High
I am high.
I’m actually really high. And it only took one joint, shared with the husband of a former girlfriend… OK, not really “girlfriend.” So, how do I explain my relationship with Trish?
Once we were young teens, living in different towns. We’d see each other a couple of times a summer, then drop each other e-mails during the school year. After I went overseas with the Army, we actually exchanged letters -- so old-fashioned! - but they were about silly stuff, and what we’d been up to. Just pen pals, with no real romance or promises of love.
Still, the marriage surprised me a little. And while I’m stateside and out of uniform for a few weeks, I hear from Trish, and she and Bill invite me down to the city to hang with them for a day. They live in a nice trailer park, in a nice trailer home, and I’m greeted with another nice surprise. Trish massively pregnant.
That’s why she abstained when Bill lit up. And since pot is meant to be shared, he passed the joint to me.
I figure, what the heck? It would be a couple of weeks before I’d be back with Uncle Sam, all the dope out of my system (I hope), and I had no plans of doing any more. My abstinence, up to this point, wasn’t out of some self-righteous hatred of weed; it was the fact that while penalties for partaking at all were severe, the military had no problem with me drinking until my liver floated. So my misspent youth would be liquid-fueled, rather than smoke-driven. Except for tonight.
So I take a couple of drags, hold in the smoke like I’d always heard, and I’m not feeling any effect - at first.
Then Bill wants to get out and drive around, show me the town. They ask if we can take my car. Bill’s low on gas, and gas money. And my car is nicer, Trish points out.
At first, I’m fine. But after a minute behind the wheel, my head and senses fuzz. On the crosstown freeway, I’m floating above the car, remote-controlling a manikin-me behind the wheel. Fortunately, while I am high (kinda literally) I’m not stoned mindless. On the contrary, making a full effort to keep my mind, I concentrate on everything. Every little thing. I remember to actually note my speed, not to go too fast, or too slow - don’t want to become that old joke about the stoner who’s pulled over thinking he’s doing 90 when the cop tells him he’s doing 9.
I carefully move my ghost-hands and ghost-feet, and fortunately the real ones on the wheel and pedals respond correctly. I take care to think through every action, be ready for anything around me, and so grateful (though I don’t say anything, no need to panic the passengers) when Bill suggests I pull off and park by the mall.
This isn’t The Mall, but an older one, with half the stores shuttered. The half-full lot occupied mostly with kids out cruising. I step out of the car and stand, leaning on it, letting the cool night air filter through my simultaneously heightened and dulled senses.
High schoolers.
Bill goes over to talk to some kids, admiring their ride, swapping laughs. He better not be getting my car into some bullshit race. But Trish reassures me he mostly just goofs around with them. They go to the high school where he had graduated, or its rival.
These boys seem impressed with Bill, a man out on his own. He’s got a job, a wife, a kid on the way; but can still hang out, still party. He’s got it together, they think.
And I can see in his face that he enjoys this kind of attention, being the big man off campus. He inhales the energy, drinks deep.
He doesn’t even look our way anymore. Not at me -- not even at Trish, now standing very close to me.
Trish tells me he often comes out here, hanging out with boys years younger than himself, that gap growing each summer. He’s hooked on being the eternal high schooler.
What’s he going to be like in a few more years?
High hopes.
That’s what I see in Trish’s beautiful green eyes, in spite of her imperfect life. At first, I think its optimism that when the baby comes, they’ll settle into a more mature routine: Bill settles down, gets a better job. She finishes school, finds work. They provide for their little family.
But as we talk - as she talks - I see it’s something else.
She expresses regret that she didn’t finish school, escaped the rough home she grew up in by dropping out to marry and move here. Wasn’t even knocked-up, she says, the reason most girls leave like that. I see in her subtext this means she still had hope for escape if her rescuer turned out to be a bad choice. But the baby growing in her now eliminates that option. She feels it's like an anchor, trapping her.
My sobering mind sees hers clinging to dreams, hooked on what-ifs. We had only shared that one kiss, long ago at a 4-H camp, in the days when a kiss from a girl would carry me for months. I never realized she still carried a little of that feeling, too.
What can I say to her? I’m in no position to promise her any better than what she’s got. It would be different, that’s all. Would that be enough? And, more importantly, it’s not what I want.
I’m at a good point of my life. I’ve left teen angst and drama behind -- got a purpose now, complete with job and rank - and in a couple of years I’ll be in college on the G.I. Bill and moving on into the world of adult debts and stress. Perhaps my mind feels so crystal clear at this point not because of the THC, but because I’m at that rare moment when I’m totally unburdened.
As life itself becomes a mind-altering substance, I may be the only one here who is sober.
- - - - - - -
This is my entry for LJ Idol Exhibit A, Week 5, Topic: “ This is your brain on....” A fictional story, based on a true memory (names changed, time-frame moved up to recent years). In my case, weeks after my day with her, I sent “Trish” a copy of the Eddie Money album “Can’t Go Back,” hoping she’d take the hint. Instead, she was overjoyed I’d sent her a present. I haven’t contacted her since. Still, I hope she’s doing well.
