He grabbed her arm and started hauling her towards the door, but a loud gonging noise stopped them. They whirled around to find Reggie banging what looked like a staff – a scepter? – against the ground. Archer folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes, and again, Jo was impressed. She was used to goofy Archer, so it was easy to forget he was actually fairly intimidating. Tall, lots of muscles, stern face. She folded her arms, as well, and tried to imitate his glare.

  “Such eager beavers!” Reggie laughed, his fake accent back again. “Four hundred dollars, and we drink to our partnership. Marigold!”

  One of the girls in the corner extracted herself and walked across the room to a large roll top desk. Jo noticed Archer’s eyes were glued to the woman’s chest, so she smacked him in the arm.

  “Sorry,” he snorted, as if she’d just woken him up. “Yeah, uh, Reggie, not much of a partnership, and we’re good on drinks. We’ll just take the money.”

  “I insist! A toast.”

  Marigold turned back from the desk, holding a tray in her hands. When she walked up to them, Jo saw that there was a stack of cash in the center of it, and three large glasses of what looked like orange juice on either side of the money.

  “Seriously, we’re not thirsty,” Jo held up her hand.

  “The beauty speaks, be still my heart! But alas, you will offend me if you don’t partake in my toast,” Reggie insisted.

  “Look, dude, we just want the cash,” Archer stated, and he pulled the baggy of cocaine out of his pocket. He threw it on the tray and went to grab the money, but then the cane thingy banged on the floor again. Marigold whirled around, putting the tray out of reach.

  “Let me put it this way – you have shown up at my rave uninvited,” Reggie said through clenched teeth as he climbed to his feet. “You have brought drugs with you. Drugs I neither requested nor needed, yet you are insisting I buy them. You haggled over the price, and now insist on turning your back on my hospitality so you can leave post haste. I must say, doesn’t that all sound a little … suspicious?”

  While he’d spoken, the other girl in the corner had stood up, and Marigold had turned back around. Everyone was staring at them with wide eyes, and it made Jo’s skin crawl. She felt like at any moment, one of them was going to mutate into a zombie and gnaw on her skull. Or maybe her face. What drug was it that made people eat faces? Was it ecstasy? The way Jo’s day was going, it probably was ecstasy.

  I don’t want to get my face eaten off. Not today.

  “Alright!” she shouted, startling everyone. “Whatever, fine, we’ll drink the fucking orange juice, okay?”

  She leaned forward and grabbed one of the glasses, toasted it in the air, then took a big gulp of the fruit juice. She noticed Archer wincing, but he eventually grabbed the other glass. He took a small sip, and Reggie finally smiled. He picked up the last glass and held it aloft.

  “To a new friendship, and a lovely afternoon.”

  They all took another drink, with Jo chugging the last of her juice. It tasted totally normal to her, no vodka, no bitterness from pills or anything like that, so she hoped for the best. She didn’t want to stay there any longer than necessary.

  “This is just juice, right?” Archer asked, nodding at Reggie’s glass.

  “Of course. I never partake when I’m in charge of the festivities,” the strange man replied, then he sipped at his juice and rolled it around in his mouth, making sucking sounds like he was a sommelier tasting a fine wine. Archer rolled his eyes, then finished off his own glass.

  They made awkward chit chat for a while. Marigold kindly offered to paint Jo’s breasts, which Archer heartily encouraged, but she politely declined. Reggie read them a poem he’d written, then told them all about the new kitten he’d just adopted. Its name? Wheatgrass.

  Of fucking course it is.

  It felt like they were in that room forever. The dust and smell of shoe polish was making Jo’s nose itch, and as each attempt to leave was rebuffed, she could tell Archer was becoming more and more agitated. Finally, after about half an hour, he held up a hand in the middle of another poem.

  “That’s awesome,” Archer said. “Goddamn amazing. They’ll be talking about your work for eons. But we seriously, really, need to go.”

  “It was nice doing business with you, Man of the Bow and Arrows,” Reggie dipped into a deep bow. “And fair lady, thank you for providing an inspiring view. I hope you’ll stay for a while, enjoy the music and love. Remember, anyone can dance at night – it takes true bravery to dance in the light of day.”

