Beautiful (2)

I laughed. Back then I always laughed. It was my default expression when I didn’t know how to react to something. I mean, how was I supposed to respond to something like that? I didn’t really know Hugh at that point, but I quickly found out he had a very upfront and in your face attitude, and what he was saying was that I remind him of a white person, and he was going to change that.

As I looked down at myself. Grey slacks black button up with a sweater vest on, I did feel like a white person. I quickly shook my head, shaking off the invading thought. Hugh was watching me scrutinizing me the whole time. I quickly got used the gaze he would give when he was evaluating something or somebody. I tried not to let it bother me. “Here, take a hit.” he said passing me the freshly rolled blunt. I feel like for someof you I should explain what a blunt is, for fear of losing you later on. A blunt is weed rolled up in a cigarillo. Think of it as a cigar with weed in it. Of course blunt can really mean a lot of things, but when I speak of blunt, I speak of weed.

I had really started to smoke weed a few months ago from that point. It was 2006 and I was sitting in that very apartment at in the kitchen taking small hits of a blunt.

“Hit it nigga!”

Hugh was barking at me. “Hit the blunt.”

Paris tried to reach for it, eager to get high. “He just wasting weed.”

“Naw fuck it, we got more...I'm getting this nigga high.”

I let go and sucked in as if I was taking a last breath before going under water. Hugh watched me intently. I coughed and coughed and coughed hard. My lungs burned and everyone around me was laughing. “Yeah!” Hugh laughed as he clapped. “You a nigga now.” I shook my head as I passed the blunt to Paris. Little did I know that, that moment would be the begging of an addiction that would span almost four years and a few days in jail.

I sunk into my environment quickly that first day. It was mid day a real beautiful day like only Olathe can provide, and we spent that first day together smoking weed around the kitchen table and playing dominoes

Paris was always a very popular guy, everyone loved his easy going and fun natured outlook on life. If the right music was playing he would forget all else and just loose himself to music, there was something about Paris that put everyone at ease. But there was also a dark side to Paris. A side he hid from everyone else. I never would have believed some of the things about Paris had I not seen it myself. It was Paris who supplied the friends and girls that would come to our every day all day parties. Our house was never quite. We were always up drinking, smoking, or having sex. It was mostly Hugh, the self titled playboy who was having sex. Me and Paris would feed off in stragglers. I spent most of my time getting high and trying to get laid, Paris spent most of his time getting drunk and trying to get laid. As for Hugh he spent most of his time on ecstasy and getting laid.