The Beginning of the End, Part VI

(First may I say thank you for your patience. I had some other ideas for today’s blog, but first things first. I made a promise, and I intend to keep it. Then if Satan backs off a little today, maybe I can write some other stuff. Anyhoo –here you go…)

When I walked into the room Kevin was in, he nearly jumped out of his skin. He started coughing and exhaling at the same time, and the room was filled with a cloud of smoke. I wasn’t sure what to make of the whole situation, because I knew I didn’t smell pot, so I pretty much just stood there for a minute. After regaining his composure, Kevin looked at me and said, “You should go back out there.”

At this point, my confusion was giving way to irritation. He OBVIOUSLY had been hiding something from me for a while, and now all he had to say was to “go back out there?” I don’t think so. I sat on the floor defiantly and said, “Not until you tell me what you are doing.” I caught sight of him trying to hide something behind his back. “What is that?” I asked, reaching for his arm.

Kevin tried unsuccessfully to prevent me from finding the inevitable, and opened his hand to reveal a small glass tube. A small HOT glass tube. With a burnt end. Apparently he had been smoking something from it – and before I had a chance to ask him what, he said, “Dasi, you CAN’T do this. You have to leave.”

To his credit, that was probably one of the few things he said that I really SHOULD have listened to. But, naïve as I was and all full of the vim and vigor only the young and stupid possess, I refused. I insisted on knowing exactly WHAT he had been smoking, and WHY I wasn’t in on this little party. With a heavy sigh, Kevin relented. He was smoking coke, he explained, which wasn’t REALLY crack because crack is what they use in the ghettos, besides, all this was was cocaine and baking soda. But he really didn’t think it was a good idea for me to try it, because – well, just because. And that, my friends, is NEVER a good answer for a Scorpio like myself. Basically, telling someone like me NOT to do something is as effective as tying up a pit bull with a piece of thread. Besides, as far as I was concerned, it OBVIOUSLY was a good high, since Kevin was doing it – and trying to hide it from me.

I watched with curiosity (which I found out really DOES kill the cat, amazingly enough) (or, at the very minimum, the cat’s SPIRIT) as he took out an empty cellophane from a cigarette pack. Well, it USED to be empty, at least. Inside it now were several little whitish chunks, looking almost like stale breadcrumbs. Kevin shook out one of the pieces, and took out the glass tube again. He set the so-called “rock” (funny term because they always looked more like pebbles to me) on the screen end of the tube, and lit it for me while I put my head back and inhaled for the first time ever. I heard the sizzle and pop of the drug melting down, and felt the smoke entering my lungs.

(Whoa. Had to get my bearings back there – even over ten years later, the thought of the rush throws me a little off-kilter.) I don’t know if I can accurately describe the feeling I got from my first hit, but I can try. Intellectually, I knew I was probably in deep shit, because it was that good. It was a pretty instantaneous high, and also pretty intense. THIS was something I really enjoyed. I could feel every nerve ending on my body tingle, and my heart was beating just fast enough for me to realize it was there. My mind was filled with brilliant ideas, but formulating the words to explain them took A LOT of concentration. I felt the need to both share these feelings AND keep them to myself, an impossible task, I knew, but at the time ANYTHING seemed possible. I was floating, yet grounded; speedy, yet relaxed; terrified, yet thrilled. The drug was a paradox in itself.

Whe I focused on Kevin, I could hear him saying, “Good shit, huh?” Well, THAT was an understatement if I ever heard one. I was done. Stick a fork in me. I had FOUND what I was looking for. And here Kevin had been holding out on me for Lord knows how long. I smiled and said, “Oh, yeah. Any more?”

Kevin chuckled and took the glass pipe from my hand. “Down, girl. I think you’d better just relax a little first.” Which I did. And the high went away pretty quick. The initial high, at least. I could still feel it in my system, in my gut, making me want to do MORE. But it was early in this game, and for now I was still on top of things. I changed my mind about a second hit, and figured I could wait until another time. “It’s probably best, babe,” Kevin told me, “because the rest is supposed to be for Tom and Kathy, anyway. But we’ll party ourselves another night, ok?” Sounded good to me. He left the pipe in the room, and we walked out together. Tom and Kathy rushed in immediately after, and now I knew why.

I went home that night reliving the experience. I found it ironic that a good catholic school girl could enjoy something so taboo. I wondered what my old pals would think of me, and knew I could NEVER tell them. But I didn’t care. Because I had Kevin, and it was just for fun, after all. I wasn’t some street junkie. I had a good family, a nice home and a job. I was smart – almost straight A’s all through high school. So I screwed up in college, big deal. It wasn’t from lack of intelligence, it was because I wanted to have FUN. And this was my key. Kevin and coke. “Just for a little while.” Until I was ready to settle down. And I wasn’t ready quite yet.

My dreams that night were pretty innocent, all things considered. I saw myself and Kevin married and happy, with a house with a white picket fence and a dog in the yard. Someday, I thought, just not now. I was still young enough to take a detour for some fun first. Too bad I didn’t realize that the detour would take me places I’d never dreamed of going…