CC 90: Safe as Black Milk

‘You are a sound man, Francie,’ said Paidi.  ‘And I know what you’re talking about when you talk about the energy around us.  I’m feeling it…I am.’

‘I can never tell when you are off your head and when you’re not, Paidi,’ said Jane.  ‘You seem bloody baked all the time.’

‘Well,’ laughed Paidi.  ‘I’m bloody baked right now, that’s for sure.’ 

I could see Emer sinking in reflex now beside Paidi; his looseness made her uncomfortable to some extent maybe.  The maturity she’d just talked so longingly of didn’t sit well with his projected gurn.  It was a resplendent gurn, of course – one for the album sleeve, but not for the wedding photos.  Maybe the allure of the local rock star was wearing off.  Or maybe not – she readily dabbed her finger into a little brown baggie he produced all of a sudden and happily gave whatever it was a taste.  I hadn’t allowed myself to succumb yet to the myriad poisons of the evening, so there was no gurn from me, or so I believed, and I made a bid to recreate my own wedding photo charisma, which I’d worked hard on at the time, and had managed something neither of us could be embarrassed about; I hoped she could remember it if she looked over.

‘How about the black milk, Francie?’ asked Paidi.  ‘You have any left?  Round about that time yet?’

‘I do, yes.  And, furthermore, I don’t see why not.’

‘What’s the black milk?’ asked Jane.

‘It’s stuff that’ll knock ya on your arse,’ said Geary. 

Francie got up and went to the stereo.  He picked a small cardboard box out from behind one of the tall speakers.  There seemed to be all kinds of colourful rubbish inside it as though it was a microcosm of the whole house, but he zoomed in on a small naggin-sized bottle, half-filled with a thick black liquid like oil.

‘Here it is,’ he said.  ‘The black milk, your gateway to the other world.’

‘The drama of ya,’ muttered Serena.  ‘You’d think it was holy water blessed by the pope himself.’

‘Unholy water, my princess.  None of your Christian talk here.  Remember the deal.’

‘Fair enough.  No Christian talk.  What’s so special about your unholy water?’

‘Special?  This will get you fucked rotten, princess.’

‘You always fuck me rotten.’

‘Button it, or I won’t call you princess again for a week.  Righto.  So who here has partaken of the black milk before?’ 

Only Paidi and Geary put their hands up. 

‘Just the lads, eh?  Are the ladies ready to sip from the chalice of the spirit-world?  Oh, and you too, Pascal, sorry.  I didn’t mean to say you were a lady.’

‘That’s quite alright, Francie.’

‘I’m utterly primed,’ declared Jane.

‘What the hell is it?’

Francie sat down and held the bottle out in front of him as though he’d gotten his paws on the World Cup. 

‘Here, within reach of us all, is the libation of myth, the soup of gods, the tonic of – ‘

‘Ah, will ya cut the shite, Francie.  What the fuck is it?’

‘It’s drugs.  What the bloody hell do ya think?’

‘What’s in it?’ I asked.  ‘It doesn’t look too agreeable.’

‘It’s a local concoction.  Well, some boy down in Waterford came up with it.  The brew anyway.  It’s like a mixture of stout and Ayahuasca.’

‘What’s that?’

‘From Peru.  Known for inspiring hallucinogenic intensity the likes of which whole religions are born from.  Reaches parts of your brain that don’t even exist yet.  You’ll feel like you have ten arms, a hundred eyes, and a million senses.’

I could see Emer wincing.  I too was shrinking with fear inside at the thought of this stuff Francie had.  We’d both had our share of experiences, Emer and I, in the early days, before the wedding.  Sweating and shaking in the universal stench, with eyeballs swirling and watering; thin dusky candles dancing summer nights to dawn with our heads on fire.  All that.  We had agreed it was behind us, but then again, we hadn’t shied away from breaking certain vows before. 

‘Go on, I’ll have some,’ Emer said, bravely, and the grin on Paidi’s face would have made you sick.

‘Me too, no problem,’ asserted Serena, almost in competitive response to Emer’s agreement on the matter.   

‘What about you, Pascal?  Are ya game, brother?’

‘Is it safe?’ I asked

The lads in the room bellylaughed. 

‘Fuck, no.’