Buying Weed

I am in my apartment which I do not recognize. It looks vaguely like a condominium Janis and I had considered buying at one time. It is dark outside. My brother is there and says that he wants to go to Dolores park to talk to people. So Eva and I decide to walk to Dolores park to let our dog run. I can't see the dog. I am a bit apprehensive about all of this. Eva and I have a teeny spat along the way. Eva insists that we should have driven but I insist that the park is within walking distance. We go on a bit until we reach Church street when I point out that we are already there.

My brother is there in a long sleeved shirt and his jockey briefs underwear. His garb seems to alter between this and him wearing a loose pair of pants. There are people at the park. A small group at the dog run area and a larger group at the entrance near the 18th street stairs. The lights seem to alternately go on and off. This worries me. But I remind myself that the park has been safe since the police cleaned it up several years ago. The lights go on and stay that way.

Eva is no longer with me and ditto for our dog. I show my brother the dog run and the people there. A moving mound of sand approaches us. It's a bit creepy. But at the last minute a dog jumps out from the mound. It is an Airedale terrier. It saunters happily to us and I pet its head affectionately. My brother is impatient despite the fact that he has always had Airedales. I sense that he wants to get going on his mission (whatever that is.

The dog is no longer with us.. My brother leaves us to talk to a young couple smoking marijuana. He proceeds to rattle their cage by preaching about the ills of smoking weed. I am embarrassed. I watch this from a short distance. Eva is also embarrassed. I come up behind him while smoking a joint. I laugh behind his back and tell the couple to ignore him. My brother moves on to a person and begins preaching to him. I join the group pf people gathered at that end of the park and more or less socialize. They are curious about his activities. I shrug my shoulders.

Some of the women in the group are whores or friends of whores. The group does not look down upon prostitution. Many of the women are joking with both their male and female friends in the group. I see the backs of call girls on the lower part of  the Church street hill that runs between 17th and 18th street. They are all lit by the street lamps. I get closer and eventually join the group. The prostitutes are pretty and some of them jokingly ask me if I want to take a tumble. I laugh good heartedly and I decline. I think privately that this is cute. But I am castrated by the side effects of my anti-psychotic medicine. 

The girls laugh with uproariousness when one of them bares her breasts. She is a black women and she has beautiful breasts. I recognize her as a character in the TV show "Shameless."  She raises her voice in mock frustration that, "Even with these babies I can't turn a trick!" It has been a slow night for the girls. I join in the all around laughter and feel even more connected to the group.

My brother is mad at me. I don't know why but sense it is frustration with my lack of support for his "mission."  He asks me if I am oblivious to the laws being broken all around me. He is really mad. He has a partial erection that pokes straight out from his loins and which is fully noticeable beneath his loose pants. I see that he is wearing Dockers or something with a similar brand or style. I am scared by this as he nears me in a rage that turns his face red. 

He screams "You think this funny!" at me. He growls from between clenched jaws, "You want a piece of this! You want a piece of this!" while pointing down at his erection. He is threatening to make me suck him off. He is referring to his attempts to convert people to become straight. I am terrified. He disappears. 

The people in the group are milling around like you would expect at a party. I smell marijuana. A Latino approaches me and asks me if I want to buy some pot. He is younger than me like most of the people in the group. At first I laugh graciously and tell him that I don't buy weed from people on the the street. I do not want to hurt his feelings but we hang around together with the group.

A man younger than the Latino dealer, in fact in his late teens or his twenties, buys some weed and with one toke from his pipe becomes seemingly very high.  The dealer raises one eyebrow as he looks sideways at me. I am now intrigued by his merchandise. He asks me what I think. I ask him to show me the weed. He opens up a small packet made of paper to expose it.

The stash is red and looks more like hash than weed to me. He tells me that it is Mexican red. I've never heard of that. He asks me if I want to sample it. He puts a very small amount in my (Eva's, actually) pipe. I take a single long hit. I do this in a disjointed way. I first fill my lungs with air and take the hit when I have reached a point where I barely have power to breathe in a little more. This last effort fills my lungs with smoke. The marijuana smells sweet.

Some of the people in the crowd, party actually, smile at me with friendship in their eyes. The Latino dealer smiles at me, too. He asks me what I think of the pot. I am so incredibly stoned from that single hit that I can barely talk. I know that I am smiling, too. I realize that most of the people at the party are also stoned, although not so much as I am. I see the young man who bought from the dealer earlier stumbling around.


It suddenly occurs to me that this is the "bad element" that the police are rumored to have "cleaned up." Prostitutes and drug dealers. But I have a good time at this party and would hate to see it ended by the police. We are the bad element that square people are so afraid of. It is a incompressible joke. Why can't the outsiders leave us alone? We are not doing any harm to anybody. It's just a party. Johns in dark cars with dark tinted windows don't seem to have a problem picking up the girls. 

The dealer asks me again if I want to buy some pot. I respond OK and try to think privately what the going price is for pot these days. I ask him what twenty dollar's worth would get me. He laughs with his two friends as he responds, "Two tickets to the rides on Coney island!" I am taken aback but so high that it does not bother me. I wonder if I heard him correctly as he turns his back to me. He moves away while chuckling with his two friends. I decide to buy some of his weed at any price.

We are at the front door of his shop. He is about to close up. I think to myself that his pot better be a cheaper price than what one would pay at a medicinal marijuana club. I laugh in my head as I realize that I can't know because I have no idea what a club would charge. I decide to assume that the dealer's the price will be cheaper, anyway. He tells me that the minimum order is $80. I don't have that much cash on me. I see an ATM nearby. I ask him if he could wait a few minutes. He agrees.

I stumble to the ATM which I can barely see though my stoned fog. I can hardly make out the screen and keypad. I drop my wallet and upon retrieving it notice that a card is on the ground. I carefully, off balance, reach down to get it. I see that it is my Visa card. I can't use it with the ATM. I put it back into my wallet. I look for my debit card through a haze and finally find it. It is upside down and backwards in my wallet. I get it out and slide it into the ATM.

I cannot clearly read the text on the ATM screen. There is a "yes" button on the right and a "no" button on the left. I think this is the question about whether or not I accept the charge for using the ATM.  I press the yes button. Cash starts streaming into the little drawer below. I am confused that the ATM did not ask me the usual questions before a transaction. I think joyously that perhaps the ATM is broken and will spit out cash without end. But it stops. I retrieve the money and confirm that it is $80.

Back at the shop I enter to buy my pot. There are two or three more or less burly Latinos in the room. The dealer closes the door and locks it. I am a bit scared. I hand $100 to the dealer. He tells me that the actual price is $137.76. He does not explain why. I assume it must be for tax or something. I search my mind to see if I have $37.76 on my person. I realize that I do not. In a panic I tell this to the dealer. I ask him if I can owe him the remaining amount. He is hesitant and says that it's not a good idea to allow a client to owe money to him. But he makes an exception in my case, probably because I am older an seemingly more responsible.

I wake up.