Smoking - Judy Radin

She was sixteen when she smoked her first joint. She’d already been smoking cigarettes for a while so she didn’t cough as much as some of the other kids who were also trying pot for the first time. It was a Saturday evening in May. They all just returned from an afternoon in the city. Just about every Saturday this group of six girls took the train from Hicksville Station on Long Island into Manhattan. Their favorite place to go was the Hip Bagel on Bleeker Street. They’d sit around a big table drinking coffee, picking at bagels and cream cheese, feeling grown up and so cool with cigarettes dangling from their lips. Greenwich Village was always buzzing on Saturday afternoons. It was a younger crowd than downtown – more of a hippie scene, with so many cute guys to meet. It was always harmless fun, just a few laughs over lunch. Then they’d get back on the train and head back to the burbs.

The group was sitting around her backyard trying to figure out what to do for the rest of the day. All their their money was gone, spent on coffee and bagels and train fare, so going to see the new Kubrick movie at the Meadowbrook was definitely out. Luckily Mike Simmons called and asked if he could stop by. Mike had a little crush on one of them, so whenever he knew she was visiting he’d want to come over.

With no parents around Mike felt safe pulling out a slightly-crumpled white stick and lighting it up. It looked like a cigarette that had been in his pocket for a long time, all twisted and messy-looking. Mike held it up to his mouth and struck a match. He inhaled deeply until the end of the stick was glowing red. Then he passed it around.

“Inhale,” he said. “Breathe deeply and hold it for a bit.”

She complied.

It wasn’t like smoking a cigarette. Something new and wonderful was happening inside her brain. At first she didn’t notice anything. She’d heard people say that the sky gets bluer when you’re stoned on pot, and the trees are greener. None of that was happening. It was just an average beautiful spring evening. But then she felt like a puff of silky cotton was being injected in her brain. Instant peace. Everything slowed down. After all the years of speed, which she’d been taking since first grade, it was such a relief to slow down. Forty years later, it was still a relief. And that was the problem.