Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service(12)

I said in a cool, gravelly voice, “Well, I have some. I’ll sell it to you.”

He nodded and I nodded, and when all the joints were smoked, I sold him a nickel bag, and he followed me outside the laundry room, outside the house to my car. Followed me all the way. He said, “Man, that was really good pot. Thanks for selling it to me.”

Why’s he following me? “Sure, sure. Okay,” I said. And I brushed him off and went home.

Man, the things you don’t realize when you’re stoned.

An hour later I got a phone call from a buddy who’d been at the party. He sounded worried and he talked all jumbled, breathless, like he’d been running. “Dude. The police raided the party. Came in with a real show of force. Rounded everybody up.”

“What are you talking about?!” I said. Then it clicked. The dogcatcher wasn’t lying about what he did for a living. It was just slang. He worked for the city all right—the police department! And I’d gone and sold pot to the dogcatcher. I was the source of the weed!

“Yeah.” My friend’s voice dropped on the phone. “And they’re looking for you.”

I hung up, totally freaked out. As the night wore on, I paced around my bedroom, trying to think up a plan. I didn’t sleep. Early the next morning I went over to my new girlfriend’s house. We lurked around in her basement together, then a knock sounded on the front door. She climbed the stairs, and I heard the front door creak open. Words. I strained to hear. Two policemen. They were there to get her, to take her down to the police station so they could question her . . . about me. My heart thumped.

She came downstairs to get her coat, her face white as a ghost. Looked me straight in the eyes, didn’t say a word. Left. I hid out downstairs for ten minutes, made sure the coast was clear. My car sat around the corner out of sight, and I ran to the car, jumped in and drove to the train station, bought a ticket on the Northwestern, and headed into the city. I caught another train and headed out to Glen Ellyn, where I used to live. I knocked on the door of an old friend’s house and asked if I could lay low for a few days until the heat blew over. Saturday passed. Sunday. I kept calling classmates who’d been at the party to ask what was happening back home. Word was the police were questioning everybody. They knew who I was. It was the height of the drug culture, and police were busting people left and right. I was a fugitive hiding out in Glen Ellyn, and the police were hunting for me. Holy crap! I’m actually on the lam.

By Monday I realized I couldn’t hide forever, so I took the train home and admitted to my folks what had happened. They looked relieved when I told them. Even glad. I began to suspect they were aware I partook of cannabis from time to time. We talked for a long time and concluded that the best course of action for me was to turn myself in. Mom and Dad drove me to the police station, to the juvenile department. To Officer Rash. Yep—his real name. Officer Rash wore a black trench coat and had dark hair and glasses. A known commodity among teenage pot smokers, he was the guy keeping an eye on all us youngsters who struggled walking the line.

Officer Rash sat me down under the hot fluorescent lights, and I told him a bit of my story. I was honest. I told him about the moves to new schools, about my struggles to find new friends. He knew marijuana was everywhere, and I told him how a year earlier, before I’d ever taken my first puff, a friend and I had actually walked into a police station and asked for help in avoiding marijuana. We’d sincerely wanted to know what to do. Well, that really worked. A year later I was a full-on pothead selling dope to a narc. But I wasn’t a delinquent—at least, I didn’t think so—and the play was the clincher. I told Officer Rash all about West Side Story. We still had a couple of weeks to go before performances, but already I felt like things were turning around for me. I was trying harder. Feeling better about school. Staying out of the ravine.

“The play’s really important to me,” I said. “Really, really important. Please don’t bust me. Please.”

Yes, I was begging, but it wasn’t a line. The play was truly important to me. I didn’t want to be busted, because I genuinely wanted to appear in the play. West Side Story seemed to be all that was saving me back then. It was the only thing showing me a clearer path forward.

Officer Rash gave me a stern talking-to. I would have a mark on my record, he said, and I’d better not do it again. I nodded profusely. Then, by some unexplained near-miracle, I was free to go.

I never sold pot again. I smoked it once or twice—well, maybe more than once or twice—but I never sold it again. And the show was still on.



Teachers noticed this genuine change in me. In English, Mr. Allison knew I sucked at taking exams, but one afternoon he gave me a protracted sidelong glance and asked me to tell the class what had been happening in play rehearsal. I didn’t normally speak up in class. Ever. But on the spot I opened up and told everybody about the play. My words were enthusiastic, my voice clear, and I was surprised later when Mr. Allison handed me a solid grade for “giving an oral report,” as he called it. That grade helped me pass his class that year.

Lots of kids in West Side Story had appeared in plays before. Many were seniors, two years older than me. But Jeff Perry, also a sophomore, had landed a lead role in the play—Tony, the former Jet who falls in love with Maria. I quickly pegged him as a leader: supersmart, a hilarious goofball, obsessed with theater, and an incredible singer. When we weren’t rehearsing, I noticed that although I walked down the hallways with my hands stuffed in my pockets, his arms were loaded with books. And not just textbooks he needed for class, either. He read Shakespeare for fun, Chekhov—a Russian writer I knew nothing about—for kicks. I’d never met anyone like him, and he fascinated me.