I went to college in the midwest, University of Wisconsin in Madison to be exact. it was a perfect place for me. It was entirely unprepared for me and my friends from NYC. we spent 4 years running circles around the locals. if i wanted some music, i would go to the music store and steal it, if i wanted to get into a frat party i broke a window, if i wanted anything i just took it. not that i am proud of being an overly slick punk in america's heartland, but it was fun and it made me realize that a lot of people out there are very easily duped.
One thing about college that i found amusing was my ability to get weed through O'Hare airport several times a year. more then once from Jamaica, a place that customs KNOWS is a hot spot for college guys like me to try that from. but they just couldn't get me. twice they got close. both times i was coming back from spring break in Jamaica and both times i had some jungle buds tucked under the insert of my sneaker, and even under the first lining of mesh, which i had managed to pry up with a knife. it was really stupid in hind sight. especially since it was never very much. just a bit for personal use. usually people risk these kinds of legal issues for real money, like a drug running business. but not stupid Zen2. i just wanted to have some just in case. durr.
the two close calls came when my friends and i were singled out of the crowd (we were kind of obvious, i had a ponytail and i REEKED). i got strip searched both those times. once i even got goosed by an overly attentive farm bred idiot customs agent. meanwhile he was holding the weed in his other hand a la my sneakers, and didn't even know it. the other time, i had placed a well carved wooden smoking bowl i had bought from a farmer in the hills of negril in my bag because i hadn't used it and figured it was fine that way. but of course, i got flagged by that and stripped. and again, they missed their target by inches.
but, the best example of how i was able to get over on these Chicago morons was the time i decided i was going to smoke some in the terminal on the way home for thanksgiving. easily one of the dumbest ideas i have ever had. well not the dumbest, but one of them. it was actually a crazy and unfortunate day to travel, because of two tragedies and one near death experience. the night before my friends and i had partied all night, had said goodbye to our friends Ben and Joan, a couple i had known since high school and had left our friend Wook's house (wook disappeared without a trace a year later. he still hasn't been found). that morning trip to chicago through a blizzard was crazy. our friend who was driving was a really bad driver and hadn't slept, so in the blizzard we lost control of the car twice and both times we started spinning in the middle of the thankfully empty freeway. that's a fucked up feeling, to be spinning out of control in absolute white out. we didn't know if we were headed for a wall, a truck, or even if we were still on the road since everything was white.
but, of course, we survived that and made it to O'hare. meanwhile, and this has nothing to do with O'hare, but meanwhile back at Madison, Ben died of a freak aneurysm in his sleep right next to Joan, and at the same time, Wook's apartment was catching on fire. no doubt it was somebodies cigarette, but luckily that was never determined. so the whole building burned to the ground without hurting anybody. but Ben died, while we were doing spins on the freeway. the thought of those three things happening simultaneously in a blizzard have always struck me as being too much to be coincidental. i have no idea what the meaning of it all was, besides the awful loss of a friend, but it must have meant something beyond a series of events.
anyways, when we got to the airport and settled down in the middle of the crowded terminal during the most travelled day of the year, i was rubbing my throbbing head and realized that my hangover wasn't going to let up. i figured smoking a lil' ganja might alleviate my headache and i had already devised a diabolical plan to do it. i had never been caught before and i was very cocky back then. it was also well before 9/11 turned airports into the circus shows they are now.
so i went to the airport bathroom and locked myself into a stall. i had brought a bag of weed and had stuffed it behind the deodorant part of a deodorant stick. so i rolled the deodorant all the way out until it fell out of the holder and pulled out the bag. i then pulled out a cigarette and started to roll the end of it between my fingers. the tobacco started to fall out into the toilet between my legs and i made a kind of pocket of missing tobacco at the tip of the cig. then i put about two drags of ganj into the pocket and then put some extra tobacco i had caught on top. so it looked like a cig and mostly was.
back in 1992, you could smoke anywhere, except on the plane. i have actually smoked on a plane when i was 15 but it was made illegal on domestic flights sometime around 1990-91. anyways, terminals were still very smokey. and where there's cig smoke, weed smoke can usually be hidden, or at least marginally concealed. so i took out the special cig and sparked it up. i took two large puffs and the instant i exhaled the last of the two drags of weed i noticed people around me perk up. it STUNK. badly. and the air wasn't moving. it was just hanging there like a huge hand pointing right at me. i literally watched in horror as people's heads swiveled about and there noses pointed up like bloodhounds on the trail. it was like a domino effect rolling out in all directions. me being at the very center.
of course, within a minute, armed customs agents were closing in (O'hare is an international airport so its a much bigger deal to have weed then it would be at a regular airport since it could be seen as international trafficking). this is where, again, i should have been panicking. but instead, time slowed down, much like a tape player sinking in a vat of honey, and my thoughts became lucid and clear. i needed to hold onto the cigarette, since it would be my saving grace, since i had already smoked what was in it except for tobacco. i knew what i had to do, but boy did i feel like a bufoon. i remember thinking that not even my mom would come to my defence on this one.
when the guards zeroed in on me and my college buds, i knew that i would have to do the talking since none of my friends could be trusted to A. keep their cool and B. not finger me immediately since i hadn't bothered to share. so i, with the lit cigarette IN MY MOUTH, said "yeah, i smell that too!" and looked around like somebody must be batshits crazy to do such a loopy thing. the guards looked at me, then at my friends, none of which were smoking cigarettes or holding anything. then they looked at the people who were all watching. nobody seemed to know who or what. which was actually true since i didn't even mention what i was doing to my friends, and all people had seen was me light the cigarette i was still holding.
so they really had no choice but to issue a loud general warning to the whole area, that drugs were not tolerated in the airport and that any contraband would be detected by dogs that were coming. then they left. so i got up and announced i was going to wait for the plane at the bar. which i did, and i never saw any dogs. clearly, the midwest was ill-equipped to foil me in my dastardly deeds.
so this falls under the header of yet another thing that i won't ever try again. maturity is such an amazing thing.
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