The Same Man

Chapter 6

I immediately tell her yes and turn to fish a packet of gummies from my backpack.

Every Wednesday afternoon I go to the local Costco and buy a massive box of gummies. They come pre-packaged in colorful baggies. I rip open the baggies and place them in clear plastic bags to make them look more legit. I then deform them a bit because of the fruit shapes they are in.

I pass the frizzy haired woman a baggie and she places forty bucks in the palm of my hand in return.

Jack just watches while his mouth is gaping open.

"Close your mouth before a fly buzzes in." I tell him.

He automatically snaps his jaw shut.

I do my rounds. Two bags to the twenty something guy with a lisp, one bag for the single mom near the bodega, and five bags to the bar owner's wife two streets down, etc. (I would limit them to one bag per person if it wasn't for the fact that they were not real edibles).

All throughout my rounds Jack is silent. Almost brooding. It's weird. He finally speaks up when we are making our way back to our apartment complex.

"When did you start selling them?"

"Well, I first came in contact with real edibles when I was around eleven. My Mom and her friends had a Tupperware party and guess what was in the Tupperware?"

He didn't guess.

"Anyway, I started thinking that weed gummies kind of look like the packages of fruit gummies that my friends bring to school. Later that week I went and poked my nose around the grocery store. I knew how much authentic edibles cost so I knew I could turn a profit after seeing that the fruit gummies were only $4.45."

I glance over at him but he is staring intently at the bushes across the road.

"I also knew exactly who my clientele could be. It's simple really. Find people who need a break from reality and their daily lives but are too chicken to try real drugs. If they had real drugs or real weed, they would know that I'm lying right away. It's the Placebo effect. They think they are getting their high and the false sense of happiness they seek, when really it's just their brains playing a trick on them."

Jack makes a face that is somewhere in between impressed, stunned, and disgusted. I choose to take it as a complement.

He walks me the rest of the way to my door and before I slip inside the apartment I turn and give him a half-smile half-nod.

Later, at dinner, over leftover lasagna that is still cold in the middle, Gamie asks if Jack is bugging me too much. I tell her no. That's not true, but I would feel bad if Gamie chastised Jack. She doesn't raise her voice often, but when she does it's more frightening than people who eat avocado on toast every morning.

Gamie tells me I should try to make some contact with my parents sooner rather than later.

I'll choose later, definitely later. I don't really feel like squabbling with either of my parents or whoever they are sleeping with.

For some reason, the people my parents date always feel the need to try and lecture me about some insignificant detail about my person. It doesn't matter if it's about my appearance, respect, or cleanliness. They never fail to give a sermon dedicated to fixing something about me. I just tune them out. It's not like I care what any of them have to say or what they think of me anyway.

I claim fullness and am excused back to my room.

I find the contacts app on my phone. I scroll to the D section of my contacts. It's not a very difficult feat considering I have no contacts.

Besides my clientele, of course.

I go to click my Father's number but I don't feel any reason to. Both of my parents pretty much abandoned me. What would I get out of calling either of them?

Since I can remember, I have always planned to leave them. To move somewhere far away and cut off all contact.

It's almost humorous, that's exactly what they ended up doing to me.