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pocket. Mac was known as a haven for potheads, so I wasn’t surprised that Joshua had gotten hold of some weed. “This is primo Buddha,” he said. “Thai stick. Phoebe, ladies get the honors.”
    “It’s Didi,” I said.
    Didi seemed somewhat hesitant, but gamely fired up the lighter and took a toke, then promptly gagged and hacked.
    “Yeah, it’s righteous strong shit,” Joshua said. “It might have some opium laced in it.”
    Between the three of us, we smoked two bowls, and then went in for the show. An all-girl punk band did an opening set that was shrieky and uninteresting, but I was enthralled just being inside the club. Until then, my only concert experiences had been at the Hollywood Bowl and the Forum in L.A.
    Sonic Youth took the stage with “Teen Age Riot,” which commenced slowly, quietly, but once the band started lashing into the main part of the song, the crowd came alive, everyone raising their arms and headbanging and pogoing, and it didn’t stop for an hour and a half, the energy overwhelming and exhilarating.
    “I’m going in!” Joshua said after a few songs, and he waded toward the mosh pit that had formed in front of the stage.
    He disappeared for the rest of the show. Only occasionally would we glimpse him bouncing in the mob. Near the end, I had to pee. I didn’t want to miss anything, but I had to go. “Stay here,” I yelled to Didi.
    When I returned from the bathroom—a forever ordeal—I couldn’t find Didi at first, but then caught sight of her on the far side of the floor.
    “You missed Joni Mitchell!” she told me.
    “What?”
    “Joni Mitchell came out and played a song with them!”
    This sounded odd. Joshua had said one of the songs, “Hey Joni,” was partially a tribute to Joni Mitchell, but it seemed improbable she would appear with Sonic Youth. “Are you sure?” I asked.
    “Yes!” she said. She blinked. “I think.” Confused now, she rolled her tongue around her lips. “Wait, maybe it wasn’t Joni Mitchell?” The Buddha had gotten to her.
    I turned toward the mosh pit. People were flailing and slam-dancing and stage-diving, and in the midst of it all was Joshua, who had been lifted into the air and was being passed overhead from hand to hand while lying stiffly supine, arms akimbo in crucifixion, a smug grin on his face. Then he vanished. Someone had dropped him. A ruckus broke out. Bouncers converged.
    In the van to campus, Joshua told us what had transpired. “Racist skinhead dickwad,” he said, elated. His eye was welting, his cheek and neck were scratched, his knuckles were cratered and bleeding. “Cracker called me a chink and told me to get back on the boat. I clocked the motherfucker. I put him down.”
    When we returned to Mac, we made our way to Wallace, the party dorm, where there were several rooms hosting festivities, everyone sweating in the close quarters. We flitted from room to room, toking and drinking, until Didi passed out. I half carried her to Turck. “Not the bed, not the bed,” she kept saying when we got to her floor, so I took her into the women’s bathroom, where there was a tub. I set her down inside of it. She was already snoring away, drooling. I could have sold tickets: Yeah, five dollars, grow your vegetables here.
    The following afternoon, I sat with Joshua in the library, trying to finish the rest of The Quiet American. His eye was puffed and bruised black, the lid half closed.
    “That guy really called you a chink?” I asked.
    “You think I’d lie about something like that?”
    In my entire life, I had never been on the receiving end of such a slur. I could not deny that there were ethnic tensions in Southern California, but I’d never been affected by anything directly. In this respect, there was comfort in numbers: there were so many Asian Americans in the L.A. area, I could throw a stick in any direction and hit six of them. “I’m just surprised, that’s all,” I said to Joshua. “Everyone’s been so friendly here. I thought maybe people might look at me funny