The Cake is a Lie Read online
Page 6
Soon I’d have my own weed story to brag about. We had to roll it up though, I knew that was what you had to do. Like cigarettes. Plus, one of our friends from the neighborhood went through a phase where he’d meticulously pick out a variety of colorful plants from his garden to roll up in newspaper and smoke. We’d laugh and make fun of him, then we’d puff on one with him. It was always quite a debate whether anyone was actually getting high or not.
I instructed Duncan to get me some newspaper and some tape. I pulled apart the nug into smaller chunks and lined them up on the paper. I roll it all up the best I could and used a small piece of scotch tape to keep it together. Then I put the concoction in my mouth and pretended to smoke it over and over while we waited for his Dad to go to bed.
I could hear his dad’s dateline murder mystery through the living room floor boards above. “The sleepy little town had no idea there was a monster on the prowl.” With every creak and cough from above I looked up alertly in the hopes of picking up some signal that he was finally going to bed.
I ran through my head whether this was the right thing to do. As much nervous and scared as excited. I reweighed the risks over and over. Everyone knew pot was the training wheels of all drugs, if you were going to do one, might as well be the absolute safest. I mean, I’d never do cocaine. I wouldn’t bike down dead-man’s hill, but pot had never killed anyone in the history of the world.
I thought about all my idols that smoked pot: Jonsen, Janae, Mia, Pacey, Loren. If they all ended up drug addicts or dead what would be the point of living anyways? I thought about Bob Marley, my dad’s favorite musician. Bob Marley smoked weed his entire life. In fact, Rastafarians believed smoking pot was the key to happiness. I’d read that the Rastafarians lost all sense of time after a while. How liberating. My dad had never touched a drug in his life. My nervous, anxious dad who ruined our family. My dad who sets all his clocks ten minutes ahead so he was never late. I thought deeply about it, but I’d made my decision long ago.
When Duncan’s dad finally went to sleep we walked up to his kitchen then into his backyard. Arrogantly, we didn’t open the creaky back door that quietly, or walk that softly when went outside. It was understood that once Duncan’s dad went to sleep, he slept like a rock, because of the drinking.
The winter air was freezing, we shivered as we walk to the back of the yard, by the big back fence. I lit a match and put it to one end. Once the newspaper caught on fire the whole thing kind of burst into a big flame. In a frenzy, I put my lips to the one end and sucked as quickly as possible.
Freeze.
I felt a feeling in my throat I’d never felt before. I felt a suffocating pressure, like a quarter was being jammed down my esophagus. Then it itched, it itched so bad I wanted to claw my tongue out. I threw the joint to the ground and managed to stomp on it three or four times before beginning to cough uncontrollably. Duncan started cracking up laughing. Then he got scared my coughing and his laughing was going to wake up his dad so he prodded me back inside. The whole way I was still coughing and he was still laughing. This is the worst feeling ever, I thought, this is the worst idea ever. It was one of those awful experiences that makes you not want to ever do something again.
Duncan wanted to know if I was high, I told him I didn’t know, I didn’t think so. While I was downing glasses of water on the couch the discomfort and fear started to lift.
He didn’t think so either.
Duncan imitated the face I made when I inhaled, eyes closed as tight as possible with a big frown like a dying person. I laughed really hard.
Duncan continued to imitate me, “Hey Duncan, wanna try some of this joint? ‘Sure Marco I’d like to try,’” he reached the invisible joint out tauntingly before throwing it to the ground and stomping it out. I was laughing ferociously. Duncan thought it was odd I was so giggly. He pretended to be really upset that I was laughing so much, he theatrically kept demanding that I stop this instant, which made me laugh more.
“Stop laughing Marco, just stop it right now.” He finally concluded I was either high or just really goofy. I agreed. High or not, I laughed as hard as I’ve ever laughed that night.
