Spring Break Is Still Decadent and Depraved — and Awesome, Dude!

A family of four who had parked near the hotel and walked to the beach was returning to their van. The mother heard the singing first and rushed the two young boys into the vehicle.

Brad was in such a hurry to start his spring break road trip that he left the brace for his recently broken ankle in his Kentucky bedroom. Even worse, he forgot his fake IDs ("we have a printer that can make them for just about every state"). No worries, though; he still had his parents' minivan loaded with seven people, plenty of booze, and a giant bag of pot. Fifteen minutes into the 16-hour road trip from Lexington, someone pulled out the nitrous oxide. "It gives you the wah-wahs," Curd explained later. "You try to talk, but it just comes out 'wah wah wah.'"

They left the Friday that kicked off spring break, the moment that Brad, a friendly, muscular, 20-year-old business major, finished the midterm for his management class. He'd given his friends the keys so they could pack the van while he was taking his exam and pick him up on the way out. "I was ready to blow off some steam," he said. "I'm not gonna tell you I didn't throw up somewhere on the trip. But I wasn't driving anymore by then, so it's cool."

Kacey and two others made the trip in Kacey's Acura, he said, taking shots of Kentucky Gentleman the whole way.

Early in the week, they hit bars along A1A. They saw the Girls Gone Wild crew filming on Sunday. They spent an evening at Off the Hookah trying to take advantage of an all-you-can-drink special; Kacey got drunk there but not so much that he wasn't aware of how fantastic it was, he said — not the bar per se but the moment in general, the euphoria. He toasted spring break and then he slipped into a fist-pumping trance for half an hour.

"That's my thing, like my move," he said later. "When things are going really good for me or something, I do this thing where I spread my legs and just pump my fist... Plus, they were playing a lot of techno, and secretly, when I'm drunk, techno is probably my favorite music to listen to."

On the second night of the trip, Brad met a few attractive young women who worked in promotions, which meant basically that they were paid to go to a bar and look hot. It was 7 a.m. by the time he made it back to the Premiere, only to discover that his key didn't work in his door. Someone had fastened the deadbolt. So Brad went to the manager and said he'd been locked out. As the two of them went back upstairs, Brad said, an odd thing happened. Each room at the Premiere has a window, and beneath the window are glass slats. As they walked upstairs, two glass slats fell from the second floor, crashing on the concrete below.

The manager looked at Brad. Brad looked at the manager. Then, where the slats had been, they saw a foot with red toenails.

Brad was tired but intrigued, so he followed the manager to the room in question, and recounted the following exchange:

"Is this your room?" the manager asked the girl who answered.

"Uh, no," she said. She seemed drunk.

"You have on the wristband," the manager said. Paying guests are given wristbands to help distinguish freeloaders.

"Yeah, so maybe it's my room," she said. "What's the problem?"

"You broke the glass there. You have to pay for it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

By then the manager had entered the room and found a guy in board shorts, without the blue wristband. "You get out," the manager said.

Later, Brad said, he asked the guy what had happened, and the guy said, "I was railing this chick in there. We were pounding on the side of the bed there, and we fell off and her foot went out the window... I told the manager and he thought it was so funny he let the chick stay. He was gonna kick her out and still make her pay. Now she still has to pay, but she can stay here for the week."

As the sun sank and the crowds cleared, a group of guys from Ball State lingered on the beach, which was littered with plastic cups and beer cans. One, his brown hair in a Mohawk, chased a seagull as the others laughed. They were drunk.

On A1A, two tipsy girls in black swimsuits tried to cross at Vistamar Street. One girl walked into traffic, and then, confused by her friend calling her name, turned around and walked back. Car horns blasted at her, but they couldn't sober her up. A man in the back of a passing cab yelled, "Suck cock, whore!"

A homeless man with a beard and a beer in a paper bag approached the guys on the beach. "You got a quarter or some change, man? You guys got any change for a donation?"

The Mohawk kid got close to him. "Nah, man, we're on the beach," he said. "We don't have any money at the beach." The homeless man looked down. The kid stepped closer. "You like weed?" he asked. "We could get you some weed."

"What I could really use is a nice big crack rock," the homeless man said with a half-laugh.

"Yeah, OK. We'll get you some crack. You show up right here at this spot tomorrow morning, we'll get you crack. We feel you, man. Right here, tomorrow, after breakfast."

The homeless man seemed skeptical. "Alright, tomorrow."

As night fell and the beach darkened, the other side of A1A lit up. Brett and Paris and the Indiana gang were at Howl at the Moon, the bar with dueling pianos on the third floor of BeachPlace. The two piano players took turns playing the fight songs of Indiana University and Purdue, fierce in-state rivals. They'd play the song of one school until fans from the other put enough cash in the jar of their piano player, going back and forth, IU, Purdue, IU, Purdue. "Is that all you got?" the Indiana player said to the crowd. "Guess the Purdue fans just care more." The IU fans booed. The Purdue song played. And then an IU fan put $400 in the Indiana jar and said "I think Indiana just won."

Downstairs, at Fat Tuesday, a bouncer closely inspected what was supposed to be a South Carolina driver's license. He looked at the young men before him, who were wearing Theta Chi shirts. "Don't you ever, ever come back here with these," he said, handing the ID back to the spring breakers, who quickly headed for the stairs.

"Fuck that," one of them said. "These things work everywhere in Bloomington. It just cost me 40 dollars to get my ID back from down the street."

"This is supposed to be the place where everyone gets drunk and everyone gets laid," another one complained.

In time, the other side of A1A went dark and the sun rose on another day of spring break. The beach slowly filled with tan young people. Girls arranged their towels in groups and discussed life's stresses while wearing $300 sunglasses and $200 bathing suits that can't get wet. Many wore heels to the beach. Toned, tanned guys tossed footballs and waded in the ocean. Banners flown by small airplanes advertised drink specials and car insurance. For a moment, at the right angle, it could have been 1985; put larger hair on the girls and it could have been 1960. But even Where the Boys Are has a dark side — one of the girls, played by Yvette Mimieux, gets date-raped.

The bearded homeless man came back the next morning, wearing the same blue jeans and black shirt. He spotted the Ball State kid with the Mohawk, who was sprawled on a towel on the sand. "Hey, you said to meet you here," the homeless man said.

"What?"

"You said I should come back in the morning."

"Oh! Oh yeah." He turned to his friends: "This is the guy who wanted crack." A small group gathered by the homeless man.

The Mohawk kid picked up a small white rock. "Here it is!" he said, raising the pebble. His friends cackled.

"You said you had crack, man."

"Yeah, yeah, this is crack... Where's your pipe?"

His friends chimed in: "Smoke that crack rock, we got it for you."

Eventually they got the man to put the pebble in a small glass pipe he had.