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Once we were in deepest winter, it got too cold to stay outside after dark, so we'd sit inside and do bong hits in a circle. We'd slouch down over a steaming tube of dusty smoke, drip into the couches, and get evil. We had this tiny room, probably only 9 feet by 10, and we'd all pile in there, sometimes eight of us, with the two dogs, and smoke until we weighed 900 pounds. Then we'd sit around and talk furiously for four hours and see if we could stand each other. The dogs hated it. Most dogs don't really dig pot (despite whatever the idiot deadheads say; "Oh, Ital loves ganj, he's a dog rasta!"). It makes them paranoid, just like everyone else, but they are in a tougher spot, being only 2 feet tall, not understanding English, and having to sit on the floor. They have every reason to believe we're fucking with them. But it was better than sleeping on the linoleum in the kitchen listening to us laugh, and wondering what they were missing. So they usually stuck it out with us in our little smoking closet. Jasper, the puppy, got passed around like a toy until she got too wiggly. Juno, our cunning cave dog, would lie on her paws and look worried. Everyone in this little sweat hut then, not more than 3 feet from anyone else in the room, and we'd talk and talk. We told stories three at a time, yelling and laughing like devils. A sinister tribe of gargoyles sneering and farting and swearing and coughing smoke. I have never laughed so hard-- and I have enjoyed more than one man's share of laughter. We'd rumble and snarl, barking sarcasms and cursing over each other's cursing like male witches. Initiating preposterous arguments just so we could have something to shout about, then laugh it to pieces after a crescendo of ridiculous nonsense yelling. The only time it was ever quiet was when something happened that was so funny, we all seized up for a second. We'd hold our stomachs and rock around with our eyes shut, crying. Thinking how much we loved that moment. And just when you thought nobody could possibly come up with any more bullshit, someone would start reading a story from some shitty porno mag, and one person would read until they couldn't stop laughing, and the next person would rip it from them and pick up where they left off, while two other people made up a rap song about it, and someone else was melting candle wax onto the bong so we could make a handle for it, and someone squeezed the puppy too much and a stream of poisonous hot gas hissed out of her. Then we'd take minute to yell about the smell. It often came back to Jasper's smell. The dog's farts were so thick and foul that the smell clung to itself in invisible ribbons that would fall gently, a thin lace of intense stink. Sometimes it would miss you entirely, while the guy next to you got it stuck all over his face. Sooner or later everyone got hit with it, and you'd have to scream. The smell was bad enough to make your eyes water, and surprised you every time with its ferocity. Sometimes, it made people panic. It did keep the girls away, though. Which was the way we wanted it, to tell the truth. We had a few little groupies, who were at best, annoying. They would come over to our house, and take abuse from us all night long. They seemed to love it. Of course, we were civil about sharing dope, so maybe they were there for the drugs and nothing else. Whatever. We didn't care. But if they were pathetic in conversation we showed no mercy. We were tolerant of women as long as they never said "Oh, my god. You guys are so funny." If they said that, it was over. We would jump all over the poor girl like dogs on a stoned baby deer, and shred her if she ever spoke again. Usually they'd still stay, though. They'd talk shit about us behind our backs, but they'd come back again and again, and say nothing. There were a few very brave sisters and brothers that passed our tests-- taste in music being first and foremost. And once someone was in, we'd take care of them like they were relatives. We'd make garlic powder popcorn for them, and give them the good green plastic punch glasses for their whiskey sours. Eventually, someone would realize that we'd heard Nirvana 3 times back-to-back, and there was no real air in the room, just dogstink, sweat, and smoke. Then it would be Time To Go. After Time To Go, we had an hour until Okay Let's Go. At this point in an evening, your legs feel like they are underneath the cushions on the couch, which weigh like they are filled with sand, and you don't have any leverage, so getting out from under them is very very hard. Everyone sits around saying "Okay let's go" and looking at each other. After finally getting up off the couch, it is only a matter of hours before everyone kicks their gloves