by sam paul
Dan and Jenifer are both integral parts of the Flying Tomato crew now. Dan works with me on my killer Thursday and Saturday closing shifts and he gets drunk on the free beer while I get stoned out of my gourd in the freezer. By the time I sober up, if I do, its time to go home. Jim and Jerry come in pretty regularly to get beer and food which is pretty cool because I like being able to share some of my good fortune with the boys, even if it’s just feeding their basic needs. Pizza and beer count as basic needs when you’re in college. Jenifer gets to roam the streets and play while I work which gives her some of the freedom that might be necessary to keep us together. At least it seems to help her feel like she’s not tied down and I try not to violate that belief by intruding on her personal time. She will usually come in at some point during my shift to visit and I still get a thrill of a chill on my spine when I see her singing hips walk through the door no matter how hectic the workplace might be. It reminds me of watching her when she first nervously came to visit me, and that whole flirting via Jill Moppingworth thing. Jenifer’s always waiting for me at home and will call sometimes if I’m late which can get fucking aggravating and causes Dan to give me the “you are henpecked” looks. I can’t seem to convey to Dan the depths of my affection for her, he’s more of a ladies man than I am.
My other job at Swensen’s is going all right too. I dread going there sometimes, but I dread going to work most of the time anyway so it’s all good. Besides it gives me a chance to eat something that isn’t pizza and after a three year pizza diet, and that’s a blessing. Working under Jerry is cool, we both get our jobs done and I get to experiment with obnoxious ice cream creations. Jenifer will come in for food sometimes, but it annoys me when she still won’t eat anything even after I take out all the stuff she refuses to ingest. Correct that, it doesn’t annoy me, I just wish she would eat and I worry about her and it comes across as me being annoyed for some reason.
The cocaine at the house is starting to bother me because I really don’t enjoy it like I thought I would and certainly not as much as the anti-drug commercials promised I would. Our circle of friends has discovered that injecting coke gives such a euphoric feeling that it makes them want to do it all night. Something about that doesn’t agree with me, not that I’m an innocent bystander in any of it. It took forever for me to get over the natural aversion I have about doing drugs with needles and now it bothers me more that I’m OK with it. The day after shooting cocaine I sink into a quagmire of severe depression so deep that I have a hard time motivating myself out of it. I feel violated like I’ve whored myself out, but I keep quiet because my friends are really into the shit. Hell, after I do it just once I’m really into it too, but lately I have actually refused free drugs. It’s weird but I sometimes feel fortunate that our finances are strained because if we could afford more coke we would get more. I don’t want to make out like we’re all coke fiends though because it’s only been an occasional indulgence and shooting it up has only happened a few times but I’m wary of what’s going to happen later. I see good natured-ness and love all around me now and I know that it could all quickly change. I see pangs of guilt already in Jim sometimes because he doesn’t have money to party but he’ll still stay up with us anyway. We want him to of course, but underlying guilt is a bitch on friendships. Besides, I like Jim and he needs help motivating his ass in school so any distractions the rest of us bring could affect the rest of his life. Jim and Jerry haven’t been around us when we’ve used the needle because we just discovered it ourselves and honestly I’m shocked, embarrassed and don’t plan on telling anyone else. However like Hunter S. Thompson I refuse to make excuses for seeking chemical adventure.
Jim has been working at a cushy job in the coliseum giving out keys to the rac-quetball courts. He gets to be high and watch Star Trek every other night for a few hours. I’m totally jealous of his job. I’ve visited him sometimes before I go workout at the school’s gym and it looks like he just gets to sit and do his homework. It’s an easy job but I think God’s looking out for him and providing a place to study away from the disturbance that is our home.