I’m actually really high. And it only took one joint, shared with the husband of a former girlfriend… OK, not really “girlfriend.” So, how do I explain my relationship with Trish?
Once we were young teens, living in different towns. We’d see each other a couple of times a summer, then drop each other e-mails during the school year. After I went overseas with the Army, we actually exchanged letters -- so old-fashioned! - but they were about silly stuff, and what we’d been up to. Just pen pals, with no real romance or promises of love.
Still, the marriage surprised me a little. And while I’m stateside and out of uniform for a few weeks, I hear from Trish, and she and Bill invite me down to the city to hang with them for a day. They live in a nice trailer park, in a nice trailer home, and I’m greeted with another nice surprise. Trish massively pregnant.
That’s why she abstained when Bill lit up. And since pot is meant to be shared, he passed the joint to me.
I figure, what the heck? It would be a couple of weeks before I’d be back with Uncle Sam, all the dope out of my system (I hope), and I had no plans of doing any more. My abstinence, up to this point, wasn’t out of some self-righteous hatred of weed; it was the fact that while penalties for partaking at all were severe, the military had no problem with me drinking until my liver floated. So my misspent youth would be liquid-fueled, rather than smoke-driven. Except for tonight.
So I take a couple of drags, hold in the smoke like I’d always heard, and I’m not feeling any effect - at first.
Then Bill wants to get out and drive around, show me the town. They ask if we can take my car. Bill’s low on gas, and gas money. And my car is nicer, Trish points out.
At first, I’m fine. But after a minute behind the wheel, my head and senses fuzz. On the crosstown freeway, I’m floating above the car, remote-controlling a manikin-me behind the wheel. Fortunately, while I am high (kinda literally) I’m not stoned mindless. On the contrary, making a full effort to keep my mind, I concentrate on everything. Every little thing. I remember to actually note my speed, not to go too fast, or too slow - don’t want to become that old joke about the stoner who’s pulled over thinking he’s doing 90 when the cop tells him he’s doing 9.
I carefully move my ghost-hands and ghost-feet, and fortunately the real ones on the wheel and pedals respond correctly. I take care to think through every action, be ready for anything around me, and so grateful (though I don’t say anything, no need to panic the passengers) when Bill suggests I pull off and park by the mall.
This isn’t The Mall, but an older one, with half the stores shuttered. The half-full lot occupied mostly with kids out cruising. I step out of the car and stand, leaning on it, letting the cool night air filter through my simultaneously heightened and dulled senses.
High schoolers.
Bill goes over to talk to some kids, admiring their ride, swapping laughs. He better not be getting my car into some bullshit race. But Trish reassures me he mostly just goofs around with them. They go to the high school where he had graduated, or its rival.
These boys seem impressed with Bill, a man out on his own. He’s got a job, a wife, a kid on the way; but can still hang out, still party. He’s got it together, they think.
And I can see in his face that he enjoys this kind of attention, being the big man off campus. He inhales the energy, drinks deep.
He doesn’t even look our way anymore. Not at me -- not even at Trish, now standing very close to me.
Trish tells me he often comes out here, hanging out with boys years younger than himself, that gap growing each summer. He’s hooked on being the eternal high schooler.
What’s he going to be like in a few more years?
High hopes.
That’s what I see in Trish’s beautiful green eyes, in spite of her imperfect life. At first, I think its optimism that when the baby comes, they’ll settle into a more mature routine: Bill settles down, gets a better job. She finishes school, finds work. They provide for their little family.
But as we talk - as she talks - I see it’s something else.
She expresses regret that she didn’t finish school, escaped the rough home she grew up in by dropping out to marry and move here. Wasn’t even knocked-up, she says, the reason most girls leave like that. I see in her subtext this means she still had hope for escape if her rescuer turned out to be a bad choice. But the baby growing in her now eliminates that option. She feels it's like an anchor, trapping her.
My sobering mind sees hers clinging to dreams, hooked on what-ifs. We had only shared that one kiss, long ago at a 4-H camp, in the days when a kiss from a girl would carry me for months. I never realized she still carried a little of that feeling, too.
What can I say to her? I’m in no position to promise her any better than what she’s got. It would be different, that’s all. Would that be enough? And, more importantly, it’s not what I want.
I’m at a good point of my life. I’ve left teen angst and drama behind -- got a purpose now, complete with job and rank - and in a couple of years I’ll be in college on the G.I. Bill and moving on into the world of adult debts and stress. Perhaps my mind feels so crystal clear at this point not because of the THC, but because I’m at that rare moment when I’m totally unburdened.
As life itself becomes a mind-altering substance, I may be the only one here who is sober.
- - - - - - -
This is my entry for LJ Idol Exhibit A, Week 5, Topic: “ This is your brain on....” A fictional story, based on a true memory (names changed, time-frame moved up to recent years). In my case, weeks after my day with her, I sent “Trish” a copy of the Eddie Money album “Can’t Go Back,” hoping she’d take the hint. Instead, she was overjoyed I’d sent her a present. I haven’t contacted her since. Still, I hope she’s doing well.