  Jo was out the door before the weirdo had even finished speaking. Archer shouted goodbyes, then slammed the door behind them before anyone could say anything else. They walked down the hall a couple feet, then paused before the door to the rave. They glanced at each other, then burst out laughing.

  “What the fuck was that?” she asked.

  “I have no fucking clue. I thought he’d never shut up! But hey, we got a couple hundred bucks out of it,” Archer pointed out. She laughed even harder, bending in half and holding her sides.

  “Four hundred dollars. We can get gas, and I can even pay back the bartender at work – he loaned me money the other week and will not shut up about it. And hey, we’ll still have enough money for Domino’s tonight.”

  “Domino’s sounds so good right now. Domino’s, and like a huge slushy,” he sighed, and she was surprised to feel his hand on her back, lightly scratching up and down.

  “A slushy, huh,” she chuckled as she slowly stood upright. “You sure you don’t want orange juice?”

  “What was that? Who has OJ on hand to offer to their drug dealing guests?” Archer asked.

  “No idea, but I haven’t been a drug dealer for very long, maybe it’s standard. You don’t, uh … you don’t think anything was in it, do you?” she asked, remembering his warning from earlier about accepting drinks at the rave.

  “No. He said there wasn’t, and besides, if there had been, we’d be feeling it already,” he assured her. She rolled her head from side to side, trying to judge whether or not she felt anything. Everything seemed normal, no hint of a high or foggy brain or drunkeness.

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re right. I feel great.”

  “You look great. I look great. We’re totally fine.”

  “Totally, totally fine.”

  *

  “I can’t feel my face!”

  Jo danced in a circle and rubbed her hands over her dance partner’s face. The other woman giggled and laughed.

  “Feels fine to me!” Jo yelled back.

  A man came in between them, waving his arms like crazy. She shouted and clapped her hands for him. As the song wound down, he leaned in and kissed her. Before he pulled away, he placed a glow stick necklace around her throat, and another smaller one around her head.

  “This place is amazing!” she laughed as he danced away.

  She couldn’t describe the feelings running through her body. Like she was a live wire, but also calm. Like she could feel everything as it was happening to her, every single sensation. The music was speaking to her soul, running through her veins and moving her muscles. Why didn’t she listen to techno more often!? It was life changing!

  It was like being in love. She was in love with the day. In love with raves, and dancing, and every single person in that room. All the beautiful lights
that were floating around, she swore she could feel them moving over her body. Like silk against her skin. The room was pulsing with energy, she could actually see it. Waves, rippling out from the DJ booth. Giving everyone in the room life.

  “This is amazing,” she gasped, coming to a stop. “I’m in love!”

  Everyone around her cheered and she turned in a circle, looking at all her new friends. Archer was nowhere to be seen and she felt like he needed to be there. He needed to share that moment with her, had to experience her epiphany.

  She barreled through the crowd, slipping and sliding against writhing bodies. Normally, she hated touching people she didn’t know, but for some reason she didn’t mind anymore. She enjoyed it right then, loved feeling their energy and their love washing over her.

  “Archer!” she squealed when she finally saw him. He was sitting at the end of a long, ratty couch that was full of people. He was talking very animatedly to a man sitting next to him, his hands waving in the air, water flying out of the bottle he was holding. She yelled his name again and he finally looked at her.

  “Jojo! Guys, guys, everyone – this is her!” he yelled back, gesturing from the group of people on the couch to her. Everyone cheered.

  “Jojo!”

  She hurried forward, but tripped over something and toppled onto the woman sitting at the foot of the couch. Everyone laughed, so Jo laughed, too. She proceeded to crawl down the length of the sofa, over all the people, and everyone just kept laughing and helped her along.

  “Oh my god, did you see that? I just crawled like a mile,” she gasped when she finally reached Archer. She squeezed into the non-existent space between him and the man next to him, halfway sitting on his lap.

  “You’re amazing, thank you for doing that,” he told her, wrapping an around her shoulders and hugging her close.

  “Why have we never been to a rave before? This is literally – literally – the best day of my life,” she said.

  “I’ve been to a rave before,” he pointed out.

  “Well, you should’ve invited me! I could have had the best day a lot sooner!” she laughed, hitting him in the chest. Before she could hit him again, he grabbed her hand and pressed it down over his heart.