Amazon

 

Barnes & Noble

 

Powell's

 

Lick Me Synopsis

For most of my adult life I live an alternative lifestyle, keeping a secret that not everyone knows about. Then I meet a girl like Norah Parrish and she shows me a secret that’s even darker, more meaningful.

But no matter what kinda alternative lifestyle I live, what culture I follow, eventually, it'll become mainstream. Catch on as the next fashion trend. Show up on television worn by MTV personalities.

Goth used to be cool. Now it has its own store in the mall. Punk rock used to mean something. Now it's a hairdo, a piercing in a weird spot. Hip-Hop once changed my life. Now it's a brand name for clothes, cell phones, and tennis shoes.

Nobody can just enjoy art anymore. It has to be exploited. Made to become bigger than life and eventually hated for the rest of the decade until we see another renaissance.

Seth Barton throws illegal rave parties in abandoned buildings. Norah Parrish is a college student with dreams of starting her own cosmetic company. Claiming the Alter Ego Defense, both could justify their hidden secrets. On their own, they manage to stay below the radar. Together, they make national headlines. The question is will the public hang the super heroine Hot Pink, who gathers names of rapists through a self-made "helpline" for victims of rape, and then hunts them down, enforcing her own version of justice? Or will they vindicate the team of Norah and Seth, embracing them to the point of mainstream media? But the public is the least of their worries...

Through the use of dark satire, Lick Me is a wickedly funny tale from an original voice that shows no mercy when writing upon the immoral standards of network television that interprets news worthy headlines by ratings, while an easily influenced culture finds their "truths" in celebrity tabloids.

 

Chapter One

The cool thing about life is that it could last a very long time. The downside is you don’t always have control.

That’s what I think about trapped in the trunk of my car. Inside looks like walking into a dark bathroom and saying “Bloody Mary” ten times in a row.

Yes, I’m scared like you wouldn’t believe.

Hold your breath for five minutes. When you begin breathing again, that’s how I’m breathing.

Rub the side of your face against the carpet and feel what it’s like to be uncomfortable, limited in your movements.

Only the poor laboratory animals can relate to how I feel.

The road below me sounds like a CD skipping as it runs over potholes. My body feels like it’s on a children’s Moonwalk as it bounces, Bounces, BOUNCES around the inside of the trunk. I put pressure on the floor, hoping it will stop the sudden jolts. I’m wishing for any miracle to occur, but my hopes aren’t that high. In any traumatic episode you think the worst before anything else.

Slowing down, the AC is blowing full blast. I can’t hear what the kidnappers are saying up front, but I do recognize 50 Cent’s lyrics as It’s Your Birthday booms from the speakers over my head. It’s just loud enough to cover up their voices. It’s not deafening loud, just surreal, strange. How did they know?

Baa-boom! Ba-boom, ba-boom!

More potholes.

Right now feels like that time I went camping with Lewis, and as I was in a deep sleep he screamed in my ear that the tent was on fire.

Freaking out, I jolted forward trying to open up the zipper. With my eyes like a dirty windshield, I wiped, wiped again, only to see the smoke linger and fill the inside of the tent like a balloon.

I knew if I didn’t open the tent, me and Lewis were going to burn alive. I was trapped inside just like I am right now—only, in this case, it’s for real. The whole camping thing was Lewis’s sick prank to freak me out.

Lewis is always full of pranks.

After a few seconds of screaming, “I can’t get the fucker open, help!” Lewis, peace-signing a cigarette, laughed like crazy, saying, “Sike!”

He said, “Dude. Dude! I was just kidding, it’s cigarette smoke, chill.”

Right now, Lewis isn’t here to do the whole Punk’d thing. Right now is for real, and just like back then when I thought I was going to burn alive, multiply that by fifty and that’s how living in this moment feels—dark and scary, like being in the trunk of your own car. It’s scary the way a psychic tells you about a dim future you believe will happen.

If fate exists, I seriously didn’t see it coming.

            If my teeth were hands, I’d be doing a standing ovation.

            If my heart wasn’t sheltered behind my lungs and ribs, it would’ve popped out of its cage like a wild animal.

            Call this kidnapping.

            It’s embarrassing. It’s walking into a screen door that looked open embarrassing. It’s being de-pants’d in gym class so everyone can see you bagged in urine-stained cotton embarrassing.

            Nothing’s worse than not seeing it coming.

