Shit through a goose would've been sloth-like in describing how i moved, i pulled up a seat next to him and dove straight in, a quick hey man was wondering when i could you know, and suddenly the power tilted, he was a bit aloof and put off i guess by my abruptness, jeez man he moaned i just got here a few minutes before you, i mean if you got a car i guess we could run back to my place in a little bit but i'm gonna have a few more drinks, it was a bit of a rookie mistake on my part and what i neglected to tell Hippie Jack was that in my excitement i had sorta put the word out that some nice stuff was coming down the pipe and that i'd have it by sometime tonight, if i couldn't get it worked out tonight or at worst tomorrow i was just lining myself up to be another fuck-up in a field full of fuck-ups, of course i didn't have a fucking car or even know where to borrow one at this point and really wasn't looking forward to riding the bus to a place i'd never been and then navigating my way back or better yet taking the bus back with a half pound of grass stuffed in my shirt, you'd think people wouldn't do shit like that but read the paper, morons abound... and so i resigned myself to the fact that it wouldn't go down today but bought him a drink anyway then split telling him i was a bit short until i got this up and running cuz i had all the loot tied up in this enterprise, that seemed to strike a chord, i had the fucking money, and he told me to meet him at his place when i got off work the next day, i forced a smile and said great, you'll have a car right? he asked, yeah man i'll have one, where i'd find it i had no idea...
Let's just say that Jah must have really liked this tall, nappy-headed white boy... The good Doctor had a car but it had been a stick and at the time i couldn't drive one, that would be remedied a little over a year later but for now i was fucked, except that very day i had come home from work to find out that the good Doctor's mom had come into possession of a better car than the good Doctor was currently driving and this car was an automatic and though he had had it for less than 12 hours he was gonna let me borrow it to go to some old hippies house who've i've known for roughly three or four days to score a half pound of weed, sounds about right yeah? and though i could tell the good Doctor was a little nervous as he'd only had the car a few hours i also knew that he had confidence i wouldn't do anything stupid... well at least not anything other than what i was already doing and so i grabbed the keys...
Bigelow Blvd. is the quintessential Pittsburgh street, it is the furthest fucking thing from a straight line you will find, it wanders and turns and starts and stops, part city street part go kart track, Hippie Jack lived on the go-kart track part, a four lane belch of car exhaust that connected Oakland and Downtown, the two busiest parts of the city, the posted speed was 35mph but once past the Bloomfield Bridge heading towards town and it was more like the minimum speed was 55mph, oddly enough there was a park placed on the right side of the road that looked out over the border of the Strip and Lawrenceville and out towards the Allegheny River, a long stretch of green between cityscape's, right before that green was a section of houses set upon the road, Jersey barriers lined the street at the narrow sidewalk, the dilapidated soot covered houses were varying shades of black, a fine grit seemed to cover everything, it was on this part of the street that Hippie Jack lived, his front door facing onto this major thoroughfare, he was the last house before what was the shadiest work uniform and laundry business i had ever seen, it was tucked on the corner and was the solitary business crammed between old houses and shit three story walk-ups, after 4pm it was cool to park in the lot, it seemed a bit strange at first that the place didn't mind but the more i saw it the more it looked like a front, of course on this day the last thing i wanted to do was get my best friend's car that he's had for all of a few hours towed away... and so i made the call...
And now we come to the part where we cross our fingers and hope shit goes smoothly and according to plan... yes, well, about that... in the world of wastoids things are lost and forgotten on a mostly minute to minute basis, after calling his place a few times it dawned on me that Hippie Jack may have stayed late at the bar the night before and completely forgotten the whole hook up the new guy thing, i walked over to the bar, each step my hopes shriveling, cursing my luck and motherfucking all the cocksucking morons with the good connections but not two fucking brain cells to rub together, everyone on fucked-up people time which really amounted to chaos, i sorta slammed through the door and of course who do i find? Hippie Jack, sitting on his stool in a half stupor, as soon as he sees me his eyes light a bit and he remembers about meeting me, suddenly it all comes rushing back to him, his memory photographic, you got a car he grins, just have to go get it i say, can be back in 15 minutes, and out the door i go damn near sprinting back to my place, huffing and puffing and stopping to catch my breath, sweat beading and cooling in the cool fall dusk, i grab the car and head back...
