Quick preamble; Myself, Liz, Sam, Ruby and Gavin had an idea to open a cafe. Think warm lighting, endless cup-o-coffee specials, high top and low top tables, pillows, music at the perfect level… not too loud not too soft. Cozy with a capital C.
Because we all live in a suburban strip mall culture desert, there’s a real need for a non-corporate place to hang out, study, read a book.
The plan was to call it Cafe Orion. That was my idea. No particular reason other than it sounded cool and was easy to imagine spending hours, day after day there. If you’ve ever tried starting a business and open a shop you’d know it’s probably one notch below actually going to visit all the stars in Orion in terms of difficulty.
I was the idea guy and fundraiser. Liz was our business lead and fundraiser, Sam knows real estate and fundraiser, Ruby is design and fundraiser and last but not least Gavin, the chef, and the only one of us with restaurant experience… and fundraiser.
Anyway, strip mall city. The independently owned stores went away decades ago. But the economy being what it is we found a space pretty easily. What we didn’t know till we started the demo was it used to be a novelty, joke, magic shop. We found boxes of old gags and magic tricks. Detachable thumbs, little magic wands, joy buzzers, the three ring hoop trick and of course… itching powder.
Most of it was in pretty bad shape, there had been water damage at some point, but the itching powder was perfectly intact.
I can confess, prior to discovering this curioso I hadn’t the faintest idea what itching powder even was. I had to look it up online. I was curious but also maybe it was valuable on ebay. What I discovered is that it’s actually made from an exotic blend of plants and roots and ground down into a concentrate. Put it on your skin, and itch. But when I saw the sky high prices on ebay, some as high as $300 a gram, I wanted to know why. Turns out most of the ingredients have a very limited shelf life, but the primary ingredient, mucuna pruiens, is much more stable and when taken alone produces a brief intoxicating effect. The way to tell if it was ‘active’ was to put some on your skin. If it doesn’t itch, it’s potent. So we dabbed some on the back of our hands and nothing.
I’m thinking we sell it, it’s not illegal, put the funds towards Orion. That’s when Liz said, “I dare you to try it.” “Uh, no. I’m not taking some weird drug that I don’t know what it’s gonna do or even how to do it.” Then the drips of water started coming down from the ceiling. It was storming outside. I hadn’t even noticed. We knew there was minor roof damage to be repaired but at least the mystery of how these long forgotten magic tricks were damaged was solved. They were right under the leak.
We retreated to the front of the store where Sam and Ruby were well on their way towards making a huge junk pile in the center of the room. The contractors were due tomorrow but time is money and anything we can do to save time saves us money.
Liz and I put our work gloves on and started tossing debris into the pile. We did this for a few hours until everyone agreed it was time to call it quits. The storm wasn’t letting up so we decided to grab some take out from next door and wait for the storm to pass.
Exhausted we all sat on the ground stuffing our faces, talking about our vision for the coffee shop. That’s when Liz mentioned the itching powder. Fascinated by the possibility that this quaint novelty children’s prank could be some form of intoxicant had everyone intrigued. Of course they started goading me on to try it. “No. Freaking. Way.” Looking back I have to admit I was a teeny bit curious. That’s why I did what I did. At least that’s what I think I thought. All I know is Liz, Sam and Ruby would not shut up about it.
“Fine.” I pulled out the bag. Re-opened the cellophane, dipped my finger in the coarse powder and snorted it right up my stupid nose.
The look of shock everyone had. Shocked that I took the dare. Shocked that I snorted it. Why not just taste it? Maybe because it was a powder. I don’t know.
Silent and blinding, lightning hit the transformer outside, then the loudest boom I’ve ever heard. All the power went out. The only light coming through the store front windows. The transformer was spitting out sparks and smouldering.
We walked up to the window for a closer look. The smell of ozone was dizzying. Liz looks at me and her face snaps to a face of concern. “Shit. Are you okay.” “Yeah.” “Your arm.” The entire length of my left forearm had a series of deep scratches. Blood flowing… it didn’t hurt… but it itched. It itched bad.
The last thing I remember was Sam and Ruby pinning me down. “Stop it. Stop scratching.” “What the hell is wrong with you?” “Liz, call 911. It’s an allergic reaction.”
That’s the last thing I remember about that night.
“On a dare I snorted expired itching powder… I don’t know what else to say.” One thing I can say, as I lay here strapped to a hospital bed, 62% of my skin scratched off, in some places down to the bone and feeling the most wicked itch, like the kind just out of reach and no matter what you try nothing makes it go away, like having thousands of mosquito bites all at the same time… one thing I can say is who the fuck is paying $300 for this on ebay? Unless of course, it was a practical joke. In that case you got me. You got me good. And if I can ever get out of this bed, this hospital and make this itching stop. I’ll be sure to pay you back in kind.