The Marijuana Chronicles by Jonathan Santlofer Read Free Book Online Page A

smoking pot.
    If your thinking tends toward the dark side even when life is sunny, hepatitis can feel like the end of the world. You can’t get out of bed. You read depressing books. No one wants to come near you. Not that you want anyone to see you with a pimpled yellow complexion and jaundiced eyes. Then there’s the bloat of your belly. That alone can make you want to die. Spoon the pain of inflammation into your cup of humiliation, and you have a flawless recipe for despair.
    Jimmy O’Brien was my savior. He nursed me from a safe distance. Five thousand miles, he said. He had left New York and was living on the Big Island in Hawaii, growing Mary Jane. His mother in New Jersey had seen an ad for the land and invested all her savings.
    During my illness, his phone calls and the product he sent me, ostensibly to sell, made all the difference. Smoking his weed lifted my spirits. It relieved my discomfort. Watch the mail, he’d say. I’m gonna send you a present.
    Jimmy was always nice to me. Up until the time Alice shacked up with him, I thought he was gay. What else was I supposed to think? He was with Johnny Giovanni every time I saw him, and Johnny was undeniably queer. Don’t tell my girlfriend, Jimmy would say, but it wasn’t an affair. It was theater.
    Johnny called himself a “body artist” and Jimmy was his foil. They went around town together just for show. Photographers dove after them. They were both six feet tall and kinky, in a comic sort of way. The fashion crowd adored them. The tabloids reported their escapades. We looked. We lusted. We laughed. Oh God , Alice would say. Who are they?
    Johnny was a prancing spider, thin and swarthy. He cultivated a scruff of beard. On the street, his jacket opened on a bare, buff chest that he shaved and polished. He tied leather straps across it, pulling them taut under his nipples. No matter what the weather, he never wore a shirt. Just quilted black jodhpurs, wraparound shades, and, usually, a skullcap of black leather that was more like a hood. We had mutual friends. They looked after him. He had genuine talent, but he couldn’t take care of himself.
    Jimmy was an Adonis, an angel cake of manhood, light on his feet. He moved with a swing of his narrow hips and a toss of his long blond hair. It fell past broad, square shoulders as chiseled as his jaw. I could never take my eyes off him. High cheekbones, blue eyes, wide mouth set in a permanent grin, he titillated and growled, he giggled like a girl. He could also pose a threat. Danger lurked in his hands. Hardly an hour would pass without him offering to punch a guy out.
    He wore the same outfit day and night: a white T-shirt, black leather pants molded to his muscled body, black leather cuffs, and a black leather jacket that set off the golden rain of his hair. In hot weather he traded the leather pants for jeans just as tight, a Bowie knife tucked in his boot.
    We’d meet up at Johnny’s for a drink and a toke, and go dancing, except that Jimmy didn’t dance. He’d get a drink and rest his head in a woofer, feeling the beat. No music could be loud enough.
    Jimmy always had his ear to something. A telephone, mostly. It’s my girlfriend, he’d say as he dialed. It’s my bookie. It’s my mom. He didn’t have a job. His work was being Jimmy.
    He lived with the fashion model who supported him. She was often out of town on a shoot or in Europe for the collections. He knew all the models because of her. He liked pretty women. If you saw them passing a joint, chances are they got it from him, along with diet pills, tranquilizers, and cocaine. He always had a roll of cash. He didn’t worry. He didn’t have to think.
    Never take the subway, he said one night when we couldn’t find a cab. The subway was beneath him in more ways than one. He was a king.
    I saw him eat now and then, usually breakfast at five a.m., after the clubs had closed. Generally, he lived on drugs and drink. His usual routine was to stay up