We parked a few blocks down the street from the concert. Before we leave the vehicle, a homeless panhandler offers to wash our car with a rag for money. Unused to being panhandled in small-town Iowa, I gave him the 19 dollars that was in my wallet. We declined the car wash. He was quite the character, rambled and rambled as homeless men often do, but ultimately thanked me and moved on to his next victim or customer, however you would have it. B needed to use the bathroom and we had a solid two hours before the concert started, so we found a 7/11 on a street corner between us and the venue. Some greasy hick was ordering an energy drink when we walked in. According to B, while I was in the bathroom, some tweaker stumbled into the store with his pants down for a couple of minutes before being chased out by the manager.
Walking to the venue, we were feeling not completely at ease but not unsafe. I think we passed a couple of tents. The address listed on the tickets is a boarded-up storefront. No entry, no concert, nothing. A slew of people were also standing perplexed outside the supposed venue. Eventually, we and the others found the real venue, some club with a line stretching down the street. B and I went back to the car and took two tabs of molly each, he bought it from a "name brand" seller off the deep web. The agar tablets scratched in my throat, but I was clever enough to swallow with water. He dry swallowed, coughed, and borrowed my water bottle.
Finally getting to the club after an hour and a half of roaming Dallas, we managed to not get mugged despite encountering "interesting" characters in passing. While we were in line, we were visited by a panhandler that was making his way down the line with a red solo cup for change. He was filthy, barely lucid, sweating profusely, muttering and mumbling in words I could barely make out, other than the word "cash". I had a real big-boy excuse -- "sorry, I don't have any cash on me".
We get to the bouncer. "Trash is back behind me, toss your drink." (I downed half the bottle on the way to the trash. I paid a few bucks for the expensive sporty water bottle, I was sad to trash it. I return to the bouncer. The molly is starting to kick in. My face feels numb, my movements feel jagged and clumsy, my body feels weightless.
"ID."
I blink. What did he say?
"ID."
"Say what? I'm sorry."
"ID."
It's really kicking in. I'm surely only partly lucid. What is he asking? Is he uttering a variation of 'how do you do?' Should I respond as though he is?
"Identification, he wants your identification," B says to me.
"Ohhh, right, I'm so sorry..." do I tell him I'm high? No, why would I do that? "I'm must be really out of it tonight, I'm sorry."
The bouncer just stared me down as I opened my wallet and pulled out my ID.
"Over or under 21?" he asks, as though he's not looking at my ID.
"Over."
He hands me back my ID and steps slightly aside. I enter the club and my cowl sweatshirt gets caught on the extendable fabric stanchion pole. The extendible fabric comes out. I pull out my hoodie and try really hard to put the fabric back in the little slider, but I was too high, I couldn't. A staff member takes it from me, "it's fine, I got this, go enjoy the concert." He was my angel. I could have kissed him.
We get to the concert and I get a splitting, god-awful headache, and all the pain in my body is amplified. My back hurts. My feet hurt. My head hurts. My arms feel sore. The other effects of the drug are still here, but I feel zero euphoria. The molly amplified my pain, fogged my head, made my movements feel unnatural, made my entire face feel numb, and made me feel sick. I vowed then to stay away from amphetamines.
The concert was great. The atmosphere was great, the bar was serving drinks. I should have bought a few boozey drinks and liquored up, but I didn't want to add a stomach ache on top of my illness. The lighting was nice, the music was eardrum-flexxing-loud, people were moshing. I wanted to mosh, but I wasn't in the right headspace. I wish I was. Three bands were performing, but we came for the band in the middle, and neither of us were feeling euphoric enough to stay for the last band. I got my CD, he got a sweatshirt. But, my god, I might have liked the opening band more than the band I came to Dallas to see.
We made it back to the car. We agreed that the molly was bunk and not at all as strong as it should have been. I was a little bit glad, because I think my body just didn't react with that drug. We went back to B's apartment and I snorted three hits of ketamine and was in an entirely different realm for 45 minutes, face-down on the bed and somehow not suffocating.
I flew home the next day I think, maybe two days after. It was my first time flying alone, and I fucking loved it. I got a window seat. I just stared out the window and dissociated the whole time.
We did it. We survived a night in Dallas. Somehow we didn't get mugged even though there were just the two of us, roaming the streets at night. We did it.