My brother and I were dropped off at our friend Jake’s house by our mom on a hot, muggy, summer day. We hadn’t been in Illinois for more than a year, and this was our last day visiting for quite a while. Friends who greet each other after a long time usually say things like,
“It’s good to see you again,” or, “It’s been a while.” The greetings exchanged by us were a little different,
“You look so much different in person, it’s odd.” You see, in this mystifying age of technology, people are able to meet and get to know each other without even seeing the other person’s face. My hobby is playing online video games, a hobby not really limited by distance. Heck, one of my friends online was a guy from a suburb of Kansas City. One of my school friends who shared my hobby introduced me to one of his old school friends who didn’t go to our school, Jake. I quickly became friends with Jake, we had agreeable personalities and we had the same hobby. We had never met in person while I was in Illinois, even though we lived in the same town. But that changed when I moved to Oregon. It didn’t really separate me from my friends, since the hobby we shared wasn’t really affected by distance. But I could no longer easily meet the friends I had made in Illinois.
So when Jake heard of my plans to visit Illinois for the summer after we moved, he started telling me
“Dude, we should meet up in person and hang out.” It didn’t take very much to convince me to visit him, since we had never met in person, even before I moved to Oregon.
Now while Jake was a big gamer, a hobby we shared, he also had a hobby I was at the very least interested to try – smoking pot. I can remember talking to Jake and trying to play video games with him while he was pretty baked more than a couple of times. So thus, we agreed to meet up, hang out, and smoke a little pot some time during my trip.
The day we happened to do that ended up being the last day we would be in Illinois – not something we had planned for, but we would do it anyways. After my brother and I were dropped off in the sweltering heat outside Jake’s house we went inside and hung out for a bit. We stayed there for about half an hour – mostly talking and playing GTA V. Then, it was time. For this endeavor, we had to leave his house, since he didn’t want his room or anywhere else in his house smelling like pot. He said there was this little spot he and his friends would use to smoke. It was a decent 15-30 minute walk.
On the way there, Jake pointed to a little reservoir and mentioned that on days that it was dry he and his friends would use it as a shortcut to the spot, but that he doubted it was dry enough. I looked at the reservoir, caked in mud, and it wasn’t a reservoir anymore, no. It was another fencer, pointing his foil at me. I saw the challenge in its eyes barely showing from underneath the metal wire. I was stupidly brave enough to respond to the challenge, to take the short but dangerous path. Walking on it was hazardous, I could slip and fall at any moment. The best case if I fell was that I fell on the wet mud, inundating my back with mud. The worst case was that I fell in the ponds on either side of the reservoir, soaking me to the bone and likely destroying my phone.
I made it across, not without almost slipping a couple of times, but my brother and Jake were too sensible to follow me across. I waited for them for about ten minutes. When we met up, we started walking to our destination again, and after a couple of more minutes we were there. The spot was a clearing surrounded by trees. In the clearing were several concrete blocks that appeared to have been dumped there and trees grew around them. The moment after sitting on those blocks was the moment of truth, my chance to experience something completely different to anything I had ever experienced before.
After Jake took a hit from the bong, he handed it to me and instructed me how to use it. I did as he said, but soon after I started breathing in I knew I had done something wrong, judging by the way I heard Jake say “Oh shit, dude.” Instantly after, I felt a burning in my lungs, and I attempted to breath out smoothly, but that quickly devolved into coughs.
During my coughing fit I heard Jake say, “Shit dude, that was too big of a hit.” I had taken a deep breath from the bong, and I was now paying the consequences. The loud coughing I did went nearly uninterrupted. I even swallowed some of the vapor, as evidenced by a burp accompanied by smoke, then more coughing.
This was when I was pretty quickly taken to a whole other place, entirely taken out of my body in a way. I was made to surrender to the river that was pot. I could vaguely get the feeling that my body was hot, but I only knew that from a slight feeling somewhere in my mind and from the sweat I could see covering my body.
Croakily, I could hear myself tell my brother who was about to try it himself,
“Don’t.” That was all that I could muster out of my burning throat and lungs, then I started coughing more. I’m not sure why I told my brother that, maybe I just wanted someone in our little party to be sober. Maybe I told him that because some unconscious part of me wanted to protect my brother from the feeling I was going through, out of my mind and lungs on fire.
On a little side note, my dad has an obsession with Julius Caesar, and he told me one little story about him. Julius Caesar used to do something that his soldiers didn’t really trust about him, he called quits on drinking with the men early in the night to keep his wits sharp. They didn’t trust that because they thought he had something to hide from them, but I think I know why he did that, in retrospect: Julius Caesar liked to be in control of his own actions and words.
In the moment of being taken away from my body, losing conscious control of myself, I realized something about myself: I like being in control of my actions and words, just like Julius Caesar.
Walking back to Jake’s house was a blur – my eyes weren’t eyes anymore, they were cameras, and I was watching my actions like people watch TV. My mouth was on autopilot, working without my consent, yet curiously not spilling out my deepest secrets. I tripped and stumbled all throughout the walk, and although I remember Jake telling me that I looked exceedingly sober for how smashed I was, I felt like everybody knew I was high.
Before I knew it, my brother and I were waiting for our mom to pick us up and drive to our grandparents for our last dinner in Illinois. I can remember my brother telling me,
“Dude, you shouldn’t talk too much, you sound high.”
When our mom finally picked us up, she asked us what we did with Jake. Our answer -mostly my brother’s- was that we played a little video games with Jake and walked around the neighborhood with Jake. That answer surprised her, since we were notoriously lazy, getting us to go out on something like a walk was pretty difficult. However, it didn’t raise too much suspicion, so we got to our grandparents without any incident. Like before with my mom, I was pretty quiet with my grandparents.
The only things I can really remember about being at their house was that I ate and I tried to play a video game. Unsurprisingly, I did terribly, since I was out of my mind.
The last thing I remember about being there was leaving, I can’t really remember what was said, but I remember hugging my grandparents and the feeling of melancholy that arose from the fact that it would be a long time before I saw them again.
I don’t remember anything of note that happened later that night, we were just going to where we were staying, making our final preparations for our flight the next day, then going to bed. I was completely sober the next morning, and with that sobriety came a hint of regret.
I didn’t and don’t currently regret the experience, it was something new and completely different to anything else I had ever done before. My brother and I still talk about the day, and there are rarely no laughs while recounting it, like the fact that I shoveled down a large bag of chips all by myself without even really tasting it. We laugh as I note that it was something deep within myself that demanded the chips voraciously, but that the next day my mouth had little cuts all over the inside of it from chewing carelessly.
While I don’t regret the experience, I do regret the timing of it. That day was the last day I was going to see my grandparents for quite a while, and I would have preferred to have done so with a clear mind, and to have actually talked with them.
It’s no large regret though. We all make mistakes and learn from them to hopefully become better, happy people. It was an experience that had showed me something completely different, and if there are a few regrets that come with it, well, that’s life.
Alex's Tales 