Mercy Street(10)

Smoking in middle age was a different business entirely. Hungry and sleepy were exactly what she wanted. In middle age, smoking a joint at bedtime made life possible. This was her thinking at the time.

TIMMY WAS WAITING FOR AN ANSWER.

“Work has been stressful lately,” Claudia said.

Three days after Christmas, a suspicious package had been found in a patient restroom. The building was evacuated and swept for explosives. None were found, but the clinic closed for a full day of Threat Response Training, mandatory for all staff. For six hours, a former Green Beret led them through drills: active shooter drills, bomb drills. They were taught the Silent Call Procedure, in case the shooter was hiding in the building. (Press 1 for police, 2 for fire, 3 for ambulance.) Claudia hadn’t slept through the night since.

Of course, she didn’t explain this to Timmy.

“I mean, it’s always stressful.” She closed her eyes briefly. “I just need to sleep.”

“Ah.” Timmy reached behind his chair and produced a third jar, smaller than the others. “This is Cocoon. A little pricey, but trust me.” He fished out a bud, crushed it between his fingers, and packed it into the water pipe. Then he hoisted himself out of the recliner and sat beside her on the couch. He smelled, not unpleasantly, of marijuana and deodorant soap.

When he lit the pipe, she understood that she was to put her mouth on it, and she did—hesitantly, because the act seemed too intimate and the pipe was vaguely disgusting, the smoke warm and smelly and very moist.

She felt it immediately, a kind of unspooling, a slow dilation of the senses. “Wow,” she said.

“Seriously?” Timmy looked impressed. “One hit, I don’t even feel it. When you smoke as much as I do, it takes longer.”

“How much is that?”

Timmy said, “All day, every day.”

She took a second hit and handed back the pipe.

“I’ll give you an eighth to start. See how you like it.” Timmy ambled back to his recliner and placed the scale on the floor between his feet. Then he leaned forward in his chair, in the posture recommended to prevent fainting, and meted out her weed.

Their transaction completed, he packed a bowl and told her a story. Whether he did this with all his customers, she had no idea. It was her favorite part of the shopping experience, the prize inside the cereal box.

LAST WINTER TIMMY HAD TAKEN A VACATION. NEVER AGAIN would he do this, never a fuckin-gain. The trip was his buddy Kevin’s idea. Kevin had a sister in Hawaii and could go visit anytime he felt like it, though in the ten years Timmy had known him, he had never once done this.

“I guess he never felt like it,” Timmy said, passing her the pipe.

In Hawaii they’d have a free place to stay. Timmy agreed, grudgingly, to pay for their plane tickets. Because greed offended him, he avoided flying as a matter of principle. The fuckin airlines weren’t getting his money, not when the CEO was paying himself ten million a year. For the Hawaii trip he’d made an exception, on one condition: when they landed in Honolulu, a bag of top-quality weed must be waiting for him. This point was nonnegotiable. Timmy would cover the cost of the weed, but someone else would have to make the buy. No problemo, said Kevin. His brother-in-law had a connect.

In this regard only, Kevin was as good as his word. The weed was excellent quality, worth every penny, the first and last part of the trip that went as planned.

Kevin’s sister, it turned out, lived in a crappy one-bedroom condo. Kevin would sleep in the living room, on a child-sized love seat. For Timmy there was an air mattress on the kitchen floor. Each day, the sister and brother-in-law drove together to work, leaving Kevin and Timmy stranded in the apartment. To get to a beach, or anything else you’d actually want to see, they would have to rent a car.

At this point Timmy made a terrible discovery. Kevin had come to Hawaii with thirty dollars in his pocket. If they were going to rent a car or eat in a restaurant or do anything at all besides sit in the sister’s apartment, Timmy would have to pay for it. This was no accident. Kevin had planned it that way.

Fine, Timmy thought, I’ll sit here. I’ll sit here all fuckin day and watch TV and smoke my weed. And for two weeks in Hawaii, that’s exactly what he did.

One afternoon when he couldn’t stand it any longer, he hiked along a busy highway to the one place within walking distance, an Outback Steakhouse. He sat at the bar nursing a beer and staring at the Weather Channel, the city of Boston buried in snow.

The one thing he’d wanted to do was see Pearl Harbor. To get there, they’d have to fly from the Big Island to Oahu, two more plane tickets he’d be on the hook for. A different type of person would have surrendered at this point, bought the tickets and rented the car and seen Pearl Harbor, but Timmy was not that type of person.

He sat in the sister’s apartment and smoked his weed.

HIS STORY ENDED, TIMMY REACHED FOR THE REMOTE. HE FLIPPED past music videos, the shopping channel, a cartoon dog speaking Spanish. NECN was rolling footage of a press conference at the State House. A crawl skated along the bottom of the screen: ATTORNEY GENERAL OPPOSES RECREATIONAL USE.

“You think that’s going to pass?” Claudia asked.

This was the other thing they did together. They talked about what was on television.

“Nah. Never happen,” Timmy said.

The couch embraced her like quicksand.