To roll up a cigarette, I used two cigarette papers, placed some tobacco in them and rolled it up. The rolling took a long time to accomplish and when I finally finished, the cigarette broke right in the middle. Upset, I threw it out the window.
I looked around and realized I was in Portsmouth, Ohio, sitting in a van being driven by my old high school chum, Mark Tindall. We had earlier gone somewhere and each of us had bought a small baggie of marijuana. I rolled up a couple rather large joints out of my baggie.
We also had some alcohol which we were drinking. I turned to Tindall and said, "Let's go over to Walls' house."
Since Tindall had said something at the same time I had spoken, I asked, "What did you say?"
I thought he also had suggested we go to Mike Walls' house, but he repeated what he had said and it was something different.
We drove to Walls' house (which was nearby), pulled up and stepped out of the van. I picked up some tennis shoes I had earlier taken off and I walked toward Walls' porch with the shoes, still also carrying the two joints in my hand. Walls was standing in front of the house and I said, "There he is – Mikey boy."
When I said "Mikey boy" I wondered if Walls would be offended because I had referred to him as a boy instead of a man. I thought of him as someone who had never fully matured.
I hadn't seen Walls for a long time and I was happy to see him again. I thought about putting my arms around him, but I decided that probably wouldn't be appropriate. I thought he would be surprised to see me in Portsmouth again. When Walls saw us coming, he walked around behind the house.
I began thinking it had really been a long time since I had smoked any marijuana or drunk any alcohol. I decided that for once I was just going to cut loose today and not worry about anything for a change.
I walked into the house and saw a blonde woman in the room. She said, "Come on in. Make yourself at home. Don't mind the mess."
Walls' wife Connie was also in the room and she said something about her "new baby." Indeed, in the room was a pretty little baby boy (probably only a few weeks old), smiling and wearing some little, blue, bib pants. It seemed so happy. It seemed strange to me that I was preparing to smoke marijuana and this little, fresh, uncontaminated baby was right there.
Realizing that I was still carrying my tennis shoes and that I wasn't going to put them on right now, I carried them back out onto the front porch. When I put them on the porch, I realized I had mistakenly carried in two black tennis shoes and a white tennis shoe. I had only wanted the white ones. I looked at the white shoe (which had a red stripe around it). I thought the shoes hadn't been the right ones, but then I said, "Those aren't the shoes I wanted. Well one of them was."
I walked back inside, sat down and wondered whether I should light up one of the joints. I looked up and saw that a girl who reminded me of Marilyn Phipps (a pretty blonde Portsmouth acquaintance whom I barely knew around 1970) had walked through the front door. I hadn't seen her in a long time. Her hair was blonde-red and she was wearing quite a bit of make-up. She attracted me in a cosmetic way. She said something and I replied, "Come on in."
I stood up and walked toward her with the intention of striking up a conversation. When I reached the door where she was, I saw another fellow dressed in a black suit who was apparently with her walking up the front sidewalk toward the house. When I also noticed some other people smoking marijuana on the front porch, I thought maybe Walls had sold them the marijuana.
Someone carried a joint into the house and began passing it around. When the joint came to me, I took a hit, then offered the joint to Connie, who was standing near me, but she didn't want any. So I handed it to someone else and it was passed around a few times.
I looked more closely at Connie. She was almost flat-chested and looked very hollow, almost insubstantial.
I passed the joint to Tindall who was sitting down. He dropped it and I said to Tindall, "Pick it up. Come on."
Copyright 2011 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
