The Scar Boys

More Cigarettes

Johnny and Cheyenne hoofed it next exit, a little more than a mile away, and called a wrecker to have the van towed. The dispatcher told them that the trip to Athens was going to cost two hundred dollars, most of the cash we had left.

None of us could find a single word to say while we waited. It was the first time since I'd known Johnny that he was without some clever remark, without an obvious solution no one else could see. That more than anything scared the crap out of me.

When the wrecker arrived, I volunteered to ride in the tow truck while the rest of the band rode in the van. Given everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I needed space.

The driver they sent to rescue us was you garden variety, twenty-something, old school, redneck---denim overalls, blue-checked flannel shirt, scuffed work boots, even a John Deere hat--or so I thought.

It turns out you shouldn't judge a book by its cover (you'd think I, of all people, would know that!) because  he was actually a stoner from New Jersey. 

"Yeah, man, I just came to Athens because I heard UGA was a party school. Want some?" I didn't know how, but this guy had managed to roll a joint while he was driving. According to the speedometer we were doing ninety. He waved the fat boy under my nose. 

I guess it's weird, that, at eighteen, playing in a band, and spending most of my adolescence trying to fit in, I hadn't been stoned before. Well, not unless you count being a methadone assict as a fourth grader, which I'm choosing not to count. Anyway recreational  drug use, for whatever reason, had just never come up.

"Yeah, okay," I said.

The driver, whose name was Jeremiah, lit the joint, sucked the sweet smelling smoke deep into his chest, and held his breath. Then he passed it to me. I tried to mimic what I saw, but wound up in a fit of coughing and sputtering. 

As I tried to refill my lungs with fresh air, the coughing morphed into a kind of maniacal laughter that ended as teary gaps for breath. Jeremiah laughed, too, but I think it was just to be polite.

Only three years older than me, Jeremiah (not "Jerry" I was told) had recently dropped out of UGA and taken a hob with Northern Georgia Wreck & Rescue, the company with the exclusive contract to handle calls to the state police along I-85.

He'd been studying psychology, but that was just to please his parents. Jeremiah's true love was driving, fixing, and being around cars. He spent his weekends at the Dixie Speedway in Woodstock, just north of Atlanta, working a stock car crew and hoping for a chance to race.

"So, what's wrong with your van, anyway?" he asked.

"We threw an engine rod." 

"Oh, you boys are fucked." He took another long toke and handed the joint back to me. By my third drag I was smoking without convulsing, though to be honest, I didn't feel any different. I thought being stoned would make me light-headed and happy. I just felt nauseous and my throat burned.

I handed what was left of the joint back to Jeremiah who carefully stubbed it out of the steering wheel, adding another burn mark to the twenty or thirty that were already in orbit around the truck's horn. He dropped the roach in his shirt pocket and then pulled out a pack of Marlboro's, offering it in my direction. 

"Sure," I said, "why not."

I flicked the lighter and held the thin orange flame to the end of the cigarette until I saw it was burning and then drew the smoke in. The taste of tobacco was foul compared to pot. It was like the difference between coffee and coffee ice cream. I held the soupy fog in my lungs for a long moment and exhaled it.