In addition to working out more, I’ve been a skateboarding fool lately. My ramp in the backyard is in ill repair with holes and nails sticking out of stolen street signs I hammered over the holes. It’s intimidating so I mostly just street skate now and I always ride my stick to work. It’s too much trouble to get the VW started just to drive across campus. Created by God and German engineers in 1974, my faded red, flower-covered, ho’ed out car is on her last leg. Shit, “Sally’s” a year younger than me and most days I feel run down too, so I’m not mad at her. Jenifer gets irritated that she has to drive everywhere but then panics when she rides with me and sees the danger I pose to the cars and inanimate objects around us. I drive at 80 mph down the freeway in the hopes of blowing the engine out so I’ll have some excuse to find another ride, but the VW’s durability is pleasantly frustrating. Jenifer also hasn’t looked underneath the car as intimately as I have so she can’t know the passenger seat sits on rusted holes. She obviously knows there isn’t a seatbelt on the passenger side AND that I don’t have any insurance coverage, yet she fails to detect the exhaust leak that I think is slowly making me stupider. Nicely put, “Sally” is a deathtrap, but she’s a reliable deathtrap as long as the battery stays charged and the duct tape stays sticky. Keeping the battery charged requires driving every few days and I’m notoriously lackadaisical about this, so often when I absolutely have to drive someplace I have to get volunteers from the house to help me push Sally down the street so I can pop the clutch and get her going.
So Jen, my true love, can be grumpy that she has to accommodate me, but if she wants to go anywhere she’ll likely have to drive. I certainly wouldn’t relinquish the manly power of driving unless I felt there was a need, even if I can’t communicate it. Lately we mostly get stoned and watch a lot of Discovery channel instead of going out anyway. I’m a true poor Southern gentleman, albeit one without a dog. Yet.
My old friends James & Gregory stopped by the house today, totally by surprise. They went to high school together and both continued on to St. John’s up in New Mexico. I haven’t seen them for ages of course, even a lifetime of friendship can’t compete much with both of our new explorations and the adventures of going away to school. Gregory had one of his usual girls in tow; he likely picked her up last night at a bar somewhere in the Metroplex. Gregory is what I refer to as a girl magnet, a male who can do about anything and instantly become the idol of any female presence within a fifty-yard radius. He’s the only person I’ve ever met that falls into this class of male, though I’ve heard stories—nay legends—of more. I guess as laws get more stringent a lot of them end up behind bars since it’s a crime against the establishment to be that damn alluring. Gregory’s a great guy to make friends with since a person can hang around with him and pick up girls vicariously. Since there’s only one of him it’s nice to help out and handle his overflow, or castaways if you will. It isn’t that he’s especially attractive that I can tell. It’s more of an aura, a look or pheromone secretion as near as I can hazard.
I hadn’t seen either of them since Ernie and I drove my VW to New Mexico and went skiing for the weekend a few years ago so I was nervous at first but we quickly settled into our usual rapport. I met James a long, long time ago and I suppose I should write a little about James and his family since they’ve had such a big influence on my development as a person. I love James for what he and his family did for me as a youth. Their home was my sanctuary and refuge from my own dysfunctional family. It’s because his family placed such a value on learning and reading that I was exposed to thousands of great books and artworks that I would have never stumbled across on my own. Through my observations of their perfect nuclear family I learned about class distinction and that money is a blessing never to be hoarded but something to be used wisely and generously. Hell, they bailed me out when I lost $80, all my money in t
he world at the time, to a three card Monte hustler on the streets of NY. They even did it slyly by saying it was for my birthday. We went to school together in the same gifted classes and drudgery until sixth grade when James transferred to a Catholic school my parents couldn’t come close to affording. We remained close friends until he left for college. James’s house is where I was encouraged to be creative, to think outside the box and to look at a life where careers are based on more than financial reward. James’s generous car lessened the pain and necessity of not having one of my own in high school and during my first year of college. We discovered girls and zits and a mutual appreciation for bad television together. When we speak it’s with the frustrating language people parallel to identical twins. I’m sure his family was slightly annoyed with the way I managed to attach myself to their gatherings, but I didn’t know any better. I went skiing with them for the first time at their private cabin in Lake City near Crested Butte. I went to museums with them, weddings, funerals, art films, Catholic mass and as we grew up together I generally tried not to make a nuisance of myself during my frequent layovers at their dinner table. I also fell into a secret love with his younger sister Maureen because of a longing for her that grew out of exposure and a desire to be a part of their family. When I proudly announced I would marry her one day, she tattled to her parents and I got red in the face when they said they would be happy to have me. I consider the majority of their brood to be good people too. He has 3 older siblings that were gone before he and Maureen came along. I even looked up to James’s dad as a father who wasn’t my father, not a new concept given my home life. For them I even had to rethink my lifelong instinct and philosophy to never trust anyone with red hair. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for their family and I would die for James. I owe them big time and I know it. Instead of fading into poor stupid obscurity I was shown, not made to, appreciate the value of education.