Hippie Jack climbs in with a to go cup and leaving a trail of Jack and Coke jet wash in his wake, i wheel the car around and head up towards Bigelow, i can tell he's more than half smashed and he's rambling on about shit and looking around and then asks why i didn't take the back way, to which i say what back way? and he tells of secret streets devoid of cops, a winding road from the one end of Baum and a back door into the Strip and Polish Hill, instead i'm on the go-kart track and what i must do now is make a sharp right turn onto a narrow side street which wouldn't be all that dangerous if it wasn't for the fact that few people knew the side street was there and slowing down on this part of Bigelow, especially enough to make a sharp right, ran the risk of being crunched from behind at a high rate of speed, as the night began to settle in i made my turn to the lovely blaring of horns from all the cars caught off guard behind me, per Hippie Jack i pulled into the uniform and laundry place lot and in we went...
Now hindsight being what it is i understand that a man needs a few breaks, you have to be born in the right place and at the right time in history, have the knowledge and the opportunity, look at Carnegie and Vanderbilt and fucking Morgan... or you can just be some fucked-up white kid from the suburbs who has read to many books and maybe listened to more gangster rap than he should have in junior high, and so here i was hoping for that break and so we sit down in his place and he packs one up, laughs you wanna beer man i think i got a few, runs to the kitchen, comes back with mismatched beers, asks which one i want and then begins fumbling with shit behind his couch, pulls out a triple beam and a garbage bag with a few pounds in it and gets to work weighing out my half elbow, i watch as he pulls from the top of the bag giving me nothing but bud while all the shake sits at the bottom, i make a little note of it knowing that someday i'm sure i'm gonna get the other half or hoping he was just to fucked up to notice what he was doing and i was just the beneficiary of his little oversight, we laugh and bullshit and i explain to him that while i'd like to hang out i had my friend's new car and needed to get it back, no sweat man no sweat he's rasping, you can drop me back off at the bar right? of course protocol says i have to, he helped me out and the shit is green and is stinking through the backpack i have with me, yeah man no problem i say and we head to the car...
To be brutally honest the last thing i wanted to do was drop this fucking hippie back at the bar, for one things had taken longer than expected (surprise surprise in this gig) and i'm sure the good Doctor was beginning to lose his mind, instead of being able to bee-line it home i now had to drop off Hippie Jack and while in total that would only be an extra ten minutes it was ten minutes more than i wanted to be rolling around in my best friends semi-new wheels with an old hippie and a half pound of aromatic bud stinking up the car... but i did it as fast as legally possible while using all turn signals and obeying all traffic laws, i parked outside my place and ran in thanked him profusely and tossed the good Doctor his keys and made for my cave, i was giddy, i pulled it out looked at it, suddenly Hippie Jack was fucking greater than Jesus Christ, like that good lookin' woman who is nothing but trouble but has that smile that makes you forgive, well that bag of green smelly herb had me forgetting all about the Hippie's transgressions, i danced a quick jig and then went back out to the living room to check my messages, i called two people back and then got on the horn to a few more, with any luck this shit would be gone in no time...
Bigelow Blvd. is the quintessential Pittsburgh street, it is the furthest fucking thing from a straight line you will find, it wanders and turns and starts and stops, part city street part go kart track, Hippie Jack lived on the go-kart track part, a four lane belch of car exhaust that connected Oakland and Downtown, the two busiest parts of the city, the posted speed was 35mph but once past the Bloomfield Bridge heading towards town and it was more like the minimum speed was 55mph, oddly enough there was a park placed on the right side of the road that looked out over the border of the Strip and Lawrenceville and out towards the Allegheny River, a long stretch of green between cityscape's, right before that green was a section of houses set upon the road, Jersey barriers lined the street at the narrow sidewalk, the dilapidated soot covered houses were varying shades of black, a fine grit seemed to cover everything, it was on this part of the street that Hippie Jack lived, his front door facing onto this major thoroughfare, he was the last house before what was the shadiest work uniform and laundry business i had ever seen, it was tucked on the corner and was the solitary business crammed between old houses and shit three story walk-ups, after 4pm it was cool to park in the lot, it seemed a bit strange at first that the place didn't mind but the more i saw it the more it looked like a front, of course on this day the last thing i wanted to do was get my best friend's car that he's had for all of a few hours towed away... and so i made the call...
