Singles Going Steady: Beastie Boys' "Shambala"

Something was different with Victor, his demeanor. Initially, I attributed it to his mounting anxiety about graduating from college. I'm sure that was part of it; he didn't have a plan and didn't seem to know what he wanted to do with his life. He was looking for a job in Columbus, but he wasn't looking very hard. He said it was overwhelming and that I'd understand better when I was a senior. He would half-heartedly sort through the classifieds, make a few circles, sit down to work on his resume, get discouraged, drink a beer, stop working on it, and light a joint and watch T.V. He was always a little high-strung, but he was way more irritable and moody than I'd ever known. And he started doing these really obsessive-compulsive things: repeatedly checking to see if the alarm was set, checking the locks on the door to make sure they were locked, checking the faucets to make sure they were off. Checking everything to see if it was doing what, in his head, he wanted it to do. His car had one of those overhead lights that stayed on a few seconds after you left the car; he refused to go anywhere until the light went off. I'd say things like, "I already checked the alarm: It's set." Or, "Goddamn, Victor. You saw me lock the door." But it didn't matter; he had to see or do for himself.

Some random weekday night, when I went to his place to study, I came up the stairs and saw that he was hunched over the mirror on the coffee table. The Beastie Boys' "Shambala" was playing loud enough that he didn't hear me. I stood in the doorway and listened, watched him take down one, two, three good-sized lines. I was quickly going from concerned about to bored with this scenario, which I'd been in of late more times than I cared to count. It was like an endless After School Special, starring a protagonist who was difficult to feel sorry for. He looked startled when he finally saw my reflection in the TV.
"Oh, hey. I didn't know you were coming over." His eyes were watering and he was pinching at his nose, sniffling.
"You asked me to come over, remember? We were going to study?"
"Oh yeah, yes, I did. Well, I was so tired from work and class that I needed a little bump, you know? It was a long day."
I rolled my eyes, "Well, I know that there's going to be no studying for you, then. I'm going to head out –" I turned back toward the stairs, and he jumped up and grabbed my sleeve.
"No, Iseult, stay. I only did a little bit and I'll be fine. Just give me a few minutes, okay? Don't go."
I didn't think three huge rails was a "little bit," but I didn't feel like making a case out of it. He looked horrible enough as it was. I definitely wasn't in any position to judge his behavior; after all, the Bolivian Marching Powder and I were well acquainted at that point. But still, this was like, a Tuesday. I was fine holding out for the weekend. In the early days, he was, too. He wasn't anymore. "Victor, I really need to get things done. I have a ton of crap to do this week."
"Look, just sit with me for a minute, okay? I'm going to smoke a bowl and I'll be fine."

He got up and walked over to the bookshelf and took out a bag of pot from the hollowed-out dictionary where he kept all his drug paraphernalia.
I tossed my bag on the floor and slumped down, arms crossed, in the ratty armchair. "Fine. Whatever."
"Fine. Whatever. Why are you acting so bitchy?" He rooted furiously through the bag, sorting out the seeds, tossing them back in the dictionary.
Here we go, I thought. Anytime I expressed anything other than complete and total support for what he was doing, I was being a bitch. I felt so tired, right then. "I'm not. But if I'd known you weren't going to study, I wouldn't have come here. Now I'm wasting more time arguing with you and—"
"Okay, enough!" He slammed the book shut and the little Buddha figurine I'd given him for his birthday the year before fell from the bookcase onto the carpet. He didn't pick it up. "I'm just—I'm really stressed out. I was tired, so I did a little—I'm sorry. You know how much I have going on. You're lucky; you don't have to deal with this for two more years." He sounded so brittle.
"Yeah, well, if you keep this shit up, you'll be right here with me," I muttered.
"Ha, ha, ha." He picked up his favorite bowl—metallic blue, from the Import House—and tapped out the ash into the empty Bass bottle on the table, then started scraping resin from the screen with an untwisted paperclip. When he was satisfied with the cleanliness of the screen, he untwisted the bowl from the stem and started scraping it. He did this with such care and precision that I was kind of mesmerized.

The pot was really skunky and smelled like dirty socks when he lit it. He took a hit and coughed. "God," he wheezed, "one of these days I'm just going to break down and start spending the money for better weed. This is terrible." He held it up to me, I shook my head no, so he hit it again. The bud burned red in the bowl with an occasional snapping sound. "Seeds. Fuck." He got up and walked over to the fridge to get a beer. "You want to watch a movie?"
"Uh, no. I told you that I have to study." I got up and slung my backpack over my shoulder, "I'm going to go to the Ohio Union."
He got up and walked me to the door. "I think I'm just going to take it easy tonight. I'm sorry that I'm so stressed out. I'll make it up to you," he kissed me. "I promise."
When I got down to the sidewalk, I walked to the side of his building and looked up at his window. He was packing another bowl. Then he turned out the lights. The blue glow from the television looked pallid. Much like his complexion.

The Beastie Boys, "Shambala," from the album Ill Communication
Purchased at Used Kids Records, Columbus, Ohio
Sometime in 1996