"The Protocol of Stoners" Submission #33

A continuation from Submission #32

We grabbed our coats and made our way out to the high school parking lot.

It was January in Iowa or to put it another way… it was face-numbing cold! The ground was covered with a thick blanket of snow and the wind was whipping out of the north at a brisk pace.

Huffy and I trudged towards Hallsy’s dark colored van, hands thrust deep into our pockets, the snow crunching loudly with every step. We piled into the van, already occupied by Hallsy and someone else… I really can’t remember who… I just remember there were four of us.

We pulled out of the school parking lot and headed south on Highway 17 and then made a left on Highway 210, by the bowling alley. We called it the Slater Road because, well… if you stayed on it for six miles… you’d end up in the town of Slater. Yeah… we were a clever bunch.

I don’t recall the conversation, or if there was any conversation at all. I just knew we were on a journey that would end with yet another experience that would contribute to my downward spiral. I was nervous.

Oddly enough, we ended up at a cemetery two miles east of Madrid, just past the railroad tracks. We pulled into the entryway and Hallsy maneuvered the van toward the back corner. The snow was deep and you could hear the tires spinning several times as it felt like we might get stuck. We ended up next to an old shed as we tried to hide our presence from any traffic that happened to pass by.

With only the faint light from the moon, you could see the tips of tombstones sticking out of the snow. It was so eerily quiet with only the wind gusts providing a sound. I was creeped out. Just the four of us and a bunch of dead people… prospective Democrat voters. Why did we pick a cemetery as the location to get high? Oh well, I guess it added some flavor to the story that I would eventually share.

Huffy pulled out a box of Marlboro cigarettes and popped open the top. Alongside the neatly packaged, filter tipped cancer sticks were a couple, hand-rolled joints. Doobies.

He pulled one out and fired it up, as he took a long drag. He made a hissing sound as he inhaled deeply, his lungs filling with smoke and then he held his breath for a few seconds before exhaling, creating a massive cloud inside the van.

“Interesting,” I thought. “There seems to be a technique happening here. Who knew?”

The joint was passed around, which I thought was odd. How come I couldn’t have one of my own? I never passed a cigarette around to my friends… or a bottle of beer. Weird.

The protocol of stoners.

When the joint came to me for the first time, I tried my best to employ the same technique I’d seen demonstrated by my more experienced comrades. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to look cool. I wanted to look like I’d done this before but all four of us knew that wasn’t the case and that fact became painfully obvious when I sucked the smoke into my lungs and my lungs immediately said, “OH NO YOU DON’T!”

It felt like someone had slit my trachea with a razor blade. I coughed so hard, I swear a piece of my lung came flying out. My coughing spell lasted for several minutes, which apparently was hilariously funny to the other three guys. They howled with laughter. It was as though I was a pledge to a fraternity and they were putting me through a little hazing but to be honest, I wasn’t having very much fun.

I took my turn several more times, albeit with gentle drags… trying to take it easy on my reluctant lungs. When it was all said and done, I felt a minor buzz but that’s all. Bad quality weed or a failure to correctly inhale? Maybe both.

The deed was done and we needed to head back to town.  Hallsy popped the van in reverse and pressed on the gas. We could hear the tires spinning but the vehicle wasn’t moving. He pressed down harder and the tires spun faster… but we didn’t move. We were stuck and as it turned out, stuck pretty good.

Three of us hopped out and pushed and heaved as Hallsy attempted to maneuver the wheels to such an angle that would gain some traction. No luck. We entertained the notion of walking back to town but quickly dismissed it as a “bad idea.” So we kept pushing for probably a solid half hour.

Finally, we broke loose and the van started rolling backwards. We jumped in, dying to get some heat on our frost bitten hands. I looked down and noticed that Huffy wasn’t wearing any shoes. He didn’t even realize it. They had both come off as we were pushing the van. He found them… stuck in the snow. Maybe the quality of that marijuana was stronger than I thought!

It was spring and the weather had warmed considerably before my second experience with weed. My buddy, Kevin Gibbons and I had scored a “nickel bag” and I had purchased a small, home-made pipe from… someone… I don’t remember who.

There was a dance being held in the log cabin at Edgewood Park and we thought it would be a great idea if we showed up stoned.

Kevin met me at my house. My parents were home and so we decided to find an alternate location to smoke our pot. It was still light outside. We decided to head toward the park and figure out a good spot along the way.

That “spot” ended up being the Christian Church, a block west from my house. On the backside of the church, hidden by some overgrown bushes, was a porch, tall enough for us to comfortably crawl underneath. Perfect. Nobody would see us.

We filled the bowl of the pipe and lit it up. We passed it back and forth, as I had learned from my “stoner pals.” I don’t recall how many bowls we made it through but before we crawled out from under the church porch, I was higher than a kite. This felt totally different than being drunk.

