I fidgeted like a first-time wheelman during an armed robbery, waiting for my boy to come out of the Pump-N-Pay. Not that my anxiety was anything out of the ordinary. I've been on edge for most of the week, cramming for midterms. Hell, I've been on edge for most of my life.
My refilled script for Xanax, set in my front pocket pressed against my thigh, each passing second pushing me to indulge, but I was tired of the meds. They made me feel like shit. I just wanted my headaches to go away. I just wanted to be normal.
Halfway through my sophomore year at Georgia State University, classes were getting tougher and I had yet to declare a major. My roommate, David Chang a.k.a. Giggles, was a bonafide computer science geek and was already sorting internship offers. We both aced our college boards, but while the library was becoming my primary residence, he rarely glanced at his books in between classes.
He started to notice how the stress was getting to me and promised to let me in on his little secret. That placed me in the passenger seat of his tricked out Mini Cooper, eleven o'clock on a Saturday night.
I tapped out a staccato drumbeat on the dashboard as I watched him propel through the double doors of the convenience store, arms swinging two bags laden with energy drinks, water, and Blow-Pops. A Slim Jim dangled between his clenched teeth, an abnormally large version of the processed meat snack; he rolled it back and forth like a cigar. I opened the door for him as he chucked the items in the back and jumped in.
"You ready, Brah." He took a liking to calling me Brah as opposed to Ezekial, my given name.
"Where we headed?" I asked, not recognizing this part of Atlanta. I was raised a military brat in Germany for most of my life and this was my first time hanging out in the city.
"No place you ever been to," he replied starting the car. "Or I for that matter." Chuckling, he whipped the car out of the lot and headed away from the bright lights of downtown. The Cooper responded to his touch like a child commandeering a Matchbox car, threading through traffic at a high rate of speed that had me insuring my seatbelt was still firmly locked into place. The Cooper may have been fast and pretty, but it was no match for anything bigger than a sedan.
"Anything good on?" I asked, fiddling with the dials on the radio to keep from looking death in the face as we merged onto the interstate.
Giggles slapped my hand away.
"No messing with an Asian man's radio," he joked, sliding in one of his countless burned CDs. Rapid fire beats spit through the six-speaker system accompanied by piercing electronic shrieks and whistles, but no voices to help drown out the one in my held.
"What's this shit?"
"That's your problem, Brah. You have to free your mind. That thugged out shit you listen to got you all tense and ready for war."
I kept my mouth shut and tried to concentrate on the ride. We were definitely from two different worlds. He was an Asian from California, me a Black kid from wherever the government placed my father every four years.
My CD collection was purely hip-hop with an R&B track or two thrown in the mix. He liked groups who never saw the light of day on top twenty play lists.
We exited the freeway and after about fifteen minutes of rights, lefts, and U-turns, pulled up to a deserted parking lot outside of a closed grocery store. Giggles pulled his two-way pager out of the pocket on his goose-down vest and starting reading. After he scrolled around for what he was looking for, he put it away and began flicking his high beams in an irregular pattern at nothing in particular. A few ticks passed when I noticed a scrawny kid in camo shorts and a black tee shirt hustle to my side of the car. He was wearing one of those candy cane striped hats that everyone buys at the state fair then usually throw in the closet.
"Give him five dollars," said Giggles as he fiddled with the volume dial on his radio.
Oh Shit. My roommate's a fuckin pothead, albeit a very cheap one. I started to protest, when another car pulled up and began flicking their lights.
"Brah, give him the money, before he bails."
I fished a ten out of my pocket. The kid snatched it through the crack in the window and passed me a rolled up parchment. It didn't look like any blunt I ever saw. Before I could get change, the kid was gone and the car was again in motion.
"Giggles, what the fuck?"
"That, my friend, was a way point." He said nothing of my ten spot as he took the paper from me and began to read it, oblivious to the road.
My hands shook and my nervousness was compounded by the fact that my roommate was all over the road as he tried to decipher the crudely drawn map.
"David, I need fuckin' answers." I had too much to lose being on scholarship and wasn't trying to get caught up in no drug bullshit.
"Relax, Brah," responded Giggles as he sped up Buckhead highway. After passing numerous massage parlors, strip clubs, and Korean grocery stores, he whipped a right onto an industrial parkway.
"We're almost there and all will be revealed." As an afterthought he said, "This ain't about drugs, unless that's still your thing." Nodding to the bulge I subconsciously fingered every few minutes.
I watched the road as we past large manufacturing plants, most of them closed for the night. We soon left the pavement for a well-packed dirt road and more buildings, these more run-down and abandoned long ago. Giggles drove to the last building on the left and pulled in around back. There were more cars parked there as well, but hardly any people.
"Brah," said Giggles as he pulled in behind a metallic blue H2. "The shit I'm about to show you will change your life, probably for the better, but there are a couple rules I gotta pass on."
"One. No pointing. Act you you've seen it before."
"Two. Don't take anything you don't want to. If you do, find me first. I can't be responsible for bad trips. Stick to your own pills, but I don't think you'll be needing them."
"Three. If we get separated afterwards, come back to the car. If the car isn't here, wait for me at the corner. I won't leave you behind."
