Everyone had a few helpings; one was more than enough for Shopper, who already felt floaty and detached, struggling to feel he was doing more than watching the world on a strange, foreign TV station.

Meanwhile, next to us, a man in medical scrubs took a seat. It was past five in the afternoon now, and he was on his way home from work. One of the other hash bartenders wandered over. Her hair was blond and she had a tiny frame.

"You want to do a dab?" she asked.

"Oh, _hell _yeah," the patient said.

As she fired up the nail, Hector nodded at her. "You see that girl?" he said. "She has the biggest tolerance of anyone. She pulls bigger rips than my seven-foot security guy."

Watching the blonde woman tending to the nail, scraping up the concentrate, socializing with the customer, what it brought to mind was an opium den. But instead of the drug madam, you have a former HVAC guy. And instead of opium geishas, you have these Southern California wastoid girls, the beautiful bored products of an empty culture in leggings and bras looking like Japanimation cartoons. Shopper doesn’t want to sound all melancholy about it, but taking in the tableau from his green chair, Shopper did, truth be told, feel melancholy. Of course this nation wants to blaze out. There’s so much we want to forget about! There’s so much to disconnect from! And isn’t blazing all about making you appreciate whatever tiny beauty you come across? No matter how ugly the world that beauty is extracted from? Isn’t it often a drug for the dislocated? The (socially, physically, economically) immobile? For those who can’t leave wherever they are, does it not open up even the tiniest (physical or psychic) space and make it feel endlessly explorable?

Gil hollered over to the blonde geisha. He’d brought his own concentrate for everyone to try. Shopper can’t remember now if it was honey or budder or shatter or what. The details flee from him at this point in the story.

"Ooooh!" Blonde Geisha said. "Pretty! It smells like a Jolly Rancher!"

"You want to do a dab?" Gil says.

"I’d loooove to," she says. "Is it heavy? Will it give me that collapsed-lung feeling?"

Gil says, "I heard you got a set of lungs on you."

"I do."

"Then ain’t no thang. Just a dab."

And so they dab. And was Gil right? He was. They gazed at each other, through instant stonedness.

"I feel the heat!" she said. "Without the weight."

"It’s smooth," Gil said.

"It’s smooth," she agreed.

Step 6

GET READY FOR THE FUTURE—COMING SOON!

One morning, Shopper paid a visit to a man known as Paul Tokin—a microcelebrity in the world of Denver weed. Tokin is known for a video series about the dispensary scene called "Tokin Daily." You can watch him on YouTube give a meandering fifteen-minute monologue while smoking a pre-roll, or reviewing a dispensary in Colorado Springs, or talking to his cat about chicken pot pie. When Shopper arrived at his little bungalow in the Cherry Creek section of the city, he found Paul and his friend Jerrica on two couches, a thin dispersion of smoke hanging between them. Paul is tall and thin but still gnomic, with mineral blue eyes and a long, sparse, wiry goatee that reaches his nipples. He and Jerrica were both in a state of such alpha-wave stillness that they appeared to be experiencing a fundamentally different version of time.

Paul offered to share some medicine.

"This is Blue Dream; enjoy it!" he said, pushing over a bong. The bong looked a little sketch. There was particulate floating in the reservoir. Brown bits, like something coughed up. It’s fine, relax. It’s probably uncool to ask him if he has some alcohol wipes for the mouthpiece or maybe a different rig that’s been through the dishwasher. No, no, be cool, this is a communal thing. And you know what? Once Shopper had taken his medicine, the conversation got easier. The pressure to connect was just reduced. Awkward silences weren’t that awkward anymore. And that helped Shopper and Tokin to, you know, connect.