It had been a long week. I had been working in Essex, Nic had been busy banging babes on the couch, Lucy got stitches in her chin, and Jo had to change the radio station without the boss noticing. So Friday we all let off a little steam and ate all the drugs we had set aside for Field Day.

We were woefully underprepared for a festival. We had no pocket vodka, no smokes, and what little coke we could scrape off the top of the record player barely got us out of bed. Trying to find drugs at a festival is the pits. I’m distrustful of people at the best of times. Festival dealers just make me angry.

The general rule when foraging for drugs at a festival is to start with the doof tent. Which at Field Day means the Bugged Out! Tent. The name of the tent actually has an exclamation mark, just to let you know they are really, really bugged out. The shittiest people hang around the doof tent – those horrible fucking Spanish techno hippies, everyone from Essex wearing Union Jack’s, and all the people having more fun than us. Hopefully there would also be the really fucked kids, with pockets full of drugs and an artificial love for everyone around them. Enough love to part with some of those drugs.

“Just look for the worst people” said Nic.

We found him.

He saw us from miles away. The desperation in our eyes must have acted like a beacon. He had one short leg, and one normal sized one. His face was pockmarked, and he had four teeth, all of them brown and dead.

“I can read your mind Geez” he said.

We bought 8 pills. They were pink, lined in the middle, and looked like children’s Panadol.

“We want our money back” we said.

He rocked back onto his short leg. He rocked forward onto his long leg. And back onto his short one again. He squinted at us, and cocked his head to the side.

“Naahhhh Geez, that’s not how it works. Do you know what they are?”

“They look like children’s Panadol.”

“Geeeeez” he said.

What he meant with that one word was – Do you understand that this is a festival drug deal, a transaction in which I give you supposed drugs and you give me money. If those drugs are shite, you lose out. That’s the gamble you take for not bringing your own to this event. You morons.

With that he bobbed away into the crowd.

They kind of tasted of amphetamine. Well, they tasted of chemicals. They didn’t do anything though.

We were all pretty excited about Blood Orange. He was playing the Laneway Festival stage. On the exact opposite side of the festival. It was time to abandon the doof tent.

Blood Orange was amazing. The perfect mix of 80s Eddie Murphy and Prince. Adam Bainbridge of Kindness played bass. Incredible hair. But that’s beside the point. We made our next drug forage here.

He was big, bald and happy. He made no attempt to disguise himself. He came to our attention because he was making his way through the crowd yelling “coke, pills, Mandy”. The pills at least looked like illegal drugs. They weren’t of course, but you can’t say enough for keeping up appearances. The wrap of MDMA might have even had a little in there, amongst the chalk.

By this time Lucy had arrived with handbag vodka, so not all was lost. We did all the fake drugs anyway, just in case. Just as we left Terry called and said he had found some actual drugs. I got sand in my shoes.

Fucking Field Day.

Words:

Samuel Davis

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