13. Nora (Winter, 2001)
Brandon’s crew’s favorite spot to hang out was at Brian’s house. His family owned a three story mansion right by Einstein. They had the most comfy sofa sectional I’d ever sprawled out on. We’d all just dive onto it and collapse after school. He had a freezer full of all the otterpops and Costco microwave snacks you could eat. He even had a trampoline.
After school our clique arrived at Brian’s to find three girls sitting on his trampoline. We pretended not to notice them and headed inside but one yelled to us, “Your mom said we could use your trampoline, Brian.”
Brandon told me that was Abbie Till, Brian’s next door neighbor. He told me Abbie was our age and went to a private school. I was intrigued. Private school girls had a way of just looking straight through you, it was irresistible.
“Hey boys.” A flirtatious raspy voice called out to us as we were halfway through the screen door. This caused all three girls to break out in laughter and forced me to do an immediate double take. Very few girls had the confidence to say something so forward, this was rare. Not to be out flirted by a girl, slowly our group migrated over to the edge of the trampoline.
Abbie was tall and blond, borderline cute. Her mouth was a metal concoction of braces and rubber bands. Her friend Nora was beautiful, the perfect amount of beautiful, meaning I actually believed I could possibly woo her. Her face was like a cherubic angel, rounded cutely in all the right places.
Who gives a crap about faces, I thought, her boobies are as swollen as a grown women. I puffed up and beamed with pride every time I thought about my brand new appreciation of boobs, I’d dreaded for so long it would never happen to me.
Abbie’s other friend was Oakley, she was the skando who’d enticingly called to us. She was skinny with bobbed black hair, flat chested.
I felt so bad for flat chested girls. I’d always think about overhearing a super popular 8th grader, Hilary Thompson, nastily say about another girl, “She’s on the itty, bitty titty committee.” Oakley’s face was pretty though, her tiny mouth, thin nose and small sharp dimples all bunched together cutely underneath her big, sharp dark eyes and broad forehead. She had olive skin just like me. But the deal breaker was the dark werewolf hairs twirling around her arms and upper lip. A black forest connected her eyebrows. She was the hairiest girl I’d ever seen. It was all yuck with a side of gross.
We all talked by the trampoline. We asked them where they lived, who they knew. (This was back before plain getting to know you questions didn’t bore girls to death like the plague).
Oakley excitedly answered for all three of them. She’s such a chatty Cathy, I observed, it’s borderline obnoxious.
I wasn’t even paying attention to what she was babbling on about, I was focused on Nora, Nora who didn’t utter a sound. It made me want her even more, she was so mysterious. She must be thinking about how boring we are, I wondered. I’d instantly fallen in love with her, I wanted to marry her.
Us guys decided to play a two hand touch football game in the field coincidently right next to the trampoline. All of us played our hardest, like knights jousting for Nora’s colors. We all loved Nora.
Nora never came back to Abbie’s house after that. No matter how many times I prayed and prayed for months afterwards. Every time we went to Brian’s house my hopes would skyrocket, just to inevitably crash.
Oakley was at Abbie’s a lot though. When we spent the night at Brian’s we’d talk to Abbie and Oakley on the phone for hours. Sweet nothings. Someone would pass the phone to me while I was playing video games and I’d half attentively say “Hey, so what are you doing?”
“Nothing, sitting on the couch watching T.V., what are you doing?” Oakley’s voice would come through the other line.
Oakley talked as if her voice was girly and high pitched, and half of it
was, but the other half had something scratchy to it, like a kinky princess.
“Eating an otter pop,” I’d respond, “What are you doing now?”
“Well now I’m walking to Abbie’s kitchen, what are you doing?” The conversations would go on and on like this. I was never that into talking with Oakley and Abbie, they were just a bad reminder of Nora.
14. Sarah Faith Hall (Spring, 2002)
Tysen, Brandon, Devin, Brian and I were standing in our circle in the rec hall, sheltered from the hundreds of bustling preteens around us. Safe from the judgments and critiques. I watched an Arab kid maneuver around a circle of 7th grade guys adjacent to us, fighting to squeeze in. They blocked him out. He frantically stood in no man’s land for a few painful moments before fleeing the area. I felt bad for him, but if he came to my circle I would ignore him too, position my body to keep him out, scowl.