And now we come to the part where we cross our fingers and hope shit goes smoothly and according to plan... yes, well, about that... in the world of wastoids things are lost and forgotten on a mostly minute to minute basis, after calling his place a few times it dawned on me that Hippie Jack may have stayed late at the bar the night before and completely forgotten the whole hook up the new guy thing, i walked over to the bar, each step my hopes shriveling, cursing my luck and motherfucking all the cocksucking morons with the good connections but not two fucking brain cells to rub together, everyone on fucked-up people time which really amounted to chaos, i sorta slammed through the door and of course who do i find? Hippie Jack, sitting on his stool in a half stupor, as soon as he sees me his eyes light a bit and he remembers about meeting me, suddenly it all comes rushing back to him, his memory photographic, you got a car he grins, just have to go get it i say, can be back in 15 minutes, and out the door i go damn near sprinting back to my place, huffing and puffing and stopping to catch my breath, sweat beading and cooling in the cool fall dusk, i grab the car and head back...
Hippie Jack climbs in with a to go cup and leaving a trail of Jack and Coke jet wash in his wake, i wheel the car around and head up towards Bigelow, i can tell he's more than half smashed and he's rambling on about shit and looking around and then asks why i didn't take the back way, to which i say what back way? and he tells of secret streets devoid of cops, a winding road from the one end of Baum and a back door into the Strip and Polish Hill, instead i'm on the go-kart track and what i must do now is make a sharp right turn onto a narrow side street which wouldn't be all that dangerous if it wasn't for the fact that few people knew the side street was there and slowing down on this part of Bigelow, especially enough to make a sharp right, ran the risk of being crunched from behind at a high rate of speed, as the night began to settle in i made my turn to the lovely blaring of horns from all the cars caught off guard behind me, per Hippie Jack i pulled into the uniform and laundry place lot and in we went...
Now hindsight being what it is i understand that a man needs a few breaks, you have to be born in the right place and at the right time in history, have the knowledge and the opportunity, look at Carnegie and Vanderbilt and fucking Morgan... or you can just be some fucked-up white kid from the suburbs who has read to many books and maybe listened to more gangster rap than he should have in junior high, and so here i was hoping for that break and so we sit down in his place and he packs one up, laughs you wanna beer man i think i got a few, runs to the kitchen, comes back with mismatched beers, asks which one i want and then begins fumbling with shit behind his couch, pulls out a triple beam and a garbage bag with a few pounds in it and gets to work weighing out my half elbow, i watch as he pulls from the top of the bag giving me nothing but bud while all the shake sits at the bottom, i make a little note of it knowing that someday i'm sure i'm gonna get the other half or hoping he was just to fucked up to notice what he was doing and i was just the beneficiary of his little oversight, we laugh and bullshit and i explain to him that while i'd like to hang out i had my friend's new car and needed to get it back, no sweat man no sweat he's rasping, you can drop me back off at the bar right? of course protocol says i have to, he helped me out and the shit is green and is stinking through the backpack i have with me, yeah man no problem i say and we head to the car...
To be brutally honest the last thing i wanted to do was drop this fucking hippie back at the bar, for one things had taken longer than expected (surprise surprise in this gig) and i'm sure the good Doctor was beginning to lose his mind, instead of being able to bee-line it home i now had to drop off Hippie Jack and while in total that would only be an extra ten minutes it was ten minutes more than i wanted to be rolling around in my best friends semi-new wheels with an old hippie and a half pound of aromatic bud stinking up the car... but i did it as fast as legally possible while using all turn signals and obeying all traffic laws, i parked outside my place and ran in thanked him profusely and tossed the good Doctor his keys and made for my cave, i was giddy, i pulled it out looked at it, suddenly Hippie Jack was fucking greater than Jesus Christ, like that good lookin' woman who is nothing but trouble but has that smile that makes you forgive, well that bag of green smelly herb had me forgetting all about the Hippie's transgressions, i danced a quick jig and then went back out to the living room to check my messages, i called two people back and then got on the horn to a few more, with any luck this shit would be gone in no time...
2 comments:
I find this stuff fascinating. I always took such a safe route. Office work. Commuting. The same faces, the same work. I'd always wondered what happens to people who don't just give-in to the system. Sometimes, I wish I'd been more fearless.
With your luck I wonder if it was gone in no time? Could've gone either way.
Your exuberance is like a bride on her wedding day!
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