Goat Cheese and Chocolate Every day

I’m only going to write what I remember.

The first time I had a gun pointed at me was January 11th, 2004. It’s just one of those things that sticks with you. Jonathan and I were trying to get high. His blond hair was unusually long and straight, and as plainclothes undercover detectives slammed him against the concrete wall of a seemingly abandoned house, it flailed helplessly. Let’s smoke pot at the abandoned house, he said earlier. Alright, sounds cool. It sounded cool at the time. When the three men pointed pistols at me, and yelling boorishly to freeze, I was so scared. I thought they were gangsters who were going to beat us up, steal our money, and make us suck their dicks. Despite the shock, I was slightly relieved when one of them showed us his badge. “Fuck, that hurt! Why’d you have to slam me into the wall?” “You shouldn’t have gone for your pockets, we didn’t know if you were going to pull out a knife.” As I briefly and blankly considered my future and what drugs were in my pockets, and how to make them disappear, my wrists were instantly bonded by cold metal cuffs. First you feel the chill of the steel, and then the tightness is cinched in until it hurts. It always hurts. When you’re a prisoner. Every time I wear handcuffs, I think about this one episode of the X-Files I watched with my parents – one suspect could dislocate his thumbs and routinely escape from handcuffs. Maybe the handcuffs are so tight because the detectives have seen that episode. As a captive, they patted me down with their brisk, orderly fingers. It was less than a tenth of a gram of amphetamine. I was going to smoke it that night and play computer games. Regret, regret, if only I could have tossed it. A single Vicodin pill. “I have a prescription for that,” I lied. “They took out my wisdom teeth recently.” I was in a weird state. I cannot go on for paragraphs about how the sweat dripped down from my brow, or how I just wanted to crawl into a ball and will myself out of the universe, or whatever. That stuff isn’t true. I remember being completely subjected to the officers’ will, being stiff and numb. If I just stayed quiet, I could go home, I’m sure. If I answered their questions respectfully they’d know I was a good kid on the wrong path, and leave me alone. Blame the friends.

But no. I had the guns pointed at me because I was a criminal of the state. Two felony counts of possession do that to you. I remember on the ride to the police station, one of the men asked me, “So why you doin’ this stuff, the speed?”

I paused and admitted, “I…I like to paint. I like to take it and paint, it feels good and its fun. You should see this picture I did, it’s like a massive thumbprint with contrasting colors. A little bit of the stuff helps me focus and makes me more creative, I guess. I only do it sparingly though.”

I don’t think the answer was good enough for him, because he didn’t respond. I wonder what special investigator person, call him Agent Bradley, did after work that night. Did he complain about today’s youth, have a drink of Maker’s Mark, call his wife a sour name and then apologize? Did he walk in the door, notice a bill he’d been avoiding on the countertop, and swear, and wish his daughter didn’t hear him? Did he tell his wife about the kid who does speed because he thinks he’s a creative artist? Did he lay her a sweet smile at the end of his jeering anecdote? Agent Bradley, what did you have for dinner that night? Do you live alone and eat Marie Calender’s frozen entrees? Do you smoke Pall Malls, Marlboro Reds, or are you just too good to smoke? When you’re not driving the Ford Interceptor, what do you drive? I want to know about you because I want to know what makes you you. I want to know why you didn’t respond. I told you why I did that one particular drug at one particular moment last week, which, in my opinion is a very personal thing to ask, and I, feeling blinded, physically immobile, and mentally blunted, poured out a piece of my heart to you during that drive.

And I want it back.

It’s hard to be a rebel when you just want to go home and see your parents and hope they’ll still love you.