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¶ Short Stories (currently)
'Oh, Shit, We're Busted!' or The Completely True and Mildly Exaggerated Tale of Youthful Rebelliousness, Smoking Pot, and Getting Arrested for It
Main characters:
Drew Patty (you)
James Stevenson III
Chris Brown
Sean McNair
Setting: Columbus, Indiana and outskirts. Also: a grey 1988 Dodge Caravan (back seat missing)
Date: October 13, 1994
The story begins like any other story, at the beginning:
When you're 17-years-old, life is all about routine. First you must wake up at 7 a.m. Then you must depress the snooze button. At 7:09 a.m., you must hit the snooze button again. At 7:18 a.m. your hand lingers over the snooze button, and in the end gravity or sleep wins again. Finally, at 7:27 a.m. you realize you only have three minutes to make it to your best friend's house, which, lucky for you, is only five minutes away. There's never any time to brush your teeth, eat any breakfast or find clean clothes. You can allow yourself a look in the mirror (note to self: wear a hat to school), a swig of OJ from the carton (note to self: make sure to tighten OJ cap next time), and you'll give the dog some food (note to self: since you fed him, if he poops on the living room floor, again, you will not be cleaning it up).
So with your San Diego Padres baseball cap tucked tightly on your head, you head out the door, which you forget to lock. It doesn't matter because the only valuable item in your house, the computer, was stolen several months earlier. It was an inside gig, you know, because the thief didn't even bother to take the $80 in the desk drawer right next to the computer. What an idiot. You hop into the grey Dodge Caravan parked in the double driveway. It starts right away, which is about the only thing it does well. You notice that the gas is getting near E, which means you'll have to ask your mother for some money, which you relish. Half of it for gas, the other half for munchies and pot!
So you're only about 10 minutes late as you leave for your friend's house. The neighborhood you live in makes you sick to your stomach. House after house you pass is either full of rotten memories or foul possibilities, or complete strangeness. For instance, your neighbor, Schmiddy, always hated you. He made it especially clear freshman year when you tried out for the baseball team and he cut your ass clean (never mind that you might have deserved to be cut, yes, never you mind that, because you know that he kept on his team some real fuckups, genuine, class-A fuckups). He always hated you and your brother, and your brother never even did anything wrong. Truly. You would wish he'd screw up, just once or twice, so that it would take a little pressure off you, but no, he'd bring home his report card every semester bursting with shining A's and the occasional B+ in P.E. or some such; he never drank; he didn't get high; and now he was in college at some liberal arts school, getting a full ride, and here you are in your ride which is nearly empty of gas. Anyway, Schmiddy hated you for various, somewhat legitimate reasons: lighting firecrackers late at night, being a public nuisance, letting your dog bark all night, etc. And he should have hated you for other reasons: sneaking into his backyard's garden and stealing his strawberries (damn fine strawberries), prank calling him, encouraging your dog to shit in his yard when you were walking him (good boy! -- an idea you lifted straight from the Simpsons). Then there's a house where an old lady lives. Then there's the Vandergriff's, who have a daughter who's about three years older than you and who you were pretty sure was changing in front of her bedroom window one time, but since it was sorta light outside you couldn't really stop and look, now could you? Then two more worthless houses, then Dana Adams house, who you had a crush on back in third grade, and, being naive, you told your good friend Ryan about it, and, Ryan, being your good friend, immediately made fun of you about it, afterwards making sure to tell Dana and everyone else who cared to listen, which, in third grade, was everyone, and so you learned an important lesson about love in third grade: Never Tell Anyone Anything.
Then you turn left at 29th Street and you're heading out of your neighborhood and into some other neighborhood where 17-year-old boys you don't know are still hitting their snooze buttons or perhaps eating their Wheaties and staring at Michael Jordan's grinning visage or perhaps they've already left for school because their not the screwup that you are, yes, perhaps there are plenty of guys who actually wake up on time and get to school on time and are even sober -- heaven forbid! -- while they're there, and they might even like school and their teachers and when school is out and track practice is over, they might actually go home and do their homework before their mom's call out: "Come and get it!" and they all pile around the table and say their graces and amens and dig into whatever casserole the mothers have dredged up; yes, that was all possible, and all so sickening and unbelievable that your tired eyes can't even begin to conceive it, no, better to just listen to your Tribe Called Quest tape ("Midnight Marauders") and hope that James has already rolled up a J to smoke on your way to school, i.e. Hell. James, is, of course, not waiting for you outside because it's a little chilly and he swears, "Some day when I get my own car and drive to school, I'll get up an hour before and turn the heat on high so that when I drive there I won't even have to wear a shirt," and you have no doubt that, if he ever does get a car, that's exactly what he'll do. Now, about him getting the car?
You have to go up to his door and knock because he isn't waiting and you loathe honking your horn. He's awake, a bonus, and as a double bonus, his mom has already left for work, which means he's had plenty of time to roll up some joints, and he hands one to you and says, "Let's roll."