All past history and bullshit aside however, I was glad to get a random visit from James. I had bought him a giant sombrero during my trip to Mexico over Christmas and he thanked me by bringing over a case of Lone Star beer, assuring me that its high-dollar shit up at St. John’s. We got drunk and talked about nothing and everything, just having a good time. I introduced him to Jenifer (she was working) with pride when we went to the Tomato at my insistence for free beer and pizza. There’s not much else to report really because we got obnoxiously drunk. They were envious of my house and I wished we were able to stay in better contact when he left but long distance friendships must progress. Still it felt like one of my brothers had visited for a day and left, so I was slightly depressed to see them go.
Oh, some gossip: James’s sister Maureen is pregnant and had to come home from her first year at college. Life is weird but I instinctively know she will make a good mother and a routine of childcare discipline will benefit her. I sympathize with her upcoming ordeal though. Despite my fleeting dreams of boyhood romance I would like to send a note of encouragement since she’ll have to face hostile familial Catholicism over this, but I’m probably not even supposed to be privy to the secret at all. So Maureen, here is a subconscious mental well wishing aimed at you and your child. Be good and be strong, I’m thinking of you.
Tonight a bunch of us watched Jane’s Addiction’s “Gift” while tripping on acid. I viewed it with a skepticism—usually reserved for alchemy—in a packed living room of people, all of us watching it for the first time. It was a creepy and oddly romantic movie crammed with lots of badass music. Just us, Perry, Casey and the ultimate rundown of the heroin lifestyle encompassing all its death spanning love. Maybe it was the acid but the movie really moved me and now I want to try smack more than ever. Isn’t that stupid? To be influenced by imagery and music so much, just like the evil government said I would be. Maybe organized government is my friend after all.
Yeah right.
Nope, I now know that I’ve pretty much been lied to and fed misinformation about every drug I’ve ever tried. Usually my virginal nervousness turns to disappointment because for some reason the amount of pleasure I equate with the evil addictive quotient just isn’t there for me. And I don’t think I’m special either. In a way it’s good because I want my experimentation with everything I can get my hands on (excluding sniffing paint and PCP, nasty business) to only be a temporary experimentation. A series of experiences I can look back on and say “I did that” or at least use my exploration as a reference for unwritten characters in a bad after-school special or something.
Heroin is sort of a last refuge, a final drug with the highest ante of all. One last thing to try before I move on to more worldly jobs and sensual pleasures on the physical plane. Somehow I still suspect bitter disappointment from Ms. Morphine but then again I never have thought that the deep ennui I am experiencing could ever be relieved through chemistry, prescribed or otherwise.
But tonight, watching the shocking realism of true love and a reminder of drug-addled despair akin to Drugstore Cowboy, I think I’ve been given a subtle reminder to check myself. A warning I somehow know that if I ignore, I’ll face undesirable consequences later. The music and poetry of the world is alive, but very often dirty. To truly create, I fear I will have to roll around in the corruption of life and get an honest sense of despair that a simple visit to hell could never convey, although Dante’s trip proved inspirational enough for him. People had more time on their hands back then to analyze and write volumes about the experiences in their dreams too. Doesn’t it seem as if the theologians that are most concerned with the good of the afterlife are also unnaturally captivated by the bad of the here and now?