“I can’t believe you’re officially a man.”
Tyson’s booming voice brought me back to the moment. He had his hands on Brandon’s shoulders giving him a neck massage. That was one of the things I loved about Tysen, he was always touching you. He had a very masculine persona so he could pull it off–no one thought he was gay, just goofy. I touched and hugged my friends occasionally, draped my arm over their necks, but one of Tysen’s things was touching guys affectionately, he owned that. Sometimes I would reflexively squirm out of it at first, but most of the time I loved it when he put his arm over my shoulder.
“Tell me all about it.” Tysen continued.
He was now bouncing up and down, riled up over the big news that Brandon fingered his girlfriend for the first time over the weekend. That’s another thing I loved about Tysen, his boyish giddiness for anything related to sex. He masturbated like three times a day.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Brandon’s patented no-big-deal act didn’t give away anything more than a slight grin, but I felt the ultra-smugness he must have been feeling. I was livid. Kane staring at Able. And he was standing there with that superior look, like he did it all on his own. If it wasn’t for me, Brandon would have never in a million years even met his girlfriend.
We’d met her at an Einstein girls’ volleyball game. We’d gone to ogle the players.
That’s when we saw her–a blond angel–playing for the visitors, the Meadowdale Vikings. She was a 1 in 10,000 beauty. The type of beauty that makes you want to kill yourself. After listening to everyone comment about how perfect she was for the first set, in a moment of hormone driven genius and total discontentment towards god, I’d started heckling her for laughs.
“Hey number 4. What’s up?”
She’d totally ignored me at first. My friends were in stitches though. Well, except for Devin, he’d hit me in the leg, his bulging eyes urging me to be quiet.
When she did something good I’d yell, “Great form, number 4.” And when she’d mess up I’d yell, “It’s alright 4, that one wasn’t your fault, you got it next time girl.”
Eventually she’d started cracking, letting out reactions, smiles and bursts of laughter. She’d become distracted, sneaking more and more glances at us—she was not doing good. But it was clear that she really liked the attention and our whole group started getting in on the fun. We’d cheer loudly when she came in the game, and yell at the coach when he took her out.
“What are you doing coach, why in god’s name would you bench your best player?”
There were like ten other people scattered over the empty bleachers. We owned the room. She’d kept looking and laughing and, by the end of the game, our group felt comfortable enough to go talk to her. But Tysen, Brandon, and Devin had some charisma themselves and once they had the green light they were on it.
I’d stood back. I didn’t try to fight them for her attention. I couldn’t. I was hideous. There was just no way. Somehow in the frenzy Brandon got her number. Her name was Sarah Faith Hall.
“Her parents have a no closed doors policy,” Brandon’smile now had a hint of disgust, “They even have MTV blocked.” I knew the story he’s telling. I was there. I was there on all their dates. I was the comic relief, the awkward silence patrol–well me and Avi Miller.
I was slowly integrating Avi into the group and it was going well, even though it was an incredibly delicate feat. I wasn’t like Jonsen. I didn’t just leave my best friends behind. I loved Avi. He could remember an inside joke after everyone had forgotten, then bring down the house months later with a well-placed, “Forgetting about my cat-like reflexes was your first mistake.”
So while Brandon and Sarah were adoringly staring into each other’s eyes and making out in the theater, Avi and I were next to them snorting pixie sticks, making endless drug jokes and laughing our loudest at ourselves. “I gotta get my stick fix.”
Sarah was the real deal, personality wise she had “it.” She talked to you as if you were best friends. Her light freckles, perfect teeth, and maddening us of MTV slang words like “tight” and “crib” were just the icing on the cake. I felt like it was fate that I had met her. If there was a god, someday we would be together.
