It all started with a wrong clap. I remember that because Dave was saying that when she was born, her dad got mad that she clapped on the 1 and the 3 and not the 2 and the 4. He was clapping weird. Chubby Indian dude with a mushroom cap. Said he wanted to check out the place because he heard we grew mad mushrooms. Really the place was inundated with mold. The green fuzzy forest atmosphere was just a result. Crying Game hung up ragged red curtains so it’d have a Twin Peaks vibe. We held DIY shows to fund our org. A religious org fulfilling a sense of purpose in a goth tradcath kind of way. That was our tagline. White dresses. Dusty Swedish folklore books. Fucked up bowl cuts. We held a music show. The magic mercury pooled on the stage. Crying Game’s ragged red curtains. People seeing what they want. Crying Game got the magic mercury at a golf course with an ex. Drinking Jack Daniel’s and smoking Black and Milds. Watching a meteor shower when it fell. She called him out for pissing so close to where she was laying. He said it wasn’t him. He didn’t even drink. She looked at it. It shined. She said she broke the bottle. Cut herself. And tried to skirt it into the bottle. It burned she said. Like when you bleach your hair with Vol 30 developer and no gloves. She brought it back to us. One of us was so high on one of the moldy magic mushrooms. Poured it on the stage. The place was an old theater. We all looked at it. It was nothing at first. Just a puddle of some mercury. Like when you break a thermometer in science class. Crying Game said she could see the Giant from Twin Peaks who she always had a weird thing for. Dave said she saw her dad clapping on the 1 and 3. It should’ve been a puddle. A thespian in his sixties came by that day. He was a real creep. He tried to touch Crying Game one time. We brought him into the theater. It confirmed some things for us. So we started slowly bringing people we’d pick up in the street. With our special sort of begging for donations. Cold read people to find shit undealt with. Dead dad you told to fuck off. We thought it’d be good. Very pious. Doing God’s will. That sort of thing. It went too far with Mushroom Cap. We posted up fliers for an epic one night show. A secret act. Spread the word amongst our friends. They sold overpriced eighths to high schoolers. They spread the word to these high schoolers. We got a crowd that night. More than we expected. Bringing in five. Ten dollar donations. Everything’s great. But this guy. Mushroom Cap. He’s drunk. He’s shitfaced. He’s loud. Clapping on the 1 and the 3. Dave pulls him to the side. Tells him to fuck off if he can’t hang. He asks too many questions. Sees through the party trick. Dave tells him he’s drunk. It got scary. He sobered up. Started yelling. We pulled him to the back. We’ll bring in one of our big hardcore friends to fuck you up. He wasn’t phased. He knew we could be shut down. Crying Game panicked. Crying Game brought out a bottle and fucked him up. We left him in the alley thinking he’d go home. Or to the ER. He came back inside. We all lost our shit. Everybody lost their shit. People screaming at his broken nose. A blood goatee. And behind Mushroom Cap. It started to change. It wasn’t a magic mercury puddle anymore. It was. It was something else. Crying Game. Dave. I had a feeling that we needed to get the fuck out of there. Everybody else. They just didn’t know. When we came back from the sewers. It wasn’t normal. A mass of skin and hair. The moans hit my ear in a way I wish they never had.