'Music has become a wet mouthed void'� Warsaw explains to me wearily from the passenger seat of my car. 'It's an unreasonable facsimile of creativity. Its different bands playing the same song over and over and over again'�repeat ad infinitum.'�
Warsaw and I have been friends since Band Camp our freshman year in high school. She came up to me out of the blue and asked to borrow my Ben-Gay to secretly apply to all of the crotches of the Field Commanders underwear. 'Character development.'� She had said.

Now we are in the car headed on some God forsaken road trip to Godknowswherecountryside, because Warsaw says 'We must experience the need to need the experience.'� She is dressed in only low top black converse, Khaki's, and a T-shirt that reads 'Dysfunction Junction'�what's your function?' Despite the early Fall temperature.
She reaches into the glove compartment and rifles through my CD's 'Maestro, a little traveling music.'� She slides a disc into the stereo pushes track five and a few seconds later Beck is proclaiming that working for a soul sucking jerk is out of the question. '80's New Wave to early 90's indie, Old school Jazz, Blues, Reggae, and even Classical shit man, its all good everything else is counterfeit Drachma'�'�
We stop at a gas station just off the highway, I need some caffeine if I intend on chauffeuring this little excursion. There is no way in Hell I will lat Warsaw drive. She told me once; she had learned how to drive by watching the Dukes of Hazzard as a kid. Enough said.
'Hey, get me a Kiwi-Strawberry Snapple and some Camel Lights!'� she shouts to me through the window as I head inside.

The clerk sits behind the counter wearing an 'Evil Dead' T-shirt. He is simultaneously talking on the telephone and playing with a gun shaped Zippo. He looks up and smiles.
"Dionysus had the right idea." he says.
I pay for the drinks and head back out to the car. Almost everywhere I go now I hear a little bit of Warsaw in everyone. 'The pursuit of pleasure is paramount' she was fond of saying 'We are Id's immortal soul, the beasts of metaphysics'
Dionysus had the right idea.

We get back on the highway and start heading out of town, I can see Warsaw popping a couple Vicodin and lighting a cigarette. Through the speakers I can hear a new CD playing; I think its something by Iggy Pop. The city is yours & mine, so let's ride & ride & ride & ride.
"So, where the hell am I going?" I ask
"Nowhere, anywhere, the destination will make itself known in due time."
I look over at Warsaw who is now wearing a pair of iced lavender tinted sunglasses and a huge grin.

"You hate not having an agenda don't you?" she says giggling.
"No I just hate driving around aimlessly."
"Your Deus ex machina will make itself known."
'�My what?...
"My what?"
"Deus ex machina...Literally translated it means 'God in the machine' it's a person or thing that appears suddenly and solves an otherwise unsolvable problem."
She leans back in the seat exhaling smoke.

The road winds in and out of my vision, a smooth stream of concrete. It's almost hypnotic, the soft constant bump and rumble of tires, the liquid rush of wind. Sometimes it is necessary to get away, to escape routine, to run screaming from the clutches of preprogrammed 9 to 5 android priorities.

I had no clue what Warsaw was doing for a living these days, she may have mentioned 'Commodities' once.

'I think its time to see Jazzman" Warsaw says sleepily.
'We need reinforcements"

Jazzman
Age: Somewhere between 70 & the Smithsonian. Tenor Sax, Hard Bop, died twice after a
Heroin overdose, finally revived came back telling everyone 'Jesus plays a mean guitar'. He hangs out at a club called 'Clash'. Sometimes when the mood hits he sits in with the house band. He is a permanent fixture. A piece of blood pulsing furniture, with a fantastic recipe for Seafood Gumbo.

"Jazzman!"
Warsaw exclaims as we enter the dark red lit bar, wisps of smoke flutter through the room like elusive carcinogenic ghosts, coming together and then fading in the thick alcohol induced tang of the air.
"Jillian" he replies waving his hands frantically "Come, both of you, sit down!" Warsaw smiles and signals the waitress.
"Pitcher of Guinness please. Three glasses"
The waitress nods and saunters off to the bar. She has a ruddy complexion and a tattoo of a large Octopus on her right arm.
"Well, Ms. Warsaw, what can I do for you this fine evening?"
'A variety pack, something to kick out the jams"
Jazzman cocks his head to the side and grins
"That shouldn't be too hard to come by tonight"
"Cool"

The house band begins to play as Jazzman excuses himself from the table.
"I'll be back directly."


