No one ever helped.
My inability to get stoned was probably related to the fact that I was never able to hold the smoke in my lungs. A lot of people say that coughing when you’re smoking pot gets you higher, because it makes you suck in more smoke, but those people are liars. I’d take a drag and the acrid smoke would hit the back of my throat like a red-hot poker, and I’d start hacking like an emphysemic coal miner. Who also had tuberculosis. And . . . I dunno . . . bird flu. What’s worse than tuberculosis? Whatever that is, I sounded like I had that. Also I was constantly inhaling stray seeds into my windpipe, and none of my friends were sober enough to even pronounce “Heimlich,” so every hit was like playing Russian roulette. Each inhalation brought on several minutes of spastic coughing where I’d spray everyone with what I’m sure were lacerated chunks of my lungs. I was pretty much the most unsexy drug user ever.
“All right there, Doc Holliday?” someone would ask.
“Coughing like that makes you higher,” I lied, my voice sounding like I’d swallowed a gravel slushee. “You’re supposed to cough as hard as you can until you feel like you’re going to throw up. I think I read that in Rolling Stone.” And by then everyone else was so high that it sounded plausible, and so they’d intentionally cough, and the whole car would be filled with flying spittle, and then eventually someone would almost make himself throw up. And then we’d laugh. Because almost throwing up is kind of funny when you’re vaguely high and covered with other people’s spit.
Even though I seemed mostly immune to pot, I still never turned down a joint, since it gave my hands something to do in social situations. I was still painfully shy, and would have rather costarred in a Tijuana donkey show than to have to make small talk with semi-strangers. The beauty of marijuana is that it instantly brings people together. Two minutes earlier you’re standing with strangers in awkward silence because you brought up dildos, and then someone whispers that the hostess’s brother died in a dildo accident, and you feel terrible about bringing up such a sensitive issue, but also really curious, because how does someone die from a dildo accident? Unless maybe a box of them fell on his head? But you’re afraid to ask, because you already feel bad enough for bringing up the subject of dildos, which may have somehow killed a man, and you inwardly tell yourself that you shouldn’t even be bringing up dildos at parties at all, but you know you won’t listen, because next time there’s a lull in the conversation you already know you’re going to blurt out something about the girl you know whose brother died from a dildo accident. And then you’ll remember that that girl is the girl you’re actually talking to at the time. And then, just when it gets so terribly uncomfortable that you consider stabbing someone in the knee just to distract everyone so you can run away, someone pulls out a baggie of pot—and suddenly it’s all cool. You’re standing shoulder to shoulder, watching the ceremonial rolling of the joint while people give rolling tips and reminisce about flavored rolling papers and proffer treasured Zippos. (Note: proffer. It’s not “offer” or “prefer.” It’s a combination of them, and it’s a real word that you can use in Scrabble. And now you can tell people that you’re reading a totally redeeming educational book and not just one about dildos killing innocent men. You’re welcome.) Individuals who only minutes before might have disdainfully placed a protective layer of toilet paper over the hostess’s toilet seat were now cheerily sucking on a joint moist with the saliva of a dozen strangers, and detailing their botched circumcision as if we are all old war buddies.