The Straight Poop
When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time in the company of people with whom I had little in common. Quite often for the purpose of acquiring, or smoking marijuana. As a young man, pot was a priority and frequently put me in situations where I would otherwise have never been.
In those days, pot was not nearly as acceptable as it is today and existed primarily on the fringe of society. My friends and I spent much time whispering into phones and driving all over town running down potential sources, which sometimes took us to strange neighborhoods in seedy parts of the city. Once located, we felt, at least for a few minutes, obligated to engage socially with the dealer. This was done with a great deal of schmoozing in order to keep things cool and retain the services of the source and since we were usually in the residence of the merchant, we felt especially obliged.
For me, keeping the transaction brief became all the more difficult when I would inevitably become stoned and unable to muster the assertiveness to make a quick exit. This, mixed with my own special brand of neurosis, created situations where I would sometimes sit for hours listening to stories about things in which I had absolutely no interest. I once sat for a good part of an afternoon listening to a stranger extolling the virtues of carp-gigging. Which, I'm sure, is a worthwhile and rewarding activity for some, but not the kind of enterprise I found particularly appealing, although, you could not have possibly known by the way I acted.
"Are there different kinds of carp?" I asked in all seriousness, "Do you have to have a license?" As if I was thinking about doing some gigging myself.
Being illegal, pot also brought a certain criminal element that complicated matters as well. Stepping into a darkened trailer at one o'clock in the morning could sometimes be intimidating, especially when occupied by a half dozen tattooed, muscle bound stoners who looked like freelance hit men. The paranoia inducing effects of pot could sometimes make these situations worse. Especially when the dealer kept getting up to look out the window as if the house were being monitored.
"Is that your Vega out there," he would ask while nervously lighting another cigarette. "Are you from around here?"
This would make a quick exit impossible, as I would struggle to find words that might ease his suspicions: "My brother has a toaster just like that one," I once told a dealer who, moments before, had proudly showed off his 38 caliber.
At the age of 17, I had a particularly awkward experience while trying to locate the drug. It had been a long dry spell and I had dropped by my friend Chris' house hoping he might have some. After making a few phone calls he announced that he had located "some killer green bud" at "Dom and Lucy's," and that we could make a quick trip to their house on 16th street. Even though I didn't know these people, I was more than agreeable and eagerly climbed into his Plymouth Charger anticipating a pleasant afternoon.
In those days, sixteenth street was commonly regarded as the delineating line between the good side of town and the bad. The street was lined with identical, 1940's, two story houses. Anything east of there was considered dangerous territory, especially for a scrawny white boy like myself. But even there the neighborhood made me a bit nervous.
We parked on the street, climbed the stairs through the yard and rang the doorbell. Dom greeted us at the door. He was a cheerful young man about twenty five, barefoot, in jeans and a t-shirt, with a five-day beard and a nest of rumpled, blond bed-head. He greeted Chris with a hearty, thumb-grasping handshake.
"We're in the basement," he said, motioning toward a stairwell.
While passing through the living room, we encountered an exceedingly unimpressed looking woman, whom I concluded to be Lucy.
