Smoke Bubble

by Dana Laratta

Mike handed him the pipe with a snort. Next came the lighter, and Odie drew in a sharp hiss as his thumb brushed against its hot metal tip.

"Sorry, man," Mike said beside him. Small puffs of sweet smoke accentuated his words. "I meant to tell you it was hot."

"Oh, that's cool, man. Shoulda known."

Mike nodded, laughing, and turned to talk to Kerry. Odie brought the pipe up between his lips to take the hit.

Same old ritual. Except pipe this time. They weren't at home, and Dan's master-bong was definitely not portable. Odie liked bongs--nice and smooth. The draw on this was, as expected, harsh, and Odie had trouble holding the smoke in. He was spoiled. But after a few difficult grunts, Odie sealed the smoke in with a few quick breaths, and moved the pipe along. A few seconds of hold, and Odie smiled, closing his eyes as he exhaled.

The slow, funny, warm and familiar buzz sneaked up on him while he was listening to the sounds around him in this small, unfamiliar room. There was the steady whistle of the pipe beside him as Juno took her hit, and conversations about Star Trek and nature and witchcraft filtered around the room. Outside, in the hall of the apartment, there was loudness and laughter and shouts of "Where's the keg?" There were smells in here, too. That perfume that Juno wore that he liked so much. Cigarette smoke. And, of course, marijuana smoke, sweet and tasty, funky and wild.

He remembered the first time he had smelled it, walking in unexpectedly on his parents in the living room when he was supposed to be at a band rehearsal. They had been laughing, and Odie laughed now--a laugh that sounded much like his father 's. Distinctive. Ah... heredity. Inherit the laugh, inherit the taste for weed. Funny.

Odie opened his eyes to find Juno looking in his face, smiling. Her eyes, a deep brown, her hair, chestnut, her face, beautiful and happy, forced him to smile back.

She leaned back and look at him inquisitively.

"What are you laughing at, Odie?"

"Oh, I was just remembering the time I caught my parents, getting stoned."

"Your parents smoke?" Her eyebrows shot up. Odie could by the redness in her eyes that she was rightly stoned. "Did they ever toke you up?"

"No. They were ashamed of it. We never talked about it." He shook his head and then shrugged the thought off and grinned. Juno was really attractive and a very neat person. He liked talking to her a lot. "What about yours?"

"My parents?"

"Yeah. Yours ever smoke you up?"

"No way. My parents are Republican. Really Republican. They'd freak if they found out I did drugs."

"Wow. Bummer." It was the most articulate thing he could manage. He blinked after he said it and they both started to laugh.

"Heh... you sound like some new wave beach bum."

Odie fell into the bit immediately, closing his eyes and making 'meditation hands' on his knees. A California voice came out of him.

"Like, when you're tensing with the folks, you've just got to realize that their Karmic distress is due to their own actions. You've got to clean your own Karma, rise above it and become one with Brahman."

Odie heard an eruption of laughter and opened his eyes to discover that everyone had been watching him. He giggled himself and slipped a sideways smile to Juno. One of these days he was going to ask her out.

Across the room, Ian, whose science-fiction-themed bedroom they were now getting stoned in, was trying to talk through the final snorts of his laughter. All sorts of weird nasal noises were coming out of him.

"Odie, huh, hoh heh, boy man, you crack me up. Hee Hee (snort). You nut. (Whew) You're a dangerous guy to smoke up. Make me laugh 'til I can't breathe."

He started to laugh again and a few others in the room shared in the experience. Odie put on an 'aw shucks' face. Next to Ian, Kerry looked at him appraisingly.

"Hey, that your real name... Odie?"

"No. My real name's... well, Olaf. But my middle initial's 'D'. And 'O. D.' eventually became 'Odie'."

"Like the dog in 'Garfield'," she added.

"Yeah," Dan, Odie's roommate and buddy for God-knows-how- long, chimed in. "He even drools a lot, too."

"Only when I see weed, man," Odie countered, taking the pipe from Mike's outstretched hand. This time he was careful about the lighter. He nodded to Ian, indicating the pipe.

"Hey, man. Thanks."

There was a general murmer of agreement in the room.

Ian nodded reflectively. "No problem. I just got the quarter today, I'm pretty happy with it."

Odie sipped in a wisp of air after his hit, croaking out, "Yeah. Very kind. I'm glad there was baking happening here. I didn't really want to drink today."

"Uh huh," Dan added, "You know, it's getting so I don't even like to drink."

Ian nodded, "Exactly."

"I mean," Dan went on, "I just don't like what it does to my body. And I usually don't even have that much fun."

A sudden thump outside the door to the room was followed by drunken laughter.

Responding, Kerry said, "It sound like someone’s havin fun drinkin."

"Sure," Dan said, "To each their own. I just don't like it anymore."