There was another reason Avi and I were always around–Sarah’s mom didn’t like Brandon. Brandon didn’t care if parents liked him, he was quiet, cold, acted entitled around them. Parents had to pry to get him to say a word. But Avi and I might have been the best mom-sucker-uppers in the world. We couldn’t help ourselves. That’s just what we did.
“Thank you so much for the cookies Mrs. Hall. How was your day Mrs. Hall? You’re so cool Mrs. Hall.”
“How did you know where it was?” Tysen asked.
“Just keep reaching down and you’ll feel something wet eventually.”
In my head I listened to Sarah fight to hold in her reluctant, soft moans. Avi and I had been pretending to play chess on the floor, grinning at each other, keeping an eye out for her parents. Deep down we were both devastated, we both love her too.
“It’s so wet and slippery.” Brandon recollected.
With this detail Tysen started hopping for joy again. Then, in a moment of deep philosophical thought, Tysen put on a serious face, “Brandon has done something none of us have ever done, guys.”
“I guess you’re right,” Brandon agreed after a humble pause.
That was that. I absolutely couldn’t take anymore. I had to crash this little party.
“I’ve smoked pot,” I interjected.
Everyone’s eyes turned.
“When?” Brandon was caught in rare a moment of public rashness.
“With Duncan. I’m just saying that’s something I’ve done that you guys haven’t done.” It came off innocent enough.
The group fell into awkward silence. I hadn’t told anyone before. I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten high, it didn’t make a very good story. Brandon and I stared tensely at each other. I wasn’t backing down.
The lunch bell rang.
That was that, a week later I was holding a phone jarringly to my ear in Brandon’s living room while Brandon and Brian jumped silently around me, cheering me on. Tysen had said “no,” we didn’t even ask Devin. This time I decided to go through Jonsen to get some. I decided to just call his house like old times and ask for him.
“Hey Marco, what’s up dawg?” It was nerve-racking to hear his voice. The unfinished business between us made every moment awkward.
“Hey, can you get me some weed, Jonsen?”
Pause.
“I don’t sell weed man.”
“Jonsen motherfucking Palmer, get me some motherfucking weed” I bellowed in my most playfully demanding voice, trying to disarm the tension. To remind him how funny I was.
“Alright, how much do you want?”
“40” I said, I knew some shit this time around, I sounded believable. “And a pipe.”
Not long after that Jonsen just strolled everything over to Brandon’s house.
“What’s up you crazy kids?” He said playfully when we let him in the front door. It soun
ded like something someone once said to him. It was the first time I’d spoken to him in person in six months. It seemed like an eternity.
“Nothing,” Me and Brandon echoed. Jonsen was the same age as us but he was years older. He changed the way he acted with us, he toned down his slang and overall masculinity.
“3.7 grams on the dot,” He said proudly. “I watched him weigh it.” He wanted to make it clear he got a great deal for an old friend. We had no way to verify the weight, but we absolutely believed him. I was in awe of his classiness, god I loved him.
After Jonsen left it took us a few times to figure out you had to light the weed and suck through the pipe at the same time. But in the interim we acted high, might as well, no one could say for sure if we were or not. We hyperly ran around and goofily jumped on each other. We piled in Brandon’s wheelbarrow and rode it down the street.
Once we finally figure it out it was a different experience for everybody. Brandon couldn’t stop eating, Brian was zonked out. We all laughed at each other. It made a great story. They quickly became our favorite stories.
In those early weeks, something I’d heard stuck in my head. Brandon had told me, that Kace had told him—in their Math class—that he always felt soo relaxed the next day after smoking pot. Because of the residual effect.
Kace’s words were never far from my mind when I woke up the next morning after smoking pot. If Kace said it, it was probably true. Then I would look deep down inside myself and objectively determine that yes I did feel more relaxed. Once I came to this conclusion, my crooked teeth didn’t bother me so much when I smiled. I cared less about the stupid comments the over achievers, chatty kathies, and stupid kids made in class about the war or history or whatever. I felt chill. I’d finally discovered the key to happiness, I always knew I’d eventually find it. It felt phenomenal.