One Final Time

Arm in arm, Tera and Ruby skipped down the sidewalk, happily enjoying the cool fall sunlight. On the other side of town, Les and Jess walked side by side, not saying much but commenting on the various sights and sounds on the busy city street. A man in a blue sedan pulled out into the intersection just as an older woman with a walker started crossing the street, he stopped and rolled down the window, cussing at her to hurry it along. Les looked at that, with a scowl.

“Is there no decency left in this world?” he finally asked aloud.

Jess was silent for a moment and then said, “Yeah, there is, some.” She touched his chin with a light fist bump and he turned towards her.

“Hey there, you,” she said, smiling as he looked at her. “Cheer up, Trip.”

“I'm trying,” was all he could say.

“Well, maybe if we smoke a little something, that might help,” she offered.

“Really? You have something,” he wanted to know.

“Well, my friend, Mickey, does. He lives up the road from here,” she explained. “If he's home, he'll smoke us out, you in?”

Les nodded and he followed Jess up the block and into a large apartment building. They entered an old rickety elevator and heard the tinny canned music playing as the ascended to the 8^th floor. The doors slid open and Jess led Les down the hall to room 805. She knocked and they heard coughing from within.

The door opened to reveal a scruffy looking grunge kid, around 19 or so, wearing a long grey t-shirt and blue sweatpants, no shoes or socks on his feet but rather long toe nails. He looked Jess over, hungrily and lurched forward towards her. Les caught a whiff the familiar aroma of marijuana exhaling from the apartment.

Jess managed to fend this slovenly creature off with a quick hug and pushed herself past him, nodding to Les to follow, into the messy studio apartment. A doorway led to a bedroom, the room before them was small with a large screen TV, a VCR, and a blue couch with matching armchair. A coffee table sat in the middle of the room, which Les thought must have doubled as a dining room table with old editions of popular car magazines, a few girly magazines, empty bags and wrappers from McDonald's, and a large bong rested on the table. The kitchen behind them looked as if it could be a shrine, more pristine than the rest of the room, Les wondered if it was ever used.

“Hey, Mick, this is my buddy, Les,” Jess said, sitting in the arm chair. Les sat on the couch closest to her, Mick spread himself over the rest of the couch, one foot inches away from Les' leg and the other resting precariously close the bong on the coffee table. His legs wide open with the bagginess of the sweatpants left little to the imagination. Just who was he trying to impress? On top of all that, Mickey appeared, both to look at and to smell, as if he hadn't taken the time to shower in awhile. He belched loudly, then said,

“So, what can I do you for?”

As if he was some sort of person working in a shop and not some dirty stoner living in a crappy studio apartment. Jess answered,

“We were wondering if you had a little bud.”

“Yeah, in fact, I was just about to smoke myself,” he said, and sitting up (to the grateful Les) grabbed the bong. He pulled a bag of weed out of his sweatpants pockets (Les was again grateful for the fire aspect of the smoking) and began loading the bong. “So, how do you guys know each other?”

“Oh, we met at camp,” Jess began.

“Eh, camp?” Mickey said suspiciously, guarding his stash and clutching his bong to his chest.

“Um, yeah, summer camp, remember I told you about it,” Jess explained further. “Not to worry, just camp counselors, is all.”

“Oh, I see,” he shrugged and set the bong and lighter on the table nearest to Jess. “That's different then, care to start?”

She picked it up and lit, sucked in the smoke and the familiar chugging of the water sound filled the room. She handed it to Les once it was clear and he did the same, which led to a fit of coughing. Mickey laughed, rescuing the bong from him and belched again. Mickey had yellow crooked teeth and the smell of the burp filled the room alongside the pot smoke.

Mickey took a hit then set the bong on the table. He blew out the smoke, then leaned back.

“You guys are welcome to more,” he began. “You know I used to go to camp, when I was a kid.”

Les tried to imagine this slovenly hippie as a young impressionable summer camp kid and failed.

“Yeah,” Mickey continued. “Camp Crowshaven, you know, up north.”

“That's our camp,” was all Les could add.

“Really? Wow, small world,” Mickey mused. “Small world, indeed.”

He looked over at Jess and then at Les, taking them in wondrously.

“So, what's your guys story?”

“What do you mean?” Les wanted to know exactly what he meant.

“Are you guys, you know, together?”

“Um,” Les began.

“Yes,” Jess broke in quickly. “Yeah, we just got together.”

“Oh,” Mickey nodded. He leaned back against the couch and propped his legs the way he had in the beginning. Les moved closer to Jess and his side of the couch.

“Um, so what do you do, Mickey?” he tried to sound casual.

“Uh, you know, I'm a student,” Mickey explained. “At the JC.”

“Oh yeah,” Les was shocked.

“Yeah, day off today,” Mickey said. He turned towards the coffee-table, rummaged around with his foot until he discovered the remote control, grabbed it with his toes bringing it towards his body so he could grab it with his hand. “You guys want to watch something or...?”

“Actually, we should get going,” Jess explained, getting off. “My mom's going to be meeting me at the mall soon and...you know, my mom.”

“Yeah, don't I ever?” Mickey said, turning the TV on without looking at Jess.

“Well, thanks for smoking us out,” Jess said, and she motioned for Les to follow her towards the door.

“Anytime,” Mickey said, as the TV blared loudly. Les and Jess barely made it out the door and into the elevator before collapsing into a fit of stoney-mirth laughter.

“What the hell?” gasped Les.

“Sorry,” Jess said between laughing. “He's kind of an old friend of the family.”

“Oh I see,” was all Les could manage. The elevator came to the first floor, the doors slid open, and the quickly crossed through the lobby. Their slanted eyes blinked rapidly in the bright sunlight as they struggled to adjust. Suddenly Les was aware of how high he was.

“Wow,” he began. “That stuff is potent.”

Jess laughed, grabbed his arm, and they turned to head back to the mall. Just at that moment, skipping around the corner came Tera and Ruby, who slammed right into them. Tera fell to the pavement with a soft thud. Jess bent down to her.

“I'm so sorry, are you okay?” she said in her stoned slow speaking voice.

“Yeah,” Tera said, looking up at her and extending her hand for help up. Jess pulled her up and looked over at Tera as she dusted herself up.

“Tera?” Jess exclaimed.

Tera looked up at her and broke into a grin. Next to them Ruby and Les, who had caught her awkwardly in his arms as she ran into him, were surveying each other shyly. Jess looked over at them.

“Oh my god, you too!” She moved to hug Ruby.

“You remember me?” Ruby was shocked.

“Um, yeah you're Emerald, Diamond, Sapphire, Ruby, Jewels, right?” Jess said and she and Les collapsed into laughter. Ruby and Tera looked at each other, confusedly. “I'm so sorry, we are just so high right now.”

“Oh I see,” Tera said, barely hiding her disapproval. She was not into drugs of any sort. Ruby was more open to trying though. She shrugged it off and smiled at Jess, but her eyes dropped when she looked at Les.

“So, um, Ruby,” Les began and she looked at him, slowly.

“Yeah?”

“Um, how have you been?” he wanted to know.

“Good, um, better,” she admitted. She held her book against her chest. “I just bought this book actually. Pretty cool poems, thinking of adapting them into songs.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, impressed and not trying to hide it.

“Yeah, I just started taking guitar lessons,” she began. “My parents bought me one for my birthday.”

“Really? That's cool,” Les was even more impressed. “You should call me sometime, we can play.”

She nodded and found herself blushing.

“You still have my phone number, right?” Les wanted to know, anxiously. Ruby bit her lip, nervously.

“No,” she began at last. “I think I might have lost it.”

“Well,” he started. “You got a piece of paper, I can give it to you again.”

She thought for a moment, felt around in her pocket, and then opened the book to the first page, and offered it to him.

“You can write it here,” she said. He pulled a pen out of his back pocket and scrolled the number across it with the words “Les 'Trip' Daniels” above it. She looked at it and smiled at him. “I'll definitely give you a call, thanks.”

He smiled back at her.

Private Emotion