Subject: ASP-PRE3-I Really Should Have Known (3) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 08:09:29 GMT I Really Should Have Known The stories of Ray's personal experiences of about 3 or 4 weeks with pot filled me with anticipation. They also scared me. Part of me couldn't wait to try some, the other part wondered how good/dangerous was this stuff that it kept him out of school for 3 weeks after being out of school already for almost 2 weeks for Christmas/New Years Holiday. All kind of thoughts hit me about this. I wondered, "what the fuck am I doing." But other voices were speaking as well. Those other voices told me almost as quickly, "shut up, just because Ray let pot keep him out of school for 3 weeks doesn't mean you have do it." So of course I lulled myself into a false sense of security about it. In any event I lost no time in asking him to get me some. But day after day past and still no pot. Fuck. I had to try this shit. In my neighborhood and amongst a few future drug buddies, I relayed the stories that Ray had told me about his first experiences with reefer. This created even more of a stir of excitement amongst us. My band mates were getting itchy. Dennis, our drummer friend was psyched. A neighborhood chick named Paula was sold too. So the great search was on. Where could we get some? Who should be approach? By this time, we knew enough to know that there were drug user in the neighborhood. Our drummer who lived close to "the avenue" said that there was a hangout of junkies up on "the avenue." But should we approach any of them? That was too scary. We didn't know what to say, or what to expect. No, we just held out but each of us vowed to do a little inquiry here and there. I would work on Ray. In the meantime I contented myself with further reading about all this. Being in a new school gave me access to a new school library and at least once I almost got caught looking in The Encyclopedia with the book open to H for Heroin. Brother Charles snuck up on me and I just barely had time to flip the pages, but they were still opened to the H section. "What are you looking up" he asked? "Humanahumanahumana, errrrr oh hi Brother, I was errrrr just doing a little reading about Hydrogen" I tried to respond as fast as I could. It was known that I had a very deep liking for chemistry, so this seemed to satisfy him. He patted me on the head and said, "our little scientist, okay." Phew…If he only knew how close to the truth that was. Yup, I was into chemistry alright. Had been since I was about 8 years old. I had strong aspirations to become a chemist one day. Trouble was I was about to embark on the study of internal chemistry instead. Finally one Saturday morning I got a call from Dennis, the drummer. "Hi Dennis, what's going on?" "C'mon over as soon as you can, I have a surprise for you," he said. I knew this was it. Almost shouting out load I said, "Dennis, you got it, you got it, didn't you?" All I heard on the phone was this devious laughter. In a flash I put on my clothes and told my mom I was going out to play. I told her I was going over to Denis's house. "Okay" she said. "Be careful." In no time I walked the three blocks over to Dennis's house. "Where's your parents" I asked as he let me in. "They're out. They won't be back till late this afternoon. Some R&B was playing on the living room stereo system. It was a bright chilled sunny day in late February. The kitchen and dining room were off the main living room area and in the corner by a bunch of windows. It was a nice new apartment house that was built in the last few years and sitting there at the dinning room I was already high in a way. "Let me see it. What does it look like," I asked? Dennis went into his bedroom and came back in a few minutes and produced two very thin toothpick like joints. One for him, one for me. I was shocked at how thin they were. I had heard that they were not usually as thick as cigarettes, but this was really thin. I don't think they were much thicker than a very thick toothpick. "Did you do any of it yet, I asked?" He told me that he had not and that he was waiting for me. Of course my next question was were did you get them. His answer was a bit of a shock. "You're not going to believe me, but I got them from my brother." "WHAT," I exclaimed. "No shit," he said. Apparently his older brother was and had already been a part time indulger for a couple of years now. I had me his older brother a couple of times and I would not have guessed at that time. Anyway, we quickly got down to business. I remember that after we lit up, I vowed to myself that I was going to inhale and suck down the smoke as much and for as long as I could, I was so damn determined to try this stuff. I had read enough descriptions of how it was supposed to make you feel. I knew it was not supposed to be anything like alcohol. And after one or two experiences with booze that was fine by me, because I did not like the taste or the effect of alcohol. Well me smoked and sucked and inhaled and held it in and it seemed that I was having a lot of trouble getting anything into my lungs, these joints were so damn thin. But we worked at it. I was waiting for the first sign of some type of alteration of consciousness. For a moment or two, I thought I felt something, but after finishing it the joints and consoling ourselves that it might take five or ten more minutes, we both had to finally admit that either we didn't have enough, or as the stories went, sometimes you don't get high the first few times you try it. I think I might have had my first taste of depression after that. The rest of the morning and afternoon were a real let down, but we got over it and vowed that we would get some more and make sure the next time we had enough. Hell, we figured if his brother was a user how hard could it be to get our hands on it? Copyright Gizmo 2001