Spanking Shakespeare (11 page)

“Have you talked to Mr. Basset?” I ask. “He’s a good guidance counselor.”

She shakes her head and begins to walk off. “Listen, Shakespeare,” she says over her shoulder. “I know you mean well, but it’s really none of your business.”

“I’m sorry, I just thought he could help you.”

She spins around. “I don’t need any help.”

“Okay,” I say in the tone I might use if confronted by a snarling dog. “It just seems crazy for you to miss so much school.”

“Worry about your own problems!” She rushes off, and I am left standing there feeling angry and rejected.

I arrive home to find my mom and brother yelling at each other, and this perks me up immediately. Anything that is bad for my brother can only be good for me. I listen to what they are yelling about, and I can’t believe what I am hearing. My mother is angry because she found a small bag of pot in my brother’s room. My brother is angry because she flushed it down the toilet.

“You owe me fifty dollars!” he screams, storming out of the house.

My mother, still red in the face, finds me standing by the door and confronts me. “Did you know about this?”

“I had no idea,” I say, and it is absolutely true. Gandhi smokes pot? Since when? How could I not know? I feel anger and resentment bubbling up in me, not so much because he is doing something I think is bad, but because once again I am discovering he is living a life I know nothing about.

When my father comes home, he seems amused by the whole thing, especially my brother’s demand for reimbursement. My mother, too, has calmed down and admits that she probably overreacted.

“What are you talking about?” I say. “He had pot in the house. Aren’t you gonna ground him?”

“Ground him? When have we ever grounded either of you?” my father asks.

This, I realize, is true, but neither of us, to my mind, has ever committed such a gross offense.

“Are you smoking, too?” my father asks.

“No,” I say angrily, though the fact that my brother is doing it has suddenly made me feel as though I’m missing out on something.

My brother, ever the shrewd businessman, knows when to cut his losses. When he comes home, he does not mention the fifty dollars and even apologizes to my mom for yelling at her. My parents tell him it is natural to want to experiment, and look rather sheepish when he asks them if they ever smoked pot.

“It was a different time,” my mother says. “And we didn’t really enjoy it.”

“Speak for yourself,” my dad says, draining his scotch. “Best time of my life.”

My mother shoots him a dirty look. “The marijuana today is much stronger. You really need to be careful.”

“Listen,” my father says. “If you’re going to experiment, and I’m not encouraging it, I’d rather you do it in the house, where we know you’re safe.”

Is he serious?

“I’m serious,” he says, noticing my look.

My mother looks uneasy. “Don’t go talking about this with any of your friends.” As worried as she is about us smoking, she is even more worried about the scandal it would cause if people should find out that she is allowing us to do it in our own house.

My brother seems less shocked by these developments than I am. Later, in his room, he tells me he always suspected our parents had smoked when they were younger, and they would be hypocrites if they made a big deal of it now.

“But it’s against the law,” I say.

“Whatever,” he says. “That’s probably why they want us to do it in the house—so we don’t get arrested.”

After my argument with Charlotte, getting high doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, but I’m scared to smoke, because I don’t know what it will do to me. The few times I’ve gotten drunk things have ended badly, and somehow this seems even more dangerous. Neither Neil nor Katie smokes, though Katie says she has done it and didn’t like how paranoid it made her feel. To someone who is already convinced the world is conspiring against him, this is not reassuring.

“What’s it like?” I ask my brother.

“Getting high?” He shrugs. “Kind of like getting drunk, I guess, but more mellow and without the hangover.”

“How many times have you done it?”

My brother does a quick mental calculation. “I don’t know. Fifty, maybe.”

“Fifty!” I feel my eyes bulging. “Aren’t you afraid something’s gonna happen to you?”

“Like what?” He quotes me statistics, trying to show that pot is actually less dangerous than either nicotine or alcohol. “You should try it,” he says. “It might help you chill out.”

With Charlotte avoiding me and Neil and Katie now firmly entrenched as a couple, I find myself alone at my locker Friday after school trying to figure out what to do. It seems so pathetic just to go home and watch TV, and I briefly consider looking for my brother and seeing what he and his friends are up to. As I stare into my locker, Lisa Kravitz walks by with Danny Anderson.