            Lewis’ pranks.

            Fate.

            The two masked individuals who shoved me in my own trunk like a dead deer.

            And just think—today is my birthday.

            As you can tell, I’m not that happy about it.

Chapter Two

The twist of a key, the sound of a pin falling on the tile ground as the car door unlocks—the trunk pops open and the kidnappers pull me out of the fetal position and I can only imagine what it must’ve felt like being yanked out of the birth canal. With one kidnapper having a handful of my collar, the other gripping my ankles, they carry me out into the blurry, bright world where I see sun spots, see the confusing equivalent of a foggy car window with condensation slowly sliding before I have to close my eyes tight to swallow anymore tears back inside the folds of my eyelids before they get a chance to leak out.

            With my wrists and ankles still held together by duct tape, I wiggle around trying to make sense of my surroundings, to actually see what’s ahead of me. But the fight only causes more of a stir as the kidnapper loses his grip on my collar and drops me on my face.

            Inhaling dust with a film of dirt floating on my tongue and up my nose, I can hear the kidnapper speak for the first time, yelling, in a feminine tone, “Shit!”

            I feel a hand swatting at my face as I spit from the side of my mouth. I stick out my tongue and let the drool just dangle down to my chin as dust connects to my taste buds like lint stuck on a wool sweater.

            “Shit!” she says again, then smacks my tongue with her gloved hand. She uses my own drool and wipes it along my forehead and eyes.

            She picks me back up by my collar.

            The two kidnappers continue to carry me where the dim setting of a warehouse blocks out the bright, blinding light of the sun. I finally see the black knitted mask of the kidnapper holding onto my ankles, and the sight of the monster turns the thoughts circling around in my head into gasps of heavy breathing as my only voice to holler out for help.

            Gripping and re-gripping the back of my collar, the female voice speaks again, saying, “Hey. Where do ya wanna put ’im?”

            Carrying me across the frozen lake of gray concrete, the kidnapper, clamped like handcuffs around my ankles, looks over his shoulder, breathes heavily out of his nostrils and talks tough saying, “We’ll … We’ll put ‘im in the chair over there.” They both let go and I drop onto the cold cement ground, all of my weight pushing my elbow into my ribcage. The pain makes me grind my teeth and arch my back out.

            Seeing me hurt, one of the kidnappers kicks me in the thigh, so I can roll onto my side. He lifts me up by two handfuls of my shirt and throws me in the chair, saying, “You thought …” He takes a moment to catch his breath, places his hand on my knee and swallows before saying again, “You thought you could get away with it, huh? Thought they called you Mr. Slick, right?” He looks over his shoulder to look at the other kidnapper and says, “This bitch ain’t slick, right?”

            Behind him, the female kidnapper takes off her gloves and throws them at me. She answers, “He ain’t slick. He looks too scared to be slick.”

            Two pairs of eyes look back at me like hungry night predators in the wild as I remain speechless and look at the ground.

            Shuffled footsteps rush past me. The kidnapper, catching his breath, puts his hands around my neck and squeezes just enough to make the air wheeze in and out of my throat. Hands come out from behind me and put duct tape over my mouth. Aqua blue nail polish presses the sticky substance against my lips and cheeks before slipping away.

            The other kidnapper lets go of my neck and stands over me. He points his shotgun barrel of a finger in my face and says, “Now they won’t hear you … Now they won’t hear you scream like a little girl.”

            My head twists from side to side, trying to catch a glimpse of the kidnapper behind me.

            The kidnapper standing before me grabs my attention once again and hollers out, “Do you hear me, bitch? Do you fuckin’ hear me?” Then, he slaps me hard in the face.

            I wan to run right now, but I’m frozen in fear. My boogie man is the other kidnapper lurking behind every corner, every shadow, every inch of space out of my peripheral vision.

            I finally speak, holler out in pain, “Lewis you’re such a dick!” But with the duct tape over my mouth it sounds like, “Wrruf yvv scha ik!”

            I shake my head from side to side, growl at the ground, and spit on myself.

            I say it again, “Wrruf yvv scha ik!”

            Over and over again those words build in my cheeks and release through my nostrils as I clench my fists, flex every muscle in my body because that piece of shit I call my best friend never met me at the grocery store like we planned.

            We were supposed to buy bottled water before the party. We were supposed to pick up the t-shirts and rent the van and pick up the sound equipment and give directions to the lighting guys, but that nimrod never showed up.

