Chapter 7: Sailor Jerry And Tony Yayo
Jocelyn parked crooked as an old person with parkinsons. We checked the rear of her vehicle and only saw minor scuffs, nothing too serious. Jocelyn laughed in my direction and I saw her eyes looked huge. I wondered if I had the same crazy bug-eyed look.
The door to the house was propped open but the screen was locked. Jocelyn rang the doorbell 15 times and a tired Stormy appeared through the mesh to let us in. I realized I had a key on me at the last moment.
"Sorry Stormy, we got sidetracked but—"
"Better LATE than never!" Jocelyn interrupted and pushed her way inside. Stormy looked so defeated but I figured she was just tired from unpacking. Luckily, I had plenty of energy… Kashi is here to save the day!
"Thanks for visiting," Stormy mumbled with her eyes angled toward me. It felt like she just kicked me in the ribs.
Jocelyn stopped and whipped her hair around. "The fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing… It's none of your business, anyway…" Stormy said with her eyes low. I was shocked. Even with how timid her comments were, Stormy never spoke like this.
"Excuse me?! The FUCK you just say to me?!" Jocelyn rushed to Stormy and half-squatted so they were the same eye-level. Stormy looked terrified. I was scared for her.
"Jocelyn, let's go," I pleaded.
"FUCK NO. You're just gonna let this bitch talk like this? AND be rude as FUCK to you? We drove here to help you and this is how you act?!" Jocelyn jabbed Stormy's chest with a finger. Stormy gasped and her face turned white.
I grabbed Jocelyn's wrist. She was like a rabid dog and I didn't know what she would do next. Jocelyn let me pull her out of the house as she kept her eyes on Stormy. It wouldn't have been a fair fight, not at all. I saw Stormy's head was low, refusing to look at me as I shut the door.
"The fuck are you doing, Kashi?"
"We don't belong here, Jocelyn."
"The fuck you mean?! It's your house!"
The whole neighborhood could hear Jocelyn screaming at me. "Please, let's just go home," I said. She smiled when I said that, like she simply shut off her 'anger' switch.
"Okay," she whispered. She skipped to the car, care-free like nothing happened…
Jocelyn made it a point to roll down the windows and blast her music so the whole world could hear her leaving.
On the left side of the intersection was a Circle K gas station decorated with red lighting. She pulled in sharply without a turn signal. "I need some more cigarettes," Jocelyn said as she pulled next to a gas pump.
I followed her to the back where the fountain drinks were, but she kept walking, entering the back area where the latrines were. She peeked her head around the corner and I knew she wanted me to follow. Even with the uppers coursing through my blood, I was apprehensive, but knew better than to question her. She pulled me into the ladies room.
Jocelyn squatted, checking for feet in the stalls. She kicked open the biggest stall; the door hit the wall and swung back at her. She bumped it with her shoulder and gestured me inside. She shut the door and then closed the toilet seat cover. She set the baggie down on it and carefully opened it, then took her car keys and dipped it inside, scooping up a small mound.
Jocelyn took a bump, "Woo-wee," and hopped up and down. She stretched out her arm and handed me the keys. I felt really sketched out… I scooped the key into the powder, turned my head to the side and exhaled, then sniffed the powder into my brain. I felt a cool rush of pain and stomped my foot to the ground in agony. I threw open my eyes and mouth like I was taking my very first breath. Jocelyn held up her palm and we high-fived.
The latrine door opened. Jocelyn secured the baggie and stuffed it in her pants, the sound of footsteps and cellophane fighting against each other. The other stall shut and locked and we double-timed out of there. Jocelyn forgot to get her cigarettes, so we stopped by a different gas station…
I felt like we owned the world. We were two grown little kids inside of that second gas station, high as the ISS. At the front counter, when the cashier turned around to grab the Parliaments, Jocelyn snuck a grip of lighters into her pocket. She had plenty of lighters everywhere, so it's not like she needed them. She did it just because she could. What a rush! A few steps before exiting the store, she stopped and lit her cigarette, blowing smoke into the interior of the building. The cashier didn't say anything.
We partied in Jocelyn's pink bedroom with the music at full blast. I was puzzled that her parental unit was so lenient, despite the awkward confrontation this morning. Or was it last night? I couldn't remember. The days were blending together and all that mattered was the new flood of sensations that the white powder gave me.
Jocelyn crawled her upper-half underneath the bedskirt. I prostrated and playfully bit her calves. She giggled and kicked me a little harder than she meant to. She emerged from underneath the bed with a quarter-full bottle of Sailor Jerry.