“Hey, Shakespeare,” she says, pausing.

I close my locker quickly as if there’s something incriminating they might see.

“Do you guys know each other?” she asks.

“You’re Gandhi’s brother, right?” Danny says.

I nod. “You’re friends with my brother?”

He smiles. “We’ve hung out a few times.”

This is news to me. I know Gandhi has a lot of friends and is more popular as a sophomore than I am as a senior, but the fact that he is hanging out with twelfth graders, especially someone as cool as Danny, is pretty amazing.

“Hey, we were just going to hang at my house,” Danny says. “You want to come over?”

Danny Anderson is inviting me over? What the hell’s going on here? “I’ve kind of got a lot to do,” I say lamely.

“Oh, come on,” Lisa says. “It will be fun.”

I feel my resistance fade. “Okay,” I say, looking at my watch. “For a little while, I guess.”

Danny smiles at both of us. “Cool. Let’s do it.”

Danny, it turns out, lives only five blocks from me. Nobody is at his place when we get there, and we head up two flights of stairs to his bedroom, which is unlike anything I have ever seen. He has converted the space in the attic into a kind of hippie bachelor pad. His bed is a futon mattress on the floor, and there is a couch, a TV, a stereo, and a mini-refrigerator like the ones in hotel rooms. Vintage rock posters—the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead—cover the walls, and two guitars and a bass stand in the corner. Most striking of all, though, is the sheer number of CDs piled everywhere around the room, at least two thousand, but probably many more.

“It’s kind of a mess,” Danny says. “But my parents never come up here, so it’s cool.”

“I’ve never seen anyone with so much music,” I say. “You could open a store.”

“I know,” Lisa says, “that’s what I said.”

“Have you been here before?” I ask her.

“A few times.”

“How about a little reggae?” Danny asks, taking a Bob Marley CD from one of the many stacks on the floor.

“Cool,” says Lisa.

He puts in the music, then goes over to his desk drawer and pulls out a small plastic bag and some rolling papers. I watch him roll a joint with a mixture of fascination and anxiety. This is it, I think. I’m going to smoke pot.

When he finishes, he lights it, takes a hit, and offers it to Lisa. Lisa Kravitz smokes pot? She takes a drag and offers me the joint. I try to act natural, but my heart is racing. I put the joint to my lips, inhale, and immediately start to cough.

“You okay?” Danny asks.

I nod and pass him the joint.

We continue to smoke, and I start to get the hang of it. I can’t tell if I’m feeling any different, but I’m certainly not hallucinating or freaking out. This is okay, I think. By the time we’ve finished the joint, I’ve decided that getting high with Danny and Lisa is probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done.

“Hey, you guys wanna do some bong hits?” Danny asks. He goes to his closet and pulls out a long tube-like thing, open on the top, with a little attachment that juts out from the cylinder. From the mini-refrigerator, he takes a bottle of water and pours some into the tube, then takes a bud of marijuana from a different bag and packs it into the tiny bowl that is attached. “This pot is special,” he says, offering Lisa the bong.

She takes the lighter, holds the flame over the marijuana, and begins to suck on the top of the tube. Immediately the water begins to bubble, and smoke fills the cylinder. After a few seconds, she pulls the bowl attachment off the tube, and the smoke shoots up into her lungs.

“Jesus,” I say as she exhales and begins to cough.

Danny smiles. “Nice,” he says. “Shakespeare?”

“You’re gonna have to show me how,” I say.

Danny looks like he has just won the lottery. He holds the bong lovingly and launches into a detailed explanation of how it works. Then he passes it to me, like a proud father handing down a precious heirloom to his oldest son. I press the tube to my lips and nod to Danny, who lights the lighter and holds it over the bowl. As I inhale, I hear the water begin to bubble and see smoke rise in the cylinder. It reminds me of the way I used to blow bubbles through my straw in my milk when I was younger, except now I am sucking instead of blowing, and now I am breaking the law and probably doing irrevocable damage to my lungs. I pull the bowl-like attachment from the tube, and the smoke floods upward into my mouth.

Have you ever had one of those coughing fits where you’re coughing so hard and uncontrollably that you feel like you might spit out a lung? You know, those body-rattling, stomach-heaving, vessel-popping coughs that leave you doubled over begging for mercy? I’ve had those fits before, and they’re nothing compared to what hits me when all that marijuana smoke comes crashing into my throat.

