Saving Elijah

Patty, Gabby, Seth, Rich, a few others from the Playmakers, and two Georgetown students I didn't know ended up in a large open sitting room on the top floor of the house. Jefferson Airplane was blaring from one of the rooms below us, and Gabby and one of the Georgetown men were really going at it on the sofa. Gabby was Aphrodite, in a lavender gown threaded with gold. Her date was a pirate in purple balloon pants, naked from the waist up. At the moment, they were writhing around on the sofa, his hands under her gown.
    "I think the goddess of love is about to get screwed," Jay said.
    Seth jumped to his feet. He never relaxed, he was like a wind-up toy. "So. Who wants something to drink? Dinah?"
    Everyone was watching the pair on the sofa. Gabby's gown was now bunched up at her hip, revealing nearly all of one long, pale leg. Seth and Patty went to get the drinks, and eventually came back with a tray of glasses filled with the fruit punch that had been on a table downstairs. The goddess of love and her pirate had retired to a bedroom.
    "I'm afraid we've gone to a commercial," Jay said.
    "Too bad." Seth set the tray on the table in front of us. Rich had lit some incense, cinnamon. The punch was spiked, it was hard to tell what with. I was already very stoned so I didn't want to drink too much, but my mouth was dry. I took a few sips, then a few more.
    Jay gulped his down and sat back in the chair. "Update, Lucien. How's Faust coming along?"
    Day after day I'd been watching Seth pounding away at his typewriter, only to crumple the pages into little balls and toss them at the wastebasket. The dog kept picking up the balls that missed in its mouth and bringing them back to Seth. I thought this was funny. Seth did not.
    "I'm working on it," he said. Then: "I understand you've been trying to get into Dinah's pants."
    "That's bullshit, Lucien." Jay started to get up, then fell back. "I feel a little funny."
    I felt a lot funny myself. The feeling was more intense than being stoned, and it was building, from my belly into my head, like a seismic tremor. I blinked. Pin-bright lights twinkled in front of my eyes, a dizzy sparkler. The walls and ceiling and floor seemed made of something gelatinous that expanded and contracted. The room began to rock, at first slowly, then faster and faster until it was rising and falling like a roller coaster. Then I was looking into a camera lens. I saw my own distorted reflection.
    A huge monster got on top of me, pawing at me, and my stomach, my whole body, was lurching out of control. I realized it was Seth. I was incapable of making out, or anything else. A large hulking form appeared at the far end of the room, on the sofa, opened its mouth in a great yawning chasm, and inside it I saw intense fire, spewing earthquakes, and people fleeing in terror. I blacked out.
    The next thing I knew I was in Seth's attic room, in bed beside him. I was naked. It was still night. I remembered a dream, a dragon. I remembered Jay saying, "Man, there must have been something in that punch," then dropping like a stone. I slogged through a surging universe, fighting to get control of my body, my mind, finally getting my ear to Jay's chest. I listened for a heartbeat, put my fingertip to his neck, closed his eyes.
    But it was only a dream. I burrowed into the covers and fell asleep again.
    In the morning I told Seth about the nightmare.
    He was mopping up syrup with a hunk of the unbeautiful pancakes he'd insisted I make him. "Don't you remember? Jay passed out and we took him to the hospital. Someone spiked the punch. Everybody who drank the stuff went on some wild trip—you saw dragons, sounded like. Quite a scene. Someone said it was Sunshine, but who knows?" He wolfed down the last few bites.
    "So he's all right?"
    "They kept him overnight, for observation. Probably be out today."
    I started to remember. I'd waited in the car, fearing the hospital might call the police, or my parents. Charlotte would have gone nuts on me.
    I looked at the lopsided, soggy pancakes on my plate and pushed it away. "Thank God," I said.
    "Why are you thanking God? Jay's a shit. He wouldn't do shit for me."
    "Oh, come on, Seth. Yes he would. He's your friend."
    "You are so naive, Dinah. He's just like everyone else, out for themselves. Self-interest is all there is, the rest is self-delusion. Period. If you and I capsized in the ocean, and there was only room for one on our rescue boat, you'd do anything to keep me from taking