Contraband

I pulled into the parking lot of the diner, this is where I was told that I might be able to score some product. The engine idled in my classic muscle car, it had always made too much noise in my opinion. Loud aggressive noise that I personally found abrasive. I twisted the key in the ignition, bringing a satisfying silence that I decided to bask in for just a moment as I rolled down the passenger side window just a crack. The driver side door creaked a low moan as I forced it open, allowing me to plant my boots on the ground. I looked up at the flickering neon sign that read 'Diner 4 All', the N, the R and the 4 weren't lit up, this was definitely the right place. I stood there for a moment and wondered if the technical difficulties were premeditated before I made my way towards the front door.

There was a bell above the door that clanged back and forth as I pushed myself through the entrance. I enjoyed the high pitch ringing but decided not to fixate on it so as to not draw attention to myself. I casually scanned the inside of the diner, 7 people total, 5 patrons and 2 employees. I had figured the occupancy would be small, since it was past 3 in the morning, 12 minutes past to be precise. I knew who I had to talk to, the waitress with the blue streak in her hair. I seated myself at the breakfast bar, took a look at her name tag and requested a menu from her. She was short and appeared to be in her mid-twenties, same as me. Her hair was brown where it wasn’t blue and her dark eyes looked older than the rest of her. After she gave me the menu she took a moment to make some fresh coffee, I don’t think it was for me.

“What’ll it be?” Melody eventually asked. She looked half comatose, as though coffee and cigarettes were keeping her awake by a thread.

“A short stack of chocolate chip pancakes, and something colorful to drink.” I told her.

She scribbled my order on a small black notepad and made her leave. She didn’t seem to react to the childishness of my order, this was a relief to me, since I felt childish for ordering pancakes with chocolate chips in them. I ordered them because I had been thinking a lot about my mother, who used to make me chocolate chip pancakes. Since my mother was the reason I had come here, it seemed appropriate.

"Don't be like me." I remembered her telling me just before law enforcement took my mother away for possession of a drug called M-42. A once legal drug that was given it's label by the FDA when they outlawed it under the claims that it caused auditory hallucinations that led to civil unrest, but my mother always insisted otherwise. She told me about times before it was outlawed when she was a young girl, and how M-42 was everywhere in almost every culture and there was nothing like it. Many times throughout my childhood she told me how alive it had made her feel, and a life without it seemed like something out of a horror story. The authorities told me that she was an addict and she needed help. Seven years have gone by since then, I know now that I may never see her again. All I have of her now is her noisy car and cryptic advice.

"Don't be like me."

I kept thinking about what she really meant by that, I didn't know if she meant to not chase after this vilified drug. Or if she meant to not get caught with it. To this day I wasn't sure, but I was about to find out.

By the time Melody had returned with my food I was ready to make my move.

“Hear ya go, hun. Let me know if there’s anything else I can get for you.” She told me as she slid the pancakes toward me and turned to leave.

“Actually there is.” I said to her with my right palm flat on the table. She turned back to me and looked down at my hand, before I could say anything I saw her eyes come alive. I slid my hand towards her, dragging a napkin underneath it. “I was hoping to order some takeout.” I said as I pulled my hand back, revealing the napkin underneath. Scribbled on the napkin she could read “M42” and my license plate number, she quickly scooped it up and tucked it away in her pocket.

“I’ll have that brought out to you right away.” She said with a smile.

I took my time to eat my meal, I wasn’t sure how long it would take for them to facilitate my request. Melody had left for a few minutes but she had already returned to take more orders and hand out checks. By the time she had given me mine I had grown uneasy. I knew the product was waiting for me in my car but I didn’t know what to expect. All I knew for sure was that I needed to get out of there, so with shaking hands and a dry throat I paid my tab, paid for my product via a large tip and got up to leave. I felt my feet dragging as I left through the front door, and I felt more and more nervous as I approached my car.

The door creaking opened seemed to be louder upon reentry, before I sat down in the driver’s seat I looked around the mostly empty parking lot to make sure nobody heard me. Once I was seated, I started the engine and fastened my seat belt, then I looked down on the floor under the passenger side window, where they left my package. It was a small brown bag, I leaned over to pick it up after looking around the parking lot one more time. It felt light, I looked in the bag and saw a small black rectangle that was a little bit bigger than a credit card. I emptied the bag into my hand and looked at it more closely. It was all black with 2 holes through it, now that I was holding it I realized that it was much thicker than a credit card, it was about half an inch thick and felt like flimsy plastic. I wasn’t entirely sure how this would work, but I knew where to put it. The car my mother had left me was older than the ban on M-42, I stuffed the small rectangle into the ancient console and let the car do the rest.

First I heard low, soft noises that moved like nothing I had ever heard, I was immediately overwhelmed with joy and wonder. Then a woman’s voice came in, speaking beautifully of pills and size. She was accompanied by more sounds, and as these sounds were added to the overall noise it became more and more complete, it became perfect. She spoke of a woman named Alice and rabbits and caterpillars and madness. The noise took me out of my head, out of my car, out of this parking lot and out of this world. By the time it ended I didn’t know who I was anymore, all I knew was that I wanted to hear it again, I wanted to hear nothing else as long as I lived.