A Girl Called Mary Jane

The first time I had ever smoked grass, I was nineteen. How I wasn’t smoking before then stuck me as odd every time I picked up a joint from that point on. My first time was with an ex girlfriend, in back of a chicken coop, in the backyard of her family’s home. The joint was lazy, kush was falling out at both ends.

The whole thing looked like a mini telescope being very large on one end, then growing smaller. I did some of it and my ex took the rest. It was my first time and looking at myself back then, I was the kid to probably believe that it was as bad as old folks said. As time went on I began to wonder why Hollywood would glorify it so much if it wasn’t okay.

Sure, they did the same thing cocaine, but the users of cocaine in films always end up dead. Nothing ever happened to Cheech and Chong, or Seth Rogan. That made me think it was okay and drifted me through my first experience. I was calm and didn’t feel much of anything my first time. Unfortunately for my ex, this was not the case.

She entered into a total state of panic, saying she felt like she was in a video game and at any moment it could be game over. I comforted her, panicking at first and suggesting calling nine-one-one, but she dropped all fears of the drug at the mention of the police showing up. Deciding to roll through it, I comforted her, thanking god that my first time wasn’t as internally dramatic.

Over the course of a few weeks I was assured that sometimes those freak-outs happen. While I went on with life, not caring much for pot, she continued use. This followed into a party, thrown by her older brother, in which myself, my ex and a trusted friend shared a joint upstairs, away from the rest of the boys who all got drunk on vodka and cheap beer.

That was the night I had my first cigarette. Little did I know, as it was happening, that my first cigarette became my first three packs. In the span of three hours I took down three boxes, bumming them off people till the party was cigarette-free. I didn’t realize this until the next day and party-goers told me.

The next day I couldn’t speak. Through the night, being guided by my ex, I was loaded up on pot, drunk as a sailor and ingested far too many cigarettes to of been healthy. Looking back, I’m shocked I didn’t die. I know most people like to use that sentence to describe a crazy time they once had, but in that place and that time, waking up feeling as if the Sahara had emptied into my body, I believed myself dead.

After that I took up smoking. I held the habit for two years before kicking it, cold turkey, as I discovered it caused strokes. I could never kick alcohol though. After that party, in which in a higher-than-hell state I played the Rainbow Road on Mario Kart 64 with amazed allusions of ascendence, I used pot regularly.

My parents were alright with it, preferring it over cigarettes. I appreciated their lax attitude about it all, which was probably a factor in me not being rebellious and deciding one day that I was better off without the stuff. Yet, I did have myself a time. In the prime of my pot smoking days I would buy from my dealers who I worked with.

I would go to work high once in a blue moon, but no one ever knew. The one person who did wasn’t gonna say anything, kind of like that American Psycho mentality where individuals have their head so far up their as, they turn and ignore anything that isn’t within their peaceful bubble of simplicity.

Even if it’s murder, or a guy going to work blazed, some folks just don’t care and don’t want to know. After this time I’d drive around with two old friends, we’ll call them Jack & Boomer. They were bigger potheads than I was. Boomer was one of those guys who would travel America to locate and retrieve quality kush, while Jack was one of those kids who smoked almost everything, blaming his greed for weed on his high.

He used to tell excuses like he didn’t feel anything, so he needed more than either myself or Boomer. This was only cause he bummed nug after nug off everyone he could. A great portion of grass-days consisted of me, Jack and Boomer driving around quiet family neighborhoods in Boomer’s car, getting light headed and settling back at Jack’s house once we’d gotten food. 

A time at which I was usually always broke and ended up starving, cause god help you if you ask a stoner for a chicken nugget. God help you with all his might, those fuckers don’t budge. One of the best days I ever had with them was when we swung by this big entertainment place called iplay America.

In the parking lot the three of us saw, what looked to be, a tribe of Africans in traditional clothing, crossing the street from the building and to the parking lot. We all looked at one another, assuring that we were all seeing the same thing. After basking in the essence of what seemed to be a synchronized high, we headed inside to find very fast-moving ride we could and get as motion sick as was possible.

Jack stayed behind, feeling sick after smoking far too much, as he usually did, leaving myself and Boomer to traverse the entertainment zone. We went on an indoor rollercoaster, jumped on shit that spun and experienced two near-heart attacks when twice, one after the other, fights were started directly in front of me while waiting online.

I stood back, not wanting trouble, praying for this bad energy to leave. Before entering the establishment I had to wait on line to put money on the credit card you’d use to play the games and ride the rides. When I got up to the front desk I was burning all over. The cute girl who was helping me asked what I needed.

In my mind I was talking slow and steady. I figured at the first slip-up I was fucked. I spoke calmly and she asked for my card. Things seemed to be going alright, until she asked me to wait one moment while she checked on something. From the other side of the entrance I saw her flag down a security guard.

He was a youthful black teen, about my age at the time, who walked over dandily to the girl behind the desk. I had never internally cursed so much in my life. I was ready to collapse right then and there, picturing myself in handcuffs, a stoner being carried out of iplay screaming and crying by the building security to which this girl had ratted me out.

I held myself together as my heart pounded unbelievably. As he came over I told myself I must wait up until the last moment to be afraid. perhaps he wasn’t coming over to haul me and Boomer away. Boomer, who was as calm as a fox, stood behind me and said nothing, drawing no attention to himself.

He was too quiet, I thought. When the security card stood before the desk in front of me I was ready to hit the floor and faint. Fortunately he revealed his key and opened the cash drawer as the register I had walked up to was apparently broken. Call it the curse of the pot, but when I was on the stuff panic had control over me.

That was still an amazing day, despite my close calls. Since that time my dealers have quiet smoking and dealing, my ex go about her love for it, Jack had to quiet after getting a bad strain and Boomer, well… I could care less. A lot of time has passed since then. I shared weed with my brother, one of my closest friends and hotboxed in cars all over Jersey.

Unfortunately, once synthetic hit the market I found I couldn’t trust anyone. The grass I was smoking, turns out, had been laced with angel dust the whole time. My last smoke came during a midnight randevu with Jack and Boomer, after the breaking of from my ex. After a bad batch I demanded they take me home as this time felt different.

I was unnerved. This time I didn’t feel heavy or warm. I felt worried and in pain. I remember stumbling up the stairs while my parents were asleep, collapsing on my couch and getting very dizzy. My brother was awake and, despite the site that was me, I assured him I was fine. he went of to bed and I tossed around wondering if that night was going to be my last on earth.

For whatever the term is for having too much synthetic, I overdosed. I told no one, kept the experience to myself and quietly recuperated over the course of the next week. I hadn’t smoked since then, being scared out of it. That isn’t to say that I am against pot. If I could grow my own I would. My dilemma comes in the form that Jersey is rampant with coke and heroine addicts, and these gateway assholes found a way to make weed just as lethal and effective as those big two.

Now I trust no one getting my weed. I avoid the field, preferring to assume everyone doesn’t know whether their shit is laced or not. So, to end this story, drug addicts ruined my favorite pastime by making it dangerous. Or, at least, more dangerous that it already was. maybe someday I’ll get back into it, and until then I support it all the way.

All I suggest to the potheads of the future is that you should know where your kush is coming from and know exactly whats in it. It could mean your life. When I was high, it didn’t matter if the sky was on fire, I was going to have a good time. Those times I’ll never forget, but in a lot of ways I felt stronger for walking away from it so quickly and not going back.

Well, we’ll see about that.