separated! Hold on!” I shouted. We were wash- ing out to sea. e onslaught rolled into us and we pushed against the tide. “Head toward the back!” e mob moved like enchanted cattle, jammed together, through the small opening. Beyond the doors behind us, a wild, swirling Pleasure Island awaited. A vortex. e nexus. Flashing walls and blaring music grew louder and brighter with every second … It destroyed me, riveting the spine, overwhelming the ner- vous system. “Don’t go in,” I yelled to Huxley. “We’ll fucking die in there. It’s an orgy!” e crowd was ready to whisk us into the mayhem. All sorts of glitz and eects whooshed upon our tails. Was there another way out? We weaved along until I peered over my shoulder. Ford was going the wrong way. He’d been roped in, following the bouncing herd. I imagined him caught in the throes of sudden claustrophobia, thrashing about in a full contact disco fever. ey’d have to tranquilize him. Was it a cage? Was it a UFO? What the actual fuck? I rushed to grab him in the knick of time. e crowd was still pushing around us. He fell into a woman wrapped in a huge mink coat, then righted himself and ew back forward. e commotion was too much; an usher rushed over. I braced for 1200 volts from a taser, but no debilitating shock came.... Maybe cross-eyed crackpots showed up every time, just like this? How many others had been utterly bualoed by the bar downstairs, expecting to purchase tickets for the ‘A’ Line to Brooklyn? Ford was persistent. “Was this the steak- house? We're here for the photos… ere was a menu? Maybe some steak bites?” e usher spun around, “Are you with the show?” he asked me. “Oh! Right! We will… take care of him,” I assured the man. “Are you with the show?” he growled again. In my peripheral, Huxley, too, was ghting o a bouncer asking for tickets. Was he trying to get in with his convention wristband? I must explain things, I thought. I was restrained … yes, innocuous enough for polite conversation. But as I slung my arm around the attendant, I could sense in his recoil that I was not. “What I’m trying to say is, my associates have no idea what’s going on, right now, in this venue, ” I told him. “Ah, here we go!” Ford declared, bolting for the corner. Beyond the hot dog stand was – yes, a restaurant foyer? Or was it a hair salon, with late-century modern checkered oor? Another door stated ‘Exit’ – but in his trance he went
storming to the right, trapping himself behind the bar in utter panic. e bartenders scram- bled to let him through, unsure what he was aer – clearly not money or booze. He bumped around like a pinball, rattling the glasses, and made it back out the same way. I bum-rushed him, trying to steer him out of the frenzy, but he was spinning. With spastic gestures he now communicated to another sta member that he needed a restroom – and was guided to the exit. He ung it open and vanished. I wheeled around to see the last of the crowd slip away. Just as fast as the pandemonium had begun, the cave was quiet again – with only the mued boom of hot funk beyond the orange doors – but the resounding vacuum was strik- ing. Ford was gone. Everyone was gone. e sudden pull of exhaustion nearly brought me to my knees. Maybe I should just take a quick nap, I thought. Plenty of cushions to choose from. No. at's what they'd want me to do …. I found Huxley up the small ight of stairs, nodding his head quietly to the beat as he stared at the endless ceiling of disco balls. He was still in the grips of spaced-out neurosis and scanned the room suspiciously when he saw me approaching. “How long should we wait for Ford?” he asked. “Where did he go?” Terrorizing a kitchen somewhere? Was he lost? Into the Maze… Tethered or Dead F inally, we went searching. Ford was nowhere out here in the small dark cor- ridor. We’d stepped into the void–there was nothing. Not a person, no lights, no signs, nothing. Was there really a bathroom? Did he disappear through another portal? “Ford!” we whispered into the air. “Ford!” Was that an echo? Another cavern… Hikers lost in the wilderness, we sensed the best thing to do was to wait to be found, or at very least, develop a plan. e last thing we should pos- sibly do, was go looking for help. He was a goner. It’d been too long. He’d been kidnapped. Or maybe even arrested. Aer the incident at the bar, I could almost hear the sta pressing Ross: “Did you invite those guys from High Times? Did you realize they were hysterical?” “Well, sure – they were yammering at bullhorn volume about conspiracies and Lawrence Welk, but I gured they were too harmless to be committed.” “More like, tantruming rabid dogs in ght-or-
116 MARCH/APRIL 2026
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