Late at night, on my way home from a gig, I was cat-called by a couple who asked if I wanted to share a joint. More intrigued by the conversation (they were clearly inebriated) than the joint (it was being rolled with tobacco and I’m a purist), I stopped beneath the floodlit awning of a closed market and sat with them a spell.
The man twisting the joint, was here from Toronto, studying transcendental meditation. The woman was speaking on full-automatic, a telltale sheen on her dreamy face. They were drunker than me, which was humbling. “I’ve been tonguing her mouth all night, bro,” he says gesturing at her. She didn’t break her conversational stride, or didn’t care to dispute the facts.
Suddenly she started to make sense. “I’m going to go get my best friend. Should I go get my best friend?” she asked us. Neither of us answered, and she darted off inside the nearby jazz lounge. Moments later, she returned holding the hand of a small, round Indonesian man. “C’moooooooonnnn!” she pleaded with him.
“What is this?” he asked, his eyes beginning to widen in mild panic. It became clear they were not best friends. Or even friends at all.
“Come smoooke a joint,” she begged.
Slowly, he backed away repeating a charm against this evil: “No… no…. no… noooooo….”
It was then that I too decided it was time to leave. The lover of the transcendental visitor would not be deterred, smooshing the joint into my face, through my protestations. Eventually, I escaped.