Mark and I descend the third floor stairs and emerge from my room, looking around. There’s almost no one in the apartment. To the right, Melvin’s door is closed with that “Do NOT even think of disturbing me!” look about it.

“Dorky looking, big nosed Melvin scores again eh?” I think. “Good for you, man.” I smile and look at Mark. “At least someone’s doing something useful this morning.”

Mark says nothing and we continue through the open door of “his” smoking room. No surprise the only others left in the place are passed out in there. Hadley on the couch, and an unidentifiable body on the floor. Looks like some other nobody from Ronnie’s gang of Annie-hangers-on friends. Ronnie, Jim and Annie are probably out for breakfast which means these two will have no place to go until that train gets back to the station.

“Good morning” Mark says with fake friendliness to Hadley. Mark has yet to really warm up to the youngest member of this ever-tightening group of friends. He will eventually become truly fond of the “kid” but this morning “Mr. Cool”s interest, is in only the most selfish of connections.

“Got any weed?”

Hadley is of course, passed out and not responding but Mark continues the charade as he picks up a seemingly fresh joint from the pile of dead pipes and roaches on the otherwise completely trashed table. A newly cleared area next to a packet of ZigZags and the rolling machine suggests the joint was made quite recently. Well… more recently than the roaches anyway. Hadley must have passed out just after he got it rolled. Who knows how long he’d been there. Mark and I had gone upstairs on our now completed mission to kill our quarter bag of imported stuff hours ago.

Mark lights the joint and looks around, not finding what he’s looking for. “Hey Brian, you see the power hitter anywhere? I wanna help the kid out since, heh… he obviously needs it.”

I spot the simple device under the table and hand it to my roomie, obviously he’s in a mood for mischief… scheming something pointless and bound to annoy someone. Most likely Hadley since… he’s there. In the moment.

“What’s the plan capt’n?” I ask in a tone of equally fake subservience to all things Mark. “I am in the mood for throwing the disk around real soon.”

But Mark is not listening. He’s getting the joint going nice and hot and quickly mounts it in the power hitter’s internal chamber. He screws the two parts together together and squeezes the black plastic body while holding the thing up to his face. A narrow trail of thick smoke is forced out of the nozzle and goes right up Mark’s nose and then the nose of Hadley, lying on his back. Still sleeping. Mark times it so on every inhale, Hadley takes in a full nose hit.

“Oh this boy is going to wake up in a state.” Mark exclaims with delight. He hands the hitter to me to take one. I of course am happy to, but I’m really not getting any higher. After that standing bong hit I just took upstairs, I’m pretty well tuned. Handing it back to Mark, I go into the kitchen and see if there’s any Mountain Dew left. THAT! is what I need right in this moment.

“YES!” a fresh can of my much needed sugar tea is right there for me. More than one. This might just turn out to be a fine day indeed. Despite the biting cold outside. I grab two cans and sit on the now old and quite well worn white vinyl couch. We’d moved it from the living room when Mark’s remodeling made it not welcome in there. As I sit and down my first can of “Dew”, I hear the tell-tale sound of Ronnie’s rumbling motor. His 1974 Dodge “Good Times Van” is unmistakable. The sounds of Buck’s van joins the chorus and I realize that another party is in the works for sure.

“What the FUCK?”

Hadley now stands in the doorway, looking very confused. The loud rumbling of the returning two vans had obviously awakened him with a completely unexpected buzz on. Unexpected by him anyway… Mark is chuckling with glee but also distracted by the return of the newly fed and now quite “up” party of thieves. Back at the den eh? Whatever is in the works, they are definitely up for it. Hadley joins me on the couch as the entire crew loudly tramp in the front door, stomp snow off their boots and march up the main stairway with an excitement uncharacteristic for this very very cold time of year. Something is afoot for sure. I turn to see them entering Mark’s room and hear them all trying to speak at once.

“Mark, my man! Check this out.”
“We got the perfect idea for the smoke room!”
“No light won’t get in after this!”
“It’ll be really dark now!”
“The only light will be black light!”
“It’ll be so cool!”
“Yea!”

I’m only half listening, but turning to look at the group over my shoulder, I place my arm up on the top of the back of the couch and…

“Yikes!… shit, wow that’s hot!!” I remove my now nearly burned arm and quickly stand up. Hadley looks at me, still confused. Perhaps he’s also suspicious I’m in on yet another joke at his expense. I look at where my arm has just been and see the cause. A cigarette butt and some ash lie next to a cigarette-sized hole in the otherwise completely encased in vinyl, piece of cheap furniture.

“Hadley get up!” I am now shouting. “I think the couch is on fire.”