            Pacing from side to side, the kidnapper stops and yells, “What?”

            He stomps closer to the chair and reaches down his pants. Yelling and moaning in the gagging kidnapped language of fear, “Dear God, no!” the kidnapper pulls out a gun and sticks it in my face.

            Relieved it wasn’t his penis, I close my eyes and thank any higher power that is listening. When I open them back up the mouse hole of death called the barrel of his gun is inches away from my forehead. He cocks the hammer back and says, “What? What the fuck did you just say to me, bitch?”

            With blood dripping from my nose and sweat dropping off my chin, making blemish marks and spotted stains of my passing life on my jeans, I know time is up. I’m really going to be killed.

            Then, comfort comes in the form of a dark mask that covers my head.

            I can’t see anything, but I hear everything.

            I hear those shuffled footsteps circling around me. I hear the cross-country run of my own breath.

            More footsteps.

            My face heats with perspiration, dripping down from my hairline and soaking into the duct tape around my mouth that slowly peels off.

            I hear more footsteps, more shuffling about.

            The kidnapper says, “You ready little girl, you ready to be surprised?”

            All I can yell is “Fuck you!”

            I yell it again, “Fuck you!”

            The kidnapper hollers out, “You ready …”

            “Fuck you!”

            “… You ready to be surprised?”

            “Fuck You!” I yell and shift from side to side in the chair. I shake my head and try to break the tape wrapped around my hands and ankles.

            “Now!” the kidnapper yells.

            The mask is ripped off my face as my jaws chomp down, hoping to bite off a finger. I see all my friends standing before me, all yelling in unison, “Surprise!”

            Leaning back in the chair out of breath, everyone begins to sing Happy Birthday.

            There’s a girl’s voice in my ear, the same female voice that was holding onto my collar that goes, “Stay still. I’m cutting the tape.”

            Confused, all I can do is bite down on my lower lip, oddly stare across all of the smiling faces from my friends, and fight off the tears that are building up. When my ankles are freed, I stand up, thinking how this …

            … was this all a prank?

            I lock eyes with Lewis who is laughing at me, pointing his finger at me and slapping his knee. I find myself walking in his direction. He opens his arms and wants a hug.

            Instead, I give my best friend a roundhouse right into his jaw that drops his sorry ass.

            Everyone stops singing as arms tangle into mine to hold me back. I call Lewis a dick over and over again and try to press through the arms of my friends to hit Lewis once again.

            They drag me out of the warehouse to cool off, to remind me it was all a joke, that’s it.

            Outside, the female kidnapper approaches me after a cigarette and a few cans of Red Bull. She has the knitted mask rolled up on her forehead, heavy dark makeup around her eyes like a raccoon. She holds onto an ice pack and says, “Happy Birthday, Seth.”

            My blank stare back at her is code for wanting to punch her in the face while saying, thank you.

            She says, “And, oh yeah, I’m really sorry for dropping you on your head. Here, dude.”

            I don’t hold a grudge. I place the ice pack against my forehead and say, “It’s cool, no problem, um, what’s your name?”

            “Norah,” she says.

            “Well, Norah are you coming tonight?”

            “Where?” she asks.

 Chapter Three

BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            “Welcome to Lick Me!”

            That’s how Lewis greets everyone after he’s taken the money and stamped their hands.

            He says, “Fifteen dollars, please.” Stamp. “Welcome to Lick Me!”

            That’s him behind the receptionist desk, looking like a framed self-portrait as he hangs out of the peek-a-boo sliding glass window.

            The line of people standing around him was once the waiting room. The couch, the chairs, the small square end tables with back issues of subscription magazines have all been replaced with people waiting in line. They have that packed-together look of being in an elevator, with the tinted-window front doors wide open.

            Inside, everyone looms like Christmas lights blinking in red, blue, and green. They have glow sticks around their arms and necks, plastic rings that blink on and off, on and off around their fingers.

            Shadows like murals take up most of the wall space.

            The line is all the way out the door. As it moves up, someone else grabs the door and leans against it waiting to get in.

            Everyone chain-smokes while they wait. They sip from their water bottles, talk like the deaf who speak through their noses, as the bass from the other room fuzzes up their hearing like the after-effects of sucking on a nitrous balloon.

