Aspic Bayberry Cathedral Stan Lee Werlin
It’s almost midnight when they leave the beach, tired, thirsty, still too high from the freely flowing weed. They’re jammed into Ed’s aging blue Volkswagen, Lisbeth up front, Jonathan and Denise crowbarred into the tiny back seat as they head onto the Mid-Cape Highway for the trip back to Manhattan from Truro. Each of them has finals in the morning, so they’re looking at an all night drive to get there on time. There’s no choice. The Beatles are on the radio. Sometimes the Stones, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix. The era of psychedelic rock has just begun and the dope is like an accelerant for them, heightening the rhythm, the chords, the weighty, counterculture lyrics of so many songs they hear and play endlessly. One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, and the ones that mother gives you, don’t do anything at all. “A New York beer container, four syllables.” They’re playing that rhyming game - hinky pinky - and Lisbeth, the English major whose poetry has begun to attract attention from the literary journals, throws out another killer challenge. She’s sure they’ll never get it. They’ve already missed “a sergeant penny, two syllables” (copper copper), “Father’s Day thief, three syllables” (pop-gifter
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shoplifter), and even “archival conundrum, three syllables” (history mystery). Their senses are dulled. Ed flails away at the word puzzle. “Greenwich Village lager fillage?” He knows it’s an awful guess as soon as he says it. He’s heading to Cornell Med School in the fall, doesn’t like losing at anything. There’s nothing between him and Lisbeth, they’re just good friends, but Jonathan and Denise are another thing entirely. They’re groping each other in the back seat and are only half-interested in the game. “Come on guys, help me out here.” Ed is exasperated. “Didn’t you get enough on the beach?” Jonathan comes up for air and laughs. “Yeah, yeah, yeah…” he starts in. “It’s not me, it’s the insatiable nymphomaniac back here.” He laughs again, a dope-filled wheeze. When Denise grabs him in the crotch and grinds him a little too playfully, he pulls her hand away. “Oh man, that hurts. I’m out of commission now.” She hates it when he calls her a nympho, even though she knows it’s true. Right now, Denise hates a lot of things about her life. She realizes she’s not going anywhere with her history major. She’d like to write but is intimidated by Lisbeth’s talent. The idea of following Jonathan to