He never asks to drive, and you think that's partly because of the time back when neither of you had your licenses and so you stole the minivan (for some reason you needed it, but, of course, a year and several pounds of pot later, that reason escapes you like smoke out the window of a moving car) and since neither of you were legally driving, you let James take the wheel, and somehow he became distracted, and pop!, suddenly he is jerking the wheel back and you're realizing that he has just clipped a mailbox and off comes the sideview mirror, which you stop to pick up, and, being devious, you place the broken mirror on the ground of the double driveway in front of your house, and just shrug your shoulders when your brother, who is the legal driver of the van at the time, questions you about it. "Guess it fell off," you offer, and of course he replies, "It just fell off?" Stupid goodie goodie. He really needs to loosen up, you think. He doesn't even wear his wallet in his back pocket like everyone else. He keeps it up front like someone in a wealthy urban area who has suddenly found himself on the South Side, or like anyone in Italy.
So you drive to school while James lights up a joint and puts the others somewhere hidden in the van, usually in a tape case, and you smoke it and laugh. Laughing is what life is all about anyway, and if you don't agree you know you're wrong. Well, anyway, you know it's true. What is there but laughing and being high? Yes, it's true. There's nothing better, nothing righter, nothing more perfect than right here right now smoking a joint with James while he smiles his slightly puffy, proud lips and sucks down another mammoth hit, exhaling smoke rings that sneak out the back windows. You keep the joint low by your side while you stop at a red light and look at James. His eyes are already glazing and red. His hair is getting a bit nappy. He's half-black, which might or might not make a difference to you, depending. That is, it doesn't make a difference to you 'cause he's your best friend. (It does make a difference when some stupid hicks call him names and you have to convince him that it's better not to beat them up and go to jail.) He'd do anything for you, and you him. He's got a little scruff on his lip which someday might turn into a nice moustache, but at the moment looks silly. 'Course, everything is starting to look silly. The old lady in the tan Oldsmobile next to you, all hunched up at the wheel, looks particularly wacky. You comment to James, who's lips break into a first-class grin, and then you're both laughing and roaring down the road (roaring at 35 mph -- you're a suburban Dr. Thompson and Samoan lawyer combo) heading toward your Las Vegas (high school), which is alright as long as you're high, too, yep.
You get there just in time to make it to home room only about five minutes late, and your condescending but usually forgiving home room teacher yells at you (he'll apologize later for yelling) and you sit down and act sheepish. Your desk neighbors who're in the know smell you and know that you reek of Drakkar not to impress the ladies.
Later in the day, at lunch, James will tell you, while you're taking "the loop" -- a series of country roads that are just long enough for three or four guys to smoke a joint and finish it right at about the time that they're pulling up to the donut shop -- that he's invited a friend to get high with you later that night, and that's always alright with you. Today's "friend in need" (since you're the friends with weed) is Chris Brown, who is a year older and is pretty cool, you guess. He's a tall guy who's kinda goofy and who you once saw in a fight outside school: his lanky arms reaching out to swat a this short guy's face, and even though you used to be friends with the short guy, you were rooting for Brown for some reason.
The donuts that day at lunch, as always, are delicious.
After school, you continue your routine: a joint on the way home. Then a snack, if you can find one. Then, later, while you're sitting in your minivan with James, another joint. Then you give Brown a call, and he says to come pick him up. So you do. He's with a friend, a Sean McNair, who you don't really know but who seems a little shy and kind, the sort of person you prefer over loud or obnoxious people. The four of you pile into the minivan and head toward the city limits. Just outside the city there is a gravel road that leads to the middle of a cornfield, and it's a great place to just sit in the dark and get high without worrying about getting in a wreck or having a cop pull you over. Not that you're worried about it. After all, no one wakes up and says, "Today I'll get arrested."
Darkness is settling over the countryside like dust, and you have to turn your headlights on so that you can find the gravel road. You find it, turn, and start winding you way back, off the road. You get the end of the road, where you'll turn your car around and park, lights off and relax. Turn on the inside light and start rolling some J's.
As soon as the headlights are off and you're parked, you look up to the road, a good 100 yards away at least, and you see a car creeping down the country road.
"That car's going awfully slow," you say.
"Probably someone who's high," Brown says from the passenger seat. James is sitting behind you and he passes up the pot and Brown uses a phone book you keep in your van for just this purpose to spread out the weed, and he breaks it up and then tilts the book just enough and pushes the pot up so that the seeds come tumbling down and separate. It's a great trick because everyone knows that pot seeds make you infertile.