We took 2 shots back-to-back and started to dance. I was spontaneously hopping around, kicks, spins, elbows and thrusts into the air. Jocelyn moved like a wispy goddess from ancient times.
She turned off the music.
"I love you," she said.
"Really?" I regretted my response as she rushed me like she did to Stormy. She leaned down to my eye-level. I had no impulse control—I kissed her. She held my chin and kissed me back.
Jocelyn pulled away, keeping her grip on my chin. "Say it."
"I love you too," I replied with zero hesitation. Her lips spread like she was laughing, her eyes bulging out, her cheeks redder than I've ever seen them.
"Now that the mushy gay shit is out of the way, let's smoke a bowl," Jocelyn said. She dug into her walk-in closet and pulled out a shoebox from the top corner.
"You have bud? Why haven't you been smoking?"
She turned at me with disgust. "I don't always smoke weed. I'm not a junkie."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
"Shh. I'm joking. Come on."
I followed those milky legs to the backyard, high, drunk, and about to get stoned. I was so happy in this moment.
We decided to smoke in her car instead of the backyard. Jocelyn held a green and black spiral pipe. It looked like something from 'Alice In Wonderland'. Her orange weed container said 'For Medical Use Only'.
"I didn't know you had your medical card."
"I don't. It's my moms."
She grinded the sticky bud with her pink manicured fingers, sprinkling it into the pipe. She sparked the lighter and burned a corner of the green clump and took a fat hit, holding the smoke in her lungs as she passed it to me. She blew a cloud into my face. I took my hit and exhaled immediately. She looked disappointed.
"Hold it in longer. Don't waste my weed. And look; you didn't corner the bowl. See?"
Jocelyn pointed at the bowl. Jocelyn's hit was in the corner, while mine was directly center. I understood. She nodded for me to take another hit. The bowl was cherried now. I held this hit for at least 10 seconds, blowing out wispy remnants of smoke.
"Good boy," she said. For some reason, that phrase sparked my brain. I was hyped by the yayo, tipped to the side by Sailor Jerry, and drifting through deep space with Mary Jane. Life was good.
We continued our puff-puff-pass until it was done. She slapped the pipe into her palm, removing all the ash in one hit. She opened the window and the cloud of stale smoke—the hotbox—filtered into the neighborhood air. She tossed the ash out the window and wiped the remaining residue on her leg, leaving a black smear on her thighs.
5am
Still up with no signs of slowing down. Me and Jocelyn both had these nasty drips, like the powder was stuck in our throats, leaking like a faucet. We swallowed and tasted the bitter hell, but were rewarded with a new rush each time.
I was shirtless in her room with sweat all over my body, despite the AC at max. Jocelyn was in her black panties and black tank-top, her skin glistening.
She poured the remaining powder onto her wooden vanity.
"I saw this in a movie once." Jocelyn pulled out a dollar bill and a credit card. She separated the powder into two parallel lines of equal size with the card.
"Ohhh, we doing it like Scarface?" I said.
"Nah, I never seen that shit."
"Huhh?!" I put my hands to my chest femininely, acting offended. "I know what we're doing tonight!"
The word 'tonight' for some reason triggered Jocelyn. "Oh, fuck! I'm supposed to open! 6 to 11!"
"Oh, fuck…"
Jocelyn ran to her walk-in closet and put on a dirty uniform and the same pants she wore last time, work-belt still through the loops.
"I'll take care of this." I saw the lines were chunky. I crushed the powder with the credit card and chopped up the lines, converting the rocky roads into dusty trails.
"Where'd you learn to do that?"
"Some movie," I smirked. "There's still some on the card…"
"Give me that." Jocelyn licked the white residue off the card. Her face twisted with filth. She dabbed a little on her finger from one of the lines on the vanity. "Stick your tongue out." I obeyed and she poked the powder on my dry tongue. It was bitter and disgusting, just like the faucet drips but ten times more concentrated. She laughed as I made the same face she did.
Jocelyn pulled a $100 bill out her wallet and rolled it into a tube. It was too thick. She re-rolled it, making it as thin and pencil-dicked as possible. She looked through the hole as if she were clearing the chamber of an M4. We both clenched our teeth in anticipation of our first lines.
Jocelyn sniffed hers and arched her spine backward. She relinquished some grip of the $100 bill, making it a bit thicker. She handed the bill to me then looked at herself in the mirror. She brushed her hair with a comb. I took my line and exhaled in short bursts like pumping a break while driving.
"Come on, let's go," she said.