Jazz Band

If you knew me in middle school you would remember me as that girl who told on the jazz band for smoking pot. There were 5 of us actually, but I’m the one you would remember. I became a social pariah after that and in part chose to go to a small out of the way high school just so I wouldn’t have to look any of them in the eye. There are of course plenty of reasons not to do drugs, but the only thing I knew at the time was what I had seen on those after school specials (a frying egg and a kid forgetting to pick his little brother up from school). So when Sebastian confronted me after school that day I drew a blank.

Fast forward a decade and I can think of plenty to say to Sebastian. Ironically at that secluded high school I managed to fall into a wild crowd and saw first hand what they were trying to convey on those TV specials. There was my best friend Ben who gave up a ticket to the Ivy League for a senior year of raves and serotonin boosters. There was Brittany who aborted her stillborn after one particularly bad stint. And Chuck…I lost contact with Chuck but later found out that he had messed around with heroin one too many times.

But I couldn’t tell Sebastian about any of this now. God knows I have no right to lecture anyone about drugs. I after all watched those scales come to life in the Stanford Tiki Gardens – shrooms. I spent a New Year’s Eve in love with crowds of people dragging their fingers through my curls – ecstasy. I tripped off the Candy Apple man’s distorted face in Disneyland – acid. I had heart palpitations at that Coldplay concert in Berkeley – pain killers. I watched that old African woman enveloped in flames with diamonds cutting her hands – Amsterdam drug…should have asked. And then there were all those Paris mornings, leaning out my window watching the morning rise in an iry haze – Sebastian’s drug.

And despite all the warnings my brain never fried and I never forgot to pick my niece up from school. Looking back I can perhaps attribute my success with drugs to strict moderation. I for example never developed a habit, and never had my own stash. It could also have been my wise drug choices. I after all refused the coke that night at Danielle Steel’s mansion and I always left the room when they brought out their needles.

I can tell myself all I want that I was smart, but I know as much as the next person that it was all luck. Every single “memorable” experience I have had on drugs has been equally dangerous.

The shrooms leading us up that 30 foot shaky ladder to the clock tower. The ecstasy high convincing us that we were sober enough to drive. The space mountain acid trip followed by the most terrifying hallucinations. That night on pain killers when I was sure that I was going to die. The question mark Amsterdam drug ultimately leading me to unsafe sex. And those Paris mornings…the problem with weed is that it puts your life in slow motion, and years at a time can be lost in a blur.

So yes, I fully expect that I will become like those hypocrite parents, telling their children how much different it was in the 70s. But for what it’s worth Sebastian, if I was thirteen again I would have done it differently. I wouldn’t have told on you and the jazz band. I would have minded my own business and left it to a higher power to decide whether to call it a phase or whether you would have ended up like Ben, Brittany or Chuck – may he rest in peace.
~karen