Besides, they pop when they burn, and they can bust up a joint. Stems and seeds removed, Brown sparks the joint and gets it burning. He passes it to you, you take a nice smooth hit, pursing your lips just like James does, so that you can get just the right amount of suction going, so that the end of the joint really burns, and you hold it in while you pass it back. Then, knowing Brown will like this little trick, you turn in the inside light that's right above the rearview mirror and you exhale; the smoke swirls out like frightened ghosts and fills the air. After everyone gets a few hits, the whole inside of the van, all windows up, has a pleasant hazy atmosphere, perfect for just sitting and relaxing. The inside light is still on, and so you, feeling particularly crafty, take off your Padres cap and put it upside-down over the light. The six small holes in the top of your cap, because of the haze, give off miniature beams of smoky light.
"Damn, that's cool," Brown says, impressed. You feel impressive. You exhale the hit you had in your lungs, and the small spotlights glow even brighter. By this point the joint is nearing its end, so Brown suggests rolling up another one. Everyone agrees. You take your cap from the light and plop it back on your head. You try to look out the window, but with the inside light on and the haze, it's hard to make out anything outside. You certainly can't see any stars from your seat in the van. Then you notice something, which looks like it's moving against the scenery, and coming toward you. You say, "There looks like there's something moving out there." The moving object looks like a Stetson hat, and then, pow!, lights come from several directions at once, all pointing at the van.
"Don't move, police!" voices shout.
Brown, as if the cameras for "Cops" were rolling, mutters, "Oh, shit, we're busted!" As nervous as you are, you get a brief flickering bit of anger at Brown for saying such a trite thing, and looking at him as the cops approach, you seem him frozen in place, rolling papers between his fingers, a phone book with all sorts of greenery on his lap, and a huge frown on his face. Or is he just stoned? Or are you?
It's hard to tell how everything happens next. You are told not to move, then you're told to move, then you get asked some questions, "Who's van is this? (Yours) What are you doing out here? (What does it look like?) Are there more drugs in the van? (You don't think so -- that's what you say, anyway.) What the hell were you thinking?" Etc. You feel the cold of the evening settling over you. You aren't wearing anything warm, and the cops don't care. They finally realize you're not going to shoot them, and they put their guns away. By this point you realize that there's at least a dozen of them out there, in the middle of this cornfield. Your viewpoint begins to waver. You never thought pot was such a big deal. Your mom even admitted to you that she and your father, before you and your brother were born, had grown a pot plant or two. Now you were being swarmed by a squadron of county police officers, all of whom were treating this like you were Pablo Escobar.
Now you are sitting in a police car. They put James in the same car with you, which is reassuring for some reason. You don't have any idea what is going to happen to you, but being next to James, at least it doesn't seem so bad. Plus you're still kinda high. A nice female officer seats in the front seat, watching over the both of you. You have handcuffs on, which are incredibly uncomfortable and, since your hands are behind your back, it's hard to even just sit comfortably. You ask the officer if you're going to be put in jail since you're not even 18, and she says probably not. That relieves you too, somewhat. You're in the car for about an hour. Then you get driven to the county station/jail. It's weird, you think, being driven through the gate -- too official for your tastes.
"I need to get the fuck out of this place," you think.
In the questioning room with the other guys, you wait while the officers call your parents. You and James are feeling bad for Brown and his friend because they are both over 18 and will be charged as adults. That probably means a night in jail. And their names in the paper. At some point, since you're all stuck in this room together, either James or Brown, still enjoying what they can of a buzz, the last they'll probably be getting in a while, start humming a tune, and before you know it the three of them are singing like choir boys some Boys II Men tune that you know. But you're feeling upset and embarrassed and confused and not in the mood to sing. You remain tight-lipped as parents arrive and are debriefed by the authorities. It's still stretching your mind how seriously everything is being taken.
"We were just getting high," you think.
Your mom does not look very happy to be picking you up at 11 p.m. from the county jail offices. She doesn't say much on the car ride home (the van, of course, will need to be kept and searched before it can be returned, if it's returned at all -- it could be seized, and then you'd have no wheels, and that's a terrifying idea in itself), but at some point you do confront her anger, trying to call her out. "You told me you and Dad used to grow pot," you complain.
She just shakes her head sadly. Apparently that isn't the point. She tells you what is:
"I don't care if you use pot. I just don't want you being stupid and getting caught."
Tomorrow you'll have to start a new routine. It'll involve getting up early enough to catch the bus (the bus! Oh, you've been reduced to riding the school bus, and at 17 years old!) and coming straight home from school or work.
But your only real punishment (since you finally convince your mom to let you drive to school in the end) is a class you have to take, where you meet with a counselor for one session, she gives you a packet of information to read, you read it, you regurgitate it, and then she says you're "cured." At some point, you pick up this odd tidbit of information, an ominous piece of news: Ninety percent of people arrested for the first time get arrested again within six months. You think about that little item of trivia as you go to sleep. Will you get arrested again? "No, not me," you think.
Of course, you're wrong.
After all, no one wakes up and says, "Today I'll get arrested."