September 17th, 2008

There’s like prom or homecoming or some shit like that coming up. I don’t know the difference. I think prom is for seniors and homecoming is for juniors.

Last year, around prom time I was strung out and in treatment. 

The year before I was smoking crack.

I’ll never forget that day. I was a sophomore, smoking crack with Banks. 

We were supposed to just smoke all day with no interruptions, but Banks wasn’t really into smoking crack as much as I was. He didn’t really like uppers, and after a few hits he wanted to go stop by Jimmy’s. 

“Stop by Jimmy’s?! Are you fucking retarded?! Hell no, I don’t wanna go over there!” I protested, “I don’t wanna see anyone.” Mind you, Jimmy’s house was where EVERYONE was going to meet up to take pictures. “Must be like twenty people over there with their parents. FUCK THAT!”

But Banks insisted we go. He had a nice Audi A4 back then. I smoked in it, taking hits on the way there, paranoid as fuck. Banks took a tiny hit before we pulled into the driveway. I can’t believe this fucker pulled right into the drive way where everyone could see me, what the fuck, at least park on the side of the street. He wanted to go inside and say hi to everyone, but I refused to get out of the car. I kept thinking… 

“GO SAY HI? WE JUST SMOKED $100 DOLLARS WORTH OF CRACK WHAT THE FUCK!”

The sun was shining through the window while I packed a little rock on top of the pipe and took a hit, held it in, my ears ringing, exhaling through my nose slowly. That’s when I saw this girl, Amanda. She’s like one of the nicest girls in our school, and she was super cute. She was all dressed up too. I blew the rest of the smoke down toward the floor mats while she waved to me. I fucking can’t believe this girl is waving at me right now, I’m in the car, geeked the fuck out, not able to move. Lockjaw for days. 

She was my age, went to the same school, the same middle school. She was in my history class that year, we were at the same house, we knew the same people—but we lived totally different lives. In high school a lot of the younger girls hung out with the older guys because they’re fresh pussy, but it’s rare that guys hung out with the seniors. To me though, the seniors were just kids. I had been around older people my whole life. I was friends with the seniors who graduated like three years ago. My whole life I felt like I was left behind, stuck in fucking high school. I was in 10th grade but I felt like I had been in 10th grade for ten years.

I text Banks and tell him to bring me the keys so I can move his car. I move his car and park down the street, where I can smoke in private. Banks eventually gets in the car and ends up dropping me off at home around 7pm. He doesn’t even want his share of the crack. He just wants me to get out of his fucking car. I was starting to lose it. I was convinced the cops had been following us the whole way. Staring at the rear view mirror whispering, “I think that’s them.” Banks was losing it, “there’s no one there dude! Stop it!”

So he dropped me off and I smoked more. I got paranoid, I got naked, took a shower while I smoked even more. Turning on the hot water, being naked, letting the water run, taking a hit and then hiding it under a towel in case someone came in, turning on the cold water, taking another hit, blowing it down into the bathtub, wondering if it smelled, getting in the shower, smoking again in the shower, crack crawling through my skin, eyes beaming, teeth raw, breathing out of only my mouth, drooling on myself, covering my body with soap, jumping out the shower, taking a hit and blowing the smoke on my soapy body in hopes that the smoke would mix with the smell of soap. 

After that, there was more paranoia. I put in a new chore and hopped into bed. I hit the pipe under the covers, sprayed cologne, went crazy, hit it some more, got naked, put lotion all over me so I didn’t smell, turned on the faucet, tried to jerk off, ran out, looked for more crack, looked, looked, looked, found things that might have been crack—it wasn’t. Hit the copper, took it out, scrape, scrape, hit the other copper, black shit on my teeth, looked for more crack, hit the copper, more black shit, depressed, angry, in pain, coming down, hit the pipe, more black shit, tossed and turned, more black shit… maybe if I put the coppers together it will hit, I mush them together and try to hit it, more black shit in my teeth.. no crack.. look for crack, there’s no crack… maybe there’s crack… if I hit it and push it hot maybe I’ll get a hit, black hot slug from the crack pipe hits my teeth, there’s no crack.. hours go by and finally put it away and try to sleep. Couldn’t sleep, tried to jerk off. 

Time to get ready for school. 

I’d go to school the next day, still coming down hard as fuck, find a closet somewhere in the auditorium, lock myself in there, and finally sleep.