I am not a pothead.
My friend Phil is. Phil always had pot. I’m not sure he always had rent but he always had pot.
Back in the late 80’s David Byrne was appearing in Central Park. He had gone solo after being the lead singer of Talking Heads. He wanted to be Sting. After a few songs it was clear Byrne should have kept his day band.
Even without the Heads my friends and I were huge fans so we went to the Band Shell in the park to see him.
It was summer and the heat was so blistering that after a while my friends and I drifted off to a corner of the park where there was shade and seats.
Phil passed around a ceramic cigarette filled with weed. Those things looked real and a cop would have had to look though a magnifying glass to tell if it was fake or not. I took one hit. Because Peer Pressure is my middle name.
One hit and my shoulders fell off.
I took off my clip-on Chanel earrings and put them in my purse. I knew something was coming that was not going to be good for the House of Chanel.
I looked at my friends, all who had smoked with me and looked fine. Or maybe I'd gone blind?
“Phil, what’s in this pot?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t fuck with me, there’s something else in here, PCP maybe?”
“Nothing Soro, relax.”
“Heroin?”
“Nothing.”
I stood up and then sat back down immediately. I was so high God was seated on my left.
“Phil, I think I’m going to pass out.”
I was going to black out in Central Park. Where I would be tagged by graffiti artists, bashed on the head by homophobes and then raped by an Irish gang. Phil suddenly yanked me to my feet.
“You’re walking this off.”
In what alternate universe can you walk off marijuana? Going back and forth to the refrigerator, MAYBE. But suddenly I was in a conga line with my friends marching single file through the crowds in Central Park and feeling worse and worse.
“Phil, I’m going to black out.”
“Keep walking.”
“Seriously, Phil, I’m not going to make it.”
“Yes you are, just keep walking.”
“Look, there’s a cop, let’s stop him and ask for help. Oh shit, the cop just passed us and he could have helped me! He could have taken me to the hospital.”
“We’ll find another one.”
“Phil, everything’s turning yellow.”
“Soro, I’m Chinese, of course you’re seeing yellow.”
At the time that actually made sense to me.
“Oh my God, everything’s turning white; I’m going down.” And with that Phil jerked me forward and as quickly as the bad crazy thing had descended upon me, it cleared. I stopped walking. I was okay.
“Holy crap,” Phil said.
“Tell me about it.”
“How scary was that?”
“Very, very scary. I could have DIED.”
“Not that,” he said, “you wanted to stop a cop and ask him to help your stoned, sorry ass.”
“Yeah and you didn’t even listen to …….oh.”
Everyone started laughing. Fucking drug addict friends.
I blame David Byrne. Although he is totally my husband.