Music begins to fill up the small bar, first the drums a rapid succession of syncopated tings on the ride accompanied by little accent bombs thrown in from the bass drum. Against the thunder of percussion comes the thick ropy bass line climbing the drummer's rhythms like wild Ivy. Doo doo dah doo doo. The Piano drones wet chords showering the rhythms, and mingles with the sharp shouts of the trumpet & tenor sax. Soon the whole ensemble is in a fit of melodic ecstasy. And the waitress returns with our drinks.
"Enjoy ladies." she says.

Warsaw pours me a glass and I take a huge gulp.

Commercial Break: Guinness, savor the old world pub flavor! Its smooth, dark rich texture! A taste of Ireland now on tap!

"What are thinking about?" I say sitting back in my chair
Warsaw absentmindedly lights a cigarette & runs a hand over her dark features.
"I don't know, cavemen, ink blots, large grade A eggs."
I look up at the stage where the band continues to play. I can see Jackie McKinney on drums. McKinney used to enter Drag King pageants dressed as Wayne Newton, and had dreams of performing in Vegas. She also had a meth addiction that according to Warsaw was 'purely cosmetic".

Jazzman returns to our table and pours a beer. "Soups on!" He exclaims and motions for us to follow him into the back. We enter a back room, filled with boxes, and old cracked liquor bottles. The smell of spilled alcohol and stale sweat lingers in the air. Jazzman hands Warsaw a black briefcase. She opens it up and I peer inside.

Smorgasbord:
[Swedish smörgåsbord : smörgås, bread and butter (smör, butter from Old Norse + Swedish dialectal gås, lump of butter from Old Norse gs, goose. See gosling) + bord, table (from Old Norse bordh).] 1.A buffet meal featuring a varied number of dishes. 2.A varied collection.

It was unbelievable, tucked into this little case was a cornucopia of mind-altering substances. Two full vials of coke, an M&M jar containing assorted uppers, downers, pain killers, & muscle relaxers, one half full vial of Morphine, an ounce of pot, and a box of Crackerjacks.

"Right On" she says and shuts the case. "You're a good man, Charlie Brown." We shake hands with Jazzman and get back in the car. Warsaw, like a kid at Christmas, breaks into the first vial of Bolivian frost. She holds the small spoon up to her left nostril and sniffs. "Hell yeah!" she says. She then holds the spoon up to my right nostril and I take a hit. With coke your first reaction is always to sneeze, that's your body's natural reaction against foreign and potentially harmful substances in the air. But as all good snowmen and snowwomen know, you just don't.


We speed off into the gargantuan night and turn up the stereo, by this point we have changed CD's three times and Sonic Youth's "Drunken Butterfly" is pounding out through the speakers. I love you, I love you, I love you, what's yer name?
"I knew this girl once her name was Alana."
Explains Warsaw
'She told me that most of her free time was spent, checking the tags of other drivers on the road to determine what their Zodiac sign was. She said that peoples Sun signs could
be deduced through their driving habits. Virgo's tend to be the most pedestrian conscious."
I am a Sagittarius, Warsaw is a Scorpio with Leo rising
Dangerous, but charming
"Of course it's not an exact science" she continued
"There are always the stragglers who fall on the cusps, which obviously can't be determined by monthly tags, but... there you have it."

I could feel the coke kicking in, the euphoric rush through my veins.

Warsaw's cell phone rang.
"Yeah?" I reached over and took one of her cigarettes.
"Oh Really?"
"OK Cool, we will be there."
She clicks off the phone and lights a clove, and looks at me.
"What?"
"It's your Deus ex machina" She says exhaling smoke.
"Um" I reply
"That was Hailey Moore, she and Destiny Bacall are having a party over on Windgate."
I Laugh
"More of your entourage?"
Warsaw, studying something outside of her window snickers
"Silly rabbit cliques are for kids."

