Just don't blame the amphibian --
~~~
The dinner party was Ezra’s idea, which meant it had begun life as an aesthetic proposition and ended as a logistical catastrophe.
Ezra believed the California desert to be underappreciated, like an architect whose best buildings were on the moon. He had designed a house out there -- low, rectilinear, heroic in its refusal to acknowledge sandstorms or human frailty. It was 1972, the Nixon administration was wobbling like a three-legged barstool, and Ezra had decided that what the moment required was lamb, candlelight, and intelligent conversation beneath a sky that looked like God had spilled a box of diamonds.
Laurie approved of the idea on professional grounds. As a journalist, she believed in experiencing things fully so she could later describe them with authority. She was very together. This was not a compliment so much as a diagnosis. Laurie was the sort of woman who could make a vinaigrette while filing a story in her head and reorganizing your life with a single raised eyebrow.
Fred, her boyfriend, approved because there would be people and alcohol and, potentially, motorcycles. Fred was a novelist, which meant he rode motorcycles for research and believed that danger clarified prose. He wore a leather jacket even indoors, like a man permanently prepared to flee his own sentences.
Marin approved because the desert was her studio. Marin specialized in land installations -- art that required miles of empty space, heavy equipment, and a willingness to explain to passersby that no, the giant spiral of rocks was not for cattle. She liked Ezra’s house because it looked temporary, as if it might someday apologize to the desert and leave.
Boyd approved because Boyd approved of everything. Boyd was an FBI agent. Or had been. Or said he was. He knew everything about everything, especially the things you hadn’t asked about, and he had the unsettling habit of nodding thoughtfully when you spoke, as if filing your words under “useful later.”
The sun went down in an operatic fashion, flaring purple and red like a dying superpower. Ezra lit candles. Laurie poured wine. Fred revved an imaginary engine. Marin arranged stones she’d found near the house into something she called “a gesture.” Boyd checked the windows for reasons no one wanted to know.
Dinner was lamb, slightly overcooked in a way that suggested Ezra considered this a moral victory over food. Conversation ranged from architecture (Ezra), journalism (Laurie), the novel Fred was not writing, Marin’s latest project involving a trench visible only from helicopters, and Boyd’s theory that the Beatles had broken up because of foreign intelligence agencies.
It was going well enough until Marin produced the toad.
She did not produce it in the sense of pulling it from her pocket like a rabbit. It was more that she revealed it, as if the toad had always been there, waiting for the right moment to assert itself.
“It’s Bufo alvarius,” she said, reverently. “Sonoran Desert toad.”
The toad regarded them with the expression of a creature that had seen this sort of thing before and did not approve.
“It secretes a venom,” Marin continued, “which, when dried and … appreciated … produces an expanded state of consciousness.”
Laurie sighed. “Is this going to interfere with dinner?”
“No,” Marin said. “It’s going to interfere with reality.”
Ezra, who liked concepts, was intrigued. Fred, who liked danger, was enthusiastic. Boyd said, “I’ve read the file on this,” which no one believed but no one challenged.
Soon they were sitting in a loose semicircle, the toad having been treated with the respect usually accorded to radioactive materials or influential critics. Someone -- history would not record who -- said, “Quick, lick the toad.”
This was received not as an instruction but as a philosophical suggestion.
Time became syrupy. The candles leaned. Ezra’s house breathed. Laurie felt she understood the entire structure of American media and then lost interest. Fred experienced his motorcycle as a metaphor for narrative momentum and stalled it. Marin watched the toad glow with artistic satisfaction. Boyd began explaining the Cold War to a cactus.
That was when the doorbell rang.
The doorbell was an architectural joke -- Ezra had insisted on a chime that sounded like a Japanese temple bell being politely struck. It reverberated through the house and through their skulls.
Ezra stood up, or believed he did, and moved toward the door in stages. He opened it.
On the threshold stood a man in an impeccable suit, holding a bottle of wine.
“Good evening,” the man said. His accent was European in a way that suggested centuries of practice. “I hope I am not too late.”
He was pale. He was handsome. He smiled with a restraint that made you want to apologise.
“I’m Dracula,” he added, as if this explained everything.
Laurie squinted. “As in …?”
“Yes,” Dracula said pleasantly. “That one.”
Fred laughed. “That’s great. Who invited him?”
No one answered because no one could remember inviting anyone. Marin nodded approvingly, as if Dracula were a performance piece. Boyd stared intently at Dracula’s reflection in the glass door, which was present and accounted for, and frowned.
“Come in,” Ezra said, because he was polite and because architecture demands occupancy.
Dracula entered. The temperature dropped in a way that felt expensive.
They offered him a chair. He declined the lamb but accepted the wine, which he did not drink. He held the glass and listened, nodding, as they attempted to explain the toad.
“A fascinating creature,” Dracula said. “I myself have experimented with consciousness expansion. Centuries ago. It did not agree with me.”
“Are you here to kill us?” Fred asked cheerfully.
“Good heavens, no,” Dracula said. “I’m a guest.”
Laurie tried to stand. Her legs informed her that this was theoretical. “We should probably… go.”
“Yes,” Boyd said. “This is outside my jurisdiction.”
No one moved.
The toad watched.
Dracula chatted. He complimented the house. He admired Marin’s stones. He asked Laurie about her work and listened in a way that made her feel she had finally said something worth hearing. He told Fred that motorcycles were an excellent way to die young. He and Boyd discussed surveillance states, Dracula speaking with the weary authority of someone who had seen empires rise and fall and occasionally explode.
Hours passed. Or minutes. The desert moon climbed like a bureaucratic inevitability.
At some point, Dracula stood. “I must be going,” he said. “Dawn approaches.”
They nodded, relieved and vaguely disappointed.
At the door, he paused. “You know,” he said kindly, “if you ever wish to leave a situation like this, the trick is to stand up.”
They considered this.
He smiled, bowed, and was gone.
The candles guttered. The toad hopped once and disappeared.
Eventually, Laurie stood. This time, it worked. One by one, they followed. Outside, the desert was vast and indifferent, as it had been all evening.
“Well,” Fred said. “That’ll make a hell of a book.”
Ezra looked at his house, which had survived. Marin sketched something in the sand. Boyd took notes he would later deny existed.
They never spoke of it again, except occasionally, when someone would say, “Remember that dinner?”
And everyone would nod, carefully, and change the subject.
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