06.27.06
“Well, they’ll stone ya when you’re trying to be so good, They’ll stone ya just a-like they said they would. They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to go home. Then they’ll stone ya when you’re there all alone. But I would not feel so all alone, Everybody must get stoned…” Bob Dylan
Northern California in 1975 was a very interesting place to be. There were lots of refugees from Viet Nam landing on the west coast. Pretty quickly, we met a man who had relocated there and was a big dealer in “pot.” X quickly made contact through another fellow who I thought was rather sleazy, though I often thought that about many of the characters X brought around. After all, we had come all the way across the country to get away from the hardcore drug scene and were getting ready to raise a child. I didn’t want to jump right back into it all over again. I was getting better about asking X not to bring everyone home, but he still kept his contacts outside of our home. This guy only dealt in pounds, so X decided to start collecting some money from friends and buy one “communally.” He finally had all the money together and went to meet Contact A who would then take him to Contact B. The rest of us eagerly awaited his return. Pot was very cheap back then, but none of us had much money so a pound, even among a few friends, was a big but exciting investment. It had been a while since X and I were in that business, and this was a new area. I was a little nervous. Well, X met Contact A who told him that Contact B would leave a paper bag under the bridge, walk up the hill past X who would then pass him the money, then go down to pick up the bag. X didn’t really like this idea, but they wouldn’t do it any other way, so he agreed. Everything went as planned, and X picked up the bag and brought it home. He walked in the door, went to the kitchen, got out a knife and some plates, opened up the bag took the “pound” out and sliced up some delicious pound cake in equal portions for all who had contributed. At first, we all laughed about what a warped sense of humor X had. Then we realized it wasn’t a joke, swallowed hard, and tried hard to enjoy our share of the “pound.” Luckily, everyone was a good friend and realized that we couldn’t give them their money back even though X had set up the deal. He later went looking for the guy who pulled a gun on him, so he let it go as a valuable lesson learned. He was still only 19 years old at this time and I only a mere 21. We had a lot more lessons to learn and plenty of time ahead to learn them.