There are moments when thoughts run together, a series of ideas and epiphanies that may or may not coalesce. Warsaw calls this The Thought Fugue, a tapestry of cognition woven in the intangible depths of our wet rubbery lobes .According to Descartes the only thing that we can trust are our thoughts. Our senses could be deceiving, an object we view in the external world may not really be how we perceive it to be, maybe the sky is not blue, and we just see it as such. Maybe the whole system of mathematics is a heinous configuration of numbers with no real solutions constructed by some evil genie with light brown hair to confuse us all. Maybe I feel better about flunking Algebra. Essentially for the Cartesian, the importance of everything rests upon thought. As long as we are
thinking, we are alive.

Rolling up onto Windgate, there are several cars lining the driveway. I can see frantic shadows though the curtains. Music spills out of the house. Some old Art Blakey number. We enter in to be greeted by a tall blonde. "Ladies, hello!" she smiles. I have never met this woman before. In fact this is the first time I have met any of Warsaw's friends.

"You must be Gabrielle." She says beaming at me. "I'm Hailey" Hailey beckons who I assume to be Destiny over. They look me and down evidently approving. "Jillian, very nice, very nice indeed." I just smile, being appraised by two chicks doesn't offend me, I'm bi-I can dig it.
Hailey makes her way over to greet some new guests entering the house while the three of us head over to the Hors d'eurves table. There is a variety of different finger foods and beverages. Warsaw takes a look at a platter off to the left and grins at Des
"Gourmet crackers in the shapes of various insects. How Kafkian of you." she says.
Des winks.
"Enjoy."

We grab a couple of snacks, and weave our way in and out of the crowd looking for a place to sit. We find a table set up near the dining room. I notice there is a constant exchange of people up and down the stairs. They pass by me smiling.
"So do they give parties like this often?" I ask Warsaw
Warsaw puts down her plate and reaches in her pockets producing what looks like a Quaalude.
'They try to, but it's hard to get good caterers these days like we used to. So everything gets made here from scratch" she replies downing the pill with a small sip of red wine. "Here I brought this in for you." She hands me the vile of Morphine.
"What, right now here?" I say looking around.
"Don't worry, they've got their own."
I roll up my sleeve and undue my belt tightening it right above my forearm. I slap up a nice vein and drive it home.

I feel liquid, permeable. Warmth hits me working its way in waves through my entire body.
"Oh shit that's good!"
"Breakfast of champions." replies Warsaw in between hits off her clove cigarette.
Everything around me is flowing .I feel like a fish in a tub of soft balmy water. Just
moving with the currents of listless time.
No longer having much of an appetite, I watch Warsaw as she nibbles her appetizers. It's a small piece of meat, which smells as if cooked in a curry of some sort.
"So they must be serious about food, they have an extravagant spread over there."
Popping the amber colored chunk into her mouth, Warsaw nods.
"Oh yeah, in fact everyone here is."
An attractive man looking to be in his mid to late twenties walks by and smiles. "Hey Jillian" he says "Gabrielle, I'm glad you could make it." Warsaw waves 'Thanks, glad I could come." a little puzzled, I look at Warsaw who is now spreading some type of pate on her insect crackers. "How does he know me?"
"These are very private parties. I had already told them all about you; otherwise you wouldn't have been invited."
"Oh cool" I say still floating



The music changes to something slow, it sounds like Pink Floyd. It envelops me in a cloud, and carries me deep inside myself. Enjoying the sounds, lost in the deep feelings of dreams.
Run, rabbit run, dig that hole in the sun.
Fading
Out
I open my eyes still groggy. Warsaw must have put me to bed in one of the rooms when I passed out, my God, don't these people believe in heat, it's so cold. I can hear her voice muffled from outside the door talking to someone. Only a few words are audible.
"What's the going rate?"
"We use it all, no waste here."
Coughing
'Much better than last time"
"Des"
"Chef"
The door opens and light spills into the room.
I see three heads peering at me from above.
Des laughs holding a butcher knife
"Take her out of the freezer; the meat should be as fresh as possible!"
Hailey and Warsaw pull me out from the ropes that bind my arms. I look around, everyone from the party crowded into the kitchen, ghastly smiles cutting across their faces. I see Warsaw stuffing a thick wad of bills into her coat pocket.
"Now, if you will watch as I prepare the main course!" Hailey shouts to cheers from the others.

I had no clue what Warsaw was doing for a living these days, she may have mentioned 'Commodities' once.

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