"Cool," Kerry said.

A moment of reflective though passed unannounced, and everybody noticed it at the same time. There was general laughter.

Odie smacked his lips and looked around the room thoughtfully.

"I have cotton-mouth, guys. Anybody else want some water?"

Five hands shot up into the air simultaneously. Odie giggled and nodded.

Ian told him how to get to the kitchen. A cigarette bobbed between his lips as he spoke.

"There's a really huge thermos-cup in the cupboard, man. We'll make it a group water thing so you don't have to carry a lot of cups back. It says Burger King on it."

"Cool, man." Odie got up and steadied himself. He was deeply stoned. "Could I bum a smoke when I get back?"

"Sure."

"I'll be right back."

The two steps that took him out into the hall seemed like a journey into a different country. The foreign language of drunk-speak was bouncing heavily up and down the hallway. Odie's nose was assaulted by the strong and bitter smell of beer and as he took his first unsteady step a wet spot under his shoe squished at him. He began twisting his way around knots of people to get down the hallway. It was slow going. They were all strewn about, leaning on walls or walking unsteadily towards the bathroom. Odie came across a guy passed out in the middle of the hall. He stepped gingerly over him... and right into the hot beer-breath of argument.

The face next to his had a twisted, mean look under its drunken skin. It was screaming.

"You son of a bitch! I saw you looking at her ass! You keep away from her you fuck... fucker, or I'll kick your muh... mother- fuckin '..."

Odie tried to step back but the leg of the passed out guy stopped his foot. He looked down and turned back just in time to feel a small puff of wind against his face. The fist whizzed past him and thumped into the wall. Its wielder fell after it, passing out onto his nemesis. Odie took advantage of the opening and bounded across behind him, suddenly breathing hard. He continued on with an electric pace, turning into the kitchen with a sigh of relief.

The kitchen was clearly designated as the intense conversation room. A couple was leaning in the corner, talking intimately under their breath, and two guys sat across from each other at the table, discussing the deficit with an air of authority. They gave Odie a grim nod of acknowledgement and continued their conversation.

Like many college apartment kitchens, this one was lit an array of cheap fluorescent lights, and Odie could feel the weight of them immediately, as if he could sense them flashing on and off a hundred times a second. He made a quick evaluative survey of the cupboards. There were six.

Attempt number one--canned food. Number two--the one closest to the sink--plates and bowls.

Odie took a small moment to marvel at all the different theories among households as to where the cups should be kept. His own home operated under the principal of keeping them next to the sink. For convenience. That was clearly not the principal here.

Number three--potato chips and crackers. Odie was gripped by a sudden attack of the munchies. Not his food, though.

On try number four, Odie found the cups and, after a quick scan, grabbed the big Burger King cup. He walked back to the sink and, after running the water a minute to make sure it was cold and not discolored with pipe rust (another marked feature of college apartment kitchens), began to fill it. After what seemed like ten minutes, Odie cranked the knob to full, anxious to get out from under the flourescent light.

There was a sudden commotion in the hallway and Odie turned to see people stumbling quickly down it. Odie turned off the faucet, took a quick drink from the water, and set it down to go see what was going on. He had just gotten to the doorway when Ian's roommate Chris popped his head in.

"Cops, guys. Party's over. If you leave now we won't get a ticket." Chris looked over at Odie. "Whoa, guy. You might want to go out the back way."

Odie was suddenly very nervous.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Yeah, guy. Your eyes are really red."

And with that, Chris withdrew.

Odie turned and looked frantically behind him. The couple gave him a quick "excuse me" and stepped past him. The two men stood up in a quick, business-like 'meeting's over' fashion and began to put their coats on. Odie stepped out into the hallway.

Just past Ian's room, the hall was clotted with people trying to get out the back. Underage drinkers. They looked nervous, like rabbits. Odie might have laughed if he hadn't felt so nervous himself. He walked briskly down the hall to Ian's room.

The door was ajar, and the room was empty. The faint smell still lingered there, but the window was now open and Ian's fan was on. Cold air seeped in. No other signs of life.

Odie was a little more frightened now, and ducked back into the hallway. He stood tip-toe, trying to see over the crowd. Nothing. A couple of people shot back a nervously hostile look that told Odie not to even think about trying to squeeze his way through them. It was every man for himself.

Behind him, the empty hallway the led to the living room and, subsequently, the front door, beckoned. He made a quick judgement call, trying hard to think clearly and stay focused, and figured his best bet would be to leave now, through the front door, and

act casual. He was of age, and it would be suspicious to creep out the back with the under-agers. Plus he might lose Dan and the others, who couldn't be far.

Odie passed through the empty living room and, putting on his best 'casual-guy-leaving-the-party' manner, stepped out through the front door.

