“Now here’s twenty pills, capsules actually . . . ten red and black and ten a light pink. ‘Which ones did he say were the ups, Marc?’ I casually ask. He gulps and says ‘I never asked, I thought you knew.’ This is very bad, as you must realize. So Lang butts in and says the reds and black are ups but he didn’t say it too assuredly.

“You know for sure?” I ask.

“No, but I think so,” he answers.

“Well, I think the pinks are up,” says Neutron.

“How come?”

“’Cause I associate pink with lightness, and the others seem hard colored, like they might knock you out.”

“He’s got a point,” chimes in Marc.

“Bullshit,” I yell, ‘what kind of lamebrain theory is that? Nembutols are light yellow, and they knock you on your ass.’”

—Jim Carroll, from The Basketball Diaries, winter 1965, published in 1978.