I smoked but didn't inhale.

So Dad And I were sitting at the kitchen table in the river house, the weapon lies between us, on a slightly overused plastic tablecloth, it always felt greasy and slick,  it had a morning glory design disrupted by a few cigarette burns and the thing probably should have been discarded a year ago. On the table sat some nearly empty bottles of Stroh’s, an ashtray with dead butts, a tin of Hormel’s deviled ham on a plastic plate surrounded by saltines. There was a half eat’n pot of clams cooked in beer and a loaf of dark bread from Findley Market, the room had sort of a sweet bar room aroma. There were a lot of windows in that room, two of the walls where all windows from the waste up. Generally they looked out onto the back yard, a beaten up green shed covered in tar paper and the house barn that our horses called home, currently they were fogged up dripping with condensation from all the body heat and cooking that was taking place in the room. It was winter but we must off just come off a warm spell because a moth repeatedly kept flying into the back window, struggling to get at a light source. I thought it odd that a moth was out there this time of year. It’s tapping against the glass pane kept getting slower as the temperature dropped and it tired, I had to fight the urge to open the door and let it in.

We sat there, just kind of looking across the table at one another; I’d look at him, the weapon, the moth, fidget a little and look back at my dad. He had lamb chop side burns, darkish hair and a small comb over where he was slightly balding. He was sweating a bit, it was hot in that room and the oven door was open warming it up even more. It was kind of like a western show down, one of us waiting for the other to break the silence that was only interrupted by the occasional tapping from the moth. My dad picked up a pack of smokes, soft pack Viceroy’s, lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. He looked over at the moth, picked up a newspaper, walked to the back door and opened it, with one quick sideways motion he smashed the moth into a greasy crumpled smear against the window of the back door. It stuck there, smashed body and crumpled legs; he threw the paper on the table, sat down and looked at me.

Gently he said “Son, you look like you have something on your mind¸ you have something you want to ask me.”

I squirmed a bit, and nodded.

“Well, what is it?”

“What’s it feel like when you smoke marijuana?”

I could see my Dad thinking about how he wanted to formulate his response. How could he make a nine year boy know what it felt like to smoke marijuana? It seemed like a lot of time passed before he decided to answer; I could hear voices, laughter and music coming from the other room. I started to wish I hadn’t asked that question and that I was sitting on the floor in front of the stereo, head phones on, forgetting things while listening to American Pie.

After what felt like an eternity he said “We’ll, you know when you eat a piece of cheese, and you love the way that cheese tastes, when you smoke,” he gestured at the weapon “that piece of cheese tastes that much better. Or… when you have a piece of steak, pot makes steak taste better, or if you’re listening to music, it makes that music sound better.” It just makes everything better! I got it. “It’s a gift from the earth, natural; it grows in the soil, what could be wrong with that?”

That didn’t sound so bad or dangerous to me. “So, it’s not dangerous? You’re not going to go crazy?” My dad smiled, laughed a little and gave me a reassuring hug. “It’s just something people use to help them relax.” I felt better, safe comforted. My dad wasn’t going to go insane or get arrested from smoking marijuana, he was just going to relax, all good news.

Eventually, everyone at the river house slowly filtered back into the kitchen and I got nods and pats on the backs, from the long haired, goatee sporting pirates that were pretending the counter culture movement was still in full swing and the halter top, Daisy Duke hippie girl hangeroners. Cans of beer where opened, cigarettes lit and a bottle of wine was passed around. We worked our way back into the living room, played records, talked and everything was good. My dad must have given someone a secret okay because the weapon was picked up, packed with some dried out, dusty, herbal debris. I was entrhawed, on full alert, here I was, about to witness some great ceremony or secret rite, after all, the weapon did sort of look like a peace pipe. One of the gypsy’s put the weapon to their mouth, struck an oversized fireplace match and put it to the bowl, a couple of small flames danced out of the bowl as the match was extinguished and the pot ignited. A grey blue cloud of smoke floated through the air. It was drifter and mesmerizing. If you’ve never smoked or smelled marijuana burning it’s a very hard aroma to describe, it’s like trying to describe the smell of baking chocolate chipped cookies to someone that’s never smelled them before. It had a sickly sweet, slightly tropical and grassy fragrance. It smelled exotic and reminded me of the incense that was constantly burning in little cones on window sills. And I wanted to do more than smell it

Marcus, the man smoking inhaled deeply, held his breath, coughed a little bit. I studied his technique More smoke filled the room as the pipe was passed to the next man. I couldn’t take my eyes off Marcus, I waited for his head to explode or blood to start coming out of his ears, and disappointingly he only coughed, gently whacked his chest with a sideways fist, exhaled and smiled as his eyes started to look more glassy and bloodshot than usual.

I watched as everyone took a hit from the weapon, eventually it worked its way around to me. It was in my hand, hot and lit, I got the nod that it was okay, I was panicked and didn’t want to look like a novice. I held the pipe to my face leaving a little gap between the weapon and my mouth and took a small breath, I tried not to get anything into my lungs, I just held what was in my mouth quietly, took a couple of gasps and exhaled hard. Nothing came out, I was relieved, I’d smoked my first toke, but not smoked, I wasn’t ready to cross that bridge yet but I’d thought I fooled these old pros into believing I had. I sat back feeling cooler than I’d ever felt, spinning back and forth in a rattan hanging chair, Converses dragging the floor, I’m the bomb, yes, yes I am.

As I looked around through the haze I realized everyone was smiling and laughing, I started to laugh too, the more we laughed the louder and longer we laughed, hooted and hollered. Our eyes where watering and my sides was hurting from so much laughter, I didn’t know what we were laughing at and didn’t care, I assumed no one else did either. A shared happy ecstatic moment in time. If this is what marijuana does to people I thought it was pretty cool. Everyone was looking at me and gesturing, I could see some of them mimicking me, mocking my fake attempt at smoking. I realized that it was me and my feeble first attempt at smoking pot was the butt of the joke.

I could feel myself turning red with shame and embarrassment as the laughter continued. I was dreadfully humiliated and disgraced. I slammed down the weapon and stomped into the kitchen sulking, I could hear the laughter in the next room seemingly getting louder. I opened the cabinet under the sink, grabbed some 409, a paper towel, opened up the back door and wiped the dead moth off the window. I didn’t bother with the other grime, that wasn’t my problem. I threw everything into the trash barrel and stomped off into the night.