It was cold out. Odie had ridden over with Dan, so he hadn't brought a coat. He shivered for a second on the porch. To his left, Chris was listening and nodding gravely as a black-clad cop was talking to him. Odie debated briefly whether or not it would be more casual to say goodbye to him, but Chris hadn't seen him yet so he just stepped off the porch and started across the lawn, looking for Dan and the others.

"Hold it."

The voice came from somewhere to his right. It was tense... serious. Odie froze and turned slowly. A bright light fluttered in his face, and after a moment he could make out the shape of the cop who was walking intently towards him.

"I. D."

Odie didn't understand what was said to him. He was shivering in the cold. He felt his blood rushing.

"What?"

"Identification. Do you have some identification?"

"Oh... yeah, sure." He fished his wallet out of his pocket and his driver's license out of his wallet. "Here you go. Sorry, I didn't hear what you said."

The cop took his license without comment and studied it with the flashlight. He was also wearing black, including the heavy, fur- collared jacket with the prominent patches that announced "Weld County Sheriff’s Dept." The outfit was alternately highlighted in red and blue from the light on the cop car parked on the side of the road. Through the corner of his eye, Odie saw the light glinting off the nightstick, the handcuffs, the gun. Then Odie saw nothing but the white light of the cop's flashlight.

A second later, the cop altered the angle of the beam so it was not shining directly into his eyes. He handed back the license.

"Have you been drinking tonight, sir?"

There was a barely perceptible pause as Odie made a quick decision.

"I had a couple of beers, yeah."

"A couple?"

"Yeah. Two."

"Uh huh."

Odie watched the cop warily. He had been responding a little slowly, probably acting a little nervous, a little weird. Alcohol made a great scapegoat.

The cop took a step towards him and studied him closely. His eyes flickered about, studying his face, and then locked on Odie's own. Odie's nerves jumped as a quick rush of fear clamped his gut. He felt like he was been stalked. Preyed upon. Studied

like a cat studies its mouse before pouncing. "Your eyes are very red." ~_ "Allergies."

The word sneaked out just before Odie's throat locked from the sudden rush of fear. He silently thanked whatever part of him had said it. Did Chris and Ian have a cat? Didn't matter.

After a torn moment, the cop stepped back and scanned Odie's body with the flashlight.

"No coat. You planning on driving home?"

"No."

The cop's thick, straight eyebrows raised slightly. There was another long moment while the cop waited for an explanation and Odie thought of one.

"It's not that far," he added finally.

The cop nodded and waved him away with the flashlight, saying automatically, "Have a safe walk."

Odie nodded and turned, hitting the sidewalk at a brisk pace.

Well, that was a lie. Odie lived a good sixteen blocks away. He looked around and couldn't see anybody he knew. Dan's white Volkswagen Rabbit was still parked where they had left it, which meant that he was still around somewhere. But Odie was too afraid, too freaked out, to risk standing by the car or walking around the block. There was nothing he could do.

So he started walking home. Quickly.

About two blocks later, having cleared the flashing lights of the cop cars, Odie was grudgingly starting to accept the eventuality of his journey. He was walking alone, in the dark, in the cold, stoned and paranoid. It was a drag.

"Stone drag," Odie said to himself.

Suddenly, his shadow appeared in front of him as headlights pulled up behind him. Odie wheeled around, chest thumping, expecting a cop car, and was greeted instead with the welcome sight of Dan's Rabbit. The passenger door popped open. Behind the windshield, Dan was beckoning urgently, and someone was scrambling from the passenger seat into the back of the car.

Odie sprinted to the car and leapt in in one motion. His frantic breathing reflected off the inside of the car as he tried to speak.

"Oh man! You wouldn't believe... Shit! Man!"

"Sorry, man," Dan said, "We went out the back when we heard about the cops. We tried to get you, man, but we couldn't get through all the pleebs. We waited in back as long as we could, but when the cops came back there, we had to beat it."

"Oh, it's just... no, that's cool. I'm not mad or anything. It's just... Jeez, that was traumatic. This cop interrogated me, and then I couldn't find you and... man!"

There was a hand on his shoulder, soothing him, and Odie turned. It was Juno's. She was crammed in the back with Mike, Kerry, and Ian, smiling at him. Odie took a deep breath and smiled back.

"Well, it's cool now, right?" Ian piped in, "Chris is taking care of our place and we're heading over to your place. I think we all could use a little relaxation."

Saying this, he pulled a baggie out of his shirt pocket and smiled, brandishing it like a trophy. He looked concernedly at Odie.

"Party on, man?"

Odie nodded, smiling. "Party on."

It echoed around the car, "Party on!" and there was general laughter.

Turning the Rabbit back onto the street, Dan reached down and popped a Bob Dylan cassette into the player for the trip home.