I felt like I was in a cartoon. I didn’t feel real. I kept looking at my hands and my fingers, as though I'd discovered them for the very first time. 

My surroundings looked like animation and everything suddenly turned very humorous. We laughed the entire way to the park and once we got to the park, I became the best dancer in the place… at least in my mind.

Getting high became a routine activity after that. Whenever I wanted to escape the reality of my miserable existence… and it WAS a very miserable existence… I got stoned.

I stole money from my parents to buy my dope. I became brazen enough to smoke it in my own bedroom… often. My sanctuary. A room in the house that my parents never, ever visited. A blessing and a curse.

For me… life sucked. I didn’t know if I wanted to continue living it but getting high allowed me to escape those heavy thoughts and dark questions… even if it was only for a little while.

"Up In Smoke" Submission #32

In the 1950’s, the term “stoned” was coined to describe somebody that was “under the influence.” Similar to “drunk” or “high.” In the late 1970’s, a derivative of that word, a noun, “Stoner,” entered the American vernacular and was used to describe, primarily, one who frequently smoked marijuana.

So, even though we weren’t actually using the term “stoner” in 1974, at Madrid High School… we had our “stoners” and everyone knew who they were. Steve “Hallsey” Hall, Brian “Huffy” Huffstutler, the Udorvich boys… and a number of others.

I can vividly remember many occasions passing one of these guys in the hallway or in class, usually before our first class of the day… and smelling the strong and distinct odor of pot. And you knew what they had been doing on the way to school or in their cars out in the school parking lot.

The smell stuck to their jackets, their clothes and their hair. Their half closed eyes and dazed smiles were further evidence of their impairment. I often thought that if I knew they were high, surely the teachers knew also. But they never said anything or did anything… at least not that I was aware of.

I didn’t hang out with this group much. I mean… we knew each other… heck, everyone knew everyone in Madrid. But other than being friends for a bit with Huffy in junior high… I wasn’t part of the “stoners.” But my curiosity about getting high was something that began to creep into my consciousness during my freshman year of high school.

I sat by Huffy in a couple of classes and I began to ask him about his experiences with weed. I asked him about the difference between getting high and being drunk. I asked him about cost and availability. I learned that it was packaged and sold in denominations such as a nickel bag, a dime bag or a lid.

He didn’t divulge who the dealers were but he assured me that he could procure it for me if I ever wanted some and could produce the cash. Huffy was as good as a used car salesman. His words intrigued me and his stories fascinated me. But I wasn’t ready to commit to an actual transaction.

One Friday night in January of 1974, the whole town (it seemed) had packed the gymnasium for a basketball game. The Madrid Tigers boys’ basketball team was state rated in the top 10 and the community was abuzz. We were not used to that level of success from any of our teams. It was an exciting time.

The team was led by a couple of seniors… Kevin Munson (my cousin) and Jim “Coba” Nicoletto, who had captured the imagination of high school sports fans across the state. Coba was a gifted, 4-sport athlete who nearly had his athletic career ended the year before in a freak accident during a baseball game.

Coba, who was the varsity catcher, threw off his mask as he prepared for a play at the plate. The runner barreled into him at full speed and his elbow crashed into the area around Coba’s right eye. Jim Nicoletto would never see out of that eye again.

The whole town lamented the loss of Madrid’s best high school athlete and wept over the fact that his senior year would be a total loss… athletically speaking. The problem was that someone forgot got to tell Coba that he was done participating in sports.

A couple games into the next football season, the townspeople were shocked to see Coba suited up for the game and standing on the sidelines. They were even more surprised to see him inserted into the running back position during Madrid’s first possession.

Coba finished that game with over 200 yards rushing and a legend was born.

Yes, he played basketball too, despite the fact that he was blind in his shooting eye and he competed at a level far beyond anyone’s expectations. His leadership and his skills on the court led the Tigers to a #8 rating in the state that season.

Now… what does this story about Jim Nicoletto have to do with the “stoners” and my first experience with pot? Other than the fact that I was watching him play on the night that I first smoked a reefer… absolutely nothing. It is just a great story and I wanted to tell it!

It was almost halftime. I didn’t see him at first but I suddenly smelled the aroma of cannabis.  Huffy had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and sat next to me. He had never sat next to me at a game in his life, so I knew something was up.

“You wanna take a ride?” He grinned broadly as I pondered his offer.

“Where to?” I stalled.

He repeated the question with exaggerated pauses between the words, as though he were speaking to someone from a foreign country. “Do… you… want… to… take… a… ride? Yes or no?”

I caught on to his cryptic utterings. At least I thought I did. This must have something to do with the topic that we had been discussing nonstop for a few weeks… his friend, Mary Jane.