Leave
Brown and black damp leaves carpeted the dirt road where streets had been paved at one time. The mist of the humid winter air had been converted into rain by the branches and the leaves that had survived the early nor’easters and now clung steadfast to the limbs of the tree boughs. Fifty feet below the canopy, the pungent skunky smoke curled up ahead of the its second hand cloud and dissipated into the early evening fog. Its chimney was built of five people standing in the cypher, passing a crudely made blunt that Kris had to adjust in order to get it to pull correctly.
There was me, that is Jay, and my three dudes, that is Billy, Murdazz, and Kris. Anne had come along for the cypher as well, and we stood in the heart of the woods along New Dorp Beach, standing just off of one of the lesser traveled paths that ran perpendicular to the dunes that bound the woods and the beach behind.
It was a time in out lives and a time in the year where we chalked up everything of the past and began to take inventory of what we had accomplished. Had we grown? Had we become better friends? Are we having fun? It’s difficult to even remember what we had talked about, but I know the conversation had meaning and humor behind it. The content gets clouded by anxiety of waiting for the next two puffs and the pass to the left.
Kris passed to Bill. Puff. Hold. Listen. Exhale. Listen. Repeat. Pass to Murdazz., who mimics, then me, I follow suit, then Anne, again, and back to Kris. Now come shotties. Then we play Chicago, but we call it New York. Then we are high, and we forget.
I’m paranoid. The cops are waiting. Kris is too fucking loud. So is Bill. Murdazz is cooperating, but now he’s freestyling and Johnny’s dad could be walking the rottweilers in the woods and catch us any second, and he fucking hates Kris because he blew up that window that one time with an M-80, and the dogs will bite our faces and play with our guts like rubber chew toys. They’re all fucking with me, every one of them. I’ve gotta cover up the smoke, someone 500 yards to 5 miles away might smell it. I light up a Newport.
The woods looks great this time of year. The rotting smell of organic wet matter. We’re all done, so we walk out of the woods and onto the beach. The moon strains to glow, and the ocean sings in crashing waves. I’m baked. I love it.
