I feel a flashback coming on...

I have hardly left the house this weekend... I feel crusty.


I need a life but I don't really know anyone around here and every time I go out I seem to only ever find freaks. I guess I am still recoiling from the last time...


It was a couple of months ago, I was in Ruby's (a bar in Belgrave) with an old high school friend when this lunatic in a jester cap floated over to our booth in a cloud of dope smoke. His name was Michael and according to him, he could get the best buds in the whole of the hills. He liked the look of my companion's head wear (his hat was like Joey's from Degrassi High).


Between business transactions and joint rolling our new friend filled us in on his views of new-age spirituality and trips to Amsterdam. He seemed very intese but friendly. Everyone in there knew him, I guess he was like the house drug dealer or something because there was this knowing wink thing going on between Michael and most of the people in the bar. When he ran out of grass and beer money we were leaving so we gave him a lift to his grandparents house. I don't want to sound like a hippie or nothing but the whole night had this terrible doomcore sort of vibe about it. Something was definately wrong, but I didn't yet know just how wrong things were going to get.


I went home, forgot about it and got on with my week.


The next Saturday Michael called in the grips of a suicidal depression and said he needed a good listener. I was a bit shocked but I agreed to meet him at the organic cafe in Belgrave in half an hour anyway. When I arrived we ordered strong long blacks and Michael told me the story of his amphetamine addiction and his experiences in psych wards... his tale of a battle with drugs however quickly turned onto the subject of scoring.


I tried desperately to sidetrack the topic but before I knew it we were embarking on a pilgrimage through the hard drug terrain of the hills. We started out begging for phone change infront of the local newsagency. I had the money but Michael insisted that he would pay for himself. I pleaded with him but he would have none of that.


After a humiliating half an hour we made our first call, got their answering machine but spotted the dealer's son Dylan hanging around out the front of the toilets on the main drag. Michael tried to talk business but Dylan wasn't interested and told us to try his mum again. We gave up and Michael begged for more change.


Back at the phone booth we got through but Dylan's mum said she was only holding grass because their supplier had been busted. I thought it was over but Michael wouldn't let it go so we made another call, got another machine and cruised the street waiting for dumb luck. Instead of dumb luck we found a teacher friend of mine, Mark, out with his girlfriend and to my horror Michael proceeded to ask for spare change and probe him about good places to score. As I watched Mark's reaction I saw my career in education evaporate, my eyes pleading with him not to make this into an amusing annecdote for Friday drinks.


By now I was in a terrible panic, I had no idea how I was going to get myself out of this. Michael suggested we go for a drive and at that point in time I would have agreed to anything that got us off the streets. We drove to a huge house in Kallista but it was a no go so we decided to get back to Belgrave, ring Dyan's mum and settle for some grass.


We drove out to this run-down little cottage house which stunk of pot from the street. Once inside I could see why, every table in the house was piled with mountains of the stuff and Dylan's mother, Susan, was sitting in the middle of it all just about to take her morning methadone when we came knocking. We made our purchase and I hustled Michael out to the car, we needed to go somewhere, anywhere that was indoors and away from the streets where we were vulnerable to more strangeness and misfortune, so without thinking I took us back to my house.


Michael rolled joints and I brewed turkish coffee. I had already smoked myself into a deep funk when Michael accused me of spiking his coffee with LSD. I tried to convince him that this was not the case but he decided that it was a good thing and was in the kitchen producing more.


It was at this point that my new housemate came home.


I freaked out, Michael was taking off his belt and telling him about all the memories this belt held, all the good hits he'd used this belt to tie-off on. So there I was, a sloppy stoned mess with a derranged drug addict accosting my housemate with a belt. I couldn't explain it to my housemate, I didn't understand it myself so I did the only logical thing... I lost control. I ranted some uncomprehensible excuse at Michael and bundled him into my car to be deposited on the other side of the hill.


I set Michael down where I first found him, at Ruby's and then I went home and went to bed.


Oh where, oh where, have all the normal people gone?