and hats and wallet and ID and shoes out from under the piles of clothes and garbage that we lived in. Then we would slip in the packed snow down the street and bitch about the cold until we fell into some bar, where we would sit in a little circle and do the whole thing all over again. There was one of these nights, well before Okay Let's Go, that I felt so sweaty and thickheaded that I stood right up, jumped over someone's legs and ducked out the door before anyone could ask me to fetch something for them. That was the only way you could leave the room unmolested-- you had to run like you were going to cut the fuse off a stick of dynamite you just remembered lighting in the bedroom 3 hours ago. And I suppose it was the conviction of my urgency as I left that hot, evil room, that caused Thom to come after me. He must have thought I was onto something important. I was still buttoning my down parka as he clopped up behind me in his slick-soled wingtips, which he always wore in the snow just to make things dangerous. "What's up?" he asked, and he meant it. He was always prone to taking a genuine interest in my sanity. And now that he put it that way, I realized that I probably was feeling a little crappy, and as usual, he had noticed it before I had. I'm not a winter person, and I get crazy when the days are short. There were now 10 of us living in our five-bedroom house, and my cabin fever had peaked that night. On top of all that, I hadn't gotten laid in months. None of us had, the pickings were too slim, and we couldn't afford the many prices that girlfriends cost. In many ways, the town was still like an old-west mining camp, only now the brothels were health food stores, the few women were taken, or not worth the trouble, and the men were all crazy because of it. So anyway, I had reached some kind of threshhold, and had bolted from the smoking room. And here we were, still headrushing, shuffling in the snow in the cold. "Thought I'd try oxygen for a while," I said, taking his interest for granted. We started up the snowed-out hiking trail that dropped into our back yard from the mountains behind our house. The cold was already searing my ears. Colorado at 9,000 feet-- the cold doesn't fuck around. It was probably minus ten or fifteen. From the moment you step outside, your personal death clock starts. You are freezing to death, slowly. Slowly, but you will get there nonetheless. You are on borrowed time. There was absolutely no wind at all. Sometimes it's like that, you can light a match and the flame stands still like you were indoors. This quiet makes people think of the whole canyon as another room in their house. The big room with no heat and the view. In fact, for a while during the dead season, when we were the only people in the town, we had taken to just leaving our things all over the street we lived on. I kept my tennis racket around the corner for a while, and some of my CD's in a neighbor's yard. A lot of Thom's clothes were in the middle of the street for a month. I remember finding Dan's camera resting on a snowbank a few blocks away. I brought it back and he said, "Oh, yeah, I've been keeping it there so I don't have as far to walk from Main Street when I want it..." It didn't matter. The whole place was ours. Thom and I punched holes in the crusty snow as we climbed up the switchbacks above the town. We were talking in whispers because we could. And because the mountain rewards reverence. And because we had been yelling for the last four hours. And because I was trying to go crazy, and Thom knew it. "I'm going crazy, Thom." "Yeah?" "Not like Daffy Duck. I don't mean like Daffy Duck. I mean I think my chemistry is fucked up. I can't stand anybody anymore. I'm getting bored with myself-- and fuck, I thought I loved myself. I don't like anything. You know, I never used to understand people who killed themselves. I thought they were thinking of suicide as the solution. Like, 'The only way to solve these problems in my life is to kill myself" Lately I get in these moods where I think, "So this is why people kill themselves..." And I'm not angry or depressed, and it's not because I have problems. It's just that you can look at it that way sometimes. Sometimes, I feel like everybody's gone to sleep and I'm standing around wondering if I should put the campfire out or stand around and watch it some more. I'm seeing everything like it's a National Geographic about humans, and I've seen it a bunch of times already. If life's going to be like this, I'm gonna have a hard time sticking with it. No matter where I am, I feel like leaving. I feel like leaving even when I'm by myself." "Uh-huh," Thom said, and we never really mentioned it again. Thom and I are both uncommonly sane people, and we know it. Insanity is foreign