Getting High With a Teenager Who Shouldn't Smoke Weed

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I discovered weed during a turbulent time in my life. A year earlier, when I was 13, my parents divorced, forcing us to move from my hometown, Bangkok, Thailand, to a shitty suburb outside Worcester, Massachusetts. Along with dealing with the divorce, I had to cope with being the new kid at a school in a country whose culture I didn’t understand. Although New Englanders are generally pretty friendly, high school freshmen are not—I remained friendless and spent most my time tooling around in my dad’s giant house. Although my dad and I lived alone in the house, we were rarely in the same room together. Because my dad was dealing with his own shit, he didn’t have the tightest eye on me. In other words, all the pieces were in place for me to find weed.

You certainly don’t have to be cool to buy weed in high school, so I came upon weed pretty easily. After a few rounds of trial and error, I smoked it correctly. I felt weed’s effects for the first time as I crouched against the back door of my dad’s garage. Immediately, I realized I didn’t need friends to stay entertained. When I was high, my surroundings’ monotony evaporated. Doing anything creative—playing drums, drawing, or writing—was ten times more fun. It was an age of self-sufficiency. I stopped trying to make friends, because I felt like I didn’t need them. Ironically, that’s probably the reason I became friends with Maria.

One day, I made the questionable decision to drink a huge cocktail of Gatorade and rum during school. By the end of the day, I was a sloppy mess, and Maria helped me get home safely. Although Maria didn’t smoke weed, her altruistic act brought us together over the second half of freshman year—I saw a lot of her, her friends, and her little brother Pedro. Being a little brother myself, I knew Pedro looked up to me. He relished the opportunity to exchange drug stories and burn one with me, and I loved to indulge him. His shenanigans seemed as harmless as mine, but after I moved away, his shit got out of hand. Although at the end of that summer, I moved back to my mom’s place a few states away, I frequently returned to see Maria and the crew. Each time I visited, I heard a new story about Pedro getting busted for smoking weed. Maria and her parents knew it was a pretty harmless drug, but they worried Pedro was turning it into a problem. When I came back for Thanksgiving, Pedro was on lockdown because he was suspended for blazing at school. He sat silently as Maria told me about the ordeal, and I nodded sympathetically. Maria trusted that I’d back her up and be a good influence on her little bro. Despite her frustration, she ended her monologue on a hopeful note, saying that Pedro had definitely learned from his mistakes. Hearing this, he looked up at his sister and smiled as she exited the room. After Maria left, Pedro looked at me gravely and whispered, “She’s about to go to bed. Do you want to go burn one on the back deck?”

I responded with a confused mix of body signals. I knew it was a terrible idea to smoke with Pedro; I’d be validating his deception, deceiving Maria, and potentially creating a damaging situation for us both. On the other hand, I had been on a bus for four hours and lacked weed. I struggled for a moment, and then I thought a couple of hits between friends couldn’t possibly hurt—after all, Pedro’s only crime was getting caught. Within minutes, we were on the back deck hitting a small bong Pedro had hidden in the toolshed. Because getting caught stressed him out, he said he had been blazing more than ever. Every day, it became harder to hide his habit from his family. Although I sympathized with him, I gave him a hypocritical lecture about why he shouldn’t be smoking.

As we slipped back in and slid the door shut, the light clicked on. Maria stood there with an accusatory expression on her face. Pedro and I froze in the doorway, our wide, red eyes giving away our crime. As harmless as our little sesh had felt moments before, Maria’s glare reminded me that I was potentially toying with her little brother’s future. Rather than letting us off easy, Maria gazed at us for a minute before flicking the light back off and heading to bed. Where my punishment was limited to my own guilt, Pedro’s lockdown intensified for the rest of the year—I had effectively betrayed one friend and cast another into solitary confinement so I could hit a bong a few times. I’m not sure getting Pedro in trouble helped, but he ended up cleaning up his act and becoming a productive member of society. Maria remains a straight shooter and a close friend. The only difference is Maria now realizes I’m the wrong guy to leave around someone who shouldn’t be smoking weed.

@ImYorkKid

Previously - T. Kid's Amazing Bongs