The Deserted Bandwagon

Author: MATT KUNZWEILER

I wake up dizzy in my single apartment. I live above a hair salon in town, and some mornings, when business downstairs is good, I can smell nothing but the toxic perm fumes rising from the floor beneath. Those old-school heated perm helmets that curiously resemble electric chair headgear - they must cause tumors, psychosis, birth defects, cold sores, something bad. It's like putting your head in the microwave, which can't be healthy.

So here I am in my upstairs apartment, which is practically hotboxed with a sour yellow haze. I imagine old ladies downstairs with smoldering bird nests of unnaturally colored hair, big oblivious smiles. For me it's fresh air or death. I army crawl to the door to avoid exposure. As I step outside I realize that (because I live on my own and struggle to cook even oven-ready pizza) the healthiest food/drink I've consumed in the past three weeks was a screwdriver mixed with calcium- and vitamin D- enriched orange juice. Now that I think about it, it tasted a little like the perm fumes. Its effects weren't entirely dissimilar, either.

So I drive to campus for decent food. Once I've finished lunch, I cross campus and walk past those kids who are perpetually smoking by the library entrance, perpetually looking hungover, perpetually recommending indie rock bands with pseudo-intellectual names like "Touché" or "The Defenestration of Prague."

Later I meet some friends at the bar, where we witness the Controlled Substances Henchman storm through the back door, flashing his flip-badge left and right (you can tell he's an X-Files fan). Do I see the mark of arousal on his face as the youngsters scatter and run? Do his moist lips not tremble with each flash of the badge?

This is perverse. These under-21ers need to have fun on a Wednesday night - it's an inalienable right. I approach a cluster of huddling underclassmen in a remote corner of the bar. "Say, kids, you wanna get messed up without having to deal with the law?"

They nod timidly in unison. So we go back to my apartment and stand around, getting high off the perfectly legal perm fumes. "This is so much better than alcohol," one kid shouts, clawing obsessively at his skin. He falls to the floor laughing, pulling a bookcase down with him. I hear the sound of vomit striking porcelain in the background. One kid has found a bottle of Bombay Sapphire in my freezer and is now unscrewing the cap.

"Put that back, you little hoodlum. In this house we obey the law."

The shindig is going just spectacularly when there's a knock at the door. I open it to see - guess whom? - the Controlled Substances Henchman. "What's going on here?"

"Perfectly legal intoxication," I declare with my arms in a victorious V. "Perm fumes - flight of the future." Within minutes the Henchman is inhaling deeply through his wide nostrils. He sways like an idiot and now - my God! - is removing his shirt. From the peanut gallery: "What a lightweight!" "He can't handle his perm!"

Even I'm starting to feel the effects, and I've been inhaling these fumes for months. "You sophomores are alright," I say. But things have gone too far. The kids have shattered the hair salon's windows and are now caking hair dye all over their heads and sitting under the perm helmets, eyes rolling into the backs of their heads. I run to the Controlled Substances Henchman, but he's passed out prostrate. I can't wake him. We have no authority. All control is lost. What have I done? What have I done? Oh beer, I miss you.