It was a hot summer's day and Russell, as per usual, was late. I didn't know his friends but lounging on the front deck they identified me easily enough,
button-head bobbing precariously along the sidewalk to this new and unknown location. We introduced ourselves, made small talk about our juvenalia (prompted by the
Saturday Morning's Greatest Hits CD in the boom box) and waited for the main attraction.
A couple of hours later they arrived, with what seemed like a dozen garbage-bags full of what were claimed to be opium poppies acquired from a vacant lot. Like good little socialists, we formed a frighteningly efficient assembly line in the back-yard; (leaf-and-stem-)strippers, sap-drainers and makers-of-cucumber-sandwiches (no point in being uncivilized in our illegal endeavours...)
This was an exception for me - I don't drink, marijuana is such a cliché (in this neck of the woods at least) but this was an opportunity I simply could not pass up. If you're going to do something stupid, go for the Bozo Crown, you know what I mean?
There weren't quite enough chairs for everyone to sit in so at any given moment there were a handful of layabouts making pretenses at playing croquet in the lawn behind us until the last of the balls was devoured by the shrubbery. After labouring diligently for an hour or so under the blistering sun I made myself small with the reference work which inspired our labours (Opium for the Masses), curious to know if our tea-making endeavour was ill-conceived, poorly-executed or just optimistic - not that I didn't trust our guide, merely that I know him as not always having the best head for details. There I learned that the reason we were probably having such problems extracting the sap from the seed-heads was because the plants weren't quite "ripe" yet. This would result, we found, in an ill-tasting broth with no medicinal properties save a vile flavouring which could not be masked even when mixed with more convenionally tasty boiled plant parts.
Determined to get their high regardless of means, the booze was broken out and I made my exit, briefly pausing to filtch one of the two remaining baggies of un-boiled poppy parts just in case. Why did I do it? a) These were my friends I was stealing from, b) I -knew- it didn't work, and c) even if it had, I probably wouldn't have used it. What can I say? The psychology of narcotics is a strange one to say the least.
I was edgy on my way home, recalling that opium possession in Canada is a crime equivalent to heroin possession (as the latter is made of the former), measured by weight and guessing that I probably had enough in my zip-lock bag to put me away for life I was silently cursing my blasted need to be conspicuous wherever I go. Paranoia aside, I made it home and concealed my ill-gotten weed refuse in my bedroom, where it was forgotten until I moved out six months later and my parents discovered a neatly-sealed bag of mould hidden behind a bookshelf. Had it been pot? A cut of cordon bleu? A slice of cheese perhaps? For an ironic once (that is, this being the only time I actually was up to anything), my parents were unsuspicious and merely concerned with getting it out to the trash.
Which is where it went and where this story ends.