I’m scared. While things are clear to me on acid tonight I can already see I will alienate my family. Too many regrets are coming up. I’m scared mom, I know you’ll never understand. I’m scared Jenifer, nothing I gain in wisdom will be worth losing you. I’m scared Sam, you have already embarked on this different sort of road trip, a ride much more important than you will ever know. Dammit! I may be lacking inner peace but at least most of the time I’m comfortable. God forgive me for the things that will happen. God please forgive me for making them necessary.
I just found out that Jim is moving out of our miniature Monticello after this semester and I’m kind of sad about it, even though I suspected it might happen sometime soon. I just have this sense of an overall tiredness seeping into all of our bones and a general melancholy emanating from Jim because of different things going on in his life. He’s a notorious class skipper, which leads to the eventual disappointing low grades and having to drop half his classes. It’s also pretty damn hard to motivate yourself to do boring school stuff in our house with all these distractions. Jim’s tired of being poor, tired of being hassled by his girlfriend Simone continuously, and lamentably even I get on his case about stupid shit like all his dirty dishes or other stuff only bitches like to nag about, so I’ll bet he’s tired of that too. I guess he just senses it is time to try and move on and who can blame him?
We’ve all been doing more coke, yet slowly excluding each other’s company when we do it. Jim will stay away and I’ll use the excuse of having an early class to not participate. Drug-related relationships are getting more complex and weird around our house. So in a way, even though I’m sad to hear Jim is leaving I know it’s better for him to move back to San Antonio and get his head straight. I’ll miss that bastard though. Jim’s been like a brother to me sometimes and I’ve learned a lot by imitating his casualness. My old friend James gave me the basic Bachelor degree training in slacking off but Jim helped complete my Masters.
We’re all run down and tired from school. The rest of the world looks upon college life and sees it with rose-colored glasses slightly tinted green with envy, but the actuality of doing it daily and living hand to mouth is hard. Up North where animosity gets hidden behind thickly insulated walls during a majority of the colder months, people can drive around the cities and view their ghettos with some s
emblance of detachment, but Texas is a nearly year long festering stewpot of aggravation. It’s getting hotter and it’s going to keep getting hotter, fuses are getting shorter and the mundane tasks of living are seemingly unbearable sometimes. Often it’s so tempting to just say, “Fuck it!” and do my own thing. I’ve got spring fever to the Nth degree.
I hope Dan and Jay are cool about Jen staying with me at the house most of the time. She’s become a fifth roommate and now when people speak about one of us, our names are invariably lumped together. Sam and Jenifer or Jenifer and Sam, the name mentioned first usually denoting whom the speaker originally intended to talk about. I like the sound of it though. Sam and Jenifer. Jenifer and Sam. Pretty nice.
Our old friend Kirk is probably going to take over Jim’s room so we won’t have to worry about extra rent, not that it would be too big of a problem. I think Kirk is cool even though he’s older (about 27 or so?) and he was there with Jim and me in the dorms and he already knows Dan and Jenifer from drinking together at the Tomato and hanging around our house. Kirk always says he wasn’t much of a pot smoker until he started hanging around Jim and me. Since I (positively!) credit Jim with helping teach me about the joys of being most mellow, he can blame Jim. Kirk likes to party too much and will do any drug put in front of him but he’s also established a set of unflinching priorities and responsibilities that keep him on track, plus I already know I can live with him.
Jenifer told me while we were lying in bed last night that Kirk is weird and kind of creeps her out. I tried to pry and ascertain why she thinks that way, but the feel of her hair on my chest distracted me as she nestled into her favorite pillow, the crook of my arm. I’m thinking it may just be one of the subtle differences that women can detect in men. Something men can’t see in other men because they are blinded by friendship perhaps? We’ll find out soon enough I guess.