            Wha-wha, wha-wha. BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom. BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            The stamp we’re using is the Rolling Stones trademark tongue logo, only slightly modified.

            With the tongue all big and huge overlapping the bottom lip, we decided to have it pierced with a dumb-bell at the tip.

            A custom-made rubber stamp.

            This is a reflection of the times we are in.

            Everything evolves. Everything eventually goes through a face-lift, becomes a fresh new look veered towards younger crowds.

            Bass echoes off the walls, coming from the next room. You can’t see where all the commotion is coming from in the waiting room, you have to pass through a curtain of black tarp to enter inside the party.

            This is for build-up effects, adrenaline rushes. What you can’t see, but can hear, attracts you. It speeds up the movement of the line, gets everyone excited and in quicker.

            BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            Your neck gets stamped with neon green glow-in-the-dark ink. We do this for two reasons:

            One, it’s hard to place the stamp on the back of someone’s hand because everyone usually has their hands loaded with other stamps and X marks from clubs that use permanent marker.

            I used to hate having those marks on my hand. It wouldn’t come off for a few days. Scrubbing my skin so hard with soap and a sponge, it was like giving me a sissy test with an eraser.

            Sometimes it hurt that bad.

            Two, we stamp your neck because your parents won’t know what you did that night. No visible scars to prove anything. It’s the opposite of that drunken escapade you went on during Spring Break when you woke up the next day with a tattoo on your arm or your lip pierced.

            Try explaining that one.

            Don’t worry, it won’t happen here unless you take something you’re not supposed to. But if this is your first time here at one of these parties, you better pray for control.

            “Fifteen dollars, please.”  Stamp.    “Welcome to Lick Me!”

            Everyone present tonight are nameless faces. They’re new hair colors rather than names that can be remembered.

They’re new piercings. New tattoos. Self-made balloon pants that have window-curtain patterns sewn in the seams to look like dresses. They’re crooked baseball caps. Thick over-sized sweatshirts. Painted faces. Snowcaps. Backpacks. Everyone is a trademark of a trademark of a personalized logo of self-identity rather than a name that can be remembered week after week.

            What it comes down to is you won’t recall the kid you spoke with at the last party, but you will remember his hair was red last week, when this week it’s blonde.

            You won’t remember if a girl is Susan or Samantha, but you will recall she didn’t have that piercing last time you saw her.

            That’s how we’re all characterized. Not by name, but by looks.

            “Fifteen dollars, please.” Stamp. “Welcome to Lick Me!”

            Lewis’s trademark can be identified by the following: He has that hairy beanbag look of pubic hair under his chin. Beef jerky length dreadlocks with the tips dyed blonde. A visor on his head the wrong way. He has one working ear while the other is a stage prop. It’s just for looks. It doesn’t serve any real purpose. He was born that way, without a working right ear, I mean.

            He’ll tell you different, though, if you ask. He’ll tell you it was from a lawnmower accident when he was younger.

            A chainsaw mishap when he was cutting branches.       

            One of those bizarre occurrences like it just fell off. But really he was born without an ear, born with one side of his face to have that masked gunman look.

When he was younger, Lewis had surgery to have the stage prop surgically implanted. It’s made from his rib and skin like an ivory comb or a fur coat, welded to his head like a hood ornament.

            Lewis says “what?” a lot.

            “Welcome to Lick Me. Yeah it’s my tongue! What?”

            That’s the name of the party. The flyers were handed out at all the hip coffee shops, record stores, and clothing boutiques. One floated around the Internet as a friendship message, saying, “You will have good luck if you pass this letter to ten other friends you know.”

            I’m pretty sure the flyer crossed numerous state lines. 

            Printed on the flyer is Lewis’s tongue sticking out long and big like the trunk of an elephant, a silver barbell protruding out at the end.

            Think of Gene Simmons.

            Our point in having Lewis’s tongue on the flyer was to make it look like your hand was being licked every time you picked it up.

            When Lewis had it pierced a year ago, I remember it swelled up to the size of a T-bone steak. It got infected. Big and swollen with a piece of metal sticking out of it like a tooth-pick.

            He stuck out his tongue for me after he got it done. It looked gross, I couldn’t look at it.

            Think of a cow’s tongue, huge and slimy. That’s what it looked like.

            I remember it was painful for him. But it didn’t matter because he said it would look cool later on.

            Pus would be pumping out of that slimy tiny hole like a squeeze bottle of ketchup. Pus and blood, pumping and leaking and breathing like a heart. It was so big and ugly. But again, he said it would look cool after. And you know what? He was right. It made his tongue into a celebrity, if that’s possible.

            His pierced tongue was photographed and printed over and over again, then passed out as an invitation to come to the next party.

            Just from looking at the flyer you couldn’t say, “Yeah, that’s Lewis’s tongue.” But he’ll let you know different if you comment on the flyer while giving him the cash. He’ll even stick out his tongue for you to match it up like a mug shot to prove he’s telling you the truth.

            That’s Lewis for you, he’s my best friend.

            “Fifteen dollars, please.” Stamp. “Welcome to Lick Me!”

            BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            Pass through the curtain of black tarp. Picture a warehouse where rows of cubicles once lined up like soldiers are now replaced by people that look like puppets from a TV show, dancing and running around. Big groups stand off to the side talking and giving each other massages. They wear jeans that could fit a 500-pound man. They wear huge t-shirts with some catchy logo that state Kool-Ass instead of Kool-Aid. They suck on pacifiers. Have liberty spikes. Ponytails dyed silver. Shaved, bleached heads. Silver ball necklaces. Armband tattoos. Alien Antenna headbands. Secret handshakes. Oakley wrap-a-round sunglasses. Platform shoes. Furry Kangol hats. Thumb rings. Tight camouflage ribbed t-shirts. Plastic barrettes. Feather scarves. Adidas logos. Fila logos. Afros. Silver metallic button-up shirts. Fubu jump suits. Halter-tops. Whip-long glow sticks. Bracelet glow sticks. All of this appears to you after you’ve passed through the curtain of tarp.

            You smell Nag Champa incense. You walk into total darkness as your pupils adjust to the stage lights. Everything hits you suddenly like entering a packed roller-skating rink, feeling a constant breeze as bodies fly past you. Then the smoke machine will kick in and you won’t be able to see anything except for a shadow play of moving bodies, that flashlight game of finger puppets as everyone continues dancing.

            That’s when you drop your backpack, feeling the breath of the bass take over your body. You start dancing, slowly getting into the groove. A smile forms. Your eyes close. Your body sways from side to side as you rhythmically play sign language with your hands because the music sounds so good.

            Then out of nowhere—

            —WHACK!

            You get smacked in the head by some crazed raver twirling a glow stick rope like it was a lasso. You take a few steps back as the lightsaber whip disappears through the fog. You raise the flag of your middle finger in the air as you rub your head, looking around to make sure no one else is in your space—your comfort box. Then, you let the music take you over once again, to that euphoric state you’ve been waiting all week to be consumed by, as your head bobs up and down and your feet move with the BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom. BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom. You hear the bass, thumping, bumping.

            Tweaking sounds erupt like they’re coming from an out-of-tune electric guitar. The lights up above swing in all directions, in every color and spread across the dark, huge warehouse like pesticide being sprayed across an acre of cropland.

            You hear an amplified blue-jean zipper being yanked up and down. One continuous note blaring from a trumpet. That’s what the music sounds like as it pulses with life.

            Think of a defibrillator shocking the crowd to get them moving, swaying, rocking, and bobbing their heads up and down. Throwing their arms from side to side and around their bodies like a mob of people gathered together at Mardi Gras.

            You hear the sound of a train whizzing by, the sound of lips smacking together, and a tongue flapping against the roof of a mouth.

            As the smoke clears, you see the DJ on his own pedestal, perched up on a stage, and grabbing records from crates and smacking them on the turntables. His head bounces up and down with headphones connected to one ear, playing with the cross-fader to bring a new record to life.

            You hear the sound of a knife being sharpened, fingers tapping the top of a table, that sledgehammer sound of knocking down a wall—all blending together, all getting louder as the people’s screams intensify with the vibe of the atmosphere.

            The lights flicker above like heat lamps. You feel the mist of sweat whipped off from dancing bodies and land on your arms and face. Adrenaline pumps from an overdrive of emotion and the two Red Bulls you slammed before getting licked. The music is so loud everyone talks in mime.

            It’s all here. It keeps growing. This is a rave party.

            BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            This is where you let loose for one night and forget who you are in society. Return to being the kid that once loved to play in the fast food restaurant jungle gym while your mother sat sipping coffee. This is where the business grad goes who’s a closet cross-dresser. It’s where the secretary goes to experiment with drugs for the first time. Where the loner goes to meet with friends who only exist when the party starts and until the party ends.

            This is where the drug dealer makes his rent money.

            BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            You better get here quick! You better not miss it, or you’ll have to wait a whole week to try again. Because when it’s all over with, when the sun begins to rise and the DJ plays the last record, the only thing that will exist is any memories you can harvest after the Ecstasy wears off. That and the flyer.

            That’s your only nostalgia. Save it for a scrapbook. It’s vintage paraphernalia to hang in your room like a special edition poster that came with a CD or TV Guide.

            Everyone saves their flyers the way people save coins or stamps. This will be all you have to show that what you did really existed, that you were actually here. Nothing seems real after 1 a.m. It all seems like a dream until you actually wake up.

            Before Lick Me it was Beat Box. Before that it was The Glo-Stick Party. Trance All Night. Tech-no for an Answer.

            Do you still have these flyers?

            Understand that what I do is illegal. I do not have a permit to throw these parties. I did not have the fire chief walk through this warehouse to make sure it’s up to code. This is what you call marking your territory. Think of me pissing on all the drywall to tell other rave promoters, “Get back! I found this place first.”

            Like I said before, after it’s all done, I was never here. This party was never thrown.

            If you got the flyer, call the phone number on the back. The recorded message will give you directions to a 7-Eleven. There you’ll see La-La, Lewis’s girlfriend, sipping on a Slurpee, and hanging around the parking lot.

            La-La’s trademark can be identified by the following: Bright pink hair in pigtails. Long, fake eyelashes caked with black mascara. White powder cover-up on her face to look like a porcelain doll. Red lipstick. A Strawberry Shortcake t-shirt two sizes too small. Thigh-high shorts. Black fishnet stockings. Bright white patent leather thigh-high boots. And a limited edition My Little Pony backpack that, during the ‘80s, was given away when you purchased a Happy Meal.

            La-La bought it on eBay. Lewis and La-La like to collect junk.

            She’s the one you show the flyer to. She’s the one who decides if you go to the party or not. If you get turned down, she’ll tell you, in a childlike voice, she’s waiting for a ride and doesn’t know what you’re talking about. Then she’ll put a Blow-Pop in her mouth—that’s code for “Fuck-off!”

            But, if you look like a raver and act like a raver, if you start dancing in the parking lot without any music, or just walk up and give La-La an automatic hug, a kiss on the cheek, she’ll give you a slip of paper that has directions to an industrial complex. She’ll say, “When you enter the complex, turn down your stereo and follow the sound of bass to know what building it’s in.”

            BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            BOOM. BOOM. Boom, boom, boom.

            That’s how we get away with it. That’s how we run a party without bringing along a negative vibe like cops, drunken frat boys, or suburbanites looking to

O.D. One stop after another like a scavenger hunt, X marks the spot.

            I still have the flyer from the first party I ever went to. It was called Violation. The promoter threw it during a time when cops had a hard-on to bust up parties they called “Illegal Dancing Venues.”

            The flyer was made to look like a parking ticket. It had the yellow carbon copy behind the white “For Office Use Only” copy.

            You could say that party changed my life. You could say it made me realize I wanted something more out of life than a regular job. I wanted to believe in something.

            Throwing a party I thought was a stand against the conservative beliefs of the suburbs. Giving kids my age something to do that went beyond self-induced ADD from hanging around a coffee shop and being injected with caffeine overload. Or learning how to be indecisive, driving around with friends on a Saturday night because there’s nothing to do.

            This was a way for me to break the chain of normalcy that resided in my inherited middle class gene. It was a way for me to be different than everyone else. To not fall into the trap of following procedure like so many of my high school friends who did the college thing, the internship thing, grad school, work for the Fortune 500 company, start from the bottom and work your way up.

            I wanted the exact opposite.

            Thinking about it, Lewis and I are almost there. After a few more of these parties we’ll finally be legit. We’ll finally have saved enough dough to open our own club and take the rave into legal venues.

            No more trespassing tickets. No more tickets for disturbing the peace. Vandalizing. Working without a permit. Curfew violations. Underage drinking. Possession of a controlled substance.

            This is my dream. This is my life without boundaries. It doesn’t get any better than this.

            “Fifteen dollars, please.” Stamp. “Welcome to Lick Me!”