“I’m dying,” I gasp, then lunge into another fit of coughs.

“That was huge,” Danny says admiringly.

“Oh my God,” I say, catching my breath. “That almost killed me.”

“Have some water,” Lisa says, passing me the bottle.

I sip slowly. What am I doing here, hanging out at Danny Anderson’s house with Lisa Kravitz, smoking marijuana? Smoking marijuana? Have I just smoked marijuana?
Marijuana.
What a strange word.
Marijuana.
Ma-ri-jua-na. Marijuana, marijuana, marijuana, marry wanna, marry wanna.

“Dude, are you okay?” Danny asks.

I realize I am taking tiny sips from the bottle in rhythm with my staccato thoughts.

“That was really weird,” I say.

Danny takes a bong hit, then asks if either of us wants another.

“I’m good,” Lisa says.

I shake my head. “No way.”

Danny moves behind Lisa and begins to massage her back.

“Mmm,” she says. “That feels good.”

What am I doing here? Are they going to start making out in front of me? I try to look everywhere but at them. Could I possibly feel any more awkward or uncomfortable?

“Where’s the bathroom?” I ask.

Danny tells me and I head downstairs. This whole situation is surreal. It’s a Friday afternoon, and I’m standing in Danny Anderson’s bathroom stoned out of my mind while he and Lisa are probably making out upstairs. My head is spinning, and suddenly I begin to feel boxed in. I need to get out of the house, get some fresh air. Maybe I should splash some cold water on myself. I turn on the faucet, lean over, and try to shovel water onto my face. Most of it gets on my shirt. I look in the mirror and try to suck my shirt dry. What am I doing? I’m sucking on my shirt. I’m freaking out. The colored tiles on the wall, yellow and black, four yellow squares surrounding a black square, four yellow squares surrounding a black square, four yellow squares surrounding a black square. Jesus, the water in the sink is still running. How long have I been in this bathroom, anyway? It seems like forever. What’s the plan? The plan, plan, Stan, can, Dan, fan, gan, han. Holy shit, I am so stoned. I look in the mirror. My face still looks normal. I have to get out of here.

I make my way upstairs, clomping loudly so they will hear me coming.

“I’m gonna take off,” I say, barely managing to make my way over to my book bag.

“You sure?” Danny is sitting on his couch with Lisa’s head in his lap.

“I need some fresh air,” I say.

“Are you gonna make it home all right?” he asks.

I stagger to the stairs. “I hope so.”

“Hold on.” Danny walks me downstairs and lets me out, and I set off on the five-block walk home, taking it one block at a time, trying to look normal, but convinced that everyone I pass can tell I am stoned. All I want to do is make it home, go up to my room, close the door, get into bed, and go to sleep. All I want to do is not have to deal with anyone or anything until I feel normal again.

I keep telling myself that if everything turns out okay, I will never smoke pot again. I am almost home. I can see my house. I can picture the way I will come in the front door and head straight for my room. What about food? I’m starving all of a sudden. I’ll have to get some food. Nacho Cheese Doritos. Ice cream. Pringles.

I walk in the door, and my mother is on me before I can escape.

“Where have you been?”

“At a friend’s house.” Forget the food. Get upstairs.

“Do you know what time it is?” She taps her watch. “We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

I spin around. “What are you talking about?”

“Dinner with Aunt Sylvia. Remember?”

“Oh shit,” I blurt before I can catch myself.

She allows herself a smile. “Come on, it’s not so bad.”

Not so bad? This situation is completely catastrophic, even by my standards. There is absolutely no way I am going to be able to sit through a family dinner with my parents and my incredibly annoying aunt without completely freaking out.

I run up to my brother’s room and close the door. He is sitting at his desk IM’ing with his friends.

“I’m screwed,” I say.

“What’s the matter?” he asks without turning around.

“I’m stoned out of my mind.”

He stops typing and turns to me with an incredulous look. “Are you serious?”

“I totally forgot Aunt Sylvia was in town.”

He starts to laugh. “What are you gonna do?”

I am pacing his room, running my hands through my hair. “You gotta help me.”