It began with me going outside my friend Samuel’s apartment building to smoke a cigarette, and it ended with me not coming back, until the next morning. Samuel had fallen asleep and wouldn’t answer his phone: texts, or calls. Earlier in the night, he had pounded back three
Tecates, and eaten Chicken Kabob and rice from the Deli down the street. He was under the influence of a food coma. I even tried knocking on his apartment window. There was no answer from him. And then my phone battery died. This was the beginning of the end. I was going to die in the Upper West Side.
I walked up the street to a bodega, hoping I could charge my phone. I waited for 20 minutes. The phone wouldn’t charge. I ran over to a second bodega. I waited 30 minutes. And then the phone finally charged.
As I was scrolling on my phone, calling Samuel, and not getting an answer, I met this couple outside who asked if I wanted to smoke weed. I thought why not. My friend wasn’t picking up his phone, my phone had barely any battery now, and it was fucking freezing out.
I looked at them, up and down. The woman had her black hair in a bun and wore a winter jacket, boots, and a gray scarf. The man was wearing a sweater vest and Nike sneakers. They looked normal.
I walked with the couple over to their apartment building.
We stepped in and I noticed there was a kid laying on the pull-out futon. Tricia, the woman, said that was the man’s daughter. Bobby Ross, the man, said they needed money for the weed. I didn’t have my wallet, backpack, or phone charger on me. All I had was my black peacoat, my
pants, my shoes, and my phone that was on 3% battery. We went inside of a room and I taught the man how to install and use Venmo on his phone. Then I sent him $20, for the weed. $15-20 seemed reasonable for a gram of weed, so I was expecting a gram. The woman ran out of the apartment, searching for the weed. The man started telling me his father used to make six figures and that when he was a kid, he saw The Lion King on Broadway 10 times in a row. I wondered to myself who would see The Lion King on Broadway 10 times in a row. I barely read novels more than once. Bobby Ross would, and he did. Bobby was also reading several books: James Paterson novels and Game of Thrones. I didn’t give a shit, but I smiled and acted like I did.
Bobby talked for two straight hours, his breath shallow. I zoned the fuck out for two straight hours. He told me stories. That was the best part about the whole night; Bobby’s stories. He talked about getting shot for wearing a yellow bomber jacket. He talked about getting jumped in
the park in Queens, getting the shit beat out of him so badly he ended up in the hospital for a month. He talked about his ex-wife who stabbed him in the side with a kitchen knife, driving the blade through his flesh, a long deep cut. He talked about doing tattoos for a porn star that he met
through Craigslist. He talked about being a parent how you had to get used to being patient. He was 35 years old with grey hairs in his beard, and a tattoo of a giant cross on his left shoulder. He smoked a spliff and ashed in a Pepsi bottle cap turned over. The window was missing from the wall, so the wind rustled in from the alleyway and streamed into the room. He was eating rainbow chocolate cake and wiping his fingers on his shirt.
When his girlfriend Tricia came back, she took out a tarnished white pipe, lit it, and smoked a small rock, the size of a pebble. Her eyes rolled back, and she let out a cloud of gray smoke. She smiled and snapped her fingers. As I sat there, stunned, I was wondering if my judgment even mattered. I’d done acid, klonopin, weed, ketamine, molly, and cocaine. But I thought I was better than Tricia, because I didn’t smoke crack. I was a sheltered Vietnamese American kid, at least
that’s how I came off to people, I presumed. Later on, I realized we were all pieces of shit. I was staring at her and chuckling lightly, as though she were a standup comic bombing a set. The
setups worked, but the punchlines kept missing their spots. I smiled, sweating through my black pea coat. Tricia cackled and swung her hips back and forth to an Usher song playing on the radio. As she took another hit of crack rock from her smoking pipe, I heard the girl snoring in the other room.
I’d never done drugs in front of a child, but maybe if I was fucked up or desperate enough I would do it. Maybe I wasn’t as good of a person as I thought I was. I always thought I wasn’t a junkie, but perhaps I was one too.
Tricia made Bobby, her, and I Colombian coffee. I asked for black, and I didn’t flinch when I held up the cup to my lips and felt the bitter taste. It burned, slightly. I never got the weed from those two. But they did give me something. A gray scarf was wrapped around my neck. Tricia
tied a knot, edged it up towards my Adam’s apple.
And in that moment, I felt warmth, in that moment, I felt like I was being burned at a stake in the middle of a field. But I wasn’t in a field. I was in a bedroom with Bobby, as he smoked weed, and Tricia, as she smoked crack; their daughter snoring gently a few feet away.
Andy Tran is a writer from Virginia. He’s graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in English. Follow him on Twitter: @AndyT187 or Instagram: @dopestorybroo
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