and interesting to us. Anything that resembles insanity in our lives gets immediate attention. We scurry away with it and examine it like African children reading a Penthouse magazine. And so, if I had gotten myself all worked up that night, if I had thunk myself onto a manic-depressive crest, it was mostly for show. We love the crazies, us suburban artsies. But this was as deep as I had ever drilled before, and Thom was letting me do my thing, mostly because he wanted to see if anything cool came from it. The both of us have the suspicion that insanity is crucial to good art. Any way you can get it. Once, Thom had said to me, "I'm so glad I'm fucked up the way I'm fucked up instead of the way other people are fucked up," and he looked at me as if to say, how'd you like that one? I said, "Mmm-hmm," and we didn't mention it again. He wishes he was fucked up. That's the funny thing. He really does. So do I. So the mountain saw us, me with my mind's fly open, eyes closed but peeking, sprinting like a fool through my tiny mania, hoping to ding my head on a lamppost named True, and Thom there with his Super 8 movie camera, saying "A little faster! Try over to your left more! Faster!", while drinking his bourbon macaroni and cheese. And because we were least expecting it, the mountain sent us an omen. Twenty feet before us, in the dark dark, a dog growled at us, like dogs do all the time. But because we were so sightless, all stoned and tripping over ourselves on the iced gravel, the dog scared me, for one single second, completely out of myself. I left me and went straight into context, into the world that lives without me. And because I was so blind and could only feel the dog, there was no way the rock I threw could have done anything but nail him. Without imperfection, I reached my monkey hand down to the nearest simple tool of decent heft, rolled the stone in my three best fingers to find the right gription as I pulled my arm back and slung it. Because I wasn't there to get in the way, my brain flared an instant connection between the rock and the dog, such that all my wrist had to do was place it on the line and the line would carry it there for me. I could not have missed. In fact, I am certain that the rock hit the dog a little off center on the top of his muzzle, where the sinus cartilage is near the skin, where it will make a wooden sound if you hit it with a rock. It was undoubtedly someone's house pet. I picture a long-haired black and white shepherd for some reason, though it was impossible to see. I could hear its dog tags, one for the rabies, one for the town registration, and one that said "Tyler," or "Cody," with the owner's phone number, all plinging together as the poor thing yelped and cried down the side of the hill. Back to its family. Back from its stinging punishment by the mumbling devils of the mountain that walk loud and smell like smoke and refried beans. We stood there in silence, listening to the dog cry and bash itself in terror through the bushes. It cried a long time. I had popped it hard. For no reason at all. He had just given us a little "Hey you" growl, and I had dropped a whole new room on this poor dog's head. My action was completely inappropriate. Cody, you paid for another man's evils, and I do hereby apologize to you, for leveling my own rages at you in the form of The Rock that you will undoubtedly fear and nightmare about until you die when your fourteen years are up. My troubles were made yours a thousand times over, Cody, and I am sorry. I felt sick, wonderful. (I had pegged the shit out of him). After we couldn't hear him anymore, we stood barely breathing as Colorado tried to crack us with the cold. Silence minus silence. Amazed, disgusted, Thom said, "So I guess you hit the dog, Jamie!" And like a woken sleepwalker I broke open, "Why the fuck did I just do that? Why the fuck did I just do that? Why did I do that?" Guilt and shame were dripping all hot over me. But at the same time, the moment was pouring through me, and I welcomed myself back in like a lover. I couldn't stop laughing. I laughed and laughed. I tried to stop it, but solemn regret must first wait for euphoria to drain. It lasted long minutes, and restarted several times. Thom knew, and laughed with me, though he was still surprised by my lameness. I am not cruel by nature. When we finally got quiet again, we stood at an edge, and watched the yellow lights from Main street for a moment. And with the right weight and the right sarcasm, bless his heart, Thom leaned at me and said, "Well. It's great to know that I was here for this. I mean, you're never gonna forget it." I breathed deep, said, "Yaup," and we baby-stepped down